steelboy

hughes (as well as clarkson) put in a superhuman effort in the home game against hibs in march 08 that effectively saved our season. and while phil did always did a good job for the team i think you'd struggle to point out any games where he was outstanding. he was also chasing shadows in the late parts of many games as he didn't have the fitness levels.

i will not be impressed if that's the line up.

lasley created the one decent chance we made last week. his leadership qualities also can't be undervalued especially now quinn is gone. i'm obviously a big fan of lasley but he was almost unaminously thought to be our best player last through the first 11 games last season (when we were 3rd) then he went downhill a bit after getting shunted to rightback for a spell. i hope he'll be around to play a big part this season as i think he can contribute on the park and help maintain the ethos we've built over the past 7 years or so.

or perhaps sign both? that's all i'm saying. i'm not critiscing gannon at all i just think the squad is still a long way to go from being of the required standard but i'm sure gannon feels the same way and he's got til the end of august to bring players in. i'm afraid i just can't put blind faith in a manager we know very little about. we had a dice with oblivion under malpas so for me the jury's out til i see what he puts on the park come the start of the season.

i didn't agree anything . simo was one of my favourite players but he's completely different to hughes. the reason he's been mentioned alongside the likes of gary mac, bobby russell, lambert and phil is because they are all ball players. when simo arrived he couldn't trap a bag of cement and although he improved himself hugely through hardwork (which deserves huge credit) he wasn't a natural footballer by any means.

aye imo sutton, fitzy and mcgarry aren't good enough to be first XI players which leaves all our experience in defence.

i compared hughes to the best motherwell midfielders i've seen. i was at fir park when bobby russell was playing but i was more interested in jumping about the rocks behind the porthole windows than assesing midfielders. but if we're going back so far to find guys who were better (and they are legends) i don't think we can complain too much about his contribution. and whoever said valakari was a better player is mental. the part timer bit was a wee joke about your fishing trip winding up folk about not going to albania.

and i'm sure bobby ferrier shat on the two of them. unfortunately we all cannae be as old you, am i a part timer cause i wasn't born til 1983?

hughes was probably the most important cog in the free flowing fitba machine we had under mcghee. two of my favourite ever memories as a motherwell will always be the two nights we walked out of easter road after completely destroying hibs. you cannae beat an away win and for us when we get one it's usually through sheer effort and a little bit of luck. those two nights at easter road we walked out with our heads held high becasue we had played hibs off the park and actually looked like a proper football team that people would want to watch on tv and talk about down the pub (unfortunately no one ever saw those games) rather than just scrappy wee motherwell. he along with mccormack allowed that to happen and for me posters talking hughes down now (the same as they did about rossco) devalues those moments and the other great performances we've witnessed over the past two years.

aye but when united signed gomis they had a strong squad and even then he took a while to settle in and develop. they weren't depending on an unknown player to be the core of their squad. that's the difference, i'd have been well chuffed with these signings last summer and i think there's a good chance they'll work out well but i don't think we can afford to gamble our future on a lot of these type of signings working out. and i'd be genuinely interested to see any links to back up those claims.

in terms of our club he's a class act. apart from first spell phil and paul lambert he's probably the best midfielder i've ever seen in a motherwell shirt. name one other midfielder we've had since then who has put in ten performances like that? the guy had poor games but it's sad that some people seem to be happy that the one midfielder who could occasionaly reach for the stars has left while the likes of mcgarry and fitzpatrick remain. there's a bit of what did the romans ever do for us here. apart from helping us to finish third, to play some of the best football we've ever seen and to almost pull off a miracle of getting to the top six last season, what did stephen hughes ever do for us? i think some people have forgotten how rank we were in the 16 months before mcghee arrived and could be in for a suprise if we sink to killie/st mirren levels of performance this season.

aye people are moaning because we're signing players from the arse end of league one and league two. players who most people haven't seen and that stats and reviews don't suggest were particular standouts. i'll say it again, we lost seven experienced players, it would be madness not to try and bring in a few similar guys to replace them. and it's not up to people on here to come up with targets either. it's not like i've got a scouting system or a load of agents in my phone book who i can put the word out to about what we need. that's how gannon (and his staff) earn their money.

disagree. i think the city clubs and us would have been about championship level last year. there are different levels of league one clubs though. getting 7 grand a week to play in front of 20,000 crowds is always a good move from motherwell. if he'd went to hartlepool or walsall it would have been a step down.

go back to the performances i singled out, he dominated those games. if you can't accept that you're just being contrary for the sake of it.

any player that has player 60 odd games for rangers and 100 for leicester is likely to do us a turn. and you've proved my point about lappin, he had done it at our level and got a good move, we knew he would be a good spl player. talking about league one as a single entity is a bit daft as well, there are 24 teams in the league and there's a huge difference between the teams at the top than the bottom. i'm not saying that these signings won't work out well, i really hope they do. i'm just saying we'll be taking a big risk if we go into the season with the players we currently have and a few more along the lines of coke who are young and taking a step up. i don't think it's unreasonable to expect that we replace the seven experienced players we've lost with two or three more established signings.

he had many more good performances than those, just in my opinion those were exceptional ones and up with some of the best i've ever seen in claret and amber. which other midfielders have we had in the past ten years who could match those performances. phil always showed class but didn't dominate games. lasley's best performances were mainly beside hughes. pearson only played to his potential half a dozen times. brannan? no. valakari or alan mccormack, more perspiration than inspiration. kerr had a couple of great games but 20xs as many shockers. hughes is good as we've had it in midfield for a long time and to make out he won't be missed is daft. norwich were in the premiership not long ago and are only in the state they're in because they stupidly let glenn roeder (wanker) ,peter grant (retard) manage them for a while. even when they're struggling they get 20,000+ crowds and i wouldn't be suprised to see them do a leicester this season.

porter was one of the top strikers in league one when he came and had championship and spl teams interested in him, it was clear he was an excellent signing. hughes had been a regular for rangers and had european experience, mccormack was excellent for donny rovers on loan and a lot of rangers fans were disapointed to see him go and lappin had previously been a stand out in the spl. they were all as close to sure things as we're going to get. we do need to gambl on players and the getting the likes of elliot and mcdonald in was great business. right now however we're in almost unchartered territory in terms of squad strength and we're going to have to push the boat out a bit to even get back to the level of last season. the only time in my experience of following the 'well we've had a squad so thin we ended up finishing bottom.

i don't but to be fair for all anyone else knows they could be molloy, keegan and grabban reincarnate. looking at what we know jennings looks promising and should do a good job for us, the other two were inconsistent performers in poor teams and as attackers only scored 2 goals each in 50 game seasons for their respective clubs at a lower level than the spl. when we signed mccormack, porter, hughes or lappin you could look at what they had done in their time and be fairly certain they'd do a good job for us, with these guys particulary coke and humphrey it's more of a shot in the dark. all i'm saying is that i think we need a couple of solid, unlikely to fail signings (ideally strikers) before the window shuts. it's not difficult to tolerate a 15 goal a season striker. even if we count the porter money as covering the pitch costs there should still be enough extra income from mcghee, quinn, clarky, the europa prize money and freed up wages to spend a bit of money on a couple of quality players. you also need to consider that scrimping now can cost more in the long term - a shite season or relegation would have a bad effect on our turnover in many different ways.

hughes was a class act and we'll miss him a lot. his form for the first few months of last season was fairly poor but he was supposedly playing through an injury and not training. no one can deny however that he put in some of the greatest midfield performances by a motherwell in many, many years and you'd probably need to go back to a young phil o'donnell to see performances that matched some of hughes. rangers home sept 07 hibs away in the league cup 07 aberdeen home nov 07 hearts away dec 07 dundee united home 07 hibs home 08 celtic away 08 hibs away 08 rangers home 08 st mirren away 09 ten of the best performances i've ever seen from a motherwell midfielder and it's disapointing that people can be so dismissive of someone who delivered so many highs in a motherwell shirt, the likes of which we'll be very fortunate to see again any time soon.

i disagree. millwall got to the play off final and they were rank. teams like swindon, exter and carlise are piss poor. wolves romped the championship last season but apart from ebanks-blake, keogh and kightly i didn't see much difference between us and them in the friendly we played. there wasn't much of a difference between us and preston either and they made the play offs. imo the 'well team that finished third would be competing around the play offs in the championship and last season probably fighting relegation.

i wouldn't say i'm overly worried but i'm a bit anxious. i'm willing to wait right up until the transfer window closes but i feel we definitely need two or three quality signings this window to remain competitive in the league. boyle opened the purse strings for mcghee when he came to the club and i believe he would do the same for gannon so hopefully he won't be shy in asking. if you do the sums the money must be there. the money for porter, mcghee, clarkson, quinn and the european prize money comes to nearly two million pounds. if we had signed any or all of these players last summer i'd have been delighted but right now is a different situation entirely. there's a bit of a feel good factor right now because of the new boss and the europa games but we've still got a long way to go before i'd say we're anywhere near the required standard.

tommy coyne's hatrick is my favourite. 3 quality goals from my idol and i scored a penalty on the park at halftime. quality day.

got to agree with ya beezer, we're going down a dodgy road here and while it might work out there's a good chance it won't. i'm willing to give all the guys a chance but i'll be worried if the transfer window closes and we've not brought in two or three players who we can be confident are spl standard. in an average summer i'd welcome this type of signing but right now with the squad being so weak we need to bring in quality, in my opinion we've only got 5 players who are definitely good enough at the moment and the rest either are unproven or have shown themselves to be only useful as bit part players. i'm a bit worried that gannon could turn out to be our paul le guen, who comes in totally underestimates the league and we'll be stuck with a load of players not up to scratch. from what i seen of league one and two last season a lot of it is very, very poor and kick and rush. bradford made us look like barcelona in the preseason friendly we played and i watched shrewsbury town in the playoffs and they were brutal. if gannon thinks that buiding a side equivalent to the one he had at stockport will be enough then we're in for a tough season.

got to say i'm still pessimistic just now. quite concerned that gannon is going to underate the spl and bring in too many players who aren't up to it.

away and play basketball ya diddy.