Handsome_Devil

Ta, yes, they added that after. Wee bit surprising we didn't go for longer given he's a known quantity.

Perhaps - but Alexander did make him captain, spoke well of him at the AGM even when acknowledging a form slump. I'm sure we're paying him reasonably as a top figure in the club and he seems settled family wise in his local area. I'm sure he'd leave for a big offer, I just don't seem him getting it on the efforts of last season.

Just seen it confirmed - not exactly one to set the pulse racing but solid enough. We don't seem to have specified his contract though.

McGinn's headline wage would presumably have been three years old and his current number at Hibs would have included the 20% (?) Corona cut they had? So given we came through the pandemic well, and indeed to the outside world are absolutely loaded, I don't think it's impossible we're offering more in this instance, even if Hibs will normally be paying way more than us.

SOD couldn't get a move worth taking when leaving Killie on a high for free, he's surely not going to find someone to buy him now.

Yeah, I'm not against McGinn as such, more concerned it would kill chances for Johnston. It doesn't even sound like McGinn would be covering a few spots, it's only RB which means he's second choice to SOD. Of course, we could be planning something mental with SOD going to the left like a couple of games late last season? Which while not ideal would certainly fall into the no worse than McGinley/Carroll category.

A right-back wouldn't have been the first position I'd cover but fair enough...he play anywhere else?

I would love us to get business done early and have a fighting chance in Q3 but I think the club will be realistic about our chances there even should we strengthen. From Kassiesa's list, Beer-Sheva who tonked us before (and we know to have a much bigger budget, group stage experience yada yada) are down as 17th seed from 27 and the two below them are Sparta Prague and Anderlecht, who on reputation at least you expect to rag doll us royally. I absolutely agree we should be funneling as much of the 'extra' money into the team as possible but it should be with a view to the season as a whole and if that means waiting beyond Q3 then so be it. Unless we get an incredibly fortunate draw we'll be clear second favourites in that round and if we get one of the toughest teams then €650k is what they spend on the team Xmas dinner...I just don't see us spending anything significant to tip the odds marginally in a knock-out tie in these circumstances unless the draw (on July 18 - so there'd still be a bit of time) gives us a potential match with Flora Tallinn or someone else right at the bottom.

He might consider it is impossible to know yet on some - we hope that Shields and Woolery, with a full season behind them, can kick on now and become bigger contributors, we hope that Tierney can play 90 minutes regularly, we hope that whatever happened to SOD around this time last year is cured and so on. Maybe even Ojala regains fitness (ok, I took that too far). There are a lot of, shall we say 'maybes' in our squad and if the majority turn out positive I think we'll be looking very solid with only two-three new signings in summer. If it goes the other way though it's clear more work will need to be done - but I don't think giving it till November to see is a bad plan at all rather than committing early and being stuck with a 30 man squad again for the next 12-24 months.

The perfect opening day and a great start, conversely if we don't put points on the board GA will be under mega pressure by the end of August...such is life. The stretch from mid-September to mid-November also screams winless run. I actually think we'll be fine going into that but easy to be optimistic when there's no games being played!

I don't really understand the first point - there are plenty people who work at FP, including some from an award winning communications/media team. We will have known for longer than the length of AB's holiday that we might consider asking for a switch, a tweet saying hang off until details are confirmed by UEFA would have taken literally a minute to prepare and send if needed. Yes, people were taking a risk, they should have checked UEFA/used common sense etc...but still, this was an absolute freebie from the club who should have 100% known that some people would have been taking a punt the second the draw was made because that's what some always do. Second sentence is spot on mind, even if I think the club could have done better here. I suspect some of the overblown annoyance comes from the accumulation of small things. We went from having genuinely A+ comms to the sense the ball has been dropped a little recently...now some are fair, some are not but this incident comes on the back of the Rangers game debacle, total radio silence on the training ground plans but suddenly millions going into the pitch, a manager who is deliberatively uncommunicative/secret etc. The club will argue that the manager, whatever his manner, did fine, and I don't think anyone seriously objects to the pitch and so on...there's just a general feeling (at least among my lot) that the communication of decisions, which are nearly always perfectly reasonable when you drill down, just isn't what it was. Inevitably - and definitely unfairly - the form on the pitch of the last months amplifies grumbles. It's also human nature that when the comms chief decides to head to pastures new the focus is perhaps lost a little. But most people agreed we needed a reset over summer after the tetchy start to the year, minor things like this absolutely do not help, and work needs to be done to get everyone in a good mood, willing to back the team and club again going into what could still be a very positive 22/23.

I think they are in the circumstances (the warning and the pitch) but not necessarily for taking a guess on the winner. I dunno if I'd have been so confident I'd book up for Sligo mind but if, for example, we know that if we win Q2 we'll be away to the winner of Larne v Slavia Praha on August X, I'll probably take a punt booking my train and a (refundable) hotel before the matches are played.

I've got a lot of understanding for AB against the reply guys and yes, everyone was booking at their own risk (it was even stated again today ties were not confirmed yet) but come on, there's no way the club only thought of this possibility on the spur of the moment...fair enough we didn't announce it in advance, as that doesn't seem the done thing, but there could have been an info tweet ready to go when the draw was made saying 'guys hang fire 24/48 hours'. Burrows - back when he was just Flow - did plenty of travelling to Scotland games, he must have known there'd be people waiting on Ryanair ready to take a chance asap.

Would it make sense for Motherwell to go to Parkhead for the televised opener on Sunday given we won't play the Saturday anyway?

Ha, fair point, though tbf I was keeping this list of debacles to Europe. But I am - given we don't know our squad and I know nothing about either Bala or Sligo - alarmingly confident. I seriously hope the pros are not as complacent as me otherwise we're in bother...

Losing to a team our youths beat before would surely surpass MyPa/Stjarnen (considerably) on the f**k-up scale.

Thrilled with that. Not glamorous but from a selfish point of view I wasn't going travelling anyway and it surely represents a great chance of qualifying. Indeed, you can argue (as above) we're such favourites that it even merits a couple of extra pounds in the speculate to accumulate pot and we'll take our chances of a winnable tie/massive bender somewhere cool in Q3.

Nine, eight, seven would be my order of preference with the other pair preferably avoided.

I like it as well, as much as I like any Motherwell home kit which isn't basically the same traditional thing over and over again. Any reason why we're doing a throwback to that design? Before my time but not especially iconic, no great success in it etc.

Aye, I said something similar when looking just after we qualified - the 20% thing, to ensure a small club from a big league who surprisingly makes Europe isn't unseeded - is farcical in our case. The notion we'd be nominally considered favourites, having scraped fifth in Scotland, against an AIK or Lillestrøm for example, because we happen to have the OF in our league is madness. In Q2 I wouldn't quite say we need a good draw to have a chance but a bad draw would certainly stuff us. United in Q3 are probably looking at only truly fancying their chances against a handful of teams.

In fairness, I think most people separate her personal opinions from the work she does for the club. I don't think anyone holds back applauding Kelly's wonder-saves because he has some views which might not tally with the common consensus. Everyone's entitled to their opinion...personally I decided hers weren't worth following after her comments about being 'heart-broken' at not being able to attend Scotland games mid-pandemic.

A lot of nothing quotes with the only titbits being on last pre-season really...not least since it begs questions such as what was rotating like crazy through the group stage (and throwing away the last 16 in Dundee) for if it wasn't to actually implement pre-season alongside it? And was Max Johnstone really so unsuitable for a summer run against part-time teams it was worth buggering SOD for ages? I don't mean those to be especially critical btw, it's just when there's the odd snippet of actual interesting information in these puff pieces it piques curiosity.

June 15 iirc.

Of course but afterwards had GA stayed calm his case of it was fine margins, I told you it'd be ok would be much stronger...what he produced in Perth in the 2-1 game was the equivalent of him screaming OH FUCKING CHRIST when an aeroplane hits turbulence then telling the guy next to him 'I told you there was nothing to worry about' when it settles. I just think his wee retrospective of the season would be much fairer and fans would be much more reassured if he at least acknowledged his role/the fact it wasn't just some results going against us which caused the alarm.

Alexander's annoyance is understandable but he'd have more of a case had he kept going with the previous plan only to see us draw games we'd have previously won narrowly to go on a mental winless run. It wasn't bad luck or a break of the ball that created all the classics - Slattery, 4-3-2-1 without an attacking midfielder at St Mirren, 5-2-3, the pathetic hoofball v Dundee reserves etc. If he'd kept course there'd have been frustration but by the end (and from the St Mirren win on results were fine) he could have claimed it was a blip. But when you're on a winless run like us and the boss goes full tombola it's inevitable the fans will conclude he's lost the plot. Saying it was just a blip in those circumstances makes you look rather odd without acknowledgement that GA himself had a role in the problem and/or was pretty panicked himself...