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Remember the first half of last season when people on here were calling Gorrin a waste of a shirt and another example of Robinson's ineptitude in the transfer market?

Aye cos bringing in players to our club to actually play in our first team is exactly the same as laundering a player through a third party team to avoid paying a fee.

Or there's the flip side that we've aided Cadden's development for 18 months due to a change in formation from that which he played for the previous two years taking him out of a comfort zone and giving him an appreciation of playing a deeper wing-back role. And let's not forget the experience of two Semi Finals and two Finals in during those eighteen months. I'm sure that did absolutely nothing for his development... I liked Cadden and would rather he be at the club than playing for another team but I'm not convinced that had we been playing 4-4-2 all through Robinson's reign those eighteen months wouldn't have seen very much difference to the "hit the ball past the full-back and try to run fast past him" tactic that had been synonymous with him since he broke through. That said I absolutely agree that he gave 100% when selected which for for me means that Cadden's obligations to Motherwell ceased when his contract expired. Thereafter he could pick and choose where he wanted to go as he saw fit. Let's not forget though, we may have invested 10 years plus into the development of his game but we got four or so years of a first team player, and what 150 games or abouts, on the back of that investment. Sometimes compensation isn't always monetary.

And Porter, I think. Cadden is a poster boy for our academy and we should be pointing that out has often as possible. 115 first team appearances. 12 Scotland U21 caps and 2 Senior caps plus the cup finals. And still only 22 years old. Instead, we get the usual "he's not that good" patter soon to be followed by the "why do we never get as much money for our youngsters" patter, without a hint of irony.

He doesn't really fall under the "someone we can improve and sell on" category.

Nothing i’ve seen early this season has done anything to change my mind that he’s not ready to lead the attack just yet and would benefit from a few months out on loan to a championship team. Of course everyone is desperate to see our young players in the first team, but we do need to be patient with Scott in my view and not just keep playing him because he’s that “ Young Motherwell player”.

Aye, seem to remember there being a stooshie at the time about that one. We also exploited a loophole with Chris Porter's transfer, which Mcghee admitted to at the time. I obviously hope we get cash for Cadden but we aren't really in a position to grumble too much if we don't.

He may not be soley to blame for this. But to exonerate him of any blame here is also far off the mark. Hiding behind blaming agents and owners is far too easy. Turnbull showed that you can politely decline the ‘advice’ given. Cadden has allowed this to happen to a club he has been with for over 10 years. The whole move stinks and he could have quite easily put a stop to it at any time. This shouldn’t be Motherwell’s fight alone. The SFA and SPFL should be involved to protect the interests of Scottish clubs. They want to push Project Brave as the saviour of Scottish football? Well then you’ve got to back your teams.

Which is more or less 75% of our fixtures

I like Hartley, but he looks a bit of a bomb scare at times defensively. He gifted Dumbarton 2 decent chances last night with slack play. As my mate commented, it had shades of McManus at Edinburgh City a few years back. He’s probably better suited to no nonsense backs to the wall defending than no pressure playing out from the back though.

You have to remeber he never actually had an injury. It was a preventative operation that would have been completed via Keyhole surgery on an already fully operational knee. My wife who is a physio for the NHS says he should recover very quickly from the actual operation. I suppose the time consuming part is getting back to a match fitness. But she was sayiing it is very possible he is back to full fitness by November.

Yeah, but that was a calculated risk of sorts. Carroll was a Liverpool player and an England international who had been a proven commodity in the English Premier League. There's a difference. Let's be honest, despite our belief to the contrary there wasn't a queue of top English sides with £3 million ready to buy Turnbull before his knee issues were known, so what makes you think there'll be any real interest when he's a few months (if that) removed from coming back? The risk associated with buying a player from a minor league who's not proven at the top level is enough for most of the bigger clubs down south to take into account, but when you throw in the knee issues as well? I think it'll either be Celtic, or he'll need to take some time to kick on and prove he's back to his best before anyone outside Scotland really looks to invest top dollar. This belief that "It's England, they'll just chuck millions at us because that's what they spend on players down there" isn't quite true. If it was Kieran Tierney would be an Arsenal player by now.

I'm seeing a lot of discussion of our midfield over the last few games, mainly negative. It's worth talking about. We've gone from a midfield of Gorrin, Campbell and Turnbull to a midfield of Donnelly/Maguire, Campbell and Pokworth. Changing two players in a three man midfield, it's understandable that it will take more than a few games to gel in the same way, irrespective of the quality of the individuals. Gorrin is being held up at the minute as the standard that Donnelly and Maguire should be aspiring to. I liked Gorrin but we're talking about a defensive midfielder who started 16 games for us and picked up 6 yellow cards and a red card. Not flawless. Also worth noting he turns 26 next week Donnelly recently turned 23 and Maguire recently had his 21st birthday. These guys have scope to develop, and I personally don't think they're miles away from Gorrin's level. Those describing them as defenders playing in midfield, I'm assuming have never changed jobs in their career. Tom Hateley was signed as a midfielder, Derek Adams as a striker. Even at a higher level, Vincent Kompany was signed by Man City as a holding midfielder. If the coaching staff feel that Maguire and Donnelly have the skill set for that position (and I gather they've felt for a long time this is Maguire's best position), they see them every day so I reckon they know more than we do. Campbell. I hear on here he's being asked to play further forward. Nonsense. In pretty much all the time he's played for us, he's played alongside a holding midfielder be it Lasley, McHugh or Gorrin. His role has pretty much always been to use his energy to press higher up the field . If he's been slightly further forward the last few games, it's been down to opposition midfields sitting deeper. Polworth. The lack of a killer pass has been mentioned and this probably is focussed on Polworth as the most 'creative' midfielder. He has at least a couple of assists already (and it was his ball that sent Seedorf away for Scott's first on Friday). You can talk about the poor quality of the opposition but that's a double edged sword. We'll play better teams in the league but because of that we'll seldom play teams that sit so deep offering so little space. Also worth noting he has the pressure of replacing a £3m player. Not the same type of player as Turnbull but takes his spot as creator/provider. No one expects Motherwell to bring in players worth £3m so there may be a slight drop off but he's doing ok. Is there room for improvement? It's Motherwell, there always is. But for me, there's a bit more negativity than is required. If we lose our first four league games, then we maybe need to start panicking...

You just lost sight of him in the long grass.

I think getting good money from Paddy Power without having their name plastered across our shirt is the best of both worlds. Although as others have said, I never bought a car from Ian Skelly or flew to Canada on zoom airlines. If I was in the market for a car or flight to Canada, I would’ve been aware of the companies and considered them, but I didn’t learn to drive to buy a car from Ian Skelly, so I’m not going to take up gambling because we’re sponsored by paddy power, although those who do gamble might take their business there?

Nope. Now ask me a difficult one

Crying out for an actual midfielder in the ‘Gorrin’ role. Shoehorning defenders into that role is killing the creativity in the middle.

So did anyone else clock the player standing next to Dunne before tonight’s game? Looks like we have another player on trial or in the pipeline. Looked a lot like the guy who scored the overhead kick during preseason.

Gambling/Alcohol advertising doesn't bother me, fuck even the (iconic) tobacco advertising in motor sport didn't bother me. (which they're impressively sneaking back in) We're a small Club and a hugely successful business being willing to back us financially is quite the coup for the us. Gambling companies, airlines, car manufacturers and tech giants seem to be almost exclusively where the money is at these days so there's no point having some faux morality about the business of sponsorship deals. IMO having Cash Converters as our main sponsor was much worse than what we've just agreed with Paddy Power.

Exactly. Stick to the boats you posh cunts.