Goggles & Flippers

Well this place is going a little nuts. Good news as we have a known quantity back in the team and you would think its the sort of player that would compliment a tall ball winning striker (whither it be Sutton or Erwin - lets be honest though, McCall will favour Sutton for quite a while before opting for Erwin starting ahead of him). Vigurs to supply the balls and Keith to find his form again and we're back on track. Amazing how one piece of news increases optimism exponentially.

Must be pretty sweet being a Dundee Utd fan at present, 100% record against the 2nd and 3rd in the league last season.

Reading through the comments a lot of encouraging things here and there against a team that did spank us a few times last season. OK, they've lost a few players, so have we, however we are threadbare with a debutant 3rd choice left back playing 45 minutes for us there. A result like this in their manor is certainly an improvement from recent results and based on their game against Aberdeen, maybe not too bad? I'm never a fan of setting up totally defensive, I think its been proven so far we don't have the personnel to close out games. Playing 2 strikers don't seem lean towards that but when it looks like we will be looking to counter attack, I have to wonder why Ainsworth wasn't started ahead of Sutton to support Erwin unless there were injury concerns. McCall does like his favourites and no doubt felt that Sutton would hold the ball for support to come up. Other posters have said it, unfortunately too many of our experienced players with pedigree aren't performing anywhere near the kids with the hunger are.

Why was Angol replaced by Ferguson? Injured or awful?

Aye all right, don't know how I missed it. I assumed it would be further up the club chat page. Ever so sorry.

No MotM thread for this game? Itching to give it to Dan the Man and silence some of the detractors.

I don't know but maybe he thought he had a chance to break through at Aberdeen so wanted to stay and fight for it, 12 months made him realise he wasn't going to feature.

Anyone think Gregg Wylde could have done us a turn on the opposite wing to balance Ainsworth? I didn't realise how fast he was until yesterday, however I appreciate he didn't cut it at Aberdeen in McInnes' eyes but to be fair they are spoiled with quite a bit of depth in that squad.

Just watched the STV news there, wonder if anyone can answer a couple of questions: First, Killie have a massive star above their badge, what's that to commemerate? Second, I seen they've just signed Eremenko on a 1 year deal, so he was available, does anyone think he would have been a welcome addition to the squad or too similar to the role we're looking Vigurs to fill? (I know they've got a bit of cash to spend with Boyd leaving their books but to be fair, so have we).

I echo Ya Bezzer entirely and some of Shaka's points. I think the club has only been guilty of trying to manage expectations in these days of heightened social media and access. I understand what sometimes they are doing and why they are doing it. However, I don't think every fan needs to know the full workings of the club or the club should feel they need to tweet or come on here and justify their decisions. On the subject of club communications, I do get annoyed when I see the gaffer talk us down before a game at Parkhead, you know what Stuart, we've been following this club long before you came on the scene. We know its a task and infrequent, but we don't need reminded at every opportunity, your pragmatism while sensible and true doesn't need to come to the fore. I doubt it happened at half time against Hibs in the 6-6. However I really detest and cringe the "aww we'll we've had all these high league finishes, kinda balances the poor cup performances, we are Motherwell after all" along with more of this ying-yang pish you see peddled on here No, we put a decent team on the park, who fought for results generally but we underperformed in a few key matches that would have injected decent money when we really needed it. Why can't we follow through on our superiority and close things out is an endemic issue that needs addressed at our club. I think the result in Iceland topped off a calendar year with a lot of indifferent results and too few highs. That resulted in a little soul searching and closer inspection of what we have after the highs and wave of good feeling from Aberdeen on the last day. That is what has made the pessimistic snowball gather pace and size.

Will all the talk of Robertson moving to Hull in the space of a year can anyone answer the following question. Has anyone from junior football been picked up by a SPFL club and turned out decent or is the natural progression for them into the lower leagues?

I suppose to implement a 3 centre half, 2 wing backs or sweeper system is McCall would have to be an advocate and one thing we've found during his tenure is he prefers to tinker with known quantities opposed to major changes. So I doubt it'll happen. I suspect a couple of signings in a months time and therefore wonder why they aren't here today unless he's holding off to pick them up cheaper.

Considered Higdon was written off after 10 games into wearing the C&A and the club captain despite probably getting the most SOL MotM awards last season has been written off after two, I tend to have a bit more faith in the manager and what he can see over an extended period during training.

Do tell Burn Broomfield, how much did you stick on the coupon?

No difference of opinion at all, as I said 99% of us thought they'd be 2 competitive games between now and St. Mirren. As for nothing guaranteed, I agree but looking at UEFA coefficients and our previous results against Icelandic opposition and 20 minutes into the first game, most of us thought it would be a formality. I'll direct you to Alan Burrows post on the facebook page where he explains the reasoning and the fact the club are obligated to field the strongest team possible and commit many weeks in advance. Now you're advocating that if we hypothetically progressed last week, getting back from Poland early tomorrow and jumping on a bus for anything from 8 hours return on Sunday. Ever felt you're flogging a dead horse?

Do you accept that if we were playing competitively tonight then there wouldn't be a need for a game? Do you think the club (along with 99% of fans) expected to progress through the last round and therefore didn't see the need for an intermediate game this weekend? Don't you agree the plug was probably pulled by the ultra cautious police due to their commitment to the games? Don't you take any notice of the fact the club has listed the fact that most Scottish clubs are playing away this weekend? Do you accept we started our first competitive game 3/4 weeks before most others, therefore starting pre-season earlier than many of our potential opposition and a strong possibility they wouldn't be in a position to field a team against us? Would you rather we didn't play because fans can't get access to watch? Rather than poor management, I think its quite impressive the club managed to do this at such short notice with a team playing in one of the top leagues in Europe, sorry it doesn't get you out of getting hauled round Silverburn on Saturday around 3pm.

Justify "poorly managed" if you don't mind.

Good post, too sensible for on here, you considered FPC? Along with that, can the board maybe suggest sending a scout or Kenny Black to the odd 3rd/4th tier match to see what's on offer?

Jesus, I'm sure this is closed doors with the club having its hands tied buy the H&S brigade and over caution (I'll point out there were cones all the way from Strathclyde Park to Flemington roundabout .... WTF overkill). Some right shanner comments on this thread so far (don't know why it comes as surprise though). If we got through Starjnan then we would be playing tonight, we've missed out on two games and the associated revenue so I think the club's done pretty well to get this game arranged with a La Liga club as short notice. Just another case of you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. Makaveli, your distinct lack of even a rudimentary knowledge of how the club is run, the constraints it finds itself in and your half baked sums on the back of a fag packet are getting boring.

All for using a VPN? You sure you haven't walked into a George Orwell book?

No need, there's been plenty of other posters who have done it for me .... Einstein indeed.

Erm mid May to mid August is 3 months. March to November as already outlined. However I applaud your creative maths skills, you should get a job with the No campaign

Pitches will be poorer? Surely the issue we have in the winter is the pitch doesn't have sufficient exposure to sunlight to recover between matches. In the summer we have up to 18 hours of daylight and the degradation would be much less. During the winter the grass would merely be maintained, not replanted. I've yet to find any evidence where a footballer cites they prefer plastic pitches. Clubs like them as they allow the facilities to be used potentially 24-7. I accept there's still a chance games can be called off between a summer season of March to November, however the risk of that happening is a fraction than the status quo. The chance of a game being called off in late November is small. You're citing minor faults and giving no credence to a number of benefits.

In the past year, 4 poor performances (3 against lower opposition - 2 Starjnan and Albion Rovers) and one against a team who were reduced to 10 men after 5 minutes. Versus Going to Pittodrie on the last day of the season, won against the odds against a team who on paper had more to offer. So thats: 4:1 £700k:£250k Maybe a bit tasty to pick one game out of a whole season as the games preceding that obviously are what allowed us to compete with Aberdeen on the last day.

The motivation for summer football for me is not for Euro games (that would merely be a fringe benefit). It would be: Going to a number of games in a t-shirt, Avoiding fixture congestion late in the season due to Jan/Feb/March weather, Pitches staying in good condition throughout, More ball on the deck than hump the ball because of the surface/conditions, Less chance of postponements (if at all), Less chance or need of the spread of plastic pitches, Increasing crowds (potentially however I accept that's a bit of an unknown), Parents being cool about their kids going due to the majority of the season in lighter nights, Savings in costs for the clubs (floodlighting, undersoil heating, etc), Potential of greater exposure on UK wide TV, Televised games for a fair bit of the season not clashing with Premiership games (so no more 12:30 Sunday kickoffs), Not watching Ross County at 7:45 on a Wednesday in a howling gale in mid Feb, And finally just because its different and our game needs something different to survive, if anyone thinks its not on its last legs and needing an adrenalin/defib jolt then you need to explain why. Sorry, but a sentence with "traditionally" in it doesn't trump what I've listed above.