David

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!

That's more down to how they're being run behind the scenes. All of those clubs I mentioned have much bigger budgets than we do for players, and they have more money to spend. I know no one wants to hear the old "punching above our weight" line, but the reason why it gets bandied about so often is because there's something to it. With our budget, support and overall finances we should be competing for the top six every season at best. A fourth place finish should be considered an accomplishment, never mind finishing 3rd and 2nd.

How long do I want to live off finishing second for? At least until the season immediately after starts.

Finishing second when you're competing with teams like Hearts, Hibs, Dundee United & Aberdeen is always a great achievement.

Finishing second means nothing to you, no?

Yeah, but much like our players who are often described as not having the full package, if McCall managed to get us to 2nd and 3rd in the table ahead of bigger spending clubs as well as doing relatively well in the cups and in Europe I doubt he'd be with us, would he?

I just think it's maybe a better idea to judge our performances once we've got a few more competitive games under our belt. If these issues are still prevalent at that point then I'll start to worry.

As I said, you can't replicate competitive games with friendlies. That mob had a decent number of domestic games under their belt, they were doing well in those games, plus we lost three fucking penalties in two games! It's happened to better Scottish clubs than us (including celtic) in the past.

Away you go! A change of gaffer?!? If it wasn't for that gaffer there's a good chance we wouldn't even have had a crack at Europe! We'll do what we always do, we'll get back down to business and get ready for the domestic season starting.

As soon as last nights game finished I made sure not to log in on this forum as I knew the kind of reaction I'd see. Just read through most of it with my morning coffee, and fucking hell, it's even worse than I thought. I've seen the manager who has taken us to 2nd in the league twice and 3rd once in the complete seasons he's had with us called "a poor manager", and our side described as "small-time with a losers mentality". Sorry, but that's absolute fucking nonsense. Aye, we got caught with our pants down in Europe this season. We dropped two penalties at home, and another away. At least one of them was dubious to say the least in my opinion. We were beaten in extra-time by a side who are more match fit than we are. We can talk about friendly matches all we want, but there's no substitute for competitive games, which Stjarnan had more of than us. That's not an excuse, by the way, it's just a fact. If we played this mob six or seven games into our domestic season I doubt the results would be the same. It's certainly not a tie that I'll remember fondly, but at the same time it's not the end of the fucking world. Get a fucking grip man! We've got a new season to look forward to! I seriously don't even want to think what the reaction would be like if we finish 5th or 6th this season coming. If the guy who led us to 2nd and 3rd in recent times is a "poor manager" and such accomplishments are examples of a team with a "losers mentality" what will people think if we're eventually overtaken by the likes of Aberdeen & Dundee United (two clubs with more resources than us). I also notice that we're seeing players contracts questioned. The same players who everyone was anxious to see re-signed in the summer! Both McManus and Lasley signing on again with us was met with widespread approval, yet now we're questioning those decisions despite us not even having played a single league game? Seriously?

Unfortunately I doubt that Ojamaa would even be in the conversation (assuming he is at the moment, of course) if we'd given Faddy a new contract. I know who I'd rather have if it were a choice between both of them.

Yeah, they'd be better off telling current subscribers. Cheers for the info.

Maybe, but surely then they would still have the content on the actual MFCTV platform, but just offer it for free during the close season? I don't know, it just doesn't make any sense.

Who's in charge of the clubs Youtube channel? There's been around 13 new videos uploaded onto that, Portugal trip, interviews with McCall, new stadium sign going up etc. In fact, McCall's pre-game interview, and a pre-game interview with Ramsden have been added to Youtube today. I'm not complaining that the videos are available free, but it's a bit of a kick in the baws for those who are paying for the subscription, is it not?