bobbybingo

True. Ross County were 9 matches without a win until last night - things change. Did anyone see this horrendous run coming?

Ross County beat St Mirren 1-0. Jordan White.

Looks like Slattery has an outstanding 1 match suspension to serve in the Scottish Cup too.

Yeah, Brighton are smaller than other clubs in their division. They finished 6th last season and sit 8th just now. Sounds familiar. There's always room for improvement - certainly in our summer recruitment - but I suppose it's a bit easier to run successful youth academies and hand pick (and hold onto) players or managers when you have tens or hundreds of millions to throw at it. When you say a lot of youth players have left when they could have been approached about signing a new deal, which ones are you talking about? And did you find an example of a club that's doing these things in Scotland?

It was definitely a question regarding MJC's assessment of Levein.

Surely St Johnstone will dispose of them - I though Craig Levein was a really good manager?

You might want to check that.

Skol don't do crystal balls, but if they did...

He might be moving up a place if Livingston don't start winning sharpish - or, if we don't.....

Why was it of no consequence at all?

Not all of us, happily, even after 2 goes.

He just seemed an unremarkable signing for that money. And you're right, Roddie & Hendry were remarkable signings for all the wrong reasons.

I remember thinking, we're paying 300 odd thousand for a player in the same league, and I don't really know who the guy is - that can't be a good sign.

When you think of the way he burned through the Phil O'Donnell transfer fee, bringing so little value to the club in return, it was criminal. Stevie Kirk, Paul McGrillen plus £150,00 to Falkirk to land Eddie May - ludicrous.

Your example of a smaller club than Motherwell is Brighton, which you acknowledge is a bigger club than us? Ok. You can throw as much context at that as you like, but when they can spend 30 million quid on a single player, it's reasonable to assume he'll be half decent. What relation that has to our signing policy, I don't know. Is there a Scottish club you think is going about things the right way?

No idea what grudges you're referring to. I'm simply pointing out that 30 years ago, our then manager was allowed by our then board to spend 100K on an Aberdeen reserve forward who delivered not one single goal in his time here. He also brought in a very average midfielder from Kilmarnock for 350K that season. Neither of them excuses Kettlewell's summer recruitment, but it does give some perspective on how bafflingly shite signings are nothing new.

Try £100,000 on a guy who scored zero goals in 2 seasons.

I don't disagree, but I've seen much more money spent on players who also contributed hee haw, so it's no different in that respect. What is different now is the overall quality of player coming to Scotland. I doubt anyone thinks the Old Firm have better players today than they did 15 or 20 years ago and it's a similar story everywhere else. This is a league full of average players, at best.

Out of curiosity, which clubs are you talking about?

I'm sure they exist, but I don't personally know anyone who thinks dropping down a division would be beneficial in any way. I share your opinion on what we should be aiming for - and that's what's been delivered over the past 20 years or so. If you think we're pissing money up against a wall to fix mistakes now, you should've witnessed the financial incontinence some of our previous boards and managers suffered from. Tommy McLean built a couple of great sides and brought great players to the club, but god knows how many absolute duds he shelled out on at the same time. It's always been a hit or a miss with signings, but a manager can't get the cheque book out to rectify their mistakes whenever they need to anymore. Almost every player they bring in is either a reject from somewhere else or completely untried at our level, and one bad transfer window could see them sacked long before they have a chance to fix it.

I suspect it's an unfortunate fact. They might have been slightly higher during periods when we were doing well, but not that much higher. If success on the field doesn't attract more punters, what would? I'm no looking for an argument either. We all want our club to achieve as much as it can and I don't think we should accept endless mediocrity. But we have the fan base we have had for a long, long time, which does limit clubs, unless they have a rich benefactor (and we've all see what happens when they lose interest). I'll ask the same question I've asked before on this subject: when you look at the entire history of Motherwell FC, do you believe we are underachieving by staying in the top division for nearly 40 years, finishing in the top 6 reasonably regularly, reaching several cup finals and qualifying for Europe? If you think we should be doing more than that, I'd be interested to hear what that would mean for you.

Has anyone any idea who the right people are or where they can be found? A new CEO would be appointed by the folk who are already there, and you obviously don't trust them with that job. Crowds aren't gonnae go up, so if they want to aim higher with managerial appointments and signings they'll need to find money elsewhere, which surely means finding an individual or group with the capability and desire to fund their ambitions. I don't think that's likely, to put it mildly.

By proactive, I take it you mean appoint the right manager and sign the right players at the first time of asking, not when things have gone wrong? If it is, how do they go about doing that?

What we desperately needs is to score first in a game. Continually having to come from behind when they're on a run like this is just piling more pressure on the whole team, back and front.

Because Barnsley got kicked out the FA Cup for signing an ineffectual player, or something.