crazylegsjoe_mfc

I'm completely apathetic to get pumped by the Old Firm now. It's different if we are neck and neck in a game or whatever, but generally if we are playing them and the third hits the back of the net, I'd rather focus on what I'm going to do with the rest of my day. Missing that game yesterday would have subtracted absolutely zero value from my life and I think there are several others who took that point of view. It's not only the dealing with the scoreline and their horrible fans. Some of our fans are an utter red neck when we play them. Anyone who thinks Bobby Sands or the Pope are appropriate song topics for Motherwell are welcome to piss off to Ibrox in my eyes.

I've been curious about this too. When fit, he's proven enough to me to show he is our best centre-back. Obviously his injury problems and history speak for themselves. I wonder if Alexander is trying to get a settled centre-back pairing in Sol and Mugabi and fears putting Ojala in will only last 2 or 3 games before he's out again. As for McGinley yesterday, there's been a lot of hyperbole at both ends of the spectrum regarding his performance - but for me, he certainly looked more comfortable and natural as a left-sided central defender, instead of a left-back. Maybe yesterday showed that we were doing things the opposite way as when Carroll plays centre-back he is more disciplined by default and when McGinley is playing at wing-back, he's more likely to be in shape defensively when we've not got the ball.

I think they offered him a deal that was heavily weighted on pay-as-you-play, I think that's why he turned it down.

I've listened to a few longer podcasts with him and think he comes across very well and I really like listening to him, but I get what you mean, I don't think he always gives the best version of himself in the heat of the moment.

I think particularly Lamie (and to an extent Watt too) owes a lot to Alexander for getting a move. It's hard to imagine that a Premiership club (at least for the moment) paying decent money would have been after him this time last year.

Oh aye, Watt was capable of a sitter too, no doubt about it. There may be clips to disprove me, but I associate Watt more with the feeble shot sitter and Van Veen with the not hitting the target sitter.

Most of what I’ve got to say re Van Veen has been covered, but what I will say is that in the first half of the season, in you either had him or Watt on song, but rarely both at once. I’d hoped he would maybe thrive in the main man type role, but obviously hasn’t so far. It seems that most of the time when you speak positively about Van Veen, he’s done something sublime. It’s rarely for him digging in or even for scoring a tap in, or being at the right place at the right time. He’s had a sitter in him of late too. One final point I’d make on the front line is that to me, Shields looks to me like his ideal role is foil for a big striker. He’s not neither a number 9, nor a wide player in a 4-3-3. It’s strange we’ve started using a front two here and there and we’ve chosen Roberts ahead of him as the other front man.

He’s been a very good centre back when called upon for the best part of a year now for us and our record with him in the team this season is very good. However, you would have to question why he would want to sign a new deal as 4th choice centre half at the age of 28. I just hope that if he goes in January, we can get a run of games injury free from Sol and Ojala. They’re probably our first choice and they’ve only played together twice.

I wonder if they are looking to bring two defenders in. One for Souttar to go to Ibrox and one to cover Halkett's injury.

The 4-1 game on the Friday night was my birthday, Faddy had just come back and turned in one of the best performances I had ever seen that night. It was after scoring his header that night that Higdon done the belly pat celebration to McPake. The overhead kick was another game, we won 4-3. Higdon scored that goal plus two penalties to complete his hat-trick and Murphy got the other. We had a great team back then.

I think it must have been a known trade-off, getting an international with decent pedigree in Ojala, with his injury record. He's never managed 25 league games in a season in his career and he is 32. I'm not sure if Alexander is revising that strategy when talking about consistency of selection at centre-back. It's funny that despite the fact I've no major grievance against any of our centre backs this season - Ojala and Sol have been good when fit, Lamie has done a job every time he's been in the team and we've seen a much improved version of Mugabi - we are 4th on overall position, but only 9th in terms of our defence. That's probably something we do need to address somewhere. It also doesn't say much for O'Connor that he's behind an unfavoured left-back in the pecking order and we're still thinking of bringing a new player in.

The only difference between Watt and KVV is the two pens which Watt scored (don't get me wrong, he won them himself and still had to step up and score) and KVV has a better goals per minute ratio even taking the pens in to consideration. As for Watt's interview, I have no issue with a player doing what they think is best to support themselves financially, but it's the "I'm not motivated by money" interviews which follow that piss me off. I'd have a lot more respect for him if he came out and said "I got a great deal financially and Dundee United are only six points behind Motherwell". Same way that Cadden gave those interviews saying he didn't do Motherwell over. He knew what he was doing and I've no problem with that, but just keep schtum and don't play the innocent.

Alexander actually gave him a new contract a few weeks in to coming in as manager too. It's a curious situation. I don't expect either to be Stevie Hammell, but for me Carroll has far more to offer than McGinley.

That's the second time this season that McGinley being soft as shite has in essence cost us the game. Every time I think I'm too harsh on him and he's maybe turning a corner, he turns in a performance like that. Hopefully we see Carroll at the weekend. If not, McGinley is one booking from a ban, so hopefully his ban is afforded the same sideline period that Carroll's has. Unfortunately the Robinson version of Mugabi and the Alexander version of Donnelly appeared last night. I'd have much preferred it the other way around. We were very lucky to keep 11 men on, that's a definite second yellow for SOD. Don't understand Slattery's omission at all and if Ojala is injured again that's heavily frustrating.

I have no problems that he is looking after himself financially at this stage of his career, or with any contribution he made on the pitch, but when he is going to a direct rival, you can hardly say he goes with my best wishes. I hope he has a similar impact that to the one Nick Blackman had when he chose Aberdeen on loan instead of us in the second half of the season. In terms of what it means for our season - I'm not that worried. I would obviously rather have kept him but thinking about it, he's never really played well at the same time as Van Veen, it tends to be one or the other. Also, if you look at his goalscoring this season in the context of his career, it surely has to be defined as a purple patch and finally, I struggle to think of us losing many players to such direct rivals and them continuing to do well. That said, as much as I'm happy for Shields and Roberts to stake a claim, I still do think we are now one body light in there. I assume Amaluzor's not up to it or we'd have seen more of him by now.

A ref in an amateur game I played in a few years ago delayed kick off because people in my team weren't wearing tape the same colour as their socks. Wouldn't start the game until all tape had been removed. Talk about a jobsworth! I see the BBC gossip column this morning has Dundee United launching a six-figure sum bid for Watt once they sell that boy to Aston Villa. Hardly suprising. I would quite like to see him go in this window, I think it's for the best.

I would take £250k and a Nick Blackman at Aberdeen-esque six months of performances from Watt.

My thoughts would be that the bottleneck in the deal thus far is that we are maybe looking to pay a more appropriate % of his wages, related to his impact / game time. A similar situation to what Celtic and Dundee are supposed to be negotiating re Griffiths.

I don't think it's anything we've ever experienced in the past. I don't know if we've ever had someone sign a pre-contract with a non-Old Firm divisional rival at this point in the season. Even when Gallagher signed his with Aberdeen with a small part of the season still to go, by that point they were confirmed top six and we were confirmed bottom six, so it's not like it directly affected us. The cynic in me thinks Watt definitely had a part to play in the story getting to the press, given they reported before either club did - or even before anyone from either club had a quote on the matter. The thing for me is, if us and Dundee Utd are both in the top six (appreciate there's a lot of football still to be played before that would happen), would you trust Watt to try his heart out against Dundee Utd? Or against anyone else if they need us to drop points? That bit I'm not so sure, I'm sure he would have professional pride, but would he have that bit between his teeth that can sometimes be the difference?

Yeah, it was a few months at the start of the 2007/08 season (Mark McGhee’s first).

He might have made more of an impact had he not been about at a time when Clarkson, McCormack and Porter were all flying.

He lacked the physique and/or technical ability to impose himself on a game in the Premiership. I thought he was tidy enough moving the ball sideways but lacked anything above that. Always applied himself well though so goes with my best wishes.

Grezza's football hasn't always been the prettiest, but he's been a great appointment all told. The improvement of players has been quite something. He's only been here a year, yet he has managed to get two previously unprolific strikers to their best tally independently of each other in 6 month periods. For all those who were critical of his recruitment plan at points, we are probably as diverse as ever. This season we've now signed players from Denmark, Norway, Ireland, five different divisions in England and two in Scotland. That's ten different leagues in total - I don't think our recruitment has ever been that diverse. The only slight blot on his copybook is the league cup, but I think the early start of the fixtures didn't tie in with our long-term recruitment plan. I'm sure we will be better in that next year with the foundations that are already in place.

I imagine that probably those who do the anti-vaxxer stuff on social media probably will be vaccinated so they can go to Dubai or Marbs. A lot of people's strong opinions and principles only stretch as far as not getting a holiday. Shaw looks massive in that article. I notice that Alexander said we won't be signing Lafferty as well. That one is nipped in the bud early doors.

I’m sure when he signed with us he’d played more international games than professional club games.