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Ryan Bowman sent off after 24 mins for Exeter today. 4 ex Well players on show in the game. Jim O’Brien for Notts County, Law, Taylor & Bowman for Exeter. Noticed today that Euan Murray is (c) of Raith Rovers and Ross Forbes (c) of their opponents Dumbarton today. Good to see.

People also claimed Twardzik was responsible for our improvement in form when he came in on loan (so much so, they insisted we sign him full time). It's rarely as simple as that. I still maintain that, as good as he is, he would not have been as influential if we had slotted him into the team and formation we were playing in August.

Some of that I agree with. Some less so. I can't say I loathe him. Even though things didn't work as well as they might I always thought McLeish was a really good bloke. Any dealings I had with him he was friendly, happy to give of his time and pretty open and honest. You're absolutely right though in that I can barely recall a Motherwell manager getting the same "protection" in the media. The further down the table we went the more he seemed to be talked up as this terrific promising young manager. I remember him being linked with a move away around the time we to Parkhead and got smashed 5-0. You might have thought some questions might have been asked but no the line was that Motherwell fans should be doing everything they could to encourage this great young manager in the making to stay. He was sensible enough to continue to let McLean's team do its stuff but when that twenty odd game domestic run came to a halt the slide was never really halted. We did enough to finish second of course but the second half of that saw saw a 6-1 loss to Dundee Utd who were relegated and 3-0 to Falkirk who were fighting relegation and that was as good as it would ever be. The most curious thing of his reign was the amount of money he had to spend. And to this day it remains baffling that Tommy McLean moved on supposedly because Motherwell wouldn't match his ambitions yet the club were seemingly happy gave a managerial novice free reign to spend something like £1m - £1.5m. There's no question in my mind though that clubs knew we had the Phil O'Donnell money and we literally paid the price. I tend to think when set in the context of the time most of his signings made some sense even if many were overpriced and plenty didn't work out. Scott Howie for example was a former Scotland U21 goalkeeper tipped for big things but he never fulfilled his potential. Hendry had scored goals in the English top flight and was reasonably highly related. McSkimming and May were both arguably performing at the peak of their careers when he signed them. It wasn't all bad. He brought Valakari to the club, spotted something in Craigan and brought him over from NI, the likes of Coyle and Falconer were decent signings and gave us something when needed and he played a fair part in the development of the likes of McCulloch and McMillan who would latterly earn the club a fair bit. I think the likes of Hibs and Rangers certainly benefited from him cutting his teeth at Motherwell and you're right when his time at Fir Park was up he went away better for the experience whilst we were some way back from where we'd been when he first walked in the door.

Im a better left back than Shinnie and im 55.