Swello

I think the club should insert an Arseholeness clause in every contract and when something like this happens - bingo.

What a fucking bellend - one of the worst signings ever. If we can use this for a wee gross misconduct and get him emptied, so much the better.

I'm near Peebles - so a lot of my local favourites aren't particularly big days. I like the walk from Peebles to Broughton - I camped up on Penvalla last winter which is on that route: and I like the Grey Mare's Tail walk up to Loch Skeen and the horseshoe round the loch - I think it's the nicest spot in the Borders (but others might disagree):

Meal Ghlas and Sguith Chuil, north of Strathfillan were in my last 10 as I couldn't be arsed with them at all - and I was right. The Fannaichs, I liked but I did them in two big days (and a short day for the 1 south of Loch Fannaich (Fionn Bheinn?).

Yes - I live in the Borders, so I headed up there with my kids last winter. If you are reasonably local and want a recommendation - look at Dryfehead. I walked in from the road end past Ettrick (you walk past Over Phawhope bothy at the start too). You walk along the Southern Upland Way for a while, then over Loch Fell and down Dryfe Water valley. It's not much used, is in great nick and is a cracking spot (and has a fire unlike Gamehope ) From my visit a couple of months back. I kind of feel quite liberated to do "other" stuff - like bothy trips as above, wild camps, multi-day stuff and choose hills that I want to do (as some of the Munros got to feel like I had to do them )

I feel a bit daft that I've not noticed there's a hillwalking thread on the go despite being on P&B for 10+ years (or if i knew, I forgot). I did my final Munro (Stob Dearg on the Buachaille) in May and now I'm starting to do interesting (to me) stuff that I haven't done due to concentrating on Munros too much over the years. Packrafting into Knoydart last weekend to do the remote (Corbett) Sgurr a Choire Bheithe and (Graham) Slat Bheinn. Epic day - but Bheithe via the Druim Chosaidh ridge is a classic with some decent scrambling (assuming you can get yourself to the east side of the hill). The way between Bheithe and Slat Bheinn is steep and needs a bit of care in finding a route down. Bizarrely low Loch Quoich Unusual view of Sgurr na Ciche, Ben Aden and (the best wild camping spot in the world) Lochan nam Breac Sgurr a Choire Bheithe along the Druim Chosaidh ridge - the pinnacles at the end are interesting... Slat Bheinn

Gameshope?

Not surprised Are we now at the "worth a punt" stage of recruitment now that our initial targets have been exhausted one way or the other? I see to remember that there is a point where English clubs need to register squads at which point a bunch of players become surplus to requirements, or did I imagine that?

I'm probably way too cynical - but when I heard the "family problem" chat just at the point that negotiations started, my first thought was "aye, right". It will no doubt turn out be true and I'll end up looking like an utter c**t.

So I assume the lad Dembele enjoyed his 5 star pre-season jaunt to Ireland and some games to get his fitness up and has now headed home and we'll never hear about him again?

I'm getting the feeling that Moult is gone regardless of what we do - he's decided (and fair enough) that he needs to take a step up. Whatever we see getting through to the player budget from that £500k would be helpful in replacing the qualities of Moult and McDonald as that is still the most difficult task of the summer IMO.

That's brought it back to me - he was just off his national service in Cyprus, right?

Ooooft! We could easily put together a no-mark select filled with players who arrived, were scarcely seen and er, fucked off again:

It's the well known phenomenon where the less a player is seen in the first team, the better he becomes.

I reckon anything north of £500k with a decent add-on and he'd be off like a shot...but what do I know.

I personally wouldn't like to see it - but I'm amazed that Rangers haven't bid for him TBH.

I was going to mention Randolph in my post - but I always rationalised that by the fact that with a 'keeper at the age he was at, clubs could afford to wait for him to get more experience - but I agree with you, it was bizarre.

The Moult situation is something that underlines that I know f**k-all about football. In my mind, I would have thought that a bunch of clubs in League 1 and the lower Championship in England and (yes) the bigger clubs in Scotland would look at someone who has scored the best part of 40 goals in 2 seasons in a struggling team and thought "that'll do us". The fact that concrete interest seems to have been limited to a flyer from Aberdeen doesn't make sense to me.

From the BBC - that'll be the "Moult's desperate to go" interview. Refreshingly honest referring to us as a stepping stone even if it's not fun to read - but we (should) all know that is the vision the club sells these players. If the club tells someone when they sign a three year deal that if they do a couple of good seasons, they'll get their move and the club won't frustrate it as long a proper bid comes in. Moult has kept his side of the bargain - but he needs another club to meet Motherwell's valuation. In the same way as with Ainsworth, McDonald and Lasley - when Moult did his farewell walk round the pitch after the Killie game, I was reconciled to him going - but now as then, I hope it happens quickly enough for us to get a proper replacement in. Him leaving in late August would not be good for us.

Yep - but he would have been taking a wage from us in the meantime as no-one would have effectively paid a transfer fee for him - so better for all concerned.

I doubt it will ever come to much - but for the club to get a "substantial sell on" clause out of it (I assume by waiving training comp?) sounds like a decent outcome for the player, Killie and us....

I remember heading down the Annan league cup game last year which was ostensibly our 2nd competitive game of the season and it felt every inch a pre-season game - I'm expecting the same on Saturday and don't have high hopes that the team will be up to much until the Autumn at the very earliest. The early league cup group setup puts a mentality in place for the Premiership (still can't get used to that shite name!) clubs to treat these games as an extension of pre-season and basically hope that they do enough to get through the group and build sharpness for the "real" kickoff in August. If we view the Rangers game at Fir Park on the first day of the season as the thing that is being aimed for, then we are still only midway through the process. One of the (only) things I liked about the Group stage when it was announced was that it would replace meaningless pre-season games with meaningful pre-season games but what we are seeing in the current round of knicker wetting is that the focus turns to games that would have been seen as bounce games in the past. I love the club's social media approach - but giving these early games the full treatment serves to give them a status that they don't deserve. Happy to be corrected but I can't remember pre-season games getting this level of scrutiny before...

This is the bit where "with all these new players, we'll need to be patient" crashes headlong into "WE MUST WIN EVERY PRESEASON GAME OR THE WHOLE SEASON'S FUCKED!!!!!!11!!1"

That was very funny though.

Dom Thomas hasn't been good enough to secure a place in the first team - end of story. I simply don't believe in the theory that there are magnificent players languishing in the 20's that would have made it if only it wasn't for a succession of managers somehow missing something that the East Stand can see (presumably) by the way a player does keepie-uppies during the half time warm up. Breaking into the first team requires a level of skill and dedication (to get to the physical level required) and Thomas has been deficient in at least one of these. As we saw with someone like Ross Forbes - even a fantastic level of natural ability doesn't guarantee that you'll "make it" on a long term basis. There are young players that haven't made the grade with us who have gone on to play 1st team football of course - but I can't think of one off-hand that has exceeded the level we play at, either in a sporting or financial sense.