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The SOD criticism is baffling generally but when Well fans are happy to stick the boot in, I really am left scratching my head as to the negativity. As Steve Clark himself asked ' Tell us what he did wrong?' I don't know what magic mind bending dust the media has been spraying this last month but I had the most surreal experience of a Celtic fan arguing that Patterson should be replacing O'Donnell before admitting that he had never actually seen Patterson play!!!! At the very worst (and I don't share this view) O Donnell's performances could be described as mediocre but then how many Scotland players performed better? Take Stuart Armstrong as an example. SA's tactic seemed to be to run with his head down into trouble before promptly losing possession of the ball. He did it several times. I did no hear or read the witch hunt against him. Did anybody really believe that Lyndon Dykes was going to score a goal in these championships? We could have played ten games and I would not be convinced our strikers would have scored. In other words many of the players performances were at the same level or below that of SOD. So why was O'Donnell singled out particularly from Scotland fans and more interestingly Well fans.? To top it all, had he scored at Wembley (as he nearly did) his value as a player and reputation would have rocketed. I doubt he would have stayed a Motherwell player had that shot gone in. That is how superficially we assess players worth and value. It is all shallow analysis. As a Well fan, I was proud to watch him play and thought he did the club proud.

If Patterson needs game time to aid his development, play him in the under 21s. The idea that a player with his level of experience should just walk into the national team because, let's admit it, he plays for Rangers, is both ludicrous and typical of the thinking that now finds Scottish football in the hole it is in.

The main thing we need to know is whether or not Dumbarton had cut the grass.

I have no doubt Patterson will have a good future in the game, but so far he has only had about 8 1st team starts, and if he was at any other club than Rangers he would have been nowhere near the Euro squad, the only people shouting about him are the blue ugly fans and the compliant and biased West of Scotland media who think Rangers and their players can do no wrong.

While Patterson may very well turn out to be a really good player, I find it amusing at the amount of people who have just bought into the narrative that he's top class. And this isn't aimed at you specifically, by the way. He's 19 years old, and made seven league appearances last season with five European appearances as well. Four of those league games saw him come on as a sub, including one game after 86 minutes, while he came on as a sub in two of the European games. He also played two Scottish cup games, with one of those against Cove Rangers. So that's three league starts, and three European starts, with two Scottish cup games. In total. Not to be funny, but I spoke to two guys who were sitting near (but two metres away, of course!) me and my mates in a beer garden during one of the Euro games and they were banging on about Patterson being a future star and that he should be starting for Scotland, with the added piece of information that seems to be popular, that neither of them were Rangers fans. They ended up admitting that they'd seen him play once or twice on telly. Their opinions have undoubtedly been crafted by the seemingly relentless drumming up of this lad by the written press and talking heads in the media. And we all know why that's the case. Could Patterson turn out to be the real deal? Of course he could, and if he does then he'll deserve to be looked at as an option for his country. But the truth is, he's proven nothing at club level yet, never mind done enough to warrant international football. O'Donnell isn't a world beater, but few of our players are. The clamour to see him dropped for this kid was as blatant as I've seen the Glasgow-based media act in recent times. I'm glad Clarke didn't bend. O'Donnell deserved to be on the field as much as any other player.