David

Yeah, well, if anyone thinks it's too early for a few fans to discuss how they would have handled the management situation on an internet forum they can easily just move along to another thread, can't they? Or, if they wish to participate they can vote for McCall and post their support for him.

I'm guessing that the departure of Reynolds will see Craigan get even more stick then?

If you were John Boyle, and it was mid December 2010, how would you have handled the Motherwell manager situation? Craig Brown & Archie Knox have just left, and you need to find a replacement. Would you have appointed Stuart McCall? Or went for an interim coach until the end of the season? Or would you have tried to appoint some other (realistic) target? Personally, I can't quite get excited about the appointment of McCall. I feel it would have been better to wait until the summer when a far wider choice of candidate would have been available. I'd have went with a steadying influence in the dressing room until the summer. My number one choice for such a job would have been Tommy McLean. He knows the club, knows Scottish football, and has bags of experience. I think we are making a mistake employing someone who has relatively little experience as a manager at the level of a club like Motherwell. We need an experienced head who can follow in the footsteps of Craig & Archie, getting the best out of the players we have, and managing to spot talent we can bring in on loan or for virtually nothing. I hate to say it, and I've not felt this way since the days of Maurice Malpas, but I just don't see McCall being the man for the job.

Bang on the money. The departure of Brown & Knox has signalled the start of a decline at the club.

This sounds dire. I'm not looking forward to Sunday with much confidence based on what I'm hearing.

So, if the comments were aimed at a Motherwell player instead of the official that makes it okay, aye?

Good post HappySlappy. Anyone who's willing to put a bit of thought into the situation deserves to be heard.

For anyone who may be interested, the mighty 'Well will be on television on the following dates; 30/01 - vs Rangers - BBC Scotland (live) 02/02 - vs Kilmarnock - BBC Alba 19/02 - vs Hamilton - BBC Alba 27/02 - vs Celtic - Sky Sports (live) 19/03 - vs Kilmarnock - ESPN 02/04 - vs Aberdeen - BBC Alba 16/04 - vs St Johnstone - BBC (live) 23/04 - vs Hearts - BBC Alba 30/04 - vs Rangers - ESPN (live) 15/05 - vs Celtic - Sky Sports (live) 21/05 - vs Celtic BBC/Sky (live)

Dunno if it's been mentioned already, but this game is on BBC Alba at half five on Saturday.

Has there ever been a drop in prices for any length of time though? Most of the times I can recall have usually been a one-off deal.

Surely it all has to start somewhere though, right? If we saw prices being lowered there would be increased attendances means more money spent at food kiosks, more shirts being sold, more programmes being punted etc. The more people who attend the games the more attractive sponsorship is going to become, as there will be more sets of eyeballs seeing the product being advertised, which will increase revenue as well. Once this all starts to flow through we'll see better players being bought, and a more exciting product which will lead to better television deals. Sure, we'll never operate on the same scale as the Bundesliga, but we could certainly do worse than implement their blueprint as much as is possible.

If you had paid only £100 or so for your season ticket you wouldn't bother going to the games?

This subject has reared its head every few weeks or so, and whilst i'm 110% behind any & all ideas of getting more punters through the gate at Fir Park, it has to be said that in all the discussions being had about revitalising our game the powers that be have never mentioned pricing, have they?

When you look at some of the players Levein has picked for Scotland I think i'll have to disagree there. He should have been in the squad at least.

Is this Motherwell TV deal going to include showing the 90 minutes of matches the day after the game took place? I hear that Celtic and Rangers have an online system that does the same thing. If so, I'd certainly be up for that.

There'll be other reasons why he would rather sign for Fleetwood than Motherwell I reckon. I hardly think he looked at both clubs and thought "I'll fulfill my ambitions more at Fleetwood".

You have to feel for her, as the last few years can't have been easy at all. I can't imagine what it must be like to lose a child. Rest In Peace & condolences to the O'Donnell family.

The first step I would take if I owned the club would be free entry to every under 16 who wanted to come to the games, with the exception of games against the old firm. If we are going to build a fanbase we need to get them at a young age, and the best way to do that is to make the games easily available to them. I mean, we have enough empty seats most weeks anyway...

The tribal aspect attached to the Old Firm clubs in this country mean it's virtually impossible to draw a comparison with any other footballing nation. Both Celtic & Rangers draw a fair chunk of their support from the north & south of Ireland every week, along with a lesser amount of fans coming up from down south. Add to that the amount of people who travel from all over Scotland to watch both sides, along with the Glasgow based fanbase. The only real exceptions can be found in Edinburgh & Aberdeen, where Hearts, Hibs & Aberdeen can draw a decent home crowd most weeks (recent Aberdeen shenanigans apart). The west of Scotland primarily is always going to be faced with the Old Firm pilgrimage every week. The only way to put a dent in that is to make our football more attractive to the local customer. It just so happens that the local customer in Motherwell is pretty skint. We need to be letting under 16's into the games for nothing, and reducing the cost of matchday tickets, especially games that are televised. We can batter about ideas such as reducing the league, expanding the league etc all we want, but if £20 a ticket is too much for the majority when it's 12 teams, it'll still be too much when it's 10 teams or 18 teams. As the financial situation in the country worsens, we'll see less and less people coming to games.

It's not that big a mystery really. Less people can afford £20 to go to a game these days, not to mention the other costs associated with attending football. Simple as that.

Is Craig Brown being replaced then, aye?

I know it's been discussed before, but wouldn't a deal similar to the one being offered by Clyde be worth looking at for the future? I'm assuming that the money that Clyde have taken off the retail price of these tickets is being recouped through the companies involved? A deal like this would see some local companies and shops getting involved as well, which could only be a good thing. Something like this would certainly be worth looking at I reckon.

If we can't go to places like St Mirren and at least look to come away with a draw then we simply can't consider ourselves top four in the SPL. Those are the kind of places we need to be taking something from if we want to compete with the likes of Hearts, Hibs and United.

Fucking hell, that's optimistic!