David

As with all games against the old firm, it'll come down to three factors: The opposition being off their game to some degree Us firing on all cylinders A nice dollop of luck If we can get the above then we'll see a result. However, if the first point doesn't work in our favour it won't really matter what we do.

He's got almost 50 first team games under his belt now, played across leagues in Scotland, England and Holland. He's maybe not a veteran, but it's hardly as though he's a teenager coming right out of an academy with single digit first team appearances.

While taking anything at Celtic Park is a nice bonus, we have Ross County away the following Tuesday, followed by Hibs away on the Saturday. Four points from these three games would be a decent return in my opinion.

It's going to be tough. Like it or not, this Celtic team are very good. Possibly the best team they've had in quite some time. What they did in that first half against Real Madrid shows that they're no mugs, and that a team on our level should not be able to lay a glove on them if they're on form and up for it.

Hearing that the reason for games being cancelled down south is due to lack of available police, so that may very well be the case up here as well. Not only will there be more crowds gathered in various parts of the country, but the terrorist threat level is automatically bumped up in these circumstances apparently. I guess that makes more sense than the authorities just cancelling games for no real reason.

To be fair, a night at the opera is probably cheaper than paying to see Ross County play Motherwell!

Confirmed as Hammell's assistant.

Will be interesting to see if we do any better at retaining our young players if they see a clear pathway into the first team. Perhaps that disconnect when Alexander was in charge is what led some of them such as Bailey Rice to move elsewhere? Might as well make a decent wedge while not getting into the first team!

I understand the thinking behind this, but when a club appoints a manager they have to support him. Refusing his requests for players doesn't exactly scream "backing the manager," does it? Basically, the board appointed Alexander so they had to either back him, or move him out. If they started refusing his requests (if they were reasonable, of course) for new players and so on then the position becomes untenable. What's to say Hammell won't be a Howe or Neil type appointment? In fact, Howe's first two games as caretaker manager at Bournemouth were defeats before he got the job full-time, and Neil got the Accies job on an interim basis initially after managing the youth team. I'm not saying he'll be as successful as either of them, but there's shades of Hammell's situation in both.

Forgotten? No. But most people have moved past it. He apologised, promised to do better, and most people have taken those promises at face value. isn't that what we're supposed to do? Otherwise, what's the point in him apologising?

Apparently he believes that he has "never quite won the Linfield supporters over" and that online abuse is affecting his family. Let's hope if he is our number one target that he doesn't call Graham Alexander before making his choice!

You're on top form recently!

It's been a while since we gave someone a right good doing, so why not Aberdeen? 1-3 to the good guys.

I think so as well. It was always a dodgy situation allowing the manager to surround himself entirely with his own backroom team. While it may seem like a good thing at the time to back the manager, it also means if and when he goes they all follow. I'd like whoever comes in to have Hammell installed as the assistant, with Kerr moved up to take on the job Hammell had with the youths.

Because it is possible to not be good enough for a starting spot, but good enough for a place on the bench. It doesn't have to be a game of absolutes. But let's be honest, if he did have a huge falling out, O'Donnell wouldn't even be training with the first team, let alone sitting on the bench. What did Alexander do that wasn't professional? Drop a player from the starting eleven who he didn't deem good enough? A player who, by most fans accounts, simply wasn't performing well enough? A player who himself admitted that Alexander may have been correct? I could understand if Alexander took the same approach as Paul Lambert did with Kayden Jackson and Jon Nolan at Ipswich, banishing them to train with the kids and making vague accusations about the player, but he didn't, did he? Did he disrespect O'Donnell in the media? In press interviews? Did he question O'Donnell's professionalism? I honestly think he just didn't fancy him as a player. He didn't think he was good enough. Which is allowed, by the way. He's the manager, it's his job to make those calls. I don't personally think it was the right call, but that's on Alexander. It wasn't unprofessional though. Why would he? Do you think Alexander removed O'Donnell from the team because of what the fans thought? If he did, then he's got bigger problems than might first be apparent! He dropped O'Donnell because he didn't think he was good enough. That's a managers prerogative. Why was it vindictive? Was he banished from the first team? Made to train with the kids? Embarrassed and called out publicly? I don't think he was. He was, basically, seen as surplus to requirements. It happens. He just wasn't good enough, mate. There's no "patching up" to be done. It was on O'Donnell to up his game and prove to the manager that he was good enough to feature. Which he didn't do, and he knows it going by his admittance that Alexander may have been correct. Maybe he got dropped initially and the head went down? He didn't respond as he should have? Hopefully he learns from it. That squad isn't a shambles. We have some quality in there, it will just take a few key signings in certain areas to make the difference. The recruitment thing is a fine line really. It depends who's available at any given time. It's easy for fans to say "get a striker in" but what if there's no decent strikers available within our budget? What then? Just magic one up out of thin air? Or do what we've seen managers in the past do, and sign any old shite as long as it represents a body in the door? Often times clubs in our position have to play the waiting game and see who becomes available on a free or via loan once the bigger clubs have conducted their business and finalised their squads. That's why there's usually always a rush of signings in the last few weeks. I said before the summer window opened that I'd rather we wait and sign decent quality than waste money on players who aren't going to make the cut just to get bodies in the door and keep the fans happy. If that means we're a bit light and not looking great for the first two or three games in the season then so be it. However, we're now in a position where we still need those quality signings, but don't have a manager to rubber stamp them. So, whatever problems we had a few weeks ago are now exacerbated. Which is why I would have stuck with Alexander until around October or so to see how we got on. Or at least until we identified a decent replacement ahead of time. But the fans wanted him out as "it couldn't possibly be any worse." So, let's see if that's true. There's no real outstanding candidate for the job out there at this stage of the season. There never is. We've gone down the crazy road of parting ways with a manager literally days before the season starts, and we have no one who can rubber stamp signings before the window closes, unless we want to bring a manager in a few weeks from now and hand him a squad that may include brand new signings he doesn't like the look of. Truth is, the club should either have got rid of Alexander in the summer, or waited until October or November. It seemed quite simple really. But they haven't, they dithered about until he eventually came to them obviously looking for the club to either accept his resignation or signal their intent to back him for the next few months at least. Let's hope we don't pay the ultimate price for that.

Compared to clubs who can afford to pay higher wages? You mention Ross County and Livingston, but they're clubs who also offer ordinary wages for the most part I think. Ross County maybe offer a little more, actually. But yeah, the truth is that the majority of our squad are going to be ordinary players. That's our level. What can make a difference is a manager who can take a bunch of ordinary players and make them play well, and it also helps if we can get a youth player through now & then who is of higher quality, or can chance upon a good find in the lower reaches of the English game.

Nah, we do what we need to do to succeed. If we have a chance to take someone like Mackay or McInnes from a team around us, we do it. I'd rather we did that and succeeded, than lose our premiership status but retain our status as a club who don't do shitty things.

On the subject of the next manager, I think we're at a stage where we need to either really go for someone of quality, or look at someone like Hammell who can implement his experience of the youth setup and bring some of those lads through. I'd sound out McInnes and Malky Mackay. Hopefully the club have at least got some sort of read on them, to know if they'd be interested. I know both clubs are similar to ours in many ways, but the potential, recent results and how the club is run here may appeal to them? I'd certainly be making moves to see if they'd at least entertain the idea. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Aye, but surely if there was a system, scout, recruitment specialist or whatever that could sign a lot of players who are better than ordinary but available on our budget they'd be the most sought after individuals in football? We sign ordinary players for the most part, because we offer ordinary wages.

Do you know what the disagreement was about, like? I didn't see it mentioned? There's every chance the disagreement was about O'Donnell not being good enough? Which many of our fans were saying week in and week out on here, on social media, and in the stands. But hey, you can use it as another reason to bash a guy who's no longer even here.

I also watched them regularly, having lived there for a bit. Sure, the situation at Ipswich wasn't great, but his style of football was rank. As you'll no doubt know, the fanbase there is fairly passive, so to see them react to him in the manner they did was a bit of an eye-opener. Basically, Lambert was many of the things our support didn't like about Alexander. Which is why I think he'd be a terrible choice.

Hearing a lot of talk about Lambert being a great choice. Not quite sure what that's based on to be honest. At one point with Ipswich he had won 2 games from 25, and the reaction of the fans when he was sacked was of the type of jubilation that makes Motherwell fans reaction to Alexander going look like nothing. In short, his style was turgid, he was actually arrogant and abrasive with media and even fans, showing indifference to the idea of him being sacked for terrible form. When asked if he fears for his job by a reporter he said: "As I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again, if Marcus (the owner) came to me today or tomorrow and said whatever... nae problem, I can’t do nothing about that, I can’t influence that." Some of our fans believe that Alexander fell out with O'Donnell and lost the dressing room? Lambert absolutely did fall out with Ipswich's players. He was sending guys to train with the under-23's, and when reporters were asking him who he was talking about when he was slagging players off in the media, he responded like... Basically, he would be a terrible choice. A great player, but a manager who's way past his best.

I suppose the same could be said about Alexander. And, sadly, will no doubt be the case with whoever is next to take the reins at the club. Unless they're a former player who the majority of fans like. An example of that would be Paul Lambert. I've seen a number of fans saying they'd take him because he was a good player for us. I follow Ipswich Town, and if our fans think Graham Alexander's football was bad, they better hope Lambert never gets the job. At one point with Ipswich Lambert was sitting on 2 wins from 25 games. Oh, Alexander played a part in things. Where I tend to disagree is this notion in certain areas that Alexander dropped him and didn't bring him back because O'Donnell was reportedly a lone voice standing against the evil, arrogant manager who doesn't know what he's doing. I just think he saw, like the rest of us, the errors he was making quite consistently in games last season and thought that he wasn't good enough. Was he right in that assessment? I don't think so, and I certainly don't think he's worse than Mugabi or any of the other players he tried to shoehorn into that position. But I think it's an honest assessment. And it's not insane to believe that he just didn't rate O'Donnell. If there was animosity between the two of them why would he bother picking him at all? Surely having him on the bench suggests that he thought he was worth having as a backup, even if he didn't rate him as highly as some. Again, I honestly think if Alexander was arrogant and fighting with his own team, dropping people out of spite and so on, he wouldn't have the backing of the captain. Kelly had no reason to come out and say what he did. He didn't have to do it, but he did, which tells you the respect he has for him. I don't believe Kelly would feel that way if Alexander was the type who was ostracising his team-mates. I just think he didn't rate Stephen O'Donnell. Which isn't a crazy notion, as a large chunk of our fanbase don't rate him either. Oh, absolutely. He signed McGinn to replace O'Donnell. Now, here's a question. What if the next manager comes in and thinks McGinn is a better option than O'Donnell as well?

Wonder if Edgar Davids is among them, as usual?

The thing is, if you go back and read the posts from January to March you'll see that I was fully supportive of O'Donnell. I wouldn't have dropped him, but the manager dropped him because he looked to suffer a dip in form, which cannot be argued against. I don't think Mugabi is better than him at right-back, and believe O'Donnell was our best option there last season, but there's a lot of fans who didn't think that. They were screaming for O'Donnell to get punted. The point I'm making is that now, looking back, there's fans changing the narrative retrospectively because they want to shoehorn in the notion that he had a falling out with the manager, and that it's Alexander's fault. When in reality they were glad to see O'Donnell benched. And I'm not saying that there wasn't tension between O'Donnell and Alexander. There should be, considering O'Donnell wants to play and the manager had dropped him. But let's not kid on that O'Donnell was dropped because he challenged Alexander, which is what some folk are saying. He was dropped because he didn't play well last season, which is the reason Alexander brought in McGinn to replace him.