ONeils40yarder

I think he might be actively looking to get a few of the youngsters out the door for a season...particularly in midfield. We now have, McHugh, Rose, Bigirimana, Clay, and Tanner all competing for starting berths in the middle of the park, with Cadden and Frear almost nailed on starters out wide...I'd imagine that the likes of Thomas (what happened to the Southend move?), Campbell, Hastie, McMillan and McLean could be shipped out for at least a while. How much money that saves us each month is anyones guess though.

When our Clubs are getting papped out of Europe regularly by teams that wouldn't qualify for Europe if they played in our league, you've got to come to the conclusion that we are doing something far wrong?? Rangers getting beat by a mid-table team from Luxembourg and St Johnstone getting beat by a team from a small country that doesnt even regard fitba' as its number one sport, is sadly not a new phenomenon, for the past 30 years now, we've been getting humiliated (ourselves included) by teams from right across the continent on an annual basis. The definition of madness, is pretty much, continuing to try the same thing over and over again, yet expect different results. While no one is suggesting that a move to Summer football is the perfect solution, it will cure all our ills or see us progressing in Europe beyond Christmas but its got to be worth a shot. Fitba' is more or less an all year round sport now anyway, the end of the season and the start of the new season, when you count in Internationals and pre-season friendlies is literally 3 weeks or so apart. If we can get any sort of sporting advantage, that sees us go from an absolute laughing stock to something even a wee bit more respectable, by shifting the start of the season by even just 6 weeks or so, we should seriously look at it. Yes, I can understand that there are supporters that this won't suit, between holidays and other interests, but looking at the bigger picture, something has got to change.

I think Bowman will stay, I also think he'll be an asset this season. I felt that he was harshly discounted by our fans last year, he is nowhere near as bad as some made out, and he has somehow managed to get lumped in with Jacob Blyth, in the 'get him to fuck' stakes. He never had a proper run in the team, with Moult and McDonald being guaranteed starters, and often when he did play, he was either crowded out by the other two, or shunted out onto the left handside. I'm not suggesting that he'll be a 20 goals a season man, but I'd imagine that he'll offer more this season than he did last.

Decided pretty late on to head up for this one, and I'm glad I did, otherwise I'd be tanning my wrists if I only had the match reports from here to go on. I've seen us humped by Ayr and Queen of the South in away friendlies in years gone past, and in a match where we played 21 different players, 3 of whom were trialists (Kipre, Tuton and Dembele), 3 were returning from long-term injuries (Tait, McLean and McManus) and 3 were brand new signings(Rose, Tanner and Dunne), I'm certainly not going to get myself too worried about a 2-0 away win at Stirling Albion. Stirling looked sharper in the 1st 20mins or so, and one or two of our players looked to have 'bulked up' a bit over the Summer. The match was played at a pretty pedestrian pace. I see most on here are suggesting Dembele is the better of the two centre-back trialists, but I'm of the opposite opinion. I liked the look of Kipre, and at 20 years old I'd imagine he'll be easier to negotiate with financially, as well as having a potential sell-on value as opposed to the older guy. I also felt that he had the more difficult shift, with Stirling being much busier in the 1st half than the 2nd as they clearly tired, while also being in beside McManus and Tait, who were clearly rusty rather than being in beside Hammell and Heneghan. Tutons goal was very well taken, and he had one or two other decent touches, but I'm not sure that he'd be any improvement on Bowman to be honest. None of our new guys stuck out particularly well, though for me Dunne looked reasonably accomplished. Tanner and Rose had very little involvement. My motm in the 1st half was yoiung McLean, who played in the middle of the park, and always wanted on the ball and rarely wasted it. In the second half, Bowman looked dangerous and was unlucky not to get more goals, while Cadden and McHugh clearly improved the midfield.

Its a modern day fact of football that full-backs are generally better offensively than defensively. You just need to look at Calum Paterson or Andy Robertson to see thats the case, both players that played further up the park in their younger days before thriving at full-back, but both are suspect defensively. Tait is a good full-back for our level, though he maybe needs to rein in the forward runs every now and again as he can leave himself a bit too exposed. Clay is, as others have suggested, playing at a level that is above his abilities. Never seems to be involved much, either defensively or offensively, which is usually a good indicator of a player (particularly a midfielder), who is out his depth. Don't get me wrong, he tries hard and is fairly neat and tidy in possession, but I have the feeling that he won't be involved much at all this season.

Celtic were the worst for it...seen John Collins spend a few minutes actually trying to hit our groundsman with free-kicks while he tended the 6 yard area prior to a game a couple of seasons ago, when he was their assistant manager I'd imagine the warm-up areas will cost very, very little in the grand scheme of things.

CMwellfan in my opinion

Hold on a minute.... ...are people actually suggesting that we shouldnt hold or display an opinion on one of our players, if its an opinion with a negative stance, because that sticks us out as 'trolling' or we might give buying clubs a bit of leverage in negotiations...geez peace. My opinion on our players has heehaw to do with controversy, its based on me having an ability to judge players that I watch week in, week out playing for a Club I've watched for decades. For what its worth, i think Heneghan is being harshly judged on here by some...hes certainly not 'shite', and I'd be more than happy to have him here next season, but wouldnt be upset at him leaving for a decent fee. Cadden for me though, is vastly over-rated and any talk of anything above £500,000 for him is pie in the sky. Also, if we get £1,000,000 for Moult I'll be incredibly happy but I just don't see us getting that. Anyone, remember the Johnson chat prior to him leaving for an 'undisclosed fee'? The thread was full of opinionated people stating the Club should hold out for £2,000,000 for fuck sake.

My feelings on his value are driven by the fact that I don't think he is that good to be honest.

£300k?...I'd be seriously considering that to be honest

If we can get a hold of a player of Kyle Laffertys ability we should grab it with both hands. An International striker, with years worth of experience playing at a good level, including the one we compete at? Yes, his attitude is questionable, however I'd be inclined to suspect that the likes of Robinson and Craigan will know how to handle him, due to already having a relationship with the player. From what I've heard though, he is way out of our price range with both Edinburgh clubs able to offer him much more than we can. I've heard a wee whisper about Shaun Hutchinson as a probable replacement should Big Ben get his move away, but we are planning on holding out for closer to £500k than the £300k reported. Hutchinson struggled with injury last season and with Millwall moving up a division, they're apparently not going to be difficult to deal with.

I'm pretty certain the groundstaff will no more than most of us on here about the upkeep of the pitch, and any reasons for relaying it each season

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_McDonald_(footballer) Still only 37...if its good enough for Old Man Keef

A very, very small one apparently

Wonder if he'll be having a day oot in Alloa anytime soon

Our new keeper can't be held responsible for what his Dad tweets...no matter how unpalatable some of it is. Colin O'Neill is an icon of our Club, and he is off his rocker

where do we find his da' on Twitter?

It'll be along the lines of appearances or starts last season...absolutely mental to think that Lasley could be involved as a player again next season

Trevor Carson AND Russell Griffiths apparently

A quick question for those amongst us with the time and knowledge to stalk other clubs fans forums...is this signing causing any sort of metldown amongst the fans of Plymouth Argyle? That seems as good a way as any to gauge on whether or not we have a player or a dumpling on our hands, particularly in these days of knowing nothing about almost anyone we sign.

Not gutted to see him go, partly because it was pretty obvious and partly because his performance against Killie shouldn't be allowed to cloud our judgement. He has left us with some tremendous memories over the past few years, but he is a player that can only play one way, in one style of football, in one position and when it suited him. Best of luck to him for the rest of his career.

Heard at the weekend that Faddy is almost definitely away and Lasley is in fact going to be the new Assistant Manager.

The original League Cup sections were scrapped in the mid-80s, 30-something years ago. For folk like myself, hurtling towards his 40s its a new and innovative concept and because it didn't work then, doesn't necessarily mean that it won't work now. I quite enjoyed it to be honest, just purely because it was something different and while it doesn't strictly eliminate pish-poor pre-season friendlies, it gives us an earlier taste of a competition that given the weighted format, we really should be doing reasonably well in The Winter break...the criticism of this one pisses me off ever so slightly. Its clearly fuck all to do with the weather, as no one in their right mind would try to pencil in the worst 3 weeks of the upcoming winter in this country, in the early part of June. I suspect, its to give the parks and the players a breather and not much more than that. Is there an ideal time for it? Probably not, but I'm pretty certain if the Clubs no longer wanted it, they wouldn't have it. Changing the number of teams in the league...see my response to the League Cup Sections moan, except its even longer into the past that we have altered it much, yo-yo-ing between 10 and 12 teams in the top flight since the mid 70s, when my da' was still at school. The current set-up suffers from the same teams playing each other too many times, but the alternative is potentially even more tedious than that, with utter dross (worse than the current dross, and possibly even part-time dross at that) playing in meaningless matches, leaving teams such as ourselves nothing to play for season, after season because it would be nigh on impossible to be relegated, or even be involved in a relegation scrap. The naming of the league...yip, I'll give you that cringey at best, and plagiarism of a league setup that we have no chance of competing with. Play-offs, I'm not sure how much I like them...yes, they give a bit more interest in all divisions, but when Hamilton Accies are beating the Championship team, then it tells me all I need to know about the level of teams down there. I'm also not enamoured with how they actually play-off against each other in the Championship 1st...in my opinion if they are going to do it, it should be a straight one-off shoot-out at a neutral venue and really make a fuss of it.

Aye...to be fair, I did forget that we received some form of payment for Pearsons jaunt to India, and on the face of it thats fair enough. What we don't know is if the Aussies didn't offer us a payment for Skippy, what made them think we would be easy to deal with? Also, the Pearo thing almost backfired spectacularly given that we really have went a huge part of the season without a stable, Premier League level central midfield. In hindsight, I'm not sure it was the smartest thing to do at the time.

He was far from shite, and we are certainly going to miss him but I felt that towards the end of the season he was looking really weary, possibly down to his age, or the position we were asking him to play or just because he was actually in a cream puff...regardless of that, he was one of our most important players over the past few years and we'll struggle to replace his will-to-win and experience for next season. On his actual comments, sometimes things are best unsaid. Whats 4 months in the grand scheme of things...heehaw. Motherwell were well within their rights to put the blockers on a move for one of their most influential and effective players when there clearly was no benefit to the Club. Skippy should have had the professionalism to understand that, without getting stroppy. To be fair to him, hes possibly seen the preferential treatment that Pearson has been afforded, and maybe wanted something similar. Hopefully the days of the 'old boys network' are drawing to a close.