wellsince75

I'm impressed with our approach to pre-season. Quietly going about our business, giving lots of youngsters game time and working to a plan. Letting players going whilst adding a bit of more quality as we go. Fair play to the mgt team, nice to see them having. a clear plan and knowing what action is required to make said plan work.

good spot - not heard anything but wouldn't be surprised nor saddened if he moved on.

Butcher i suspect is more likely to stay in centre half but it does call out the obvious weaknesses we have in midfield last season it was a problem area for us and current status has only worsened . Suspect some of the key signings will come in midfield We could do with a Campbell and a Turnbull type . One to win the ball and another how can make things happen

re Johnston I don't see an outcome that the club would have won or been able to tie him into a contract. He came through the ranks and got some first team exposure. He went out on loan came back, still wasn't ready . Went out again and came back ready. So with captain hindsight goggles the narrative is the boy needs to sign an extended contract with us or we don't let him go out on loan. Really, why would he do that ? He could still sit tight and leave or asked to be released early. He had very good football people around him who knew exactly how to look after Max J. I struggle to see how we'd have been able to force his hand on this one, particularly without repetitional damage. It's overly easy to criticise the club. When all said and done we've got a pretty decent wedge for a guy who played a dozen games. He may go on to the next big thing , he may not. When all said and done it's another example of us producing a promising youngster, which works nicely for our model long term.

completely with you on this, incredibly frustrating. Can add S'OD, Mugabi, Maguire to that list.

Every club brings in players who don't make it or cut it. That's part and parcel of footy. Our most successful managers over the last 40 years have singed some great players and some they'd rather forget. Mclean must be our most successful gaffer and some of his signings were brutal but equally he brought in Cooper and other gems. The key is moving them on when it doesn't work out, which isn't always that easy in the modern game.

Prob depends where he’s going . If he’s off ski and has another club who pay a similar wage it’s likely we’ll be fine thank goodness we’re getting him moved on at pace . This reminds me of the McLean era when he brought in plenty but wasn’t shy about moving them on when it didn’t work . Quite happy to see the squad fillers get moved on

and we net something like £400k which is reasonable.

Thank god for that. Happy to see him move to our reserves.

Completely , the power of the SPL & Scottish leagues is what I referred to. 5 clubs are ahead of us (Rangers/Celtic/Aberdeen/Hearts/Hibs) and have much bigger fan base, finances. This is why the supercomputer has us in 6th and the those mentioned above us. After that it's much of a muchness albeit we've been in the league for 40+ years. Long gone are the days of hearing we've signed anyone who we can be very excited about. Russell, Cooper, Coyne, Coyle etc .

KVV had scored more than 100 goals before coming to us. He had more pedigree and better ratio than most strikers we've signed. That said Wilkinson has a better goal ratio than any of our current strikers so certainly an improvement.

SK referenced they're working hard. I'm cool with not knowing the discussions until we have signed. Quite a few clubs are pretty quiet at the moment. Sadly we're falling down in the pecking order each and every year, we can't even compete with English D2. Which is a kick in the nuts but that's the reality of having 4-5k home fans and not much else to attract/create revenue. We may need to utilise our youngsters short term in the cup and suspect will have loanees etc once the bigger boys have sorted their squads.

although the squad is lighter than anyone would like it's great that the younger players got brought into the mix. Will be great for their development and may help bleed more of them into the 1st team squad.

Completely with you on this. THere's something a bit odd about modern day football that demands be big, strong and athletic above being a good player. Guys like Obika, Mandron, Main, Shields. All big and strong but will only chip in with goal return of 4-5 goals. Thats simply not enough. For a striker I have one single desire. Score goals. Small, Tall, think, muscular I don't really care but scoring goals and not being a dick are really the only 2 criteria that matter.

completely. Im all for setting a player a deadline and if he doesn't sign we move on. Otherwise players can have all the chips. This may cut off our nose but I'd much prefer to push on. Suspect SK already has, he comes across as pretty black/white on these kinds of topics.

Casey was excellent. Agree that we need to strengthen. Be interesting to see if we sign a wide player or go with wingbacks which we did much of last season. Im hoping that we're more than a 1 trick pony with formation.

Stevie Cowan makes a surprise return from retirement to lead the line for "Well.

Fletcher is a quality player , who’s deservedly earned big money and played for much better clubs than us. getting him when he’s past his best is the the only chance of landing someone of his stature . having experienced pros who know how to play at a higher level - yes please . risks about number of games , all players have risks .

There's a few friends who saw him at after dinner events who all spoke very highly of his storytelling. He also spoke very highly of Motherwell. I thought he and Knox were fabulous for us. a 47% win record over 45 games must be up there with the best 'Well managers. Thoughts are with his friends and family.

Agree with a lot of that Weeyin. Very early doors and still plenty of time to get quality in. Personally I don't rate either of the players we've signed and would have preferred to move on and find new players. Here's hoping we can unearth a few gems.

I'm not challenging , just wasn't aware that he's meant to be a winger. Honestly thought like Shields he'd been played out of position due to formation. If a winger I don't see a way forward. Although hard to make comparisons gut feel is he's marginally better that Obika and Mandron. I was thinking we'd be playing with 1 target with a smaller more mobile striker playing off them. Mandron, Obika sort of fit the bill for that role. But if a winger then can't see him sticking around.

I agree , Efford statistically has scored more goals in his career but wouldn’t pin any hopes on any of the strikers. more likely to get goals from spittal and tierney

Fair to assume KVV hit his purple patch last season but he had score close to 20 goals per person with other clubs. More than some of our strikers have combined over their careers. Efford had scored goals with the Greek club, other than that the data isn't that great for our other strikers. Would personally like to see Efford get a chance at playing through the middle . If we get balls into the box he might grab a few goals.

New home stip looks the business - a modern version of our classic home strip. Nice to see a chain of posts that we're agreeing. Away strip . White one may be too similar to last year but I'd be delighted to see either of these.

Class acts - I miss the days where we landed such quality. Cooper never needed to tackle - the ball was glued to his foot. Bobby Russell was such a quality footballer.