numpty

Odious as he is, if teams objected every time they didn't fancy a referee we'd never have any games on at all. You never know, he might even do us a favour for fear of being dropped again...

Seems a bit that way sadly, immediate thought when I read he was involved in the penalty shout was "it probably wasn't a penalty then". That said, Dougie Arnott had a bit of a propensity for falling over when he first joined us, and he turned out not so bad.

Thought he already had a pretty reasonable dig at the ref (not about the drop-ball incident) in his post-match interview, when he explained very carefully how easily confused the words "play" and "goal" can be.

If the Sportscene highlights are still the same as the ones they post on YouTube, it won't even get a mention.

Sometimes, but I've known my fair share of crap managers whose superiors think the sun shines out of their arse.

This is true of course. But I'm sure most of us in those other walks of life have also experienced some managers whose staff are more than happy to do what they're asked, and others whose demands are generally met with the least amount of effort possible.

I'm sure he has contacts, he was working as a scout for Huddersfield until he joined us. Unfortunately, having contacts is just one link in the chain; there still need to be players available of sufficient quality who want to come and play for us.

Game off due to structural damage: http://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2015/01/16/club-statement-kilmarnock-game/

Presumably it does... Graham Rix is managing again, and Craig Thomson is, ironically, playing in the juniors.

Well in Scotland, Killie would be the obvious "not exactly setting the heather alight" example, though of course they've only had theirs a few months so far. (It does look to be a better quality surface than NDP though). I'm sure Alloa do get some better results on their pitch than they would on grass, but I'd suggest that's still at least as much down to other teams' unfamiliarity/fear of it, as to any attributable improvement in Alloa's silkiness of football since they've had it. Overall, of the 12 SPFL clubs who currently have artificial pitches, their average league position is a decidedly mid-table 6th, which (admittedly without having looked into them in any more detail) doesn't suggest to me that they're having a measurably positive effect on those clubs' results in themselves.

Are you sure it's not? What about all the other teams with artificial pitches who are playing considerably less well?

From what I saw of the LoI this year, gems were in pretty short supply.

FWIW, although he admitted that was a factor, IB said O'Brien was subbed because he'd taken a blow to the face and the doctor's advice was to make the change.

youtu.be/glNX1ynRbBg Looks like they're uploading them as private videos now, so they don't show up in searches.

In which we discover where folk who live in Barbados choose to have their holiday home...

Or, perhaps, he decided he didn't want the job as a result of the interview. An interview isn't just to see if an employer likes the look of you, it works both ways. Other than being equally skint, I'd imagine things are a bit different at the club now than they were the last time he was in charge.

Let's hope he wasn't the guy who told the club he'd only lend the money on condition of anonymity, then...

Given how many he's banged in for us in the past, I'm sure he has a good scoring record against most teams in the Premiership. Just not happening for him the way we're playing just now though, so shaking things up a bit gets my vote.

I took it to mean no significant year-on-year increase, at least compared to any other club, which is probably true.

Malky Mackay appointed Wigan boss: http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/30113956

Yep, although I fear there could be some grain of truth in the Solano thing given the recent 'Well Trust emails. But if memory serves, Ardiles at least has "applied" for the Motherwell job before in recent years.

Which would still be adjudged as being in line and therefore not offside for most of the years I've been watching football. But I don't know what this season's directive du jour (directive du saison?) might be...

'Flow?

Not going to get too excited by that, I'd imagine that's pretty standard for any vacancy that pops up. Some agents will chuck their clients' names in the hats pretty much automatically as soon as they read about it on the interwebs.

And to be honest, I've been kinda grateful to have no access to live coverage of any kind on match days so far this season...