crazylegsjoe_mfc

Losing Jamie Murphy to Sheffield United for £110,000 with six months remaining on his contract was a shafting. Almost double our record transfer fee isn't. I think you'd have to be incredibly naive to think a same-bid release clause wasn't included when he extended his contract in March.

I personally think £3.25 million represents a fair fee and beyond that, it probably meets a release clause in Turnbull's contract. Last summer, when his move broke down, I don't think I would be alone in thinking that our chance to get a transfer fee of that size might be gone and we're a selling club, it would be massively detrimental to the club to see our best talent at least since McFadden, perhaps longer, go for a fee less than he was worth. For me, there's no point in worrying how much he'd have gone for from another club, or for another league, because that's hypothetical. Players go for more money from Championship clubs in England, because whether we like it or not, it's a higher standard and a wealthier league - our market is what it is. For context, John McGinn went to Aston Villa for half a million less than this deal and he had already played over 200 career games, won the Scottish Cup and had a handful of Scotland caps.

Goes without saying that I wish him and anyone else nothing but the best of health, but I'm just recalling his time with us as I remember it...

They would definitely be partners in my all-time back four. Flanked by Tony Straker and Yassin Moutaouakil.

It was the day we were confirmed in the playoffs. I remember after this performance from O'Brien we were all praying that Louis Laing would be fit for the playoffs. Looking back, Laing's best attribute was probably not being Mark O'Brien, the same way that Russell Griffiths' was not being Craig Samson.

I absolutely did forget about Ndjoli but I think that just about sums up how forgettable his spell was. I would still imagine, all things considered, our wage bill is probably up from last season.

Are we? I thought I could map out a "one in, one out" for basically all changes to the squad from when the season finished in March. Tait out - O'Donnell in Hartley out - Lamie in Manzinga out - White in Ilic out - Hastie in Aarons out - Lang in Gillespie out - Fox in Livingstone out - McGinley in The only other one I can think of leaving is Rohan Ferguson, but he effectively wasn't part of our squad last season, having been on loan at Linfield all season.

I can excuse a lot of things in a Motherwell player, but he literally kicked the ball as hard as he could, the way he was facing every time he had it. Used to just half folk when it was easier to win the ball too.

Maybe Robinson has got the nod after his poverty plea that the Turnbull deal was likely, or maybe it was psychologically lowering expectations, but either way, we have 30 first-team players listed on the website and I reckon you could say that seven (Morrison, Devine, Hussein, Cornelius, Semple, Robinson and MacIver) could be considered as the "young boys supplementing the squad", which still gives us 7 players more than he claimed we would have, that's a lot. Beyond the affordability and practicality of it all, us having a squad that size doesn't make for a happy dressing room in the long term. Trying to keep seven forwards happy is clearly having a detrimental effect on the team in many ways - none more obvious than taking Campbell off to give them all game time on Saturday effectively costing us the game.

There are definitely some parallels to the McCall season, but what I would say to that is that summer we seemed to cut our cloth - for example we replaced Hutchinson with Mark O'Brien on loan - downgrades don't get much more obvious than that. This season I'd say that on paper, each player seems to be a better prospect than the one he replaced, with the obvious exception of Fox coming in and Gillespie going out, but there is context there. I think we are performing okay back to middle. Mugabi performed reasonably competently on Saturday and although he's evidently not best suited to left-back, so did Lamie. Felt O'Hara could have imposed himself on the game a bit more, but DT and Campbell were both absolutely fine. The front three is where our major problems lie. Hastie, Long and White have all been given a sufficient chance and done nothing. Hylton has made no impression off the bench and for me, although he seems to be coming out with a bit of credit, I don't think Seedorf has been particularly good, just not as bad as everyone else. There was one point on Saturday where he was properly bullied off the ball, you wouldn't have got that in the thunderdome era. Lang was the one I was holding out great hope for, but you would honestly have forgotten he was playing on Saturday. The only one that hasn't had a fair crack of the whip yet is Tony Watt, I would start him on Thursday. There's a whole chicken and egg situation with not wanting to keep non-performing forwards on. I'm always torn between wanting to give a front-three time to build a relationship and hooking them because I actually harbour ambitions of scoring a goal in the game. I am dumbfounded that after three friendlies (and probably more bounce games) and five league games that Robinson has as much idea as we do on who to play up front. He shouldn't have given deals to his laddie and Ross MacIver if he didn't think they had the ability to be fringe players. As much as Robinson is mainly to blame here, whoever sanctioned all the deals deserves criticism too. It's worrying that in June, Robinson was pleading poverty in saying "it'll be 15-16 first team players with 8 or 9 young lads making up the squad", before signing every man and his dug. I actually do wonder how we are affording all of it as a fan-owned club during a pandemic.

It is really hard to argue against that. If you think about how he dragged us to safety in 2006/07, 2014/15 and 2016/17 when he had utter dross around him, for me, that's far more valuable a contribution than anyone who has contributed to a 2nd/3rd season. It's amazing how many of our fans let their perception of his personality affect the regard they hold him in.

Yeah, I agree with that. They wouldn’t be my pick, but chopping and changing all the time is counter productive.

@capt_oats touches graphic above claims he touched it twice. The stats that can be produced these days do shock me at times - I didn't think it would be possible for someone to play for fifteen minutes and only touch the ball twice. Also, regarding Carson's distribution, it has been very good the past few games. I didn't notice it as much in his first season, but the amount I'm noticing it now tells me it must be a marked upgrade on Gillespie's. If only Carson could now work on saving the high number of penalties we will invariably give away this season.

Certainly when you compare it with last season, when Campbell, Polworth, Gallagher and to an extent Scott were the only regular starters who were Scottish.

Yeah in my head that's how we would line-up too. I thought Lamie looked decent enough at centre-back against Ross County, before two not-so-good games against Dundee United and Livingston, so the thought of him at left-back against Martin Boyle at the weekend did give me the fear, but full marks to him, he did manage to keep Boyle quiet and have a good game.

What's also pretty evident from that is the number of touches Mugabi had in comparison to Gallagher. It seemed definitely deliberate that when Carson had the ball, Doidge marked Gallagher and was happy to let Mugabi have it. Good tactic from them in fairness.

I agree with that. He’s also “never a midfielder” when he’s doing well at right back and “never a right-back” after a bad game. Maybe it’s the burden of being first choice that’s affected his game. This is probably been the first season where he’s started it first choice. In the past he’s needed to be better than Rose/McHugh etc to play in midfield then better than Tait to play at right-back and now being an automatic pick is alien to him.

To be honest, the fact the deal is only until the end of the transfer window strikes me as a deal that suits both parties in the immediate term. We are in dire need of cover at full-back and he hasn't played first team football since March. I think it'll help us out on the pitch and he'll perhaps get himself fitter for any potential clubs down south to approach him. Either way pleased with the signing, will slot right into our team. I went to school with him and he's a good lad into the bargain.

This might not be what Donnelly would ever want to put on a CV, or a YouTube compilation, but for Livi's second goal, I instantly thought that had Donnelly been on and playing in the DM position, he would have committed a tactical foul and taken a yellow before it became too dangerous.

It's funny how much difference a few games can make on your impression of a squad for a season. As good as Grimshaw was last season, I think everyone knew his technical limitations and it was probably reassuring that any elongated slip up and Tait was back in the team, we don't have that comfort blanket anymore. By the time Long eventually agreed a new deal we had signed Watt, White and Hastie and had Lang in the pipeline. If I had been Robinson then I'd have told Long to chase himself and prioritise other areas for cover. You can probably call Robinson and MacIver youths or backups, but even taking them out of the equation, when will we have a game where Seedorf, Hylton, Hastie, Long, Lang, White and Watt will all feature? Even including subs? That's seven first team wages as well. As much as I'm a fan of Polworth, was very clear to see he was a downgrade on Turnbull when they switched last night.

I see that Bigi has signed for Glentoran and could potentially face us in Europe.

Speaking of hindsight, if we do sign a left-back as cover, I would like to think we've learned our lesson and don't throw a two-year deal at them on the back of a few competent games... It's amazing that we have five left-footed defenders at the club and four of them are injured. I struggle to even remember another time we had four left-footed defenders on our books, never mind four injured.

If we signed him until the end of October (when the window shuts) and it meant avoiding playing Lamie at LB and Mugabi at all, would it really be THAT bad a move?

McGinley out for 4-6 weeks. Not good news, as I thought he was one of few to get passmarks on Monday. I'd imagine Donnelly will slot in and Lamie will go to left-back, hopefully paving the way for a trio of Campbell - O'Hara - Turnbull in midfield.

He is very much a winger in a 4-4-2 system for me. When he gets the ball his sole focus is getting to the byline and putting a cross in, which in the majority of cases, isn't how football is played anymore. I couldn't ever imagine him playing on the right and cutting in on his left foot, as most wide men tend to these days, so a player like him is only ever going to be as useful as the men getting on the end of his crosses. When as mentioned, he got injured and Hastie came in, we did look far better with robust wingers, but he did come off the bench and have an impact when we were looking to change it up once or twice, I'm thinking specifically setting up Campbell for a late-winner away to St. Mirren and breaking the dead-lock against St. Johnstone after 70 mins.