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Obviously, if we can sign a senior player who is better than anyone we have in our youth setup then we should go that way, but at the moment I don't see why we have Oli Shaw coming off the bench when we could have Mark Ferrie coming off the bench. Or why do we have Theo Bair or Conor Wilkinson coming on to play as makeshift wingers when we could have Robbie Mahon instead? I'm not advocating having a team full of kids, but I think if we can show a concrete pathway that doesn't involve getting chucked out on loan while the club signs dross we may see more young talents being interested in coming to the club.

If we want to play a clutch of 17 or 18 year olds in the first team on a regular basis, that's one way to go, but it would certainly be in the Championship, or lower, very soon. The SPL may be full of dross, but that dross would eat those kids for breakfast unless they were very special talents. I suppose that's the choice we need to make - is survival in the top flight the be all and end all?

Sadly that's true and they'd be the ones screaming the loudest if the club went tits up.

PS For what its worth, Im not against bringing in investment from outside sources, but as others have said, it should be as a minority shareholding. The Well Society should always have 51% minimum so that any rogue investor cant sell us down the river.

Thanks to Jim McMahon and Derek Weir for their service and stepping into the breach in times of need. The club has seemed rudderless for some time though. All that said, I don't know what to make of their departure and the timing. It could mean several things. Maybe we are following Dundee's model, in part. Private investment would be very welcome, but would investors step forward if the Society is still the largest shareholders? If the Society is to sell a significant number of shares then that would require members' approval. Tonight our future ownership/governance is uncertain. Some clarity is required ASAP.

The problem we have with building a side where promising youngsters mix with older heads is, at the slightest sign of promise these days, someone flashes the cash. We need the money, obviously, but we're not getting much return from the youth system team wise.

Having a core of youngsters coming through would be better by a country mile than the journeyman approach . not expecting to create a faddy or turnbull evey year but our long line of players coming through has declined over the last 20 years . Like the idea of a model of bringing through youth with a sprinkling of experience . For this we need a long term plan and give someone like SK time to bring it to life

In the words of Kevin Keegan I would love it if we beat them , love it . No better way to start Christmas than beating this mob after so long , and kickstarting our season In reality it won’t happen though hopefully I am wrong

I firmly believe most of that is because we're still trying to recruit from the markets we recruited from back then. The landscape down south has made it such that we're unable to do that. What we could be doing is looking further afield. Especially post-Brexit. The Scottish FA’s more flexible interpretation of the Brexit rules puts us at an advantage over clubs down south, yet I don't think we take proper advantage of that. Instead of adjusting our recruitment parameters down south and simply going for lesser talent than we would have before because that's what our budget allows, we should be utilising modern analytics to shop in European markets, both for players and coaches. The main attraction we can offer those individuals is our proximity to the land of milk and honey down south. They know if they come here and perform there's a good chance that some over-spending League One or Championship side will come sniffing.

I think this is key. Fans have grown accustomed to Motherwell not just being a top-flight club, but being a top-flight club that has never really been in serious danger of relegation. Sure, we've flirted with it a few times, but often we're finishing top six or even top four. But the truth is, we're really not much bigger, if at all, than the likes of Dunfermline, Partick Thistle, and Falkirk. We're a fan-funded club not through choice, but because that's the only real option we have. It wasn't as if we were knocking back multi-million pound offers for the club to implement a fan model instead. It's where we're at. I'd rather we still had a club that the fanbase had a real say in the running of, even if it meant we eventually dropped down a division or so. When the alternative is most likely someone buying in who doesn't have the club's best interests at heart, I'll sacrifice our Premier League status to avoid that. I'd rather watch a team in the Championship or Division 1 that is populated by young local talent and owned by the fans than watch a team of middle-of-the-road top-flight journeymen under the ownership of some consortium or individual who's never really around.

I am positive Chris done that .......OH NO HE DIDN'T!! 😜😜

Wilkinson is a quality finisher and it is not his fault that he has been pushed out wide or dropped into midfield. We need to play to his strengths to get the best out of him - probably wingers would be best but that isn't an option at the moment. His disallowed goal against St. Johnstone was a thing of beauty and, dare I say it, van Veen-esque in its execution. There's his equaliser against Ross County too, another quality finish.

Oh no! Are you saying we will never have a better chance? 😆

I know mate I'm the same it will happen one day, probably the game I won't make, but I'm not expecting a win on Sunday but it would not surprise me if we did.

Not if our income streams remains static from the fans whilst everyone else in the league has rich benefactors who plough increasing money in each season. Rangers, Celtic, Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen, Kilmarnock and Dundee all have supports that are bigger than ours. All have wealthy owners to supplement their bigger crowds. Even St Mirren have managed to increase their support beyond what we can achieve. That leaves Ross County, Livingstone and St Johnstone for us to compete against financially. Again RC and St Johnstone have wealthy owners supplementing their gate money. That leaves us and Livingston without wealthy owners Bank rolling the club and Livingston have just had the club taken over, whether that results in extra resources time will tell. We are an outlier in terms of financial resources as things stand and that can only get worse under the current fan model we have.

Our average home support has been around 4k for as long as I can remember. Even in the years we finished 2nd and 3rd or further back to the mid 90s when we challenged for the title, it didnt move much. John Boyle pretty much tried everything from signing players we couldnt afford to letting kids in for free. Nothing worked. The biggest difference these days is that away supports have fallen drastically, so other than Rangers and Celtic we dont get anywhere near filling the South Stand.

Isn’t that the motto of our supporters 🫡

To the outgoing board members I Thank you for your service and I wish you well in your future. As a club we will always struggle for income with the current amount of fans that turn up (thank goodness they do)is it any wonder we don’t have any money. We average around 4K fans for home games in a stadium rebuilt to hold 12k so where are the missing 8k fans?

Do you know something we don't Busta?