weeyin

Klimpl 'could' make these passes? So why doesn't he? Has McGhee told him not to? If we lose Hughes, we have two options. We can try and find another playmaker and look to find the form and style from last season, or we can sign couple of runners and start playing like the St. Mirrens of the league. I really don't want to see a midfield full of 'hard-working' or 'honest' players with a 'good engine' and all the other footballing cliches. I'd like to see the team keep trying to play some football.

We need at least one creative midfielder. We already struggled thanks to losing Rosco's creative spark. If we lose Hughes as well, we are running out of options in the "put the foot on the ball" department. If he does go - I'd rather we replaced him with a footballer, not a clogger.

Are you laying odds on that?

Being over forty doesn't mean you're not hip to what the kids on the street are getting down to, man. I'm 44 and I don't agree with most of Kmac or Grew's comments either. Groovy

The OF should set up their own 2-team league. They can play each other 10 times at home, and 10 times away (half of which can be played in Ireland to help cut down on the fans' traveling expenses). OF supporters can subscribe to their own pay-per-view service (Sectanta?) to watch every game. They can have their own cup competition - the winner of which gets automatically put out of Europe. Then they can see how well they manage without the support of other clubs.

While we might lose a place or two, the OF wouldn't be taking the top 2 places every season, so I think we would be pretty close to the situation we are in now (except we would actually have a shot at a Champions League place once in a while).

I don't quite follow that

Why? Every country is entitled to a champions league place and if the OF moved out, we would have much more chance of taking it.

Ireland has to compete with Gaelic Football and Hurling, though, (not to mention rugby) which historically are much more popular sports.

Almost. Ipswich beat Inter at Portman Road, but that was after they qualified from their EPL position. It was the following season they qualified through the Fair Play when they went out in the first round proper.

And others have every right to reply to their rants. What's your point, caller?

So we can count on you not posting about them?

I thought I'd heard a whisper about that, but will he pass the whistle test?

Maybe they didn't want you back.

Two legs = 1 European game in my old fashioned way of thinking, but I take your point.

I don't know why one game in Europe would be such a big attraction.

As good as that team was, it never managed a 3rd or 2nd place finish in the league, a cup (or even a cup final) or European football. However, as others have pointed out, McGhee never made these claims, so people are reacting to something that wasn't said.

While I'm sure the fans had a great time in Nancy, I actually thought the team performance was pretty poor (including zero shots on goal). I think this was the first of the various times McGhee chose a formation that just didn't suit the players. I'm disappointed that we didn't make the top 6 this year, but given the position we were in earlier, it was a decent achievement to still be in the mix until the last game before the split.

He talked a good game last season too when we finished 3rd. Were you complaining then?

Is not only the number 2 because he was dropped when he signed his pre-contract?

I would. If I could. But I can't. So I won't.

Someone should confiscate your copy of Football Manager.

I was thinking about that this afternoon. If the figures quoted are accurate i.e 400k fee for Porter and top 6 is worth 300k, then from a business perspective selling was the right option.

I doubt you could name 2 posters to this site that claim he is the font of all football knowledge. It's pretty funny, however, to see people saying he should resign. Talk about short memories. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there are occasional years when Motherwell don't qualify for Europe and even a few where we don't finish top 6. At least we had a shot this year. The only thing that surprised me is that I expected us to lose out when Hibs beat Rangers rather than today

That's just pedantic. If we had scored 2 goals we wouldn't have been losing at that stage either. Unfortunately the number of draws we had during our unbeaten run came back to bite us, and the reason for most of those draws has been our inability to finish teams off by scoring goals. It's obvious of course, but instead of drawing, say, 4 of those games, we had won 2 and lost 2, then we would already have been guaranteed top 6. However, we drew far too many that we should have killed off. Today is just another example of that inability. It's easy to blame the defence (and I do it myself), but the strikers need to do their part too. That's why it's a team game.