Ya Bezzer!

Didn't we give pro contracts to some of the U19 players? That could account for some of the cash even if they aren't on huge wages.

Good news about Jennings if it comes about. Less good news that we will only sign two more players. I think we need at least three but that's obviously all we can afford and we'll just have to cope with it.

I think you could say that about the majority of teams in the league.

True. It's a sad day when politicians are criticized for making the right decision but inevitably he'll get pelters over this.

I don't think we've ever sold a really key player for buttons unless his contract was running out. See the Reynolds to Rangers saga for proof, or the fact that we turned down Rangers again when they came in for McDonald. Randolph still has two years on his contract so we have a stronger bargaining position than usual.

I agree with the principle of a second chamber but there is no use in having one if it is filled with nodding dog politicians like the parliament is. That's why I think the House of Lords is a great thing since its filled with highly educated but eccentric chaps who don't give a shit and don't have to cow tow like career politicians cos they are already loaded. Most of them do so in complete anonymity from a sense of tradition and duty rather than personal gain or careerism. Provided they are only ratifying bills I don't see why its important that they are elected and as I said earlier think it is an advantage that, although they often nominally belong to political parties, they aren't any where near as party politicized as members of parliament. As for not wanting independence for Scotland because of knee jerk laws being rushed out that prove to be utter nonsense, well the UK parliament is still miles ahead. The last Labour government introduced 420 laws at Westminster that allowed powers of entry alone, including a law that enables government agencies to check the heights of hedges and confiscate fridges if they do not meet energy rating guidelines.

Scott Brown gave the best performance of any player at Fir Park in the last 15 years when Hibs gubbed us a few years back. He went off the boil when he joined Celtic and hasn't got back to that level yet but I think he is a talented player who, if at the top of his game, should walk into a Celtic team or a Scotland team.

As someone that started supporting Motherwell in the eighties my initial thoughts are always to avoid relegation and I think if the season were to start tomorrow we probably have a squad good enough to do that. I can see three or four teams struggling at the bottom, St. Mirren, Dunfermline, possibly Kilmarnock and I actually have a feeling that McInnes will live to regret not taking the job down in England and that St. Johnstone will go down. Pretty confident Hearts will join the OF as the top three. But it's still too early though to really have a good idea of how the rest of the teams will finish. Teams like Aberdeen, Kilmarnock, Hibs, Dundee Utd are all likely to bring 4 or 5 first team players before the end of the transfer deadline and you'd hope we'd have some to and its hard to predict if Inverness will move forwards or backwards. There really isn't much between them all and keeping hold of a star player or making a couple of astute signings will probably be the difference between Europe and making up the numbers in the bottom six.

I don't know if you are being serious or not but if not singing rape songs at David Goodwillie is the 'price' I have to pay for all the good things the SNP have introduced in the last 4 years I think I can live with it. I do actually have 'theoretical' concerns about this bill but if anyone is to blame then point a finger at the SFA/SPL who buried their head in the sand for long and weary and forced the government into a position where, in order to give the nation any credibility at all, it had to be seen to act, and act quickly and with authority.

I heard a few SPL scouts went along to watch him last season after taking notice of his scoring exploits and without exception their verdict was "this guys is absolutely howlin". He was dreadful at Inverness Caly and didn't look SPL quality then but I've not seen him myself since then. Anyway going by what I heard he won't be playing in the SPL any time soon.

You must know the more press a player gets and the more big clubs he is linked to, the more interest it generates in the player. Of course people in football know Randy exists but this makes him 'hot, someone people are talking about. But maybe you think Motherwell are happy to see Randolph finish his contract and give him a handshake and a wave in May 2013.

Duped? Motherwell FC's overwhelming aim is to sell their players on for money. Since we just got a giant free advert for a player under contract I don't think anyone at Motherwell will be feeling duped. In fact it was probably part of a strategy to get our players noticed and linked to big clubs. Of course fans don't like to see our best players hawked around but that's the financial reality of it.

The last few years I've put up my stat spreadsheets I keep during the season and 30 or so of you downloaded them! So I thought I'd stick up the 2010/11 spreadsheets for any one that wants to them. All the results, scores, half times, weekly league positions, scorers, referees, attendances, match line ups, substitutes, bookings and red cards of every competitive match played by Motherwell and all the other 11 SPL sides. I try to make a little improvement each season or add something in and this time I've put in a player directory of every player who made an appearance for a SPL side so you can easily look anyone up and I've put all the teams into one worksheet instead of having separate files for all the different teams, making it much more compact and manageable to switch between teams. Anyone that wants them you can get them at the links below Excel 2010 version My link (original version) Excel 97 - 2003 version My link (version for users with older version of Excel, may have a few conversion errors but nothing stands out at a glance)

Rangers had four strikers that scored 10+ league goals last season. Miller, Jelavic, Naismith and Lafferty - 59 league goals between them, 71 goals in all competitions. But I guess it's up to you if that's impressive or not!

Lots of good designs in this thread but this is a cracker.

There's two teams in Mechelen. The more famous team, KV Mechelen, play in red and orange stripes the other team play in green.

I thought our wage structure was between 1 and 2K pw. I'd be amazed if we paid anything beyond 2k pw to more than two or three 'star' players. And then not much more.

As I remember Harri Kampman signed Harri Ylonen on a pre-contract but Kampman was out before the transfer went through and it was annulled.

You don't need great technique to play a ball to the side or out wide, you need that technique to play through balls from the middle. We have neither the midfielders or the forwards for that to work. We've not had a problem getting balls out to Murphy or Humphrey, aside from poor delivery, the problem we have is those players often don't have anyone to hit because no one is attacking the box. There is no point in bringing in Hughes who would have no one to use his greatest asset with. We need a different type of player.

Hughes is a luxury player for a team like us. And he's another midfielder that doesn't score goals. What we need is someone, not necessarily with Hughes technique that is going to run up and down the park, get into the box and actually be a threat himself, not someone dinking balls about from midfield. If we had an attacking midfield player making runs from the middle to front there presense alone would open up defences and create chances for strikers to move and get into space or wide players to cut inside. When he's on form, which isn't often enough, Hughes can spot a pass but who is he going to pass it to? Higdon isn't going to run past defenders, Jennings? Lasley? Basically it's going to go to Murphy or Humphrey which completely negates the point of having a player like Hughes. He's not what we need.

Steve Brill sounds good.

Truth is we aren't going to get better strikers than Sutton very often and certainly not on a season by season basis. You get 15 goals out of one striker (Suttons level) and 10 out the other and you are probably going to be in the Top 6 or certainly very close.

Sutton is a better player than Higdon which is why Sutton has gone on to a bigger club and more money and we've got Higdon. Suttons goal scoring record in Scotland is better and more consistant. But all things considered Higdon has the potential to be a good replacement. He's scored a decent amount of goals for teams that have generally struggled and with any luck he'll be playing in a side that won't be fighting relegation and creates more chances. He tends to score in bunches though rather than being a regular goal scorer and I think he needs to kept in shape by the coaching staff but pretty happy at the signing.

Hughes won't come back to well. He was barely interested in us the first time. He's got talent but he is far too frustrating a player. Capable of so much more than he actually gives out. I don't think I could go through it all again with Hughes playing a great pass every couple of weeks and not much else. Jennings isn't on the same planet technically but give me him every time over Hughes.