Lobey_Dosser

We'd have been set up for years with a game to finally match the scale of Dortmund. Fucking hell.

Glad I was working late tonight or I'd have lost a few quid. Wonder if Poznan will go into hiding....

We've had a cracking summer of sport so it'll take me a bit of time to get back into the swing of watching a depleted premier league. Key to sparking my interest is seeing some quality kids develop at Fir Park and across Scotland. Relative short term success in recent years has done little to sustain the future of the club so a fresh approach would be welcome.

Based on European games, our replacements will need to be superior to those missing.

If St Mirren have adequate replacements for Thompson and MacAusland they should win.

We never quite got to the bottom of the Euan Murray situation. He did play in one of the prep games for Europe.

Key point for me is who is running the club in the absence of a Chief Exec. I gather we will receive an email from Stuart McCall soon enough but it would be nice to hear from the Board to stir morale levels ahead of the new season. The Well Society have done very little to make the £800k target for November. What direction are we heading in on and off the park?

Under 20s season starts at Accies on Tues where you can now play up to 5 overage players. Free entry. Doesn't sound like any of our defenders are going to be fit though.

Listening to McCall post match, I gather we would have signed Mark O'Brien if it wasn't for his ankle injury.

Any time there is a tweet or match report involving Thomas, he's jinking by 2 or 3 players. Hopefully get some post match reaction to explain the missing bodies. Maybe the defence will feature against Accies on Tues.

Should have brought the fullbacks on...

Given we kick off for real a week day, that's quite a jaw dropping lineup. Must have more than our fair share of injuries.

Dempster not responsible for any signings? Faddy? She talked about using her contacts for new players as soon as she arrived at Easter Road. Lawson was brought in when McCall was coming back from holiday to speak to Sheffield United. While Lawson was fit, we showed very little persistence in developing a style of play that would accommodate him.

Never been convinced that Lawson was a McCall signing.

Darren Barr is not what we need next to McManus.

I recall Dan Burn impressing at Old Trafford earlier this year. It was the day Man United recorded 80+ crosses into the box. Can't see his next stop being Motherwell.

Mortgage on Poznan next week.

In my opinion, had we been playing in Poland tonight, there should still be a game in place for Sunday, primarily for the young ones. A game which would have been arranged some time ago - when do Motherwell take European progression for granted? The commonwealth games has been on the horizon for a long time. As I've said previously, games should have been arranged some time ago for the north of England. I don't buy into the number of closed door games being genuine first team friendlies. Clear difference of opinion with regards preparation. Simon Ramsden has said today that it takes 5/10 games to get into your rhythm. We'll see how sharp we look when we open the season with 3 games in 8 days.

Two days notice of a closed door game, a week before the domestic season commences, doesn't strike me as good organisation. Friendlies are routinely announced early pre-season at the latest. Without looking around, I imagine all competing clubs will have had a schedule in place for some time. We've went two weekends without a first team friendly. Lack of friendlies has arguably cost us our place in Europe.

Poorly managed situation, albeit trickier than normal circumstances. Focus now on getting a right good 90 minutes at a decent tempo.

And also, since friendlies are now deemed worthless and uncompetitive, can we look forward to free entry in the future? We should have had trips to the North of England organised a while back to cover each weekend between Fulham and St Mirren.

Rightly or wrongly, McCall is obviously not keen on McFadden. Pearson, I've always rated but not sure he is the type of player you want when the chips are down. As well as filling in the vacant positions in the squad, our signings should be matching at least 1 of 3 criteria: 1. Sell on potential 2. Dynamic and athletic enough to compliment Vigurs and Ainsworth 3. Experience and leadership to bring on the youngsters. Looks like we are going down the route of loaning a couple of young ones from England. Which is fine but short sighted and hopefully not to the detriment of our own youngsters.

Amateurs.

It sounds like a league sponsor will be announced soon so hopefully that provides a wee financial boost we hadn't accounted for.

If the season ticket increase allows us to maintain last years budget as originally planned, then the aim should be top 4. However, I'd much rather focus on developing Thomas, Erwin, Moore and Leitch and notching a few memorable cup victories along the way. I expect Aberdeen to be much closer to Celtic this season and for Dundee to have a bit of an impact under Hartley.