CoF

It's clearly a phrase which is based entirely on available resources. When you consider the city clubs, isn't your second paragraph the very definition of punching about our weight?

Genuinely can't wait for this either. I'm quite excited about this squad and think the early pelters they've been getting, especially at half-time to QOTS and after the Airdrie game, is an absolute lot of shite.

Dom Thomas wearing the captain's armband for Dunfermline in their opening few games. Sounds like he's doing well there.

Yip

I must be watching a different game. Thought they've looked fairly bland today considering its against 2nd Division opposition. Still think they'll come good though (potentially very good), but not seeing much today.

An entertaining read but some nicely written prose doesn't win football games. What's your actual pragmatic solution? It seems to be "buy better players and / or ones who care about the club"?

Also explains why I canny remember half the players these days.

Yep, if all three are on their game it's going to be fantastic by the look of it. Thought Lawless was excellent too.

So, if we get beaten once in the opening four games, come April - ten months way - we'll be bottom six. Even for a Motherwell fan, thats an impressive dedication to pessimism there.

Better be quick - I was ticket number 500ish or something at 10 tonight so they'll be gone by tomorrow.

Alexander touched on this in his interview, that they're being really pushed in training and that there will be a degree of fatigue last night. It wasn't a great performance at all, but there's I don't think there's any cause for concern. The group stages are designed to be part of pre-season and that includes using games as part of fitness and conditioning, testing players positions and formations. The fact we achieved all that and still came away with 3 points makes it a decent result.

Didn't know about the 4000+ figure. Absolutely fantastic to hear, I had the fear that a lot of people might be out the habit of going, not missed it as much as they expected or other priorities simply took over. Hopefully it's swung the opposite way.

He's better than all of that.

Delighted to get both games, but hopefully that doesn't equal shite season ticket sales.

Good shout. I've had 12 quid taken out mine. Just need to find out which game I've got now.

I'm not sure about that comparison. I thought Tanner left as he needed game time and knew he would never get it at the level of Motherwell. The fact he's now playing in the 6th tier in England justifies his decision. Carson on the other hand I think still wants first team games at a decent level - after 3 years on our bench / treatment table I imagine he'll be expecting to be number one at Tannadice.

The official Michael Gove approved MFC season ticket scheme.

Taking a guess, but maybe the way they are doing it is to try guarantee every season ticket holder at least the offer of a game? There's effectively 4000 seats split over two games, and less than 4000 ticket holders. The easiest way is to allocate everyone at least one game - which is how I hope they are doing it (rather than 2000 fans getting both games and the remaining fans getting none). To try work preferences into that system becomes really complicated..... I think?

Makes sense. We can probably out-compete some of the equivalent budgets in England because we offer the chance to compete in national cup finals and the chance to play in front of 50/60 thousand a few times a season but I imagine the main reason is the exposure through our TV coverage. For an ambitious young player it's not a bad league to move to.

Disagree. Put together a 5 minute highlight reel of why we went out and you'll have a couple of contributions from O'Donnell where he arguably could have done better alongside plenty from almost every other player on the pitch (who are all on 5/10 times his club wage) - the biggest culprits being our midfielders and forwards who missed plenty of half chances and a few absolute sitters that could have turned all three games in our favour. Likewise, put together a highlight reel of positive passages of play and chances created and you'll have O'Donnell playing his part there.

Yep. 180'000 fans in attendance across the final three euro games at the start of July. Whatever logic they are using there should easily translate to accomodating 5k into Fir Park. Unless of course yet another massive error of judgement from the UK government. Which is highly likely.

Yep. I think there's two things that led to that conclusion - one was his dour coupon when playing, and two was the fact he has clear qualities that only came through in patches. He drifted in and out of games / the first team as much as anyone else in the last 18 months but I think the weight of expectations coupled with his wee face led fans to think it must just be an attitude problem.

Carson might disagree. The days of letting our players go for pennies is gone, for now at least.

Starting tonight. Absolutely chuffed for the guy.

Exactly this. There isn't a position in the first team that's under as much scrutiny as O'Donnell's for the simple reason that there's a 'Rangers wonderkid' who has played 8 senior games apparently waiting to take his place. He looked nervous in the first 20 but settled into the game and was no better or worse than anyone else.