David

You seriously think he was kidding on with his injury? Holy fuck.

How has he "wrecked his Euro chances?"

He was pretending to be injured while he held the club to ransom until they removed the trigger from his contract without telling anyone! Keep up!

That's how it goes though, isn't it? He's gone from the captain and one of our best players to a total fraud who's cheating the club by pretending he's injured and someone who's refused to play another game until we remove a top secret trigger from his deal. All based entirely on media nonsense, which has never been mentioned by the outlet since. Now certain sections of our fanbase are revelling in him not being played for Scotland, totally ignoring the fact that he's not started a game of football since January and probably isn't fit enough anyway. Oh wait, I forgot. He is fit. He's just kidding on that he isn't.

Then why hasn't the Record mentioned that the trigger stipulation has supposedly been quietly removed from his contract? That latest article they haven't even referred to the same thing they made a big deal of claiming would scupper his move to his boyhood club! The Record are at it!

it may be worth noting that the very same publication that made a big song & dance about the extension trigger only last week linked Gallagher with Aberdeen and Hearts and made absolutely zero mention of it in the article. I wonder why that is? Surely an extension trigger being removed from the player they're talking about's contract warrants a mention, no? Or maybe they're quietly forgetting that claim in the first place?

Their journalist was probably given information. By who? Fuck knows. It won't be the first time they've been wrong, and it won't be the last. Could it have come from Gallagher's agent at his request? Possibly. Could it have come from a friend or family member? Maybe. Could it have been information gleaned by the journalist from another source? Potentially. We'll likely never know. My point is that I'm not going to judge the guy on a story from the Daily Record, especially when it comes to claiming that he's a fraud and that he intentionally duped the club about an injury. That's a pretty heavy allegation, and I'm not going to make it. As I said initially, he's a Motherwell player until the end of the season. As long as he plays his part in keeping us up that'll do me. After that? He can do as he wishes.

Nah, by even acknowledging it he's just raising awareness of it and stoking the fires, because as we all know, those who have chosen to believe said story will likely not have their minds changed anyway. Best thing to do is just get the head down, get fit, play football and secure premier league safety for Motherwell. What he decides to do next season is up to him. Because he was linked with Celtic at the time, wasn't he? The fact it was Motherwell was just a side issue.

So, because he didn't make an official announcement on the ins & outs of his employment contract he's at it? Fair enough.

Well, if he's not that good then we'll be well shot of him then, eh? Win/Win all-round.

Like most people outside of a select few at the club and Gallagher's inner circle, I have no idea. And quite honestly, I would rather that if he did have such a clause and it was unsettling him that we negotiated it out of his deal. I have zero interest in keeping a player here who doesn't want to be here, and I certainly don't want our captain thinking about contract clauses when we're fighting to stay up. If he gets to the end of the season and wishes to go, then fair play to him. He's given us some excellent service over the past two years.

Aren't those the very factors that define a team in the league position we're in though? The teams around us all have the same complaints. It's quite simple from what I can see. We go out most summers to try and sign the best players we can get on our extremely limited budget. Some seasons it works wonders and we hit gold with a few, and some seasons it doesn't. This past summer is a season that it hasn't. Although it's easy to look back and claim we knew all along it wasn't going to work when in fact most fans were happy that we were getting our business done early and were fairly optimistic. Alexander is tasked with the exact same job as Robinson, which is to try to sign some players who can do a turn for us and get us into the top six, while also looking for a few that either come from the youth setup or outside the club that we can maybe punt on for a profit down the line. We've had a good few players come through the youth setup the past number of years, but it's only natural that we're not going to churn out a Turnbull, Campbell or James Scott every year. There will be years where none of the youngsters really hit the heights. Alexander is tasked with keeping us up, then in the summer he's tasked with rebuilding the squad as best he can to accomplish a top six finish on an extremely limited budget. Same as Robinson before him, and same as the guy who comes after him.

No. Like most chatter on football forums it's just speculation, and a smattering of people who'll claim they're "in the know" but can't do any better than be cryptic about their sources and suchlike. The usual shite, basically.

This is the kind of game where we all say we'd take a point before a ball is kicked only for us to draw 1-1 but look like the side who could have won the game comfortably.

I'll probably not bother, to be honest.

Source?

But...but....it was in the Daily Record! Don't you know that our football journalists never get this kind of thing wrong?!? I mean, I know the club has claimed he's got an injury, and that he'll be back when he's fit, but we all know the club aren't as trustworthy or knowledgable as our esteemed football media!

What's that? 35 years in the top flight? Well, we've had a good run, eh? Better than most clubs our size.

I'm not really buying the conspiracy nonsense, and actually think that even if the trigger is activated he'll get his move if the club receive a suitable sum in return. We've never been the type who hold players to ransom, and I think we'd be realistic in agreeing a fee with the player and his agent that we'd allow him to leave for. I'd certainly hope the club wouldn't be removing any trigger. He signed that contract, and as such we're entitled to retain his services or make a small profit off his departure.

Play nice, we're all on the same team here.

Anything and everything the agent does is with his clients express permission. If he's being shopped around it's because Gallagher wants to be shopped around.

A few points, which I've bolded above. The finances situation is quite simple. We're not going to be spending any of the money brought in from the deals you mention until we have some sort of idea when we're going to see paying fans coming back through the gates. Right now we're like a family with cash in the bank, but who have had their breadwinners sent home from work on furlough. There's not a hope in hell you dip into those savings unless you really need to. As for the appointment itself, I can't agree with it being something I'd expect from a St Mirren or Ross County. With the exception of Jack Ross and possibly Oran Kearney, St Mirren have been appointing the likes of Jim Goodwin, Alan Stubbs, Alex Rae, and Allan McManus, while Ross County have just appointed the very epitome of a lower league lazy Scottish appointment in Yogi Hughes. Graham Alexander has two promotions under his belt, reached a promotion play-off, and a cup final. In just eight years of management. That's not a bad record at all. He also has a higher win percentage as manager over his career than both Tommy Wright and Stephen Robinson, boasting close to a 50 percent rate at Salford during his nearly two and a half years there. I honestly don't see anything for any fan to be pessimistic about. Is it a definite that it'll work out? Of course not, but that's the same for any managerial appointment. There's no sure things in this game, especially as this level. But his credentials are good, and he seems like he's up for the challenge.

Aye, there's no disagreement there. I do think though that recruitment is mainly carried out by the recruitment team. It's all part of the thing that clubs do in the modern era to ensure that managerial changes don't result in entire squads having to be ripped up and started again. Basically, we have recruitment policies in place, and a recruitment team that carries transfers out. Any new manager will be sounded out about our approach, the kind of players we're signing, the recruitment team itself and so on. And if they don't want to work that way they'll probably not be considered for the job. Of course they'll have a say, but it's not like the olden days where a manager would go to the chairman with names of players he wants and the chairman goes out to sign them.

I think the manager is part of the discussion, but if there is no manager at present I don't think the club will just sit back and do nothing as the window ticks by and potential targets sign elsewhere. Case in point, signing the keeper. There's areas that we need filled, and the recruitment team along with Lasley and Burrows will likely be continuing to carry that out.

The recruitment team led by Martin Foyle will know already who we're signing pretty much. The club won't be sitting on its hands waiting on a new manager to hand Burrows his transfer targets. It doesn't work that way these days.