Swello

Nice to see a positive article on the pitch - something that would have been unthinkable even a couple of years back: Lovely Grass the secret of what has improved the pitch is hidden down the article a bit.....

Stuart McCall - a man ahead of his time:

Haha! Was at that one - I'm sure we were bottom at the time and that kicked off the revival - Happy days ETA - Fill yer boots - hilarious stuff

Motherwell have just reached a significant milestone, having taken 500,000 shite, hesitant throw-ins since I started watching them. There's no team in top-flight history can match our record of giving the ball back to the opposition after a heavy first touch.

Exactly. On the other hand, the red card for McDonald against St Mirren that was rescinded to allow him to play in the playoffs was an utter let off for us IMO, as it was a clear red and given how well he played across those two games, I think we're still up on the deal.

Skippy's appeal failed. Not one to be outraged about IMO as it was always an outside chance but a big miss for our next 2 games. The inconsistency of Collum and the feeling that he evened things up is the most annoying thing - but arguing that Kiernan should have been red carded as well doesn't really help us.

PLeased with that - the definition of a low risk signing. From having a weak midfield that has been our major problem this season, we could now have one that looks like Pearson-Lucas-McHugh-Cadden, which would arguably be as strong as any in the teams around us and still would allow us to have Lasley and Clay in reserve.

It's great that the club is not rolling over any more - a massive step forward in fact and one that the current management don't get enough credit for. It's only possible as long as we are realising profits on the players that we give longer deals to. Marvin was the first player that we gave a longer contract to and were then able to then sell at a decent price, giving us enough money to fund longer contracts for other targets. Moult and Cadden will hopefully allow this model to keep going - but it can only keep going in the long term if we continually identify "sellable" players, or produce them ourselves. McDonald, although we have stood firm on keeping him, is a throwback to our old way of doing things. We have only been able to get him on 1 year contracts and so there has been constant uncertainty around him, to the point where he has missed chunks of pre-season (and the build up to big cup games). We may take a view that for "special" players that we are in no position to get them to sign a longer deal and the uncertainty is worth it to have them in the team - but it does illustrate why we should never go back to short deals as a general approach.

I think the team is better with Tait in there - he has given us some stability in a problem position for us (that said, I thought Hateley was decent at RB and got a fair amount of unwarranted stick due to the cast iron requirement that there has to be at least one scapegoat in any motherwell team). Tait isn't a strong tackler but his positioning is decent and he adds something going forward. His upper limit so far has been shown against Hayes, etc - but there is no reason to suspect that he can't develop further as he fully adjusts to a step up....

Some chat on STV twitter that the Cifcti thing might still happen. If him coming in as a loan was the enabler for McDonald to leave his contract early, then I'd rather we didn't bother...

I was more interested in the chat that we've turned down 2 offers for Moult - but I wonder if the Ciftici move was related? Also - it would be bonkers to sign another striker when we paid money for Bowman, who can't get a game - and we've got Blyth who I remain to be convinced actually exists.

It's crystal clear that McDonald was pretty much desperate to move but the club have said no - I just wish there were less euphemisms about sore backs and all the rest of it. If he spent the week before the Rangers game in a strop as I suspect he did, it doesn't do him any favours but equally, it wouldn't come as a surprise to most of us. He's free to leave in the summer (and would surely go with most people's best wishes as his second spell has been a success) - but is under contract for now and should just get on with it as we've got relegation to avoid and both him and Moult are pivotal to that.

As the 1st team haven't been providing a lot of joy - worth seeing this comeback from 3-0 against the Elite Hamilton Accies (which doesn't seem to be linked on the club youtube page.

Did Belic even play for the U20's? Surely one of the most pointless signings ever....

He'll join the serried ranks of "ex-Gers" who exist only to give mundane comments to the tabloids in the build up to Old Firm games ("the form book goes out the window", "Hundred miles an hour stuff" "Walter", etc ). Often spotted on the inside back page holding a large sign advertising the game for Sky.

Did we not turn down an Aussie bid about the same time last year? Also - how does the Australian season line up with Europe - would a (Scottish) summer move for McDonald line up with their season?

You don't normally get a "this makes all the shite worthwhile" moment so close to a "f**k it, I'm no going back" moment, so well done Motherwell, well done.

Yep - Some of the tear stained rants posted by supporters (that usually weren't at the game) within minutes of the final whistle are bad enough - but to see it from the Manager (and a vastly experienced one at that) wasn't the best. I would expect that McGhee was fucking raging because the legendary "keep it tight for an hour and nick one" approach that's been tried a hundred times actually looked like it was going to work. On McDonald - he's clearly a fucking nightmare to manage (something that's been mentioned jokingly plenty of times by folk from the club) but during his current spell at the club, my view has always been that we need to live with it as he's our best player (IMO). I'm as far from ITK as it's possible to be, so I don't know if there were other reasons that he wasn't playing from the start on Sat - but if it was not an injury, then no-one comes out of that looking good. I'm still on a bit of a downer - but the jump for Moult's goal was a thing of beauty, so it wasn't all bad.

"Season tickets will be valid for the Gazebo, the only stand that will be open"

I assume the "Pearo is definitely coming back" thing isn't as much of a stick-on as we'd hoped/assumed? You would have thought if it was a done deal, he would have been in place for Saturday. Would be a boot in the baws if he was off trying to get a million pound a week contract in China....

That was on deadline day wasn't it? On Brill - If he isn't good enough to supplant Samson in the form he's been in, we're well rid of him. There is literally no point in bringing someone in as cover only - they need to be good enough to step into the first team next time Samson palms one out in to the path of the opposition striker.

As someone who would put my loyalties to 'Well and the national team as a 90/10 split (and that's being generous), the idea that clubs like ours can have their business plan ripped up at the whim of an SFA committee, based on a flawed ranking system and a poorly thought out plan calling for an entirely arbitrary number of "elite" academies makes me fucking angry. Add to that the fact that given the elite academies will be better resourced and will be casting their nets wider, we will probably find ourselves competing with SIX of the academies (Rangers, Celtic, Accies, Forth Valley, Hearts and Hibs) for players. The stupid, lopsided plan where huge swathes of the country (eg, Tayside, Fife & Ayrshire) are ignored in order to make sure that the usual suspects have funding channelled to them means that we really are stuck in a shite situation not of our making, despite trying to be a model club in terms of youth development. My view is that the having our clubs able to exist at their "natural" level in a sustainable way is vastly more important than the lofty goal of "producing better players for the national team". Any plan that sacrifices club stability on the altar of the Scotland team is not a plan worth pursuing. Has any sort of impact study been even carried out regarding clubs that will exist outside the top 8 structure? Alan Burrows' suggestion where there are set criteria for clubs to meet in order to access Elite status would seem infinitely more sensible, would result in a better geographic spread (you'd imagine that Utd, Dundee, Killie, St Johnstone would all be wanting to reach that status) and would stop clubs being locked out - time it was seriously considered.

I seem to remember Murphy was actually meant to be highly rated when he joined us....... The other 2, not so much.

Was that the one where he was sent off for diving?

I kind of agree with Burrows' point that the U21 thing is tricky as you are at the mercy of the U21 manager of the day - and for example, a 20 year old doing well at Rangers will always be in the U21 team, while for a similar player at Killie or Dundee, it's not so clear cut. The stats on actually playing your academy players at least shows your intent regardless of being picked for the U21s. Even on the first measure, I wonder why the County total is so low compared even to ICT who are also involved in the highland academy as I understand it. County have been bringing in grab bags of players in various transfer windows over the past years, it may be simply that they are going down the path of experienced journeyman players over youth - but it's a bit of a minter if that being the case, you have the guy responsible for the policy on the project brave board.