Ya Bezzer!

I'm not trembling. Who said I was trembling? Stick to what I said. I said it was the toughest possible tie in the group outside the Rangers match. Stranraer away is a more difficult task than Stranraer at home. Also tell me all about Stranraer? Stranraer went out the League Cup last season to a 2nd half OG away at Easter Road. A narrower defeat than Dundee Utd and Aberdeen took on the same ground in the same competition. They missed out promotion to the Championship narrowly two seasons in a row, they are closer in quality to Morton than they are Annan or East Stirling. It's not even close. Should we beat them home or away - yes, but it's a game that has more potential for an upset because we are playing the next best team in the ground on their own patch. The original reply was what was the best fixtures we could get, well all I'm saying is these weren't - Stranraer at home, Annan and East Stirling and then Rangers at home would have been better fixtures.

Go back, quote the post and then highlight anything you disagree with.

Disagree. The trickiest possible tie that we could have got outside Rangers was Stranraer away. And that's what we got. Meanwhile Rangers play Stranraer at Ibrox, a much easier tie for them. Stranraer have been a decent outfit over the past couple of seasons and will be one of the favourites to go up to the Championship next season. The trip to Stairs Park is the one in the group were you'd think maybe the 'big' team could drop the points. If we lose in the first match we are basically looking for a runners up spot for the rest of the group because it's extremely unlikely Rangers will drop any other points. Even if we beat Rangers we still have the most difficult remaining tie in the group and who knows the draw/penalty kicks scenario might come into play.

"A Celtic source however has told STV that the figure is not accurate and only reflects total staff costs, rather than a figure which reflects solely player wages." To be honest I'm inclined to agree with the Celtic source. I think it's very unlikely that the average Celtic player is earning almost £20,000 a week. Perhaps their top earners like Virgil van Dijk last season or Scott Brown, Commons etc will be around that figure but more likely most first team players will be on significantly less. 40,50, 60% less I'd reckon.

It's highly unlikely anyone is going to give us anything for Ainsworth but if we could move him on I wouldn't be against that. I think we've probably seen the best of him and he just didn't look right all of last season. He did a good job for us, scored a few goals, set up a few as well but we are in a different era now. Dom Thomas also needs to move up a spot in my opinion or we risk wasting a player with potential. He needs more game time than he's been getting.

You think it was a shite competition because Motherwell got knocked out of it every year. Not a shite competition overall - do you honestly think it was a bad thing for Scottish football when Kilmarnock beat Celtic or St. Mirren won 3-2 v Hearts. Or Ross County beating Hibs in the last minute this year? Please spell out what you don't like about a straight knock out cup competition. What's so bad about the actual format? Maybe you'll think differently when if go out the cup on goal difference because we didn't score enough goals against Annan.

Let's be quite honest about this. The question over Moore is this - Is he good enough for Motherwell? Not, will he be sold on. Barring something incredible happening we know he's not. He's got a year to prove he can cut it in the Premiership, anything more would have been a waste of the limited monies we have now, have you not heard about the budget cuts?

Like I said - a carve up. The fact that the fixtures weren't decided before the draw like just about every other group draw tells you everything. Back to the dark, smokey room with the SPFL, sponsors and TV companies to decide who plays who where. The competition has been taken and used to maximize income for clubs over sporting integrity. Ross County, Kilmarnock, St. Mirren, Aberdeen and Hibs had all won it in the last ten years, there was no reason to change it, it was a good competition and probably provincial clubs best chance of winning a major trophy.

Cos its pretty obvious what's happened. Lower league clubs take a guaranteed pay off in the form of group stages while big clubs more or less guarantee progression. It's a carve up, a sort of dishrag Champions League.

It's new it must be good. No. It's plainly drawn out, expensive and shite. Will also reduce the chance of bigger teams being eliminated in the early stages which is a big part of cup football. Annan beat Hamilton last season, do you think they would do it over 4 matches?

Not a fan. The League Cup struggles to get attendances as it is so their solution is more games with less at stake. Just fucking stupid. Cup football should be knock out football. I also assume that these matches won't be on the season ticket and therefore represent more expense for the fans. Cynical money grab rather than progressive reform?

I was a big fan of Jamie Murphy but I think you'd have to say that David Goodwillie came into the Dundee Utd team as a more fully developed player. He made an impact almost straight away while It took Murphy quite a number of seasons to build up his confidence. He was also physically frailer and there was always a degree of confusion as to what his best position was - was he a forward, a winger, a midfielder? He settled into the wing left position but again it took a while for that to happen, there was no such confusion with David Goodwillie. Two more things, David Goodwillie was a full international as a Dundee Utd player, Murphy still doesn't have a cap and that effects your market value, secondly Dundee Utd got a great price for him because there will multiple big money clubs all interested in him and his signature turned into an auction. Again, that didn't happen with Murphy.

Well strictly speaking his great save in the last minute of extra time from Malpas did win us the cup but anyway....

What did I get wrong? Looks OK as far as I can see. Do you mean they aren't in numerical order? Squad numbers are in numerical order as of the first day of the season after which I need to add other players on at the end due to formula issues. EDIT : Oh, I see on the player directory. Must have missed that column was I was putting them in alphabetical order. Fixed it.

It's that time of year. All the results, attendances, scorers, line ups, booking and red cards, referees, weekly league positions, form, player appearances and goals for Motherwell and all the other Premiership and Championship clubs. Also an A-Z player directory for all Premiership and Championship players with date of birth, position, squad numbers, clubs, transfer and loans, season stats and career stats. I also did SPFL League 1 and League 2 this year, I would imagine there would be less interest in those but if anyone wants that workbook just PM me. It's 99.75% done but I just need to check a few things, mainly players with the same surname, playing for the same team. It would be easier if they used squad numbers in the bottom two leagues but they don't. The spreadsheet was made in Excel 2014 xlsx format, not sure how it will appear in xls format or in any other spreadsheet software but I'll stick a xls format link if anyone needs it. xlsx format (Excel 07 - ) http://www.filedropper.com/spfl20152016premchami_3 xls format (Excel 97 - 03) http://www.filedropper.com/spfl20152016premchamii

He was on the verge of the international team, had had a brilliant season and had just helped us win the cup with serious internal injuries. Probably deserved a pay rise. In the more than 30 years I've been going I'd still put him in my Top 3 goalkeepers.

That one really stuck with people didn't it? Maybe you thought it was more disparaging than it was meant to be. I certainly never slated Lee Erwin, I just felt that we couldn't afford to play a front player that didn't score goals in our then predicament. Josh Magennis got 12 goals this season. If Lee Erwin had got 12 goals that season I would have had less to say about it. So, yeah, I'll take it back, if that's what you want. Josh Magennis has more pace, more strength and is better in the air than Erwin. Scores more goals now too.

I'll probably attract naysayers but I think Josh Magennis is a good player and potentially a really good player. The only thing that has let him down is his finishing but his goal tally has been creeping up the last few seasons and he's now into the double figures. Needs to keep working on that to get better but he's got great pace and is a physical specimen and either one of those are enough to cause defenders problems.

Do I have to remind you we lost to mid table Morton? We took it to extra time but if you remember back Morton should have been about 4-0 up at half time. We got our arses well and truly skelped. In fact the only Premiership club this season that wasn't knocked out a cup competition by a Championship club was Ross County.

For those looking for midfield replacements I noticed today that Andrea Mbuyi-Mutombo is out of contract at Inverness.

Rangers record away from Ibrox was pretty poor in the Championship, even though they won it. Their performance against Celtic was massively over-exaggerated, Celtic were very poor and still should have won fairly comfortably. Current Rangers team just isn't that good. Defensively they are an absolute shambles, look at the amount of games they have conceded two or more this season - especially against the better teams. A 36 year old Kenny Miller is probably their best player - speaks volumes I think. The team they put out today would get roasted ever other week in the Premiership. They will have to strength considerably to even challenge Hearts and Aberdeen.

I know. We played Ayr Utd quite a few times around the same time but not since then. The Alloa Athletic match when we lost on penalties and Brian Martin skyed one - 20 years ago!

I tend to use Transfermarkt for current player details, BBC for match reports and line ups and Soccerbase for past results. I think I have Statto.com bookmarked on my old computer but it's mainly the three mentioned that I use. Anything needs checked or confirmed I go to the club websites.

I have my own records back to 2003 and then there is the internet. Took about 15 minutes max. Wait till you see my Excel sheets for Season 2015/16 though - you can copy and paste your comment with some justification then!

It's the close season and there's not much going on so I'll post this. I was reading the Infowire section over at Pie and Bovril and one of the threads piqued my interest - Longest since last meeting between two Scottish clubs. So I decided to research it. If you exclude the 'new' league entrants it's 44 years since we last played Montrose on the 5th February 1972, anyone remember that one!? If you include the new league entrants it's pretty extraordinary - we played Elgin City in the Scottish Cup in 1909 and we've not met since, a mere 107 years. And we have never played Annan Athletic or Edinburgh City in a competitive match. Maybe next season we'll get a cup draw... The full list is below. 15/05/2016 - Celtic 11/05/2016 - Ross County 07/05/2016 - St. Johnstone 30/04/2016 - Aberdeen 23/04/2016 - Hearts 02/04/2016 - Inverness C. Thistle 11/03/2016 - Dundee United 05/03/2016 - Hamilton Academical 27/02/2016 - Partick Thistle 13/02/2016 - Kilmarnock 30/01/2016 - Dundee 22/09/2015 - Greenock Morton 25/08/2015 - East Fife 31/05/2015 - Rangers 16/05/2015 - St. Mirren 08/03/2014 - Hibernian 30/11/2013 - Albion Rovers 25/09/2013 - Livingston 03/03/2012 - Dunfermline Athletic 07/01/2012 - Queen's Park 24/08/2011 - Clyde 05/02/2011 - Stranraer 21/09/2010 - Brechin City 03/04/2010 - Falkirk 29/08/2007 - Raith Rovers 06/01/2007 - Airdrieonians (as Airdrie United) 07/02/2004 - Queen of the South 23/09/2003 - Forfar Athletic 26/02/2000 - Ayr United 19/02/2000 - Arbroath 13/02/1999 - Stirling Albion 27/01/1998 - Dumbarton 13/08/1996 - Alloa Athletic 27/08/1983 - Berwick Rangers 30/01/1982 - East Stirlingshire 28/01/1981 - Stenhousemuir 14/02/1976 - Cowdenbeath 05/02/1972 - Montrose 27/01/1951 - Peterhead 23/01/1909 - Elgin NEVER PLAYED - Annan Athletic NEVER PLAYED - Edinburgh City