MelvinBragg

Without wishing to be controversial (as if?), if people have got such a hard on for us qualifying for Europe through the fair play place surely they should be lobbying for McGhee to drop Maros "Mr Yellow" Klimpl?? Just a thought...

Throwing good money after bad...?

To be honest with you, I don't have much time for the trust. I don't really see the point in it. But for a guy who has so much to say about the trust, your attitude is the one that seems a bit strange...

No question marks at all for me. It was a bad idea at the start of the season when he played Clarkson on the wing and Porter and Sutton up front and it's a bad idea now. Don't get me wrong, DC will run all day and he'll try in any position you play him, but you're taking your main goal threat further back the field and that makes no sense to me. It strikes me as McGoo wanting his best eleven players on the park rather than his best team. We've been in a good run of form with the midfield of O'Brien Klimpl Hughes and Fitzpatrick, so that really can be the only reason for the change...

Some random thoughts on this topic... I've never been much of a singer at the football (cannae hold a tune in a bucket) preferring to save my voice for berating opponents or officials (or occasionally a Motherwell manager). For me, pretty much any noise creates atmosphere (be it a positve or negative atmosphere, well... ). I enjoy listening to the singing but I'm forced to agree with Matt when he states that seats have taken away any real chance of the same type of "choir" forming as was present before. But if these guys want to try, batter in lads. Just try and keep it imaginative and not too embarrassing. Oh and if I read correctly, the EBC lot are mainly 12-15 year olds. Just hope that their voices have broken. It's bad enough listening to Graeme Smith at Fir Park... And a final thought on the subject of a name. Does a group of supporters really need one? If you want to get together with a bunch of other guys and sing, just do it. Don't really need a name to organise yourselves. Much like the choir in the old days, likeminded people will naturally congregate. If you want to go and sing, you'll sit as close to the other singers as possible. By giving yourselves a name (any name), you make yourself a group that people can either choose to join or not join. It just creates divisions. By not making yourselves a group, it means that if someone turns up for a specific game feeling like giving it laldy they can just sit near the singers rather than thinking "That's where the EBC sit, I don't know any of them...". Oh, aye. And it avoids people taking the piss out of the name you choose...

I don't think that McGhee is a bad manager. I just think his flaws get ignored and perhaps that is why I feel I have to shout to get them discussed. I've never known a Motherwell manager to be exempt from scrutiny from so much of the support. Although I would point out that earlier in the season, it wasn't just me who was less than impressed with him...

I would actually say that Kampman was a necessary evil. At the time he took over, we had a seriously ageing squad. Guys like Falconer, Martin and Coyne might well have got another contract under a Scottish manager who was more aware of their record. Given what these guys achieved after they left Motherwell, getting rid of them was a wise move. A move that, had we gone straight from McLeish to Davies, we might not have made. OK, Kampman's signings were not great, but he performed a service...

No shots on goal according to the stats. Oh dear...

"That first game, this is how many guys you played up front"

Like or loathe him, Clarkson has scored a vast percentage of our goals this season (bettered only by someone who is currently on Derby's books) and particularly since Sutton's early season burst dried up. He has his faults but looking at our form when both he and Craigan were out of the side, it tells you all you need to know about his value to the side. At the moment, if he's injured or off form (as he was last night), we're snookered. It also means it's all too easy for opponents to close us down. The way we are set up means that Clarkson is the focal point of our attack. To get the best out of John Sutton we would need to have crosses coming in from both flanks. That would mean 4-4-2. And for all his obvious qualities, Stephen Hughes isn't cut out for playing in the centre of a midfield four in the SPL. He doesn't bring the necessary graft to the table. In the SPL, you need to win the battle before you play football. So do you sacrifice Hughes in order to give Clarkson a partner who might share goalscoring duties? I would but from all his comments, we all know how highly McGhee rates Hughes. I would say he needs to find a way to accomodate Hughes into his team without basing his team around him (the first cup game vs St Mirren as an exampleas how badly that can go wrong), Maybe 3-5-2? Oh, aye, and I tend to agree with those who wish we'd shoot from around the edge of the box now and again...

I bet you thought we'd got rid of that element in our section when the burning white crosses went too...

A couple of things strike me about the whole thing. The media seem more disgusted by the abuse of McCarthy than they ever were over the exact same abuse that McGeady got. Is it because McCarthy plays for the cuddly Accies rather than McGeady who plays for one of the Old Firm and is somehow therefore fair game?? I never booed Brannan, but then again I don't boo McCarthy. I'm not a Scotland supporter and as I've said elsewhere he's more a symptom of a widespread problem in international football of looking for a cap where you can get it. Interestingly, people are talking about stuff you can get away with football that you wouldn't get away with in the 'real world' (when has football ever been the real world). I think it's going the other way. I'm not a racist, but on Saturday at one point someone I was sitting with asked me if Sheridan was Irish or one of these Scots who plays for Ireland. The person said to me "Is Sheridan actually Irish or...?". I replied "or is he a plastic paddy? Nah, I think he's Irish". Now, I got a couple of dodgy looks for that comment. I was not making any anti-Irish comment, as I don't have a problem with them. I made the Plastic Paddy reference in the same way I would refer to Neil Sullivan as a Jockney goalkeeper. I would use these phrases to merely express my opinion of the nonsense of getting caps for other countries. But in a football stadium these days, was my comment enough to get me branded a racist? If so, football has gone mad...

Wrap the guy in cotton wool cos without him this season, where are the goals going to come from? At the centre of everything we do going forward. Is that 239 starts? It is a poor average when you look at it like that, but he had a couple of very poor seasons. At the end of the season, we'll still have a 23 year old striker who has double figures goals wise in three different SPL seasons. Not too shabby...

So because your own country doesn't think you're good enough to play international football, go and play for another country?? Many great players never got capped. What would he have done if Ireland didn't fancy him? Go looking for a granny in San Marino? I don't bother that much with international football but a cap should be an honour you get when you're good enough to play for your country. Not something to go hunting for...

Clarkson - at the centre of everything going forward. God knows what we'll do if he has to miss any games...

And they would be...??

Ah, godammit, Grew. I forgot Bobby Russell. I'd have him instead of Billy Davies...

Dykstra Burley Nijholt Martin McKinnon Lambert O'Donnell Davies Clarkson Coyne McFadden Rather than try and think of the best eleven, I tried to think of players that would play well together. Hence Clarkson instead of Porter. And frankly Arnott wasn't that good...

And that makes you like many professional footballers. And that, I'm sorry to say, saddens me. It's an honour, not a right...

I think you know what I was getting at. Were he the same player he is, but for having 100% Italian heritage. He'd need to settle for not playing international football. And he's a more gifted footballer than McCarthy. Or Ged Brannan. Or Nacho Novo. Or Matt Elliot. Or any number of jokers who have played for (or tried to in Novo's case) countries not their own simply because they weren't good enough for their own country...

Eh, because playing international football is an honour you should have to fight hard for? If you're not good enough to play for the country of your (or your parents) birth, hard lines. Is James McFadden lucky he wasn't born in Italy because he wouldn't get in their team but is a key player because Scotland have fewer players to choose from? Undoubtedly. But that would have been his bad luck. This is why I have very little interest in international football. Sullivan, Elliot, Commons, these guys all devalue the whole thing. Will I boo McCarthy on Saturday? Not unless he does something on the field that merits it. His choice of international team, while it saddens me, it only does so as a symptom of the greater malaise running through international football...

Can only imagine you mean in the second half. First half was horrendous from Hughes...

Careful, that kind of talk would have got you dog's abuse in the East Stand today. Because we've had a good year and a half under McGhee, you're not allowed to suggest he might have got something wrong...

The big man just beat me to it. A couple of miles up the road from FP in Cleland here, and there's a fair old snow blizzard. And two words popped into my head. Pitch inspection. Suppose it depends how long the snow stays on for. Is this to be our snowy cup run...?

Given that it's now 7 o'clock, I'm assuming any attempt at a third signing has fallen by the wayside. S'ppose it must have been the guy Webster...