Jonesy

This time last year we had already drawn with Clyde and were just about to scrape by Stenhousemuir with a scuffed SODs effort from a corner. Had everyone collectively decided that the patience offered to JBA and the team last season was a one off? Rushing out to sign a player every time someone else picked up a knock is what led us to Kettlewell's disaster if a final January window and a squad of about 200. We'll be fine.

You'd have thought but when I went into the ticket office last Friday to buy my season ticket seats the lassie on the desk said they wouldn't be available, sections in both the north and south ends of the POD would still be use of action, so either she could allocate me random seats in another stand or I could wait til after Tuesday's deadline (now Monday) and choose from what opens up in the middle section of the POD.

Parts of the O'Donnell won't be available apparently, while the new seats are still being installed. So I think they've maybe blocked out some areas to relocate people.

Know how when doing his weekly predictions on Football Focus Mark Lawrenson had Liverpool going undefeated for something like 5 years straight? Same, but different.

It's the perfect comparison, is it not? They're both the same age, played together all the way through the age groups and a couple of people involved have actually said Rice was potentially the better player. Then 1 of them decides to stay and get 2 seasons of first team football under his belt and is now a Scotland international playing in Serie A while the other has stagnated with a handful of games to his name, but at least his Da' can tell all his mates his boy plays for the Rangers.

Jens wasn't our preferred choice last summer either so if that is the case this time I wouldn't get too bothered about it.

By drawing his name out from one of the bowls?

Going off the same timescale as appointing both Wimmer and Jens we're looking at the end of this week for an announcement. I think on both occasions securing a work permit took over a week so there's a chance we already have our guy we're just waiting on the paperwork being official.

Assuming New Zealand go out at the group stage I'd guess at last half of that money will be/has already been allocated to cover his own transfer fee.

Should be a good final.

Ange Postecoglu recommended that Stevie Hammell should sign Riku Danzaki for example.

Making money from buying and selling players is worth much more to us than an investment, unless someone is willing to write off tens of millions every year. Hibs have spent £13 million of someone else's money over the last 3 years (on top of having a much bigger budget than us to start with) all to be sitting 6 points behind us currently.

He's got the highest save percentage in the league by the way.

He was dealt with on the pitch - 2nd booking and sent off. The compliance officer doesn't need to get involved.

We've had it for 5 years now, I think it's as good as it's going to get on that front.

He's only been at Rangers for 3 years, so the fee would be almost negligible I'm sure. It would also be dependant on Rangers having offered him an improved deal - even though word is he was denied a loan move last summer because he told them back then he wouldn't sign a new deal. (Although they'll almost certainly have done this anyway purely to protect their interests.) We were linked with him in January.

Wimmer has left Jahn Regensburg to become assistant manager at Holstein Kiel.

4 defeats in the league all season, the first in nearly 3 months and all of a sudden the players are full of themselves or we need X, Y and Z. Sometimes it'll just be an off day or luck won't quite be in your favour. If people can't just accept that without the character assassinations in this season of all seasons then I honestly don't know how you manage to go about your daily life.

Is there a reason she couldn't get to the hospital beyond him having her chained to a radiator? (Allegedly)

I don't think there's any new houses that would be affected by rebuilding either stand?

I'm not dead against it, but as I mentioned in an earlier post getting the location right it key. Get that plot of land behind the college and almost nothing changes. Get stuck lumped bang in the middle of it, near the Sport Centre, or away up the far end behind the BOC road to Cleland and it becomes an issue. In terms of distance covered it wouldn't look like a massive change, that only comes in if you start to look at what else it entails. St Johnstone only moved 1.5km from Muirton Park but I wouldn't have classed McDairmid sitting on its tod stuck by the side of the dual carriageway on the outskirts of Perth as feeling part of the community. It's only now with new build houses and everything else that brings cropping up round about it that the town is starting to catch up to it but that's taken over 30 years. The plans for Ravenscraig have shifted quite a bit since the original idea, understandably, since a fair bit of EU money was expected to help it along. It seems now it's heading towards being a largely industrial complex. There's long been talk of adding 2 train stations (one between Motherwell - Shieldmuir and one between Holytown - Wishaw) which might help and a football stadium appearing might encourage other things to crop up but that took a generation in Perth.

That would be a start but doesn't solve how anyone is getting there when there's no bus and the train stations are at least 30-40 minutes walk away. What about if all these other pubs start closing because they lose out on all the passing trade instead now stuck in the middle of nowhere, half way to Cleland, every other week? There's much more to ripping a club out of its community than just making sure we have a decent pub incorporated and some office blocks to rent 365 days a year.

The only bit of land worth moving to Ravenscraig for is right behind the college, where the new railway bridge is and where Airbles Road is about to be extended through. That way everyone's pre/post match routines pretty much stay the same. You're more or less the same walk from the local pubs to there than you currently are to Fir Park. Anything other than that and you're talking a minimum 20 minute walk from a pub and at least 30 minutes from the train stations (probably minimum 40 minutes), with no transport links cutting through at all currently. I had this conversation with a recently departed Society board member and his answer was "drive or get the bus", but if people are in the habit of walking to Fir Park or getting a pint before/after the game they're not all of a sudden en masse going to start driving every week and the only bus currently is a mini bus to the sport centre once an hour. Unless the club was to provide it for free at the time, but even then... There's also the strong chance of missing out on that ideal bit of land and ending up in Carfin or closer to Cleland rather than Motherwell. Not for me.

Maybe it's just me but last night does nothing to change the enjoyment I've got out of this season. Ultimately it takes more to winning a cup than just being good. You need a fair bit of luck as well which we clearly didn't have last night and we've not had in general for a while when it comes to things like the draw. It seems like for a good few seasons now all we've had, in both cups, is ties against a Premier League team, the recently relegated Premier League team or Morton. No trips to Auchinleck Talbot for us. Everyone needs to settle down a bit. We've had 2.5 bad games all season, it's just unfortunate (as much as it's a bit of a scunner) that 2 of them have been in the cups.