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Played correctly there is no doubt Stephen O'Donnell should be an asset to our squad.

Danny Lennon has said that Danny Lennon has not applied for the job but Danny Lennon would be happy to listen to any offers that came Danny Lennon's way.....

I think you are right I still think it will be Valakari which I'm completely neutral about.

Would take Lennon in a heartbeat. A horrible chip on the shoulder wee git but he can manage but would get 20 mins tops with the bigots in our support.

You might be on to something there. Maybe delete Spittal. Insert Kirk. He likes a goal up there.

Cheers David but it won't last....lol

Hoooo get your own suggestions!! That's what I said!! Lol, only joking pal

Of course they have 80 applicants - folks have to prove they're actively seeking employment to continue getting Universal Credit (or whatever it's called these days).

Checked the dates,they wouldve been team mates for a few years

Sorry pal, Barrel was well scraped with my last attempt!!

Watching closing ceremony of commonwealth games last night and I noticed the athletes were walking in a 4 3 3 formation..... then I realised it was coming from the Alexander Stadium!!..... sorry folks

Whats coming across to me loud and clear now is that Graham Alexander seems to have had an inflexible style of play and that players were instructed to adhere rigidly to it. Many fans like myself were criticising midfield players for example for not supporting the striker(s) or full/wing backs being poor. If I recall corrctly, Onthefringes has made this point several times in the past few months. Its clear now that it wasn't always the fault of the players, but rather the system or instructions they were given. I think Stevie Hammell made a similar point as well. Thats not to say that a manager shouldn't give his players instructions but they should be applicable to the talent he has available and not be overly rigid and inflexible. Maybe we, and I include myself here, have judged players unfairly?

not my definition or understanding of ostracise . anyway hopefully new mgr in soon, give posters something else to talk about and sod the chance to prove to me and others he can play.... .i can remember Robinson criticising him too after the euro game in Israel but that wasnt seen as an issue

It’s not one or the other. Both Alexander and O’Donnell can get tae.

Need new manager asap, I believe some well fans aren't even watching the commonwealth games closing ceremony as it's coming from the Alexander Stadium...cue ...here it comes......Ba Boom!!

As one who supported GA longer than most on here, I find it perplexing that given the information that is leaking out now, that people continue to defend him. People need to pay attention to the nuance of the language being used. Its clear to me from the things that Steven Hammell has said and now SOD, that things behind the scenes were far from perfect and that players and staff alike werent happy with what was going on. Usually these things remain unsaid even once the manager has gone. The fact that they are not speaks volumes to me. I have no problem with agreeing that SODs performances for us were poor and that he could have no arguments about being dropped. But it did mystify me when I watched him play for Scotland. Particularly at Wembley when he was outstanding. Of course we dont know what really happened behind the scenes, but with Slattery disappearing for months, SOD being benched, so many players seemingly low on confidence and now comments from Hammy and SOD in the press, it appears that the working environment created by GA was part of the problem.

Alexander stripped all the enjoyment out of going to FP for me. It was fucking diabolical, even when we won. I'm happy he's been papped. He's the first manager we've had in a while I just could not deal with and I'm generally sympathetic towards our managers. It was heaps worse than Robinson, McCall and even dare I say, McGhee at times. He sold our only attacking threats, played CBs at fullback, loaded the defence from 60 mins onwards, ostracised our best remaining players, built a team with zero attacking prowess and no width, didn't prepare for the euro legs well enough, brings in no competition for Van Veen who is far too lazy, different line ups every week, clueless subs every week, gave out long contracts to average players willy nilly... The list is endless and he's left the club in a bit of a state I saw a big of an enough response on Saturday to reaffirm my views that GA was the problem and not totally the players underperforming. I'm happy O'Donnell has come out and indicated that there's been a problem, I think the fans need some inclination into wtf actually went wrong, and coming from a good pro like SOD, I tend to back him. Alexander used to have a nosebleed when SOD, or anyone for that matter, ran forward. SOD had a downturn in form, but that does not make Mugabi a better option at RB, and quite frankly, everyone was rotten for a large period of time. It's bonkers making a player captain, and then instantly losing faith in him. I have no idea on the next manager, but we need someone who can bring some positivity and enthusiasm to the club. That's why I'd patch Lambert, he's far too dull and arguably as arrogant as GA was at times. Simo could be a risk, but so is anyone from the current suggestions His enthusiasm in applying three times, and club experience is something that should hold some weight. We can't appoint anyone who thinks they are too big for the club

Stop talking shite , out of order, a player of his status .....he was the club captain ffs it was exactly his job to speak to the players and find out their views etc, so if that's what happened it was well within his remit. God knows why you and others have this love in and obsession about defending Alexander and trying to convince folk he was hard done by the fans players and club, wake up and smell the coffee ffs and have a look at what state he left the club in

It is not really about O'Donnell though. It is about Alexander and his style of management. O'Donnell is just an example of that style and also Alexander's stubbornness and refusal to do what might have been good for the Club during a spell which at best can be described as poor. Slattery, Woolery. Lamie and to a lesser degree Tierney could all be substituted for SOD as players who were sidelined at a time when others were performing poorly but retained.......Goss, McGinley, Carroll, Shields, Efford, Ojala as examples. And you keep saying that folk are insisting O'Donnell should not have been dropped. That is just not true, no matter how often you repeat it. What people are saying is that when we were in freefall, Alexander for some reason totally ignored a player who he deemed good enough to sit on the bench and who represented his country. Not even worthy of a try at a time when his preferred selection was becoming a liability with confidence shot to pieces. And is still suffering. So instead of deflecting to the rights and wrongs of O'Donnell can you please comment on Alexander's performance from January to season end, including his team selections and formation? I say end season, but you can include this season's brief venture into Europe if you like. Clearly those factors were enough for the Club to get rid of him. No matter that " he avoided relegation and got us into Europe".

Thanks for that Graham!

Honestly I don’t get all the drama re O’Donnell. Just about every man and his dog stated he was awful and should not be playing in the first team, he was dropped. Suddenly that was now the wrong thing and he should have been playing week in week out because we were struggling. I though he was part of the problem. Again it’s simply a player dropped because he was not playing well enough who had a bit of a strop about it. If he called a meeting of the players behind Alexander’s back than frankly he was out of order, that’s not something a player of his status should be doing. Storm in a teacup.

Because it is possible to not be good enough for a starting spot, but good enough for a place on the bench. It doesn't have to be a game of absolutes. But let's be honest, if he did have a huge falling out, O'Donnell wouldn't even be training with the first team, let alone sitting on the bench. What did Alexander do that wasn't professional? Drop a player from the starting eleven who he didn't deem good enough? A player who, by most fans accounts, simply wasn't performing well enough? A player who himself admitted that Alexander may have been correct? I could understand if Alexander took the same approach as Paul Lambert did with Kayden Jackson and Jon Nolan at Ipswich, banishing them to train with the kids and making vague accusations about the player, but he didn't, did he? Did he disrespect O'Donnell in the media? In press interviews? Did he question O'Donnell's professionalism? I honestly think he just didn't fancy him as a player. He didn't think he was good enough. Which is allowed, by the way. He's the manager, it's his job to make those calls. I don't personally think it was the right call, but that's on Alexander. It wasn't unprofessional though. Why would he? Do you think Alexander removed O'Donnell from the team because of what the fans thought? If he did, then he's got bigger problems than might first be apparent! He dropped O'Donnell because he didn't think he was good enough. That's a managers prerogative. Why was it vindictive? Was he banished from the first team? Made to train with the kids? Embarrassed and called out publicly? I don't think he was. He was, basically, seen as surplus to requirements. It happens. He just wasn't good enough, mate. There's no "patching up" to be done. It was on O'Donnell to up his game and prove to the manager that he was good enough to feature. Which he didn't do, and he knows it going by his admittance that Alexander may have been correct. Maybe he got dropped initially and the head went down? He didn't respond as he should have? Hopefully he learns from it. That squad isn't a shambles. We have some quality in there, it will just take a few key signings in certain areas to make the difference. The recruitment thing is a fine line really. It depends who's available at any given time. It's easy for fans to say "get a striker in" but what if there's no decent strikers available within our budget? What then? Just magic one up out of thin air? Or do what we've seen managers in the past do, and sign any old shite as long as it represents a body in the door? Often times clubs in our position have to play the waiting game and see who becomes available on a free or via loan once the bigger clubs have conducted their business and finalised their squads. That's why there's usually always a rush of signings in the last few weeks. I said before the summer window opened that I'd rather we wait and sign decent quality than waste money on players who aren't going to make the cut just to get bodies in the door and keep the fans happy. If that means we're a bit light and not looking great for the first two or three games in the season then so be it. However, we're now in a position where we still need those quality signings, but don't have a manager to rubber stamp them. So, whatever problems we had a few weeks ago are now exacerbated. Which is why I would have stuck with Alexander until around October or so to see how we got on. Or at least until we identified a decent replacement ahead of time. But the fans wanted him out as "it couldn't possibly be any worse." So, let's see if that's true. There's no real outstanding candidate for the job out there at this stage of the season. There never is. We've gone down the crazy road of parting ways with a manager literally days before the season starts, and we have no one who can rubber stamp signings before the window closes, unless we want to bring a manager in a few weeks from now and hand him a squad that may include brand new signings he doesn't like the look of. Truth is, the club should either have got rid of Alexander in the summer, or waited until October or November. It seemed quite simple really. But they haven't, they dithered about until he eventually came to them obviously looking for the club to either accept his resignation or signal their intent to back him for the next few months at least. Let's hope we don't pay the ultimate price for that.

Kelly and (when he eventually got recalled) Lamie are about the only two that had 5 decent games all season. And they made mistakes as well. Plenty of others........to name a few in no particular order....Carroll, Mugabi, Goss, Shields, McGinley, MacGuire and even Watt and Van Veen....had a run of games where they made the same mistakes over and over. But they were not treated in the same way as O'Donnell. That is, benched and ignored until season end no matter how dire the situation got. Short time memory seems to work both ways. So no. I'm not going to scapegoat O'Donnell for making errors. He sure did, but so did everybody else. Almost the entire team was underperforming from January onwards, if not before. Just some were singled out more than others. O'Donnell was not alone in that but he suffered most. Grimshaw came close but in his case he disappeared from the matchday squad for not being good enough but was not made to sit on the bench game in game out. As for fan votes. I'll take those with a pinch of salt given that many of those voting would not have voted for O'Donnell if he had scored a hat trick in the last five minutes against Celtic/Rangers in a cup final. And if we are to believe fan votes online, then us Motherwell fans voted Goss as our player of the year in the matchday BBC poll. I think O'Donnell was treated appallingly. You don't. We'll just have to agree to differ.

This. In a way us scraping into the top six and ‘Europe’ did us more harm than good because I believe had we not scored that last minute leveller at Livingston in April and finished bottom six then Alexander would have been gone at the end of the season. That way we could have got a new manager in in time for pre-season or the League Cup group stages and made the right moves in the transfer market. As it was we were never going to part company with a manager who got us into the top six and qualified for Europe and therefore the board and Alexander were able to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that the results and the shite we served up on the park since January was remotely acceptable.

The whole team on Thursday night got people out of their seats and up the road back to the pub they were that bad. For me Tierney, Cornelius , SOD, Lamie, Slattery Kelly, Shields and maybe Efford are the players who when playing look capable of creating something or In Kelly's case making a great save. I would also include KVV but he's not consistent enough just now 1 or 2 good games then 3 or 4 where he is anonymous and contributes feck all. The squad has the makings of a decent team so let's hope whoever the new manager is can find the correct balance and get the best from them