Lukemfc1

I'm sure he went to Egypt or the Middle East for close to a million pounds.. He always looked a handful. Scored that screamer at Celtic Park a few years back. Give me someone of his quality please. We are crying out for someone with a bit of ability up front.

It was great to see a very healthy home support of about 4,500 on Saturday. The problem is many of these folk who don't turn up regularly will now be totally turned off coming back anytime soon. I like many encouraged some armchair supporters along and the football on display was nothing short of embarrassing. I like to talk up the SPFL and I genuinely think we are in a better place than we have been as a league for a while but that was very low quality shitfest football. I'm not a footballing purist by any means but the style of play just now isn't good enough. Early days yet but I think our recruitment needs to be questioned. We seem to have brought in numbers rather than actual quality. We clearly have a very limited budget but I feel like we would have been better spending money on one quality player for a position rather than three really average ones. At the end of last season I felt the young boys Maguire, Turnbull & Scott could be strong coming off the bench but none of the young guys looks likely to feature anytime soon. Instead we've brought in guys to sit ahead of them that aren't any better. To me, from the end of the last season it was pretty clear what we needed but we don't look any stronger in terms of the first eleven or even options from the bench. Aye, the way we are playing is the main root of the problem just now but with the attacking options at our disposal does anyone really see us scoring enough goals? I think it's pretty clear from any evidence we have to go on Main, Sammon and Bowman are not going to get us enough goals. Johnson potentially could but he is an unknown quantity at this level. Johnson could be the next Moult or Wes Fletcher. Scott isn't going to get a chance by the looks of things. I understand comments about us being somewhat bloated in that position but scoring goals/creating chances does look to be a clear issue just now. A player of some sort of technical ability in a forward position would be really welcome. I guess this goes back to the recruitment of Connor Sammon, perhaps a useful option at times but with Main and Bowman already on the books we should have recruited someone with some sort of creative/technical ability up front. The chat about 'dominating the game' from Robinson is nonsense as far as I'm concerned. Having the ball and launching it 30 yards then doing absolutely nothing with it to me does not constitute any sort of dominance. Make no mistake, Accies are absolute dross but they are good at what they do. They sat in, defended well, competed well for the ball and wasted time. That's what they do. Launching the ball on Saturday totally played into their hands. I'm convinced if we had the right players on the park and actually played basic passing football we could have easily outplayed them. Fair to play Accies though, we didn't deserve anything from that game. In terms of individuals not really many plus points for me. I thought Aldred looked good for having played so little football that's about it. Defensively Hartley looks sluggish to me, I'm not convinced he is fully fit. In midfield I thought Campbell had an unusual off day and was correctly taken off. Cadden was pretty awful, as he has been for some time now. Rose done little and Bigi apart from the first 30 minutes or so done what he has his full Motherwell career flattered to deceive. Still it was refreshing to see someone with decent technical ability in the middle of the park rather Rose/Grimshaw from last week. Up front I thought Sammon actually contributed more than Main but that's not saying much.

I wish Robinson would be even a tad honest in his post match. Aye he's not going to slate the team but don't put in that display and come out with that nonsense. That was horrendous

I'm a bit apprehensive about this one tbh, we really need to get a win with games against Rangers and Hearts coming up. I can't say I've seen much football played in these games the past few years and wouldn't expect anything different tomorrow. I can hear Robbo saying 'earn the right to play' already. I think Campbell coming back in will be a big help as the midfield looked totally disjointed without him at Hibs. For me, Cadden needs to come back wide as he offers nothing throught the middle IMO. ATS didn't look ready at all last week. I'd revert back to the wingback selection from last year until he's up to speed. Johnson is a no brainer and deserves a chance from the start after Sunday. I think it's likely we will see him included. I'd also like to see Gorrin included from the start rather than Grimshaw/Bigi etc. From what I have seen he looks dynamic, has technical ability and likes a tackle. Basically what we have been lacking in the middle. Get him in please. On the calls for Bigi to start on twitter etc. I might be totally wrong here but I really don't see Bigi doing anything with Motherwell, I'd love to be proven wrong but I honestly just don't see it. The narrative just now seems to be that he should be nailed on starter. I'm all for us playing a better brand of football but the majority of games he was included last year he really didn't do a great deal. I like the fact that he gets the ball down and plays but even on Sunday when he came on he booted a ball clean out the park from a simple pass. This happened on countless occasions last year so his passing is hardly flawless. I feel like there has been a bit of a false narrative since his excellent display in the cup final. This isn't entirely on him and to me is more to do with the way the manager plays does not suit him. In terms of the rest of the midfield I maintain Rose isn't as useless as is sometimes made out. The key for me is Rose needs to be in a midfield with a balance. Don't rely on Rose to play any sort of football but his legs in the middle of the park last season were very useful. Ideally in the formation we play you want two guys that can tackle/compete and someone with greater creative ability. Rose can compete, Campbell can tackle and play. The third centre mid should be someone who can play but they need to be able to play at the pace required. As we found sometimes with McHugh last year the pace of the game can pass some by. Particularly with our fast and furious style of play at times. Unfortunately I think Robbo will be geared up for a battle and can see Grimshaw/Campbell/Rose in the middle. Danger is Accies are probably as good as us in shitfest football so I'm not sure how that will go. Either way hopefully the fans stay with the team tomorrow. If we lose tomorrow I fear a wee bit of an overeaction. Ultimately the style of play is becoming a sticking point with many fans and I understand that but we shouldn't lose sight of the relative success Robbo gave us last season. My team would be Carson Alred Hartley McHugh Cadden Rose Campbell Gorrin Tait Main Johnson

Aye so Aldred is coming back after all.. What a buzz! The lad done excellent for us last season, delighted to have him back. Not buying the whole he doesn't have enough pace argument. He will do just fine as long as the wing backs etc track back properly. Now. Give us one more, an attacking option with quality please

Looks likely anyway. I'm just going off Robinson's post match interview from Saturday. Sounds like Bigi has performed a u-turn on a move to England.

Only seen Callachan in brief spells with Hearts but from what I seen he scored some decent goals. I was actually surprised when I seen last week that specky was letting him go. With that being said we don't need another midfielder, especially with Bigi now staying. We need to focus on a solid defender and getting another attacking option. Wouldn't surprise me if this is simply paper talk and Hearts trying to stir up interest to whore him out somewhere.

Does anyone have any actual information regarding Aldred and why it's such a non starter? On the face of it he wasn't even in the squad for Bury again who are a shit house relegated to League 2 in England. By all accounts the fans down there really dislike him so it would appear he has no future there. Is he simply not interested in a move up here? I would be surprised if his wages are that much more than what we can pay. At times last season he looked better than Hartley. I suspect given no movement has been made thus far we aren't going to go to him but maybe what we can offer him will change given Kipre has left?

To be honest the highlights give a bit of a misleading view of the game. We were rotten yesterday and the chances Robinson mentions in his interview were after the game was already well over. Those Johnson strikes were in the last 5/10 minutes. At the game I thought the Hartley handball was a joke but looking at the replay I don't know how anyone can pretend that wasn't an obvious handball. Hartley moves his hand to the ball, pretty straight forward. Stupid by Hartley. I get Robinson isn't going to slate the team on the first game of the season but his assessment of the game is complete nonsense. We were never in that game yesterday, Hibs were absolutely miles ahead of us. I don't expect us to beat Hibs, they are a very good side but we need to compete better than we did yesterday. In terms of individuals i thought Sammon done well at times when we tried to use him in the correct manner. He is not a target man. Johnson was encouraging when he came on. Apart from that not many positives. I thought Donnelly looked ropey and was partly responsible for one of the goals. ATS looks limited defensively and played one of the boys onside for one of the goals. Main looks like a different player this season, not in the drop him camp yet but I think we were too quick to hail him as goal scoring striker. Players rarely turn into prolific strikers overnight. If you look at his record it's not very unlike the rest of his clubs now. I still think we lack real quality upfront to get us enough goals. Again, Cadden was pretty bad but overall our midfield just looked totally disjointed. I thought it was bizarre Gorrin didn't feature, I would like to get him and Johnson involved from the start on Saturday. I'd get McHugh in at the back instead of Donnelly who didn't look entirely convincing. I'd also rather revert back to Tait at LWB and Cadden at RWB as ATS doesn't look ready to me.

I'd be gutted if Kipre goes, he has the potential to go to the top level. I honestly think he should be setting his sights higher than Wigan but with the money being banded about down there it is understandable if he wants to move on. The wording in the s*n article concerns me. Sounds more like it is 1m max after add ons. To me, we should be asking for atleast a milion up front with a decent sell on fee. Kipre could move on for big money down the line. Just have a look at Mr Waghorn who is slated to be moving on for 8m pounds this summer. Kind of sums up the money being banded about down there. Cedric has all the attributes to play at the top level, much higher than the EFL. Personally I would be looking for a record fee i.e 1.25m+ plus but I can understand the club taking a bit less. Cedric has been one of my favourites for quite some time and regardless of the $ coming in I will be gutted. Always find it interesting the reaction to players moving on from fans. Personally as a fan a large transfer fee doesn't really mean much to me to compensate a guy like Kipre leaving the club. We won't reinvest it in the team so there isn't much return as a supporter. Aye it's good to balance the books and obviously we have invested interest in that but as a guy going to the football on a Saturday I don't really get any joy from us getting transfer fees in. Hopefully at some point in the near future we will be able to reinvest more of the money from transfer fees into youth, training facilites and transfer wages. Does anyone know what debt we still have to clear to the previous owners? I know there's a fair whack of transfer fees that go towards it but would be hopeful we can clear this off in the next few years with the young talent we have on our books at the moment. Wasn't sure if it is still in the multi millions or not? I can see McHugh stepping in as a starting CB this season but would be nice to use some of the cash to pay a small fee for a boy with potential in a similar mould as Kipre.

Buzzing the real football is back! I tend to take the pre-season games with a pinch of salt. Loads of players still trying to regain fitness and there was a pretty unsettled eleven. To be honest, I don't really share or understand the pessimism expressed by some. Aye, we have injuries but we still have some new options that we didn't have at our disposal at the end of last season. Hibs will be a tough test but there defence looks very shakey at the moment. They've conceded a lot of goals recently. No reason why we can't get a positive result. I hope most of the support will be positive off the back of a successful end to last season and fill our section on Sunday. Really looking forward to a trip through to Edinburgh. In saying that I must admit I'm still not really sure what the preferred eleven is this season. The main quandary for me is where Cadden is going to play and who will be the preferred LWB (if we play a 3 at the back) To me, Cadden isn't suited to a central role and is better as an actual winger. Nonetheless I think we need to find a way to get him in our preferred system. IMO you either play Tait back at LWB and Cadden RWB with someone else central or play Cadden through the middle and Tait reverting to his natural right with Frear on the left. I'm not convinced from what I've seen of ATS that he is ready/fit enough to fill the LWB role. In either case I do think you lose something but I'm pleased that we seem to have at least more variation in options this year. I suppose we will just need to wait and find out in the coming weeks what the preferred system and line up is going to be. On some of the pre season chatter; Interesting comments from Robinson on Frear recently. He has been getting pelters for a bit now, I must admit I was never his biggest fan at times last year but I think he's got the potential to kick on and deserves a bit more patience from the fans. Some of the recent patter on Bigi has been quite funny too, a lot of it tongue in cheek no doubt but some of it sincere. He's become a bit of a myth IMO. Clearly he has quality but I maintain from the games I have seen him the game is too fast for him up here and he does not suit our style of play. I don't think anything will dramtically change in this regard and we would be better served offloading him if we can. On the striker situation, I've been encouraged by Sammon's recent form although I must admit I'm still sceptical on him for the season ahead. What I think he will provide though is a useful option from the bench which we never had last season. I think we are fairly well served in most postions at the moment but I still would like a bit more quality going forward although I don't think we are likely to see. For the season ahead this is my main concern, unless Johnson turns out to be a goalscorer at this le vel I'm not sure the other three will be prolific enough. None of them have records to suggest that they will stump up with anymore than 10 goals a season each. If we could replicate one of the cup runs we had last season and challenge for top 6 I'd be really pleased. I'd also like Robinson to blood more youngsters this season. Hopefully one or more from the likes of Turnbull, Maguire or Scott emerge. One small gripe I had last season was I felt we were paying guys with limited quality who aren't any better than guys from our own youth system. For Sunday I'd go with: Carson Kipré McHugh Hartley Cadden Campbell Rodriguez Rose Tait Main Bowman

Very easy night for the boys. I thought we did decent in the first half and were pretty ruthless in front of goal. To be perfectly honest, Edinburgh were very bad. Even for League 2 level I thought they looked poor and unfit. End of the day though, you only need to look at the St Mirren result to see that it's not always that easy. Main incentive of going last night for me was to see the new boys, only got bits and pieces and I appreciate it's still very early on but initial thoughts: Gillespie - thought he looked assured enough minus the kick out which he appeared to botch? Donnelly - looks like he is rugid enough and his passing was fine apart from a couple of moments Rodriguez - pretty encouraged, looks to be technically gifted and quite slick on the ball like we hoped for. Appears to like a tackle too which i was pleasantly surprised about. Sammon - looked to put himself about without doing loads. Johnson - not really sure what kind of striker he is. Didn't appear to be that pacey, suspect he's more of a poacher but remains to be seen i guess. From the original boys, I thought McHugh shone with his passing, reminiscent of his role in his first season. I think he looks a lot better at the back where he has a bit more time to pick his pass. Problem is there is 3 centre backs who will be ahead of him so I'm not sure where he will slot in. Not entirely sure where Cadden was playing, he seemed to in a middle role but then be all over the park with a more roaming role. Going to be interesting to see where he lines up this season but I'm still not convinced that through the middle is the best place for him. Prefer Cadds as a winger but obviously our system doesn't suit in that regard. We actually seem like we are totallly overloaded with central midfield options with the likes of McHugh, Campbell, Rose, Bigi, Turnbull, Tanner, Cadden, Gorrin and Grimshaw all appearing to be there for the new season. My hope would be that we can move Bigi on and maybe get another attacking wide option with a bit of quality. We seem to be well covered now overall and the squad is in good shape depth wise. Class performance from Frear btw, hoping Robinson can get that out him more often this season. All in all a good confidence boost.

Bit of an anti-climax on the striker front really. Sammon is pretty similar to Bowman and Main. Not seen enough of Johnson to comment on his playing style but seems really samey. I understand that we are going to continue with this playing style and that's fine, it is what it is. Personally I was hoping we might look for someone with a bit of finesse up front this year though to compliment what we already have. Only really seen Sammon a couple of times last year what I noticed is he is very strong and quick. I was surprised to see him on the flank a lot for Partick, always thought he was a target man but that doesn't seem to be his forte. From what I've seen recently his finishing doesn't look to be great. I'm really hopeful Johnson is the man to step up this year as without him chipping in with a lot I think we still might be missing an out and out goalscorer up front. Main did chip in a lot last year and I love the guy so far but I am not sure he is going to be a 20+ goal a season man. Bowman and Sammon will run about but will likely struggle to get many goals between them. Perhaps Sammon is a bit of a bench option. I suspect Johnson/Bowman will be ahead of him in the pecking order.

Really hope it's not Sammon. Far too similar too what we already have. IMO we need a striker with a better technical ability

Dodged a bullet there, Tony Watt is a weapon

Cedric should aim much higher than the lower reaches of the English Championship. With previously being on the books at PSG and Leicester I don't see his head being turned either. Genuinely believe he has the right attributes for an established EPL club or one on the continent, perhaps back home. I think both parties would benefit from another year. This year was Cedric's first professional first team season, think what he can do with another year under his belt. I'd be looking for well north of a million pounds, the attributes he has are the most sought after in the modern game. Put that with his potential and youth pedigree I'd be really disappointed if we don't hold out for a record incoming fee.

I really like the away one, best one in a while. Home is okay but could do without the collar, not too bad

I'd be surprised if we started the season with a different system from one that was so successful last season. When you look at our defensive record it would a bit of a shock to change this unless there was significant outgoings. I think the system plays to our defensive strengths. It has served us very well, I wasn't a fan of it initially but I think it's been proven to work very well. There has been a definite resurgence in the 352 both in the SPFL (and in Europe) the likes of Celtic and St Johnstone used a variation of it for example. With that being said this system is clearly at the detriment to the likes of Cadden and Frear so maybe Robbo will make a decision to try something new to adopt a more expansive style. This though is a bit of a balancing act as reverting to a 4 at the back leaves one of the 3 centre backs out which arguably was where we were most strong last year. Only thing I can think of that would suit the 4 is moving Dunne to left back (which was meant to be his natural position) I personally prefer him left of a 3 however as his pace bailed us out of a lot of sticky situations last year. The only real problem I see in continuining with this system is where Chrissy Cadden plays. IMO he has been pretty pish any time I have seen him through the middle, I don't think it suits him or the team in general. To me, Cadden needs to be a winger in an advanced position running at full backs, not a wing back and not a central attacking midfielder. I think Cadden should always be a nailed on starter so to me the only option is he continues in the RWB position with Tait staying at LWB. I'm not sure ATS is here as a 100% starter but I would have thought the idea was to get Tait on to his natural side. The good thing about this debate is we now appear to have more options in terms of system. Obviously it remains to be seen but it appears on the face of it that we have greater strength and depth. Has anyone heard anything on the Aldred side of things? I know we have 3 solid centre backs but I would be surprised if we haven't atleast tried to recruit him. Was a big fan of him last year.

Yasssss a Spanish star... I have no idea who he is but I'm just excited to see someone with a continental name tbh. Very intriguing

Had hoped this was the year Maclean would start to break through into the first team. I feel like he could have been given a better chance at times but has also been unlucky with injuries. For me, he has shown he has something in the majority of appearances. I would have had him coming off the bench instead of Demi last season. Fingers crossed the boy can do well in the Championship and come back and kick on with us. I hope the other youngers like Turnbull and Maguire will be given a shot to break through this year rather than farming them all out on loan.

He's a left full back and is fairly pacey. He seems to have the attributes required for that position and a decent track record. Do you forsee him playing elsewhere? I thought this was pretty obvious

Pretty impressed by this one, seems to tick the left wing back box pretty well. Done well up here by all accounts and earned himself a couple of moves. Doncaster fans seem to have a negative opinion of him but most other reports seem to be largely positive. As we have seen recently though take all that with a pinch of salt and judge him when he comes. Good to see a Scottish boy signed up too as the balance of Scottish guys was being lost a wee bit too. Personal preference but I like the team to have a good percentage of Scottish guys, especially coming through from the U20s. Pleased with the business we have done early. If we can get the mentioned midfielder in and a striker I would be quite happy.

Class start to the season buzzing. Maybe naive but I would rather exciting games like these than perceived 'easier games'. Hibs away is a belter to start. Not sure what our allocation will be but I reckon we could get close to 2k through for this with it being first game of the season.

Seems like good business to me. The boy has a good record, regardless of what level it has been at. Cardiff obviously spotted similar potential but it didn't work out for whatever reason. I'd be pretty happy if we got a left wing back, a centre mid and another striker in. I think that would be ample if we can keep everyone else (probably unlikely) Just a guess, but I would suggest the signings so far indicate that we are going to improve on what we are good at rather than trying to add more technically inclined players than we had last season. I think a change in style would be unwise but wouldn't mind seeing a few more ball players in the mix.

Interesting signing, didn't think we needed a right side defender. Perhaps Aldred isnt coming back or Hartley's away?