bobbybingo

We wish. It's hard to imagine any player of the standard required for a decent international side being at Fir Park these days. Any young guy coming through would be off before they got called up and no established international is gonnae come here. The fact a 29 and 30 year old who played for us last season found themselves in that team/squad shows you how far away Scotland are.

As much as it pains me to say it, if we want to even dream about doing anything at international level, there is no way anyone playing for Motherwell should be in the squad, never mind the starting 11. Irony is, O'Donnell played every game, while one of the guys we should be looking to, moved to Celtic and never got a sniff.

The moving of goalposts has a lot to do with us getting there. Apart from the 2 play-off wins on penalties, throughout our Euro qualifying group, the finals and our opening 3 World Cup qualifiers, our wins have come against the teams ranked 97th, 113th, 124th and 210th (the lowest ranked team in world football). I'm not filled with hope when you see how far we are from beating a decent side, something we had to do to have any chance of qualifying in the past.

Tent Alexander-Arnold?

Doesn't sound like someone prone to exaggeration.

And he's already got his own song, if you like Beck.

Rumour we're gonnae sign former Maidstone winger Justin Amaluzor. Baby.

I've yet to hear an ex-pro say anything other than Marshall was too far out, and given what happened, he obviously was. Hendry's goal against the Dutch was from just outside the box, yesterday's shot was much further out and a daft rush of blood to the head. Hindsight is a wonderful thing - a wee bit of foresight would be even better, because a lack of it will cost you just as dearly as a lack of skill at this level.

If he'd scored from there, yeah, we'd have been talking about it for the next 30 years. But he hit the guy in front of him. You just know if someone's gonnae score a goal like that, it'll be against us, partly down to our usual bad luck, partly down to our poor play/decision making.

Hendry taking that shot was naive in the extreme, but just heard the Czech goalscorer saying he'd noticed Marshall doing the same thing in the first half, so he was ready to go for it when the chance came.

So sad, awful to hear he's left a young family behind.

So sorry to hear this. Didn't know Andy, but I always enjoyed reading his views, always sensible, interesting and level headed, someone a lot of us could learn a thing or two from. Condolences to his family and friends.

You just cannae beat those colours. Beautiful.

My pals on Kerrydale Street assure me Turnbull's going nowhere yet.

Sorry to see Kelly miss out. Two current goalkeepers aged 38 and 36, fine, but a 33 year old Rangers reserve is hardly planning for the future.

We'll see with Emmanuel-Thomas. They signed Main. It'll depend who's playing alongside Gallagher, he looks good alongside decent players, but wasn't much kop at holding a wonky defence together. This Jack Gurr they're supposedly after, it's got to be a joke, unless his stats are wrong. But then again, they used their Atlanta connections to bring in Glass, so you never know.

Aberdeen's signings so far: Gallagher and Jay Emmanuel-Thomas. Now they're supposedly looking at bringing over a 25 year old from Atlanta, whose playing statistics are less impressive than Glass' managerial record. Shows you the kinda level we need to deal at, but also, with the right guys looking for players, there's no reason we can't get back up the league next season.

1993/94 for me. Proved their consistency over the course of the season and came bloody close to winning the league, closer than most of us probably remember.

I was tempted to vote for it myself, just to annoy peepul.

I thought that too, but Matt Macey's just signed a new 2 year deal. You'd think Kelly would prefer somewhere he was pretty much guaranteed a game, given his position at QPR.

With everything he's said (and not said), I think it's fair to say Alexander decided his strongest team no longer included Gallagher, and that decision wasn't based on ability.

Alexander said he wanted 2 players for every position. What's the point in chucking Johnston, then hunting for someone else who will still be behind O'Donnell in the queue?

We start next (and every) season in a relegation fight, which continues until we're not, hopefully. That's always the first aim, so I doubt it'll be anything other than scrapping for results type football from the word go. Alexander looks like a manager who's happy to get points any way he can.

I don't expect much, but I wouldn't offer Seedorf terms of surrender.

Aye. Brian McClair: The Second Wave.