MJC

It looks like Hastie is off, whether to Ibrox or otherwise but that's irrelevant to us. It's a shame because we're losing a real, young talent and for the player himself, like Turnbull I think he would benefit from staying here for maybe another year or two, playing regularly and developing, but obviously money talks. Can't help but ask why he wasn't tied up on a longer term deal some time back, though it's hardly a surprise given our dismal business last summer.

I can't see us getting top six as I don't see us winning at Easter Road, Pittodrie or at home against Rangers. That leaves the Accies and Saints home games for us to pick up the wins which will see us fall short. We've turned around our season somewhat since January but I think we've just left ourselves with too much of a mountain to climb to get top six this season and our aim will be to finish 'best of the rest' in the bottom six, which is realistic. From the games before the split I see it going like this: Accies(H) Draw Hibs(A) Draw Saints(H) Win Aberdeen (A) Loss Rangers(H) Draw

He's arguably made our season. Breaking through, scoring crucial and at times spectacular goals at important times, established himself as a first team regular and been the first youngster in a good few years to break through and give the support something to be excited about seeing. Without doubt, he's our POTY.

My memory may be playing tricks here, but there was a game at Celtic Park over 20 years ago when Gordon Marshall, playing for them, was sent off for pulling Lee McCulloch down outside the box. They brought on a sub goalkeeper but I'm sure that they actually *forgot* to withdraw an outfield player for a good five minutes afterwards. They went on to win the game 1-0 with a last minute winner but I'm sure I can remember something like that happening and no surprise, very little fuss was made of it.

I totally agree, though I have said all along had McCall been in our dugout instead of theirs in that playoff we would not have won it because he would have had them believing the nonsense like the type posted above about them being a massive club, support is a twelfth man, terrible record at Ibrox bla, bla, bla. I think what you say is true that the core of players of Lasley, Hammell, Craigan who had been around long before McCall arrived and constantly struggled against Rangers under various managers had built up a bit of an inferiority complex about them. So much so that by the time they actually had some very good players around them when McCall arrived and it coincided with Rangers going down the tubes to the point where they were a newly reformed club in the bottom League when we faced them in that League Cup tie; they are basically having their manager saying "you can't do this" as he talks about our record there and how they are favourites. Baraclough, for all his faults never came out with any of that nonsense before the playoff and neither did Robinson before the LCSF and lo-and behold, we won those ties.

McCall, McGhee and the case of Rangers more so, Butcher was notoriously bad for having us beat before a ball was kicked in these games. Butcher spent the entire week ahead of the 2005 LCF telling all and sundry that he feared we would get a similar humping to the 7-1 humping Dundee United got off them in the semis and it was an honour to be on the same park as players of such quality. As it was we only lost 5-1 and the game was over inside 10 minutes. I partly blame this sort of mentality on the attitude of many within the club to be honest, as there are so many of the mindset of "ah well, we are not expected to compete with the Old Firm anyway because we're only Motherwell" and some of our more recent managers who are familiar with the goldfish bowl of Scottish football bought into this. It was telling that only two Motherwell managers to have overseen victories over Rangers in recent times have been Robinson and Baraclough, two 'outsiders'. Under them we actually played what was in front of us and not simply the name 'Rangers'.

For years we've seen our managers, players leave half way through the season to bigger clubs offering bigger money. On several times to Celtic, with O'Donnell, Pearson, McClair & McDonald being but some examples. Now it's great to see the biggest club in the country, with by far the biggest chip on their shoulders, getting a taste of their own medicine and they obviously aren't taking it well at all. The Clyde 1 phone in tonight was utterly epic.

Their celebrations after that match, led by Rodgers, were ridiculous. He's an arrogant, slimy git of a man and I'm glad he's screwed them over, after all the sycophantic lavishing of him by Celtic and their media cronies over the past few years, he's bailed on them. Get it right round them.

Another cracker from back in th day on steelmenonline/welltrustfc. was that Dundee Utd fan who had a proper hard-on for Jim Paterson when he was with us. Jimmy's shimmy or something.

That still irks me to this day and I don't know if we'll ever get a better chance to repeat '91 as we had in that period from 2011-2013. To think that in that time we lost in the League Cup to a Rangers side full of kids and Saint fucking Mirren went on to win it that year! And two seasons in a row with that side we lost out at home to an Aberdeen side who couldn't buy a win against us in the League. That was a very good side we had and in the second half of the 2012/13 season we played some utterly sublime football but the fact that we failed to win silverware taints that time for me, particularly as Celtic were on autopilot and prone to slipping up in Cups allowing the likes of Killie, Hearts, Aberdeen and both Saints sides to win Cups. I hate to go on like a broken record but I lay the blame for that at Stuart McCall's door.

It would be hard to top Alex Burns for the worst forward I think. Hopeless in his first spell then scored against us for Partick Thistle in every game one season then we re-sign him that summer and he looked as hopeless as he was in his previous spell with us.

And had Neil Lennon choking on his chewing tobacco after his nomination and no Celtic player was nominated. They were good times indeed.

Without a doubt, Michael Higdon is our best striker of the past twenty years. A proper No.9 who scored goals, got stuck in about defenders and spearheaded a very good attacking line for us at the time.

There were definitely others who were individually worse than Stevie Woods but the length of time he was with us and the decade of blunders he made puts him top of my list for worse Motherwell goalkeeper. The other duds came and went in a short space of time but Woods hung around like a bad smell whilst losing his place to five different goalkeepers and repeatedly made the same basic errors throughout his time at Fir Park.

Just when you thought you'd seen the last of him in a Motherwell jersey he turned up again like a bad penny. In my time following Motherwell there have been goalkeepers that were probably poorer than Stevie Woods was, with Samson, Meldrum and Kaven being the obvious examples but they came and went in a relatively short space of time, whereas Woods was here for the best part of a decade and made countless errors that cost us big time. I don't know if he had a concentration or a confidence issue but his judgement was utterly appalling and although he was actually a fairly decent shot stopper (albeit with shots hit right at him) you knew that a blunder was never far away. The infamous Rangers cup tie where he actually played well throughout before selling the jerseys with that ridiculous clearance to Gordon Durie should have seen him chased out of Fir Park but he hung around for another five years after that. Without doubt he was and is the worst Motherwell goalkeeper I have ever seen.

A team with Mikko Kaven in goal and Kevin Christie in defence! Jeezo, those were some grim times

It was definitely Charbonnier playing for them that night, Spencer left him all ends up at the winner. All that was four days after that 5-0 pumping in Perth in Billy Davies first game and no one, but no one saw us beating Rangers.

Big 'DairyLea' as I affectionately knew him as back in the day. His goal against Aberdeen to help seal 3rd place and our first European qualification for over a decade was a special moment.

Certainly puts things in perspective doesn't it? Absolutely frightening to hear that and when it happens to a guy who is only 30 years old and a professional footballer who would be superfit and looks after himself health-wise then it makes life seem fragile. Best of luck to Trevor Carson in his recovery.

I think this post best sums up Bigi's time with us. For all he was a victim of our 'punt and rush, bypass the midfield' style of play, he didn't really do too much to help his case when he did get his chance. There were times when he looked like he may be the answer to our midfield problems but that never materialised and it's best we part company as he's part of a number of deadwood which will need to be moved on in the coming summer. Best of luck to the guy for his future.

Fantastic news and a great bit of business for all concerned. For us as a club to tie down our young star player it's great but I think it'll benefit David Turnbull and his own development in the long run that he stays here and continues his growth. If we handle him properly and don't burn him out then we can build the team around him over the next couple of years.

I have to add, if we were to bin Robinson I have the utter fear that the job would be handed to Lasley or even worse, they bring Faddy in in some capacity to appease a section of the support. Now THAT would be a disaster of an appointment, but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

I don't think we'll be relegated this season as I think we'll do just enough to scrape by and there are at least two sides in the league who are worse than us and that should see us over the line. I hope I don't live to regret thinking that but I honestly don't see two of Accies, Dundee or St.Mirren going on strong enough runs whilst at the same time we go into complete nosedive, which I also don't see happening as we have shown that we are capable of picking up the odd result here and there. For those reasons alone, I expect SR, rightly or wrongly, to remain in post until the end of the season. The only way that would change imo would be if we were to enter into a collapse similar to this time two years ago under McGhee where his last month was a complete clusterfuck from the Cup exit to the Dundee 1-5 game. Nothing is certain of course but one thing I am pretty sure of is that the crowds will dwindle from now to the end of the season, as the football on offer is utterly dreadful to watch.

As someone who found the fact that our players interacted with the support more via social media quite refreshing to start with, I have to say it's worrying me more now. Because it seems that there is more emphasis placed on 'chats over a coffee' and head tennis in Tenerife than actually putting a competent footballing side on the park.

We are rank rotten and have managed to scrape our way out of the bottom two places due to other sides being less shite than we are. There is no certainty that we will get away with that all season, but there are very little signs that anything will improve for us unless we make drastic changes. Relegation is a distinct possibility for this team.