Ya Bezzer!

Kilmarnock were league champions in 1964/65 so I would imagine its for the anniversary of that. Eremenko didn't exactly pull up any trees last season. Looked way off fitness wise. Don't think we'd be wanting to get rid of McFadden and then bring someone like Eremenko in.

I don't really watch much football on TV but if there is any kind of football on Radio Scotland I'll stick it on, even if it's Petrofac Cup of whatever it is these days. You can listen to it and do other stuff at the same time which is the beauty of radio. Watching TV is more or less a passive affair. One problem though is a lot of the old guard radio commentators have retired in the last few years (David Begg for instance) and the new guys aren't in the same league.

Well listening to Motherwell games is. I quite like listening to Open All Mics if I'm not actually at a match.

Will we ever get a result at New Douglas Park! Good goal from the Accies lad and a good double save from Ross Stewart. Based purely on those highlights looks like Accies U20's are much better than ours...

Hopefully I'm wrong but I think you'll see soon enough that McFadden's contribution last season was severely underrated.

He doesn't need to go because every team needs a second string. As second string players go you could do worse than Angol. He actually scored a few goals last season and he can give the team a burst of pace and running. Is he anywhere near the finished article? No. But he does offer something off the bench. If you say we have something like a 20 man squad and part of that squad are Gunnar Nielsen Adam Cummins Paul Lawson Bob McHugh Fraser Kerr Are you telling me any of those players offer more coming off the bench? If we are clearing out dead wood there are players that need to go before Angol. As for the lack of signings, world football is a bit like two teams being picked in the playground, when all the good players have been picked and the ones no one wants are left in a little group nervously waiting to be picked that's when we come in. There is still three weeks of transfer window so it might be another three to four weeks before we can bring in someone we are interested in.

There are some terminally gloomy people on here the names of which we all know but generally fans are entitled to be what I would describe as 'concerned' about on and off the field issues. Our financial position should be of grave concern to everyone who wants the club to survive. We are not skint. Skint means having no money. We are hemorrhaging money despite turnover being at record levels. Our on the field problems would be less of a concern if they weren't inextricably linked to the financial position. Saying 'it's all been fine for 25 years' is, in my opinion highly irresponsible. Motherwell have lead a charmed life. We got away with relegations and administration but we aren't going to get away with it the next time. If either of those two things even come into view we are in big trouble. We cannot afford to post more 6 figure losses, we cannot afford to fail in the domestic competitions this season and we cannot afford to have more supporters drift away from the games. Whatever way you look at it this is going to be a very important season for the club that could decide what sort of future Motherwell Football Club has. It's the next 25 years that are important not the 25 years that have past. If fans demand a certain level of performance, then that is because there is actually a bigger picture involved here.

Not looking good injuries and suspension wise. I'd have fancied us to win with a full XI but I'm not sure what kind of side we are going to put out on Saturday.

If you like I could compare him to Willie Kinniburgh, Greg Denholm and Innes Ritchie. He's not even in the top half of that lot and might well be bottom. At least all those guys stayed in the game which remains to be seen when Cummins is released next summer.

Adam Cummins has had first team opportunities that most young players at Motherwell would bite your hand off for. He has 25 starting appearances and a further 8 substitute appearances. Guys like Mark Reynolds and Shaun Hutchinson came in and took their chance and showed they were good enough. Cummins hasn't. Maybe there is another reason but I suspect it's because he's just not very good. It speaks volumes that he went to Dundee on loan and had a couple of substitute appearances. Kyle Benedictus, recognised by most Dundee fans as absolutely rank, played ahead of him as did Declan Gallagher, who was released in the summer. You know what that tells you? He's not even Scottish Championship material. It's harsh but the guy shouldn't be anywhere near our level of football. I'm all for giving young players a chance but he's had his chance.

Can't wait to see a Motherwell back line of Carswell right back, Cummins & McManus centre backs and who the fuck knows at left back.

I think you generally need better defenders to play 3 at that back than 4. If we can't defend with 4 I'd be wary about defending with 3. Back when we played three at the back under McLean we had quality players like Boyd, McCart and Krivokapic that could play between two centre halves. We don't have anyone as good as any of those players now.

It's worrying that Ramsden is again on the injury list. Maybe it's a very minor injury but we cannot go into the season with Ramsden as number 1 and a deputy in Adam Cummins. Ramsden is a severe injury doubt and Adam Cummins will cost us league places just like Stevie Wood did years ago. If bringing in Darren Barr means we have a bit of cover there, I don't see why anyone would kick up a stink. Perhaps Barr could come in and play like Reid did to try and win a contract before the end of the window, especially if the injury list is genuine - Ramsden, Reid, Hammell, Francis-Angol, Kerr etc.

Who's signing was it then? Not like we've got a Director of Football or tyrannical chairman type figure. Lawson doesn't really fit into our system but I don't see who else would have made a player signing other than McCall.

On the Dan Burn topic, I see Fulham have just signed a new centre half. So perhaps he will be going out on loan although whether it will be to us is another question.

Vigurs is our best player in terms of technique and imagination but I don't think he's best served in McCall's very conservative 4-4-2. It's a bit like in chess putting your best piece on the edge of the board. It limits his effectiveness by giving him less room and options. I have nothing against 4-4-2, many tactical analysts think it has had its day and I disagree, but with out current squad I think we should at least be looking to change things around a bit. The formation of the World Cup was a 4-2-3-1. That formation I think would serve the squad we have better with one exception, Sutton's ability to play as a one up front. -------------TWARDZIK------------- REID---RAMSDEN-----McMANUS----HAMMELL -------CARSWELL----LASLEY---------- AINSWORTH-----VIGURS--------(attacking left side player) --------------SUTTON--------------- Lasley can be the runner in midfield, and if the full backs step up Vigurs has a lot of options. Carswell sits in front of the centre backs. I accept that Sutton hasn't done well up front alone but in this system wide players aren't really wingers, you should have one on the opposite side of playing coming in to play off the striker. Ojamaa and Anier would have been ideal. If we can replace Anier with a similar player I think that system could work.

Any decent player that height is going to score goals in this league. I think I'm right in saying Stephen McManus scored 4 goals last season and was one of our top scorers Sutton aside, look how many goals Virgil van Dijk has scored for Celtic. Don't know much about the player but I assume if he's at Fulham he's probably good enough for us.

Dynamo Moscow fucked mine up.

If you want to avoid that risk you put players into the first team as soon as possible. If a kid of 17 or 18 can hack it at the top level the likelyhood is they will do something in the game. By the time a player is 20, 21 he's already lost too much development time. Of course some players develop later but as a general rule if you look at players who have stayed at a higher level, they are guys that played earlier in their careers. We blood players far to late in this country and when they do go in it's 15 minutes as a sub two or three times a season. Maybe I'm wrong but if Divock Origi was a Motherwell player, he wouldn't even have started a game, never mind been to a World Cup and signed to Liverpool for £10million at 18. But what has really disappointed me is that I think we have really missed a great chance to blood youngster. Two seasons ago we had a really good team. That was when we should have given youngster a chance. They could have played along side Ojamaa, Murphy, Law, an on form McFadden, Higdon, Randolph etc. That chance has been lost for ever now. It might be a long time before we have a team that good again. Today if youngster are blooded they are coming into a team that is, lets face it, not on the same level.

I would never have thought that. To me, Tommy McLean was always a wee old man with a tartan showl over his knees that would fly off when he got animated. Now I'm approaching that age!

I think there is still a place for friendly matches under ideal circumstances. First of all it gives fans a chance to come along and see any new signings. Secondly you can watch your own team play against slightly exotic opposition that you wouldn't otherwise see them play. And thirdly even a shit game of football at Fir Park is better than sitting in the house. The problem is thought we don't have any really have any new signings to come and see and the matches are played without any edge whatsoever, something that wasn't always the case. Somewhere along the line it seems that in Scotland anything that wasn't a important competitive game was completely disregarded. You can see it spread out like a cancer in the game....club friendlies, then international friendlies, the league cup matches, now even Scottish Cup, European matches and competitive international football doesn't seem to matter to a lot of people. It's a total lack of professionalism in my opinion and the Scottish game has, surprise, surprise, gone right down a hole, since that sort of attitude started to invade the game. You don't pick and chose what games you perform in. You go out there and give it your best shot every time. I wasn't very good at football, or rather, my coaches didn't think I was as good as I thought I was but you know what if I was playing Fulham or anyone else for that matter in a friendly I'd still want to go out there and get stuck right in. How can you want come off a pitch and think that you made it easy for the opposition, or as I prefer to think of them 'the enemy'.

Do we have a friendly at the weekend or not? If we do, I need to know so I can walk up, buy a programme and then go home again. The game can go hang but my programme collection is a different matter.

Footballers autobiographies are generally anathema to me but I might try and track this down.

Bread on a hook was what that was.

Say we were able to beat a team from Iceland if we had a summer season. What happens two weeks later or a month later when we are drawn against a team from La Liga or the Premiership or Bundesliga or even a bigger team from outside the Big Five. Chances are we are still going to get beat. Would it really be worth changing the entire set up of Scottish football to beat some minnows in the 1st or 2nd Qualifying Round of the Europa League?