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Your arse is making buttons to see how this trial goes isn't it? I wonder if your new found interest in assault cases will last any longer than your previous interest in legal matters when you were so desperate to take up the cudgels on behalf of the the Oldham player who accused Robinson of bullying.

Not much more to add apart from that was truly and utterly abysmal. We talk about budgets and being beaten by teams with larger budgets etc. Today we got an utter lesson in work rate, professionalism, discipline and shape from a team with a substantially less budget than we have. Where was Ndjoli? Our forward options look so one dimensional and weak.

Do you think Scottish football is held in as high regard as it was at the time of Lee McCulloch? The facts are the reputation of the league and the quality gap between English and Scottish football has massively widened. The quality of Scottish football has plummeted far further than any inflation calculation would take account of. Performing well in our league is not even considered as any kind of reliable indicator of ability. It's considered almost like a kind of youth or amateur football. A player stands out a bit and clubs take a punt on them with no great expectation. To imagine the context of the James transfer is anything like that of the McCulloch transfer is to complete ignore what has happened to Scottish football over the last 20 years. You aren't even factoring in that Lee McCulloch was an experienced players with close to 150 appearances when James Scott has less than a season of experience. You also ignore the different financial model that the club operates under. When McCulloch was sold we were operating a debt that we couldn't operate under now, in fact it nearly ended the club then. Today the club has to live off it's own means and that equates to not having the same ability to turn down offers of note. A couple of months ago plenty people around here were of the opinion that James Scott should be farmed out on loan, or that he wasn't first team material. Now we are receiving 1 million up front and potentially more. I liked Scott, I pushed for his inclusion on these forums but in my mind this is a good deal for the club. I think it stretches credibility to make out that anyone thought we'd be selling Scott for this fee now. That tells its own story. Does it impact the starting XI? Of course it does, if our new loan signing doesn't step up, I think we'll suffer more than a little on the playing side but in the position we are in as a club it is far more important that we can continue to fund a high level of youth development and that the club doesn't run up debts. The thing we have to insure is that youth development is a major, in fact integral, focus, so that the next Campbell, Scott, Hastie, Turnbull isn't far away.

It's a terrible fee to accept. In 2001 we got 900k from Wigan in League One for Lee McCulloch. Using the BoE inflation calculator that's £1.5m today. So basically we've sold Scott for 2/3rds of the McCulloch fee which is an utter joke. Burrows is lucky that most of our support won't realise this and think £1m in 2020 is the same as £1m in the 90s. He was banging on about phoning fans in the podcast so I'll await a call or text to explain this! The only reason to sell now would be to strengthen the squad and instead we have signed another absolute no hoper. Robinson pushing Ndjoli as a striking option after starting MacIver in front of him is another slap in the face but to be fair he has other things on his mind. The bottom line is we have weakened our squad this window when we are going for third, Europe and still in the cup. We have scored two goals from open play in the last 6 league games. We needed to strengthen if we have any ambition.

The James Scott deal isn't ideal for us at this stage of the season, but that's football in this day and age. I'm hearing that he's set to "significantly increase" his weekly wages down there, as you can imagine, so it's a no-brainer for the lad. I've said it a number of times, it's easy for us fans to bleat on about development and giving it a few more years, but when you're the one who's handed a chance to make a ton of dough and to put yourself in the picture at a club down south it's not something you just pass up. You strike while the iron is hot in such a short career. He doesn't know if such an opportunity comes along again, and although folk will say "well, if he's good enough it will," what if he's not? He's secured a three and a half year deal on very good money, and that's what really matters in all honesty. Long after the fans have stopped giving a fuck about him it's his family and his bank balance that'll matter.

The official site says it will let Ndjoli play in his more natural central position (although I'm sure when he signed he was touted as a wide player). First of all, I have nothing against Scott leaving - if he felt it was a good deal, more power to the guy. Given that he was in and out of the team (and form) for us, I'd be surprised of he gets much of a sniff of Hull's first team at this stage, but stranger things happen in football. Last moan on the subject - selling a developing youngster with two and a half years left on his contract and bringing in two short term loans to develop for other teams to sell on, is not the way to develop the team at the grass roots level. If we just want to make money, we could scrap the academy and focus on recruitment of guys like Johnson, Moult, Hall and Kipre to flip for a quick profit. I hope, we are better than that, but for a club that keeps saying we are in good financial shape and don't "need" to sell anyone, there's not much locally sourced produce left in stock. I'm shutting up now.

Should've been the concern long ago

The fact that any team in world football is paying £1.5 million for a 19 year old striker with half a dozen professional goals to his name is crazy. However that is the crazy world we live in. Football transfer fees are obscene, so relatively speaking £1.5 million for James Scott becomes a issue for discussion and debate. My opinion is that this is a great piece of business by the club. Four league goals is not prolific. With a fit Christopher Long it is debatable if Scott would be a first team starter week in week out. I understand the argument about potential but potential can be fulfilled or it can fizzle out. I think unfortunately we are a club that cannot indulge in the luxury of waiting to find out when these offers come along. The bigger picture ( that the likes of Steelboy will refuse to admit) is that we should be celebrating the fact that we are in this position in the first place. The club and Robinson himself should be congratulated for producing and nurturing these players. Scott, Turnbull, Campbell, Cadden etc. This is a fantastic return. What other Scottish club is producing this young talent at the moment? We should be celebrating this success. Let's enjoy watching Scott develop at Hull (if he does) and hope that the club can make good use of the £1.5 million (a considerable amount of money) to develop the new young talent.

Disappointing to see James Scott go but since clubs generally buy potential from our level of football, rather than experience, I don't see any other way of conducting business. The days of holding on to players and building, as in the McLean era, is simply impossible now and while that might be hard and unpleasant to swallow its something we just have to come to terms with. In the general scheme of things its important that we keep up the high levels of development that we saw under Craigan's tenure and that is a major focus for the club to continue to produce good quality players.

Taken from Pie and Bovril. Now the dust has settled on the (unexpected) Deadline Day big cash prize event, I had posted a variation of this around the time of The Magnificent David Turnbull Transfer Saga in the summer that's sort of worth updating. Since Hutchison took over (30th Jan 2015) and in turn we became fan-owned we've seen these reported fees (a pinch of salt should obvs be taken): 19/20 - James Scott (Hull City) - £1.5m - Transfer 19/20 - Reece McAlear (Norwich City) - £250k - Transfer 19/20 - Jake Hastie (Rangers) £300k - Development Compensation 19/20 - Stuart McKinstry (Leeds United) - £400k* - Transfer 18/19 - Ryan Bowman (Exeter City) - £30k - Transfer 18/19 - Cedric Kipré (Wigan) - c.£1m - Transfer 17/18 - Louis Moult (Preston North End) - £500k - Transfer 17/18 - Ben Heneghan (Sheffield United) - £350k-ish - Transfer 16/17 - Marvin Johnson (Oxford United) - £750k-ish - Transfer 16/17 - Stephen Pearson (Atletico Kolkata) - £100k - Transfer 16/17 - Ben Hall (Brighton) - £210k - Development Compensation 14/15 - Lee Erwin (Leeds United) - £500k - Development Compensation = £5.89m That obviously omits anything that may be due from Chris Cadden shafting us and I've also seen mention of Kyle Semple to Rangers for about £50k but he was still listed as a Motherwell player in the last Scotland u16s squad so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. During McCall's entire tenure (30 December 2010 - 2nd November 2014) these players left: 10/11 - Mark Reynolds (Sheffield Wednesday) - £100k 11/12 - John Sutton (Hearts) - free 12/13 - Steve Jennings (Coventry City) - free 12/13 - Jamie Murphy (Sheffield United) - £100k 12/13 - Nicky Law (Rangers) - free 13/14 - Darren Randolph (Birminham) - free 13/14 - Chris Humphrey (Preston North End) - free 13/14 - Henrik Ojamaa - (Legia Warsaw) - £300k 13/14 - Michael Higdon - (NEC Nijmegen) - free 13/14 - Tom Hateley - (Tranmere Rovers) - free 14/15 - Shaun Hutchinson (Fulham) - free 14/15 - Henri Anier (Erzgebirge Aue) - £300k Total: £800k.

Robinson said this allows winger 5, Ndjoli, to play in his natural position of center forward, because apparently we were short of wingers today until we replaced one winger with another one.

We were shocking today much worse than Accies game . Pitch not to blame we had 1 player and 10 duds had a great season to date but that today was not acceptable .

And we’re not very streetwise at times either

As soon as I saw the lineup I was concerned. The sooner we understand that we shouldnt be trying to play football on these pitches, the sooner we might get results. Livvy get success on it playing a certain way. Time we wised up and do what they do. It might be ugly at times but its winning football and you have to play whats in front of you. Disappointing result but back on grass Wednesday night we have a chance to show we can still play football.

You mean the same club that held Celtic all the way until 3million last year? I also saw you criticise the club on Facebook for "accepting the first bid that came along" for Scott. Its been publicly stated that we rejected two bids and got ourselves almost double the money and a chunky sell on clause. Crazy that people think James Scott with his one goal every 9 games record would've made the difference today.

Awful performance and there would have been no complaints had Livi put 4 or 5 past the excellent Gillespie. Worryingly, there were no lessons learned from the opening game of the season and the likes of Hylton and Illic look as unconvincing now as they did back in August. For the last 15/20 mins we had the pleasure of watching Mugabi upfront but at least we can go home happy knowing the club banked a £1m over the weekend, that’s the priority afterall.

Unwritten rule not to make a substitution when defending a ball into the box. On comes O’Hara, runs into the box, ball comes in, goal. No idea how it got across the box but the defensive set up was disturbed.

you on drugs?

With Aberdeen picking up a point today and us losing to Celtic midweek (mortgage will be on it) that could bring Aberdeen level. After returning from that debacle what I saw made me more sad than angry. We were miles behind livi when it came to our thought process. They were incisive in passing, decisive in clearing any possible build up from us and getting their next attack going. Passionate about wanting to win and their desire to work for each other was at least 2-3 seconds ahead of everything Motherwell could do. We played like we we wearing lead boots, every single thing we did was tiring and laboured. Our build up (if there was such a thing) was excruciatingly slow in everything wee tried. Even the fans were pointing out passes quicker than the players. Not one leader on that park. Our midfield, given much kudos all season were swept aside as if they didn't exist today. Not one midfielder showed for a pass out of defence. We just could not get out of our own half. Not just for 20 minutes or so but for the whole game. We didnt need a striker, which is what we all want signed as they would have sat in the stand for the whole match as they were never going to get a sniff at anything today. Our only out ball in the first half was Hylton who was subbed (wish I knew why), he was the only person capable of getting the ball anywhere near their goal. I can only hope whatever was going on today with the whole team (bar the keeper) is out their system before we play Celtic. Just hope to god it was a bad day and the players can regroup but that was brutal.

Let’s use the Scott money to give all the fans who were unfortunate enough to be at the game a refund... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Aaron Taylor-Sinclair puts Livi ahead.

Can see the reasoning behind Manzinga for Illic......but not the other one. The extra man was needed in midfield.

The Lee McCulloch deal had an add-on of a free smack in the coupon with a Motherwell flagpole.

We need to make the most of our EU players before they are all ejected from the country next year.

Overall these days I feel more comfortable having Grimshaw in a right back than Tait, but Tait does offer more quality when he's attacking. Livi do have a bit of pace up front, so he might struggle there. Not a fan of Long up front on his own. He needs someone to play off.

Give your head a wobble.

Congratulations to the club for Scott’s contract extension. Getting the talented kids on these and sold will mean I have a team to support for many more years to come.

That sounds so good I want to do it! Do you think they would do a deal for 51 year old weans?

Oscar level fishing.

If my memory serves me right the fee was for both McCulloch and Steve McMillan

I don't know how used they are or aren't but I do think if they had the space one of boxes could be converted to a , how you would say, almost like a Motherwell daft weans bedroom to be more attractive to families for occasions like birthdays. Something a bit more homely and personal than the standard box. I have in my minds the walls with prints of scarves, team photos, players, pennants and the like on it. Maybe like the cloakroom having old shirts hanging on the hangers. You open the Motherwell curtains at the front of the box and then watch the game. If there's room have a screen with the live game on, that is linked up to a console for the weans to escape to. That kind of thing.

1m+ for a 19 year old with 4 goals in 36 games is an excellent piece of business.

We're going to have to play our games on an octagonal pitch to fit all these fucking wingers in....

Should have just said no