LadywellToi

Which he attained from a 2 month purple patch in the 3rd quarter of the season. I see what you are saying mate but realistically we are the Cup runners up, mostly with an unchanged squad and maintained player budget(not decimated by £1/2 million) as squirrelhumper has pointed out. We've also added Law to even out our wings. We played a team who should still be shouting "haw .... erm .... thingy, easy ball to whitshisname" to each other. Going on my expectations on building on last season, as that is what you'd like to expect year on year without management changes and rebuilding a complete new squad as we've had to do in the recent past, then away games such as this we should be more dominant. Unfortunately it appeared a few players weren't firing on all cylinders.

Do you want us to list all the excuses and reasons you've made while jumping to Humphrey's defence in any of your three guises? To be fair, since McCall came in I've noticed that Humphrey appears to be instructed to stay on the halfway line, receive the ball, take a touch then attempt to take on the covering defender. I don't think at present he's a good enough footballer to do that. He is/was best used staying in his own half (to beat offside), ball over the top and using his pace to chase it down. As for his final ball, the majority of the time he seems to pick a daisy cutter when a floaty cross to the back post is required, a whippy cross to the near post when a cut back to the penalty spot is needed, etc ..... I'm sure his decision making will improve over time.

I'll reiterate what I put in the shoutbox over the course of the game, which I wasn't at but listened to the BBC commentary and watched the live stream. Today we looked flat, it reminded me of the Partick Thistle game that was only resurrected by playing Leeds a few days later where we cranked things up. Kilmarnock should be still trying to find their feet with all the players they brought in and if we have ambitions of improving on our performance last season then an away win at Rugby Park is what we should be looking to achieve. Too often I swore at my laptop seeing yet another squandered ball lost in the middle third of the park, it would have been highlighted more last week (because it was just as prevalent then) if we hadn't gone on to win 3-0. With Murphy looking like a shoe in for moving onto pastures new, the up front options are looking increasingly threadbare. Now in his third season, Humph really has to offer more than his pace. I'd agree with Gaag, McHugh has the demeanour of a 1st division player and Hateley needs to find some of the ability that made him YPotY in 2009-10. Consistency is key if we are going to mount a valid challenge to Celtic this season

Perfect, have +1

I'm with wellfan, torture, but better than nowt, so thanks

The squad will be bolstered within the month when the Premiership teams farm out their starlets, fear not. Think we have enough quality here to do the business.

Goodwillie is a poacher who if you blindfolded him and spun him round would still be facing at the goalmouth (closest player I've seen to him is Ian Wright - Arsenal, not Celtic) Murphy is a more intelligent player who has the ability to be a creator as well as a scorer but won't bag anything like the same number. Goodwillie is worth more, however if that's what he's reportedly going for then Murphy is worth at least £1.4m (and a good choice, cutting about in Glasgow nightclubs and getting noised up by one half of the OF's fans would ultimately be his downfall I reckon). Great bit of business by Thomson back in January to get him to extend, looks like he's peaking just when his club are in dire need of the resale funds to keep them away from the guys with baseball bats.

If we move to a new ground ..... and we find fans as daft as this currant bun: BBC News Story We could get all the POD seats on and they'd pay a mini San Siro themselves.

Me too, too erratic and lack of concentration placed him well down the pecking order in my opinion.

Go with Hammell also, surprised Law didn't play more of a part considering his input since his arrival and while Higdon was hot and cold, you couldn't really fault him in his defensive duties.

The more observant may have noticed the Stuart McCall interview on the fishal site had a MFC TV logo in the background .......

I'm with Dewell, however if he hadn't tripped against Dundee Utd then we wouldn't have ended up cuffing them 3-0 at FP in the best game I can remember in quite a while.

Why has "petrol grey" already been trademarked?

Because there is a shipment of about 2,000 of the other one on its way from the Far East to fill the club shop I'd guess.

Seen the fishal website match reports have had a revamp. Motherwell 1 - 2 Leeds Looks like Flow's stolen Andy_P's MotM thunder, hope it was trademarked.

There is merit to that, the last player we took on load from another SPL club was Callum Elliot (correct me if I'm wrong) and that was a great addition

At last, a pre-season friendly I really enjoyed. On paper it will show a 2-1 loss with them also missing a penalty and a goal chopped off, however what I witnessed was a different game completely. The interplay between the three left sided players was fantastic, just an improvement on from Wednesday. Our goal was well worked and sliced Leeds open. We looked more than a match for them but they are two weeks behind us and I did think they had a bad day at the office. Halsman looked capable when he came on and I was really encouraged by Ross Forbes contribution. Now for the negatives, Higdon was again wanting, Humphrey frustrating at times but great ball for Murphy to slot home. Murphy again went AWOL for 30 minutes in the second half. I doubt Hutchinson will ever have a more error ridden and woeful afternoon in C&A. The only person other than Law who seems to understand that if you are meant to pass the ball slightly ahead of a runner so they don't have to check their run is Forbes. Randolph made one error I think last season, I'm glad this seasons gaff is out the way already. Finally there appeared to be a reluctance from a few to take a snap shot, but rather take a touch and then have their angle closed down .... have a dig boys. Despite the result I think McCall will be happy with today and knows where we need work. I'm certainly encouraged ahead of ICT coming to town next week.

Call me perceptive, but when this thread started the majority of posts erred towards a bottom 6 finish, since the friendlies it's more or less been 4th/5th across the board. Don't know if its because people realise the other teams are in a worse way, a few think Nicky Law is going to be the key to our season or the optimistic posters were all away on holiday 2 weeks ago.

BBC are reporting they are from Largs .....

I agree with that, but someone with his talent and eye for goal and given more of a free role (as opposed to Humphrey for example) to drift inside and support the target man and not cover back to the same degree should be slotting in more than 6 goals from that position. His form did dip in the middle of the season and as I pointed out, didn't benefit from Gow being at the club. I'd like to think that at least 6 SPL goals is a target from Humphrey this year (building on his 3 last year), therefore Jamie's should well exceed that as he offers more.

Thought this was going to be very tasty after 20 minutes. However it kicked into pre-season mode soon enough, however I wasn't there for the spectacle I was there for to support the club captain. Law looks very capable, direct and his interplay with Hammell in particular looks like it will be a joy to watch with plenty of overlaps and cute 1-2's. Opposition defenders will definitely forget which one of the twins they are meant to be marking, here's to a few confusion induced goals from the left wing this year. Higdon was either 1 second too early in his anticipation or 1 too late, I couldn't work out which. Humphrey's final ball again needed some work. Jamie Murphy disappeared from view for an hour in the middle. Umpteen spurned chances that requires that clinical edge in 10 days time. Strong first 11 though. It promised so much, it delivered little, the scoreline flattered them, worrying they could have broke and it would have went down as a draw. Nice touch by Cragain going over to the disabled fans at the end and interacting with everyone there.

He'll have to do better than 1 goal in every 6 SPL games he managed last year. However there shouldn't be an Alan Gow to contend with. He does appear to be flying.

Interesting, what would most think of the claret band moving up to nipple level to take in the badge and the manufacturer?

I still can't believe Falkirk's pricing policy.

There is merit to that John, as you say a club of our size and success would need all seater for what? 5% of our total games. I suppose the SFA/SPL would like it if every Scottish club had all seater as its no doubt something they'd put on their promotional material and reinforces our 5 star status they go on about all the time. Personally I've always thought if we introduced a 3/4 seat like they have in bus shelters such as this: A seat where you effectively lean on it to take the weight off your feet, no moving parts to get broken. The benefits of these for me is they allow a higher density of fans as they would take up less space and come between a full seating position and standing hopefully placating everyone, while maintaining the back of stand to pitch movement of fans to avoid crushing. I think these would work a treat in the East, however you'd keep the standard seats in the Cooper and Main to satisfy their patrons who now prefer a seat.