tottenmfc

Ye I agree... Vigurs every time.

Here's hoping! Both of the options mentioned at the moment sound dodgy to me and I doubt either party would be willing / able to carry out the sort of overhaul required both on and off the park.

Debatable... the money paid to guys who were clearly not good enough over the last few years could have been spent on a couple of youngsters - guys like McHugh, Daley, Josh Law & Steve Jones. The business model hasn't changed, we just have a manager who has absolutely no interest in buying into it and far too much short-termism on the go throughout the whole club.

Basically all of the above. Football has moved on in 20 or so years and although I could be wrong, I doubt that Tommy McLean has been keeping up with the changes. What the team and club need is fresh ideas not ones from the 1990's.

Glad I'm not the only one thinking this... mental!

Other than dwelling on the ball for the second goal, I actually didn't think Lawson was too bad against Accies and certainly no worse than the others. I would have him in the midfield ahead of any of the rest at the moment and I'm not sure how McCall could be 'fed up' with him considering he's not even given him a proper chance so far.

Haha! I wasn't at Firhill on Saturday thankfully but sods law that he chose that game to get the finger out before I posted about his several honking performances! Hopefully he's getting back towards being the player that left us but one decent game and no goals can't be the sort of form McCall was hoping for from his "exciting" signing.

2-0 Dundee. Clarkson will need to have a serious stinker to look any worse than Ojamaa, who was apparently going to solve all our problems!

Without pointing fingers or blaming anyone, it's clear that we are going through a major 'sticky patch' both on and off the field at the moment. Any sort of leadership on either front would be nice but it doesn't look very likely!

Despite being absolutely scunnered after the Stjarnan debacle to the point that I didn't renew the season ticket it seems I still can't stop going to the games. I've been quite negative recently and I do think the club and even league needs a major overhaul but I actually didn't think we were too bad on Saturday. Certainly no worse than St. Johnstone and the game had 0-0 written all over it until the kick in the baws at the end. I though the keeper and defence done reasonably well, with O'Brien looking like a decent player, Lawson done well considering he can't be match sharp and Sutton was better than he has been. If we get Hammell and Vigurs back and improve a bit it won't be a great season but we'll have enough about us to be clear of the drop. My main gripe yesterday was actually the abuse that was dished out to Law - while I don't think he should be a starter at the moment, guys calling him a w**k etc. following a misplaced pass is a bit ridiculous!

I actually do... it was happening far to often to be anything else. We've seen McCall try to be clever with his tactics on occasion before and it doesn't often end well (Hammell centre mid in the cup final?!). To be fair though, Lasley contributing very little in either an attacking or defensive sense in the middle of the park can't be blamed on tactics... that's simply because he's rank rotten at the moment. But then again, surely a manager should see that and do something about it?

I agree some of the formations straight out of Football Manager can be a bit ridiculous but there's no way that anyone can describe out formation and shape on Saturday as anything other than laughable. A young defender out of position at left back with either no protection or a striker trying to play in front of him. Lasley, Carswell and Law playing in the middle of the park but not getting close to the opposition with Lasley and Law caught ahead of the play most of the time. Sutton being far too isolated when long hopeful balls were punted up to him. The annoying thing is that most of these issues were there at times last season and nothing has been done to rectify them so I don't think McCall can be exempt from criticism - resources are tight but there's enough there to at least get a balanced squad. On a plus note, going along on Saturday has completely justified my decision not to renew my season ticket following the Stjarnan debacle.

Just to confirm, it was the guys from the Motherwell Community Trust who were over in Larne... sadly most of us are a bit old to be described as youth players these days! Good trip though and the hospitality was great with 'Psycho' making sure we were well looked after with tickets for the Larne FC game and transport for a messy night in Belfast on Saturday.

The draw was made before we were out so we would definitely have played Poznan. After that we may not have drawn Inter but there would've been plenty of decent ties in there!

To be fair if I had travelled to Iceland to witness another embarrassing performance following the first leg, no free meal or hospitality would make me feel better! In fact, I'd probably tell the club where to shove it if it was offered!

Inverness showed just how embarrassing it was going to Ibrox in the next round and scudding them 3-0 at a canter.

"Somewhat questionable"?! You really can't be serious with that chat! You can add the Rangers game and the home cup game against 10 man Aberdeen to the list. If you want to look at the league, the 3 pumpings from Dundee United were pretty bad too.

I think the point Al is making is that we have been a winning team for years but some people still point back to the 'dark days' when we were fighting relegation and suggest that we should just accept one high profile embarrassment after another because we're only wee sh**ty Motherwell. Continually accepting failure does nothing to stop it happening again. I appreciate that you are firmly in the 'happy clapper' club but for a professional team to lose over 2 legs to a team as poor as Stjarnan with a decent prize at stake is unacceptable. As with everything, you can make excuses if you try hard enough but I prefer to call a spade a spade and it would be refreshing if McCall and the team adopted that approach too!

I'm not as concerned about what is said as I am about what happens off the back of this shambles. The whole squad needs a serious wake-up call and the manager needs to lead in that respect... unfortunately there is nobody at the club capable / willing to ask serious questions of him. There are very few (if any) players in the squad that are irreplaceable and perhaps some of them need to realise that - as many have said, we have no right to win any game but as supporters we have the right to expect the players and management to give their all and dare I say show some professionalism. On the evidence of the last 2 games and the apparent lack of a proper pre-season, this is clearly not happening at the moment and a serious shake-up is required.

To be fair, some of our fans seemed to be more concerned with dishing out abuse to a player who played with us on loan briefly and was never offered the chance to stay than with the game. If I was in his position I would have did exactly the same. For what it's worth I reckon Higginbotham could definitely improve the squad we have at the moment simply by offering a bit of width and creativity but that's just my opinion.

My thoughts exactly! I know they're in the middle of their season but we have a squad of full-time athletes so over 2 legs if we don't do the business then it will be a complete embarrassment. I appreciate that it's "11 against 11" and I am well aware of what happened against Albion Rovers but we really should be disposing of this mob with a bit to spare. As for their 8-0 aggregate win - that was against another part-time side from Wales who were also still in pre-season so I'm not sure I would read too much into that.

What he said... the Albania chat etc. is tedious in the extreme!

I still don't see what the long term plan is for the Well Society. If they had raised all the required cash today and took control of the club, what happens then? Do we just use the cash to sustain the losses and hope that Rangers and Hearts return to the top league next year and solve all our problems? Do the fans need to keep paying over and above the standard outlays for tickets / merchandise etc. to keep the club going?

Someone somewhere seems to have created the myth that Paddy McCourt is some sort of footballing genius and I have yet to see any evidence that he is even remotely decent. If he was Scottish he'd have been ridiculed and hounded out by the Celtic fans when he was there but since he's Irish apparently he's brilliant!

Seems to basically be saying that our income is falling because we have no league sponsor and are giving cash back to TV companies (which is because they guys in charge of the game are not doing their jobs properly) but rather than deal with that the easiest way out is to look for the same hardcore support to put their hands in their pockets again. The target of the society always seemed high to me based on the size of our support and the current financial climate - I haven't invested myself because I have other things to be doing with the cash rather than essentially making a donation to a football club. I may have also missed something but what happens if we do reach the £1.5m target and the society does take control of the club? If we maintain current budgets we apparently keep losing money and if we have a couple of average seasons the £1.5m won't be long disappearing surely?