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“I hope a sixteen year old boy who I had never even heard of up until today goes on to have a terrible career because he doesn’t play for my team any more.” Wise up man.

It's a catch 22 situation really. We can say that it's best for a player to stay at Motherwell and look to progress to the first team, but what if that doesn't happen for whatever reason? Injury, loss of form, simply not being good enough. The example a lot of fans use is Jake Hastie, claiming his move to Rangers wasn't a good move for him. I think his level of performance after that short purple patch for us shows he absolutely made the correct decision. If he'd stayed at Motherwell he'd likely have shown the kind of form he did when he returned, which would have seen him slide down the pecking order and eventually get released. I don't think him not signing for Rangers would have seen him suddenly become a quality player who then won a big move a few years later. As things stand, he's playing in League Two. The only difference is he's doing so with a relatively healthy bank balance from his Rangers deal, so he's come out a winner in that regard.

I watched the first two Scotland games at the u17 Euros and out of the two Lennon Miller was far more impressive than Rice. They were both 15 playing against older boys and Rice showed good touches but struggled badly with the pace of the game. In the first game Miller came on at half time and almost dragged Scotland back into it getting an assist and creating a few other good chances. In the second he sat in front of the defence and was effective until he went off injured. Given the fact that we release boys every year without anyone blinking an eye then we just need to accept Rice or others choosing to leave as the flipside of that.

Glossing over the fact he’s extended his stay at Morton, if we went for everyone who ‘tore our defence a new one’ last season we’d be heading for admin again.

Mr Happy modelling the new Crewe away kit

Tierney was never ear marked to play if at all last season rather a development player - the manager has stated that. Circumstances brought him into the team. Remains to be seen how Alexander will set us up moving forward. Asking a 20 or so year old to lead in that position is a bit of an ask, up to now it’s the only role he looks suited to. It would take evolution to help develop with Spittal arguably added to do same. Suspect you’ve answered why there was the gap between midfield & the forward line with your closing statement.