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The reality I fear is that’s easier said than done. As you say many are lost before they even have a chance of the first team, those that do come through every few years hardly play a game for the first team before we lose them again and of course that development costs money. Much of what is made in transfer fees then needs to go back into development. If we could keep young talent for a couple of seasons and actually enjoy watching them great but how quickly did we lose Hastie, Scott, Turnbull, their impact was very short and sweet. The problem with handpicked known quantities “of a certain level” is they are chased by everyone else and priced out of our budget hence the club has tried to sign players who have done relatively well at the top end of the championship and decent Premiership level players. Even then we have supporters writing those players off before they have hardly kicked a ball in anger, look at the three new signings this season, it’s not exactly going to install confidence if you are told you’re shite after 30 minutes of the first game. There are a list of players signed from Scottish football over the last couple of years who were certainly not total punts and they pretty much all took a kicking. I would argue most were in fact known quantities “ of a level we can attract, and afford” we’ve just signed another two.

I think when you have a situation where clubs in the English 5th tier can pay more money than our club for players we need to re-assess the model and ask whether trying to sign players from these leagues is of benefit to us. For every Louis Moult and Cedric Kipre that are unearthed, there are another half dozen who are nothing more than journeyman professionals who are doing nothing to improve the quality of our squad/league. The future for clubs our size has to be developing young local talent. Yes, we may lose many of them to english academys before they play a first team game, but it shouldnt stop us trying. Your Cadden, Turnbull, Campbell, Hastie, Cornelius' are the way ahead for us and the only chance we have to try and challenge and improve because there is no ceiling on the level that talent could pitentially reach. We do of course need a core of experienced players to support and guide them, but these should be handpicked, known quantities rather than just the "total punts" we seem to have favoured over the last few years. In my opinion, our next manager has to fulfill those criteria if we are to halt the current malaise.

Oh bully for you. Decry everybody and anybody who has the temerity to offer serious constructive criticism about the team.

Do us a favour and let us know the coaching qualifications you’ve attained to come to that conclusion? Have you never thought that the midfielders are just playing to instruction? That has to change with a fresh outlook. I do agree we need to add to our midfield - an experienced head to force the play and help develop fairly inexperienced Slattery and Cornelius. Yet some on here balked at our Steve Davis interest - I’d have been all over that. On today’s game - we are a few weeks behind in pre-season & competitive games than St Mirren yet, we’ve headed home with 3 points and a clean sheet. I’d fancy us to improve, them not so much.

I've got some sympathy for our midfield. Playing 3 has led to 1) being up against a much better midfield 3 against top 6 teams and 2) being outnumbered against bottom 6 clubs. If playing with 3 generally they all need to be good both defensively & offensively. I don't believe any of our players are all round midfield players and I doubt our budget can afford it. This is an over simplification but all players are limited. Maguire. Best attritibutes are as a defensive mid. Lacks pace but can be used to break up play and find a simple pass. Spittal. Too early to tell, looks an ok worker who can break up play and work hard. Slattery. Closest to our best all round player but tires quickly in games. Decent ball skills and be good player to collect ball from defence and join up to attack. Goss. Best on the ball player we have but don't expect him to protect left back, win balls or put in a hard shift. Cornelius. Great work effort and looks better moving forward. Morris. Early days but similar attributes to Goss albeit of a lower quality. Tierney. Most likely to score and should play in the hole between midfield and attack. Point being there's no combination I can see that suggests a 3 man midfield would work. Personal view is we need at least 4 of them in different roles to make the midfield work and if being brutal would only have Maguire & Morris as back up players.

Our midfield retains shape?? You must be joking unless you mean a zigzag shape. I don’t know what your idea of a creative midfield player is but mine is one that plays an attacking support role with the capability to play defence opening passes and create chances for teammates. They should also have a decent range of passing, a good first touch and an awareness of what’s happening around them. As far as I am aware, but I’m willing to be proved wrong, there are no such players in our current squad.

On the often debated subject of individual players and team performance, I think we will be feeling the ill effects of what Alexander has sewn into this squad until at least after the January transfer window.

I think the people at the club have worked very hard to make Motherwell a good club to work for and I don’t think that reputation will be tarnished. Alexander himself said how much he enjoyed working with the people at the club. There will be many clubs in both Scotland and England that will be far less supportive to work for. Fans are the same at every club so that is a constant. A new manager should have the confidence in his ability to get the fans on side. Regarding Alexander himself. Once again he was the right man at the right time for our club. The primary aim for our board is to pick a man that will keep us in the top flight. I have said many times before that it is a minor miracle that we have maintained our top flight status for so long. The board of MFC deserve huge credit for this. I scratch my head when I read the negativity towards Alan Burrows. He does a great job in very difficult circumstances. David I know from reading the threads that you are a defender of the club and board so quoting you here is not to counter your opinions. Alexanders stats are impressive. He was an honest man doing an honest job and deserves our thanks. He was never going to produce fireworks. His time at Salford told us this. It will be interesting to see in a years time if we regret letting him go in the way Salford did. Ultimately though the Sligo result was really poor and he had to go. I do wonder however if he was the problem or if indeed Scottish Football is now so bad we should not be surprised by the result. Sadly I think the latter may be true. I remember a debate raging on here a few years back about not reading anything into pre season results. For me when a Full time professional team is struggling to beat the likes of Gateshead, even if it is pre-season, the warning bells should be ringing. Scottish Managers, pundits and players have been making excuses for over a decade now as to why we are so poor when we step out of Scotland. Sadly the facts don’t lie. All the best to GA. Hope he has a long a successful management career.

Well as probably the biggest happy clapper I’m my usual full of confidence self. We’re clearly not at the fitness levels needed and Alexander needs to take responsibility for that but it will change. I have to say I did enjoy the comments from our stand in manager who genuinely cares about the club and has that relationship with the supporters. I’m never one for sacking manager after manager and in fairness to Alexander he does deserve a lot of credit at the end, he could have just waited to be sacked and pocketed a huge pay off, he did not do that and probably ended up taking a smaller settlement amount. I did not enjoy the football and in truth I felt he never made a connection with the supporters the way that Robinson did. He’s not someone I will look back on with any real fondness, I’m just not sure Motherwell and Alexander were a match made in heaven which is not his fault. Its now a new start, regardless of what some people say about the squad I believe we have some good players and with the right management I don’t see any reason why we can’t have a decent season. We need to strengthen for sure but we are a million miles from being doomed. Make the right appointment and there is no reason we can’t finish top half again.

As a club I'd like to see us nudge forward and have a longer term plan. I first started watching us in early 80s and we progressed into the top league, spent a few years battling relegation and steadily improved brining in better quality whilst bleeding youngsters. Bringing through players like Boyd, O'Donnell, McCart, McMillan, Faddy, Pearson, McCulloch, Lasley, Hammell, Reynolds, Quinn Murphy, Hutchinson, Cadden, Turnbull, Campbell. Whilst being able to attract some very decent players who stuck around from - Russell, Cooper, Coyne, Lambert, Martin Craigen, Sutton. Recent years we've been able to show in patches the same approach to youth with some exceptional players, our attraction of quality players has generally been poor. Over this period the quality has got worse, the fan base reduced. As club be great to see us move forward sustainably. Reduce the squad size, bring in better quality who are likely to stay a few years whilst bringing through youngsters. The Faddy's, Turnbulls, O'Donnell's are perhaps once a decade type player but even to get back to the quality of McMillan, Lasley, Hammell, Reynolds, Cadden etc should be within our gift and their likely to give a damn. Appreciate this means we'll lose out on some 16 year olds having their head turned but I can't see any other obvious way forward. Really don't want to accept we've come as far as we can and every year it's a battle for mid table. Really want to see us slowly but surely progress - even a most increase to gates to get 5-6-7-8k people through the door would be great. With this is mind it may be more than a new manager we need.

No idea if Hammil would be good or bad, but he certainly came across well in his pre and post match interviews.

As I've said many times in the past, the entire point of an Academy is develop a quality of player we could never afford to buy - with a secondary important benefit of generating revenue when we sell players on. One of the bigger challenges we (and lots of clubs our size) face these days is getting any games from the young talent as bigger clubs come in and poach them before they sign their senior contracts.

I say this within 5 mins of young Spiers debut a Motherwell born local lad folk were posting he is shite,not fit,don't fancy him much doesn't look a player. Kelly speaks his mind being open and it's hang him high,might not turn up for us now,might not put in the effort. Blows my mind and I won't be shocked if Kelly might even go this transfer window and I wouldn't hold it against him. Football is about opinions but some folk really need to have a look at themselves it's embarrassing.

Agree totally, it was the lads debut so is obviously going to be making mistakes and would have been so nervous. I think it's great seeing a youngster get a chance. I have spoken so much over the years about this. Good luck Kian

I say this as a non-Twitterer and a very infrequent reader of other teams social media channels, but I would very much doubt what you describe above is unique to Motherwell fans.

Judging on that game? I’m not sure I share that. We’ve still to get up to speed for the reasons I mentioned. New blood is a given, hoping we don’t rest on our laurels and a swift appointment gives room for manoeuvre in assessing & making changes to squad. For some reason, Alexander seen both as number 6’s, neither are. Cornelius doesn’t have to be creative. His strength? Energy with the ability to go beyond our forward line yet, neither used to advantage.

I like Callum Slattery

Spiers clearly struggled with the pace/occasion when he came on but I can’t imagine the adrenaline rush he was experiencing. He did very well in the last 5 minutes. Congratulations to the kid on a winning debut. Huge 3 points.

Looking at Twitter Liam Kelly's comments have went down like telling a 5 year old Santa isn't real. There's genuine anger from many at realising the players are not in fact their pals.

Presumably on the understanding that we might lose, because that's how football works.

Hearing the abuse shouted at Alexander when he was giving his post-match interview was really embarrassing. I thought he sounded a bit shaken. I don't care what the industry is, no one should have to go to their job and get shouted and sworn at, no matter what you think of them. He's human and deserves a basic level of respect and anyone who thinks it's okay to address someone else in that manner in any circumstances should take a long hard look at themselves.

Don't know where he got the toxic fans stuff from.

Can you then explain why he bothered to get results against StMirren, Livingston, Ross County and Hearts to get to 5th place?

Don't see what Kelly said wrong there. Did folk just read the headline? Looking at the stuff on social media for the last year, as well as the aftermath of Thursday, it seems like a valid reason for him to want to leave. Kelly stating what GA told him is fair game. Also funny to see some folk turn on our best player immediately for mentioning toxicity in the fan base, and not seeing an ounce of irony. Alexander has been getting dogs abuse all year, and folk are getting wound up because one person criticized them back.