David

Del Piero still hasn't got a club. And I hear Zanetti is thinking of coming out of retirement for one last season...

Not at all, I'd love to see us win a cup, just not at the possible expense of us losing our top flight status. If we finished 5th or 6th and won a cup I'd be happy enough with that.

The chance that we could be relegated (which could pose some serious financial problems for us down the line) as long as we win a cup? Nah, not for me.

My expectations rarely change. Top six finish and hopefully we get somewhere in a cup.

You know how I roll! But yeah, I imagine the players have been told in no uncertain terms that they weren't good enough, and I'm fairly sure that the management team will be looking at all available options for the coming season as well. We'll just have to wait & see.

You think that would be the case? I don't. If there has been something planned it'll go ahead and will be announced as planned in my opinion.

It's not quite the same to be honest. It's more akin to paying money to watch a movie at the cinema. If the movie turns out to be shite, do you complain to the cinema? Or do you go after the actors and director? Or do you just put it down to a bad experience and hope that next time you visit the movie will be better? What "the client" does have the option of doing is not spending more of their money with the club.

I think that's a risky way to go about things.

Under McCall's "watch" over three seasons we've finished 2nd twice, and 3rd once in the league, we've reached the league cup quarter-final, and the Scottish cup quarter-final as well. We've saw one of our players crowned players player of the year, finish top scorer in the league, and our manager has won a manager of the year award. On top of that we've played in Europe every complete season McCall has been in charge. All of that pretty much overshadows three bad cup results in my book. Is he perfect? No. if he was he most likely wouldn't be with us. I may be a bit mental, but i've got faith in him that he can lead us to another stellar season.

And you've missed my point. I'm simply saying that no football club worth its salt will plan their finances on the basis that they will reach a certain level of European football, especially when that club is operating with the playing staff we have, who notoriously blow hot & cold. If our directors went into this tie thinking "aye, we'll get through no bother. How much are we making in the next round? stick that on the accounts already" then they're fucking mental.

Of course we're forgetting it. That's how this forum works, remember? We've went from the high of beating Aberdeen and finishing 2nd to the team suddenly having a losers mentality, a yellow streak, and a manager who is poor.

How did we do against Inverness that season? Oh aye, that's right, we thumped them 4-1, 5-1 & 3-0 that season. The whole "well, look what so & so did to them after they beat us" chat is ridiculous.

Aye, the Rovers game was a disaster, I'll give you that! The Rangers game I've already discussed, and the Aberdeen game was unfortunate, but again, it happens. We were playing a team who have been pretty even with us over recent seasons. Shit happens. It wasn't good, it felt shit but you move on. That's the way cup games go, right? As for the league games, I'm more than happy with how things have turned out in that respect. Would you trade those United results for their league position?

You think so? Losing away to what is still the 2nd biggest club in Scottish football? A club that had spent more on David Templeton than we've spent on our collective transfer fees in years? A club that was still signing players we could never afford to contracts that we could only dream of offering? A club that could most likely sign away our best players without much trouble? Aye, that's embarrassing right enough. I'm just a guy who's been around long enough to know what being embarrassed as a Motherwell fan actually feels like, and knows when he sees a Motherwell team that is small-time with a losers mentality being managed by a "poor manager"! For the record, this current team is far from embarrassing, doesn't have a losers mentality, and isn't being led by a poor manager. We slipped up over two games against a lesser side, that's true. There were mitigating circumstances such as fitness and odd penalty decisions, but as McCall said, it's a game we should have won. We didn't though, and now it's onwards to the league campaign.

Can you point out where these "high profile embarrassments" are? In cup play I can see our losses to Stjarnan and Albion Rovers as somewhat questionable. Probably the Rovers result more than the Stjarnan result to be honest. Who else have we lost to that could be considered "embarrassing"? And away you go with the "happy clapper" shite.

When it comes to the cups under McCall we've lost 2-1 to Aberdeen in the quarter-finals, 2-1 to Aberdeen in a replay in the 4th round, and the game against Albion Rovers when it comes to the Scottish cup. The league cup has seen us lose to Hibs in the 3rd round on penalties, 2-0 to Rangers in the third round, and 2-0 to Aberdeen in the quarter finals. Looking at our European record under McCall, we've lost ties to Panathinaikos, Levante, Krasnodar and Stjarnan. I see two glaring results there. Stjarnan and Rovers. The other domestic cup games, whilst definitely winnable, aren't a complete shambles by any account. The European games? I didn't expect us to beat any of those other sides who played us.

Quick question, have we seen other Scottish clubs caught cold coming into European football before the season starts proper? I think we have. That doesn't excuse the performance, but it does play a part. You can play as many friendlies and bounce games as you want, but when you're playing against a side who are flying domestically and who already have something like ten games under their belt it's going to be a factor. That's not the entire reason why we lost, of course, but it no doubt plays a part. I have no doubt that McCall will have told the players exactly what he thought of them after the game. Most of them probably already knew that they'd let themselves, the club and the support down badly. Just because he isn't throwing the players to the wolves in the media doesn't mean he's not having words in private. As I've said before, if we're still performing below par 8-10 games into the league campaign then we can start worrying. An example of an attitude? Judging by how we've done overall in recent years I don't think there's much wrong with our attitude to be honest. Aye, we lose the odd game here & there and there's definitely something to be looked into in that respect, but i'm not buying this idea that there's some sort of attitude problem running through the club. We've been a winning club the past few years, so despite the tendency for some of our fans to lose the place after one or two losses I'm not going to be pressing the emergency button before the league even starts.

That's just good business in my book. I'm thinking they've probably budgeted before we knew who we were playing in the qualifiers, so any money earned in Europe would have been a bonus.

20 minutes worth of highlights are up on the Youtube page for those who may be interested...

Aye, that's exactly what I'm telling you. There's no chance the club "banked" on us winning. They may have thought about what they could do with the extra money if we did win, but there's no way they banked on a win. Plans will have been made under the assumption that the winners purse wouldn't be arriving. I think that's pretty much how every club goes about their business.

why? What do you want them to say? That they're sorry and that McCall will come round the house of each person who attended the home leg to personally apologise? That the whole team is pish and the fans should come down to Fir park with their plane & hotel tickets for a refund? They lost a game of football. It happens. I don't understand what you're wanting? They've said it was a gutting result, but that it's onwards & upwards. What else can they say?

Aye, but there's being ambitious and then there's being plain stupid when the team slips up. There's a difference. I don't think there's anyone on this forum who doesn't think we should have won that tie, but all that some of us are saying is that not winning it isn't a reason to completely dismiss the accomplishments of the team over recent seasons, call the players losers and want the manager sacked.

I seriously doubt that the club would have been banking on any extra European money to make signings, they would likely have considered any extra cash as a bonus, so it's onwards as planned I'd guess.

So finishing second isn't a great achievement? And having read what McCall said, he's absolutely correct.

Hold on, we have someone actually talking sense here! I thought it would be a few more days before I saw that!