steelboy

top six might be a possibility but i think dundee united and hearts will open a gap on the rest. they're by far the most solid of the rest of the two teams and seem to have made some signings during the summer to help them score more. it's difficult to predict what'll happen with the rest. hibs and aberdeen look like they're going backwards. killie, st mirren and st johnstone look poor but will probably benefit from having stable and experienced squads. us, accies and falkirk are complete unknown quantities but i'd take where we are just now over either of the two of them. it looks like a very weak division this year and if we get in a quality striker and a solid RB we could be looking at europe and a good season. if we don't add quality before the window shuts and we get a couple of injuries we could be relegated. the only guarantee is that it'll be interesting.

whether hammell got tripped or not steaua's third goal happened because slane and forbes had stopped tracking back.

it's a bit more relevant this time. it's the beginning of a new era on saturday which a lot of people are quite nervous about and we get landed with our least favourite ref who's number one hobby is sending off 'well players. not a good omen.

i agree with wee yin. celtic fans seem to have some sort of attention seeking gene were they can't go anywhere without creating special bonds and having them highlighted in the press with a wee pat on the head. it's pathetic and also hypocritical considering some of their scummy behaviour abroad. obviously the hu.ns in manchester was the apex of scummy OF fans abroad but celtic have a litany of shameful incidents as well. for me i went to wales and romania had a great time, met some decent people in both places and managed not cause any international incidents. i don't need or want a pull out in the daily record because of nor am i going to start a campaign to be awarded a fifa fair play award.

to quote trucks.

unrelated. but the after the boot in the baws for justice that was the gerrard verdict it was followed by a poke in the eye annoucing that his costs would be paid from central funds. what a joke.

we might have won the case but there's a fair chance spencer still won't pay us at all or at least try and delay especially since he lives in america now. i would imagine we would pay our lawyers now and then try and retrieve that money from spencer along with the awarded money.

your chairman doesn't give anything away! he's that tight he didn't even pay when he bought your club.

obviously we will be and i hope we get good players in. not sure it's as simple as that though. how long has mcghee been looking for a centrehalf for or levein for a striker or hibs for a decent goalie? bringing in good players on our budget isn't easy. i'm looking forward to the new season i'm just voicing a bit of concern based on what we have tonight, i don't do blind faith . anayway it's just a few posts on the board, it's not like i'm outside fir park protesting.

fairplay. some people seem to think that they're a terrible pairing and that's clearly not the case. i'd put that down to mcghee constantly mentioning them as our weakpoint which created a complex in the fans and for a while in the team. and we probably aren't in dire straits but we've only got two strikers and one right back in the squad. if you said to any motherwell fan in march that come august sutton and murphy would be our only two strikers and saunders would be our only right back you wouldn't have got a very positive reaction.

i don't think we actually came out of admin until after xmas that year, it was always happening though after the mcfadden sale a big what if.... if we'd went down would we have punted our assets straight away or would we took a run at the first with faddy, pearo, clarky, quinn, hammell and lasley?

i'd like another centrehalf as competition but, yes, i'm happy with reynolds and craigan starting. you can finish third with as your centreback pairing. we did it in 07/08, we were joint third through the 11 games they played at the start of 08/09 and had the third best record from when craigan came back until the split. people talk about bigger centrehalves, dundee united have the biggest centrehalves about but lost one more than us in 07/08 and one less last season. they must be doing something right.

i don't think we ever in any serious danger of folding unless we got relegated. it was basically just an excuse to tear up the contracts of a bunch of overpaid wasters that pat nevin had employed and if we bumped some local businesses and the taxman along the way then that was just a bonus. 2002/03 was a total rollercoaster of a season. we had some incredible highs (h**s 1-0, tims 2-1, fhw 6-1, the cup run) but also a load of miserable afternoons where our young team got the run around. we obviously got lucky not getting relegated but it was a much happier time than the pish we had put up with for the two years previous. it's scary to think we might actually put out a less experienced team at perth than we put out on the first day at livi in 2002.

i was hoping someone would say that. in 07/08 we had the fourth least goals against behind rangers, celtic and hibs (hibs conceded 45, we conceded 46). that was with craigan and reynolds playing together almost every single game. last season in the spl they played together 20 times and we lost 6 (in the other 18 games we lost ten). with them conceded 1.2 goals per game, without them 1.5. the stats back up that they've been succesful for us.

we obviously did but at the end of the day it's up to mclean who he signs for and i don't think being publicly disrespected during mcghee's first six months would have encouraged him to re-sign for us. we've been unable to replace brian mclean since he left but maybe if things had been different we wouldn't have to. that's fair enough in a lot of lines of work but in football it's a seller's market if your a half decent player. look at the dross ICT, killie and st mirren have been putting on the park for the last couple of years, attracting good players isn't easy (as accies are finding out) and we could easily find ourselves pulled down to their level.

ofcourse it's mcghee's fault but it should be a lesson learned. mcghee spent six months talking brian mclean down in public and freezing him out at fir park then we act suprised when he won't sign a new deal with the club. hammell and lasley are good spl players and are commited to motherwell however if they feel mistreated now maybe they'll do a mclean and hold it against us and try something new in the future when we need them.

i've no idea what's going on i'm only reading the rumours the same as everyone else. what i have seen is however is lasley being dropped after playing well in two games for a guy who was/is nowhere near fit. hammell who has over 250 appearances for the club being dropped to fit in a young player who had made one appearance and who's introduction to the team split up craigan and reynold's succesful centreback partnership. neither decision could have been a purely based on form and i don't believe it's attitude either as they've both had ten years or so at the club without any problems. maybe gannon is part of kmckalpin's club and only likes tall football players or maybe he's just determined to play his own guys and make it his team at the expense of everything else. from what we've heard about freezing out players, fueding with the fans and refusing to talk to sky because of a dispute about his sky box i think we can conclude he has a bit of an ego about him. if this all goes tits up gannon will be off and we would probably be left in a worse posistion than we were in june. again i'll say reserve judgement til the window shuts and we've played a few spl standard teams but imo right now we're still in a perilous posistion and too many people seem to have gotten a rose tinted view of things from a couple of wins against dire sides and a glamour tie against steaua.

is it really wise for gannon to antagonise proven spl players with long associations with the club? the guys he's brought in aren't exactly world beaters and except humphrey aren't signed on with the club for very long. i would guess that mclean went to falkirk largely due to the way he was treated from august 07 to february 08, we would be in a much better posistion if he was still in the squad. it's okay to act all principled and say no player's bigger than the club but beggars can't be choosers and players aren't exactly queueing up to join us, capable guys we have here should be man managed to the benefit of the club (neither mollycodelled or sacrificed on the managers ego). were still in dire straits in terms of our squad. we're at least 3 players short of the minimum we need for the spl campaign and we've got almost no one out of our senior players contracted beyond next summer. sutton, craigan, reynolds, humphrey and fraser are the only ones as far as i know. gannon has a lot of work to do.

trucks loves the wee smiley guy

i take it this would be at fir park? bit odd considering we don't really have any connection to busby. it should really be at old trafford, i'm getting a taste for the euro trips

we must have more money to spend on the playing squad. we've took in around £1.7 million for porter, clarkson, quinn and mcghee we've took in around £230,000 in europa league prize money. the new tv deal gives us the same money in 2009/10 as the old setanta one would have. the wage bill is much smaller with hughes, porter and malcolm alone freeing up 10 grand a week. even including the cost of the pitch we have brought in a lot of money in 2009 and i therefore don't see why we would need to be running a much cheaper squad than we were in 2007/08.

doubt it. i saw on sky sports news today that he'd been made captain and he was giving interviews talking about the new season.

funny to see him saying gerrard and carragher are a credit to liverpool. carrager throws coins, scraps with fans and states in his autobiography he was going to get his thug mates to attack lucas neill. gerrard is legally allowed to pre-emptively whack anyone who he thinks might breath on him. stay classy liverpool!

to be fair if only 3 or 4 thousand people are actually interested enough in a particular game to turn up why should it be on tv?

it's no time to judge anyone yet. we've really no idea what the actual level of any of the teams we've been up against were. the boys looked like world beaters against the albanian's but i'm not sure i'd put money on flamutari beating pollock juniors. staeua looked great against us and might be full of guys who'll end up in serie a and la liga or maybe we just didn't compete in midfield and gave them time and space to play. we'll have a good idea after the first three games against st johnstone, killie and aberdeen but now it's impossible to say. first impressions are a different matter though. humphrey - not impressive at all so far. looks like he could be a very frustrating player. i'd have o'brien ahead of him at the minute. jennings - thought he was going to be a more mobile lasley, turns out he's a less mobile lasley just now. he was chasing shadows in a shaun faganesque manner in bucharest. if he gets the fitness up then i think he'll do a good job for us though. coke - showed a few good touched on the ball and looks promising. didn't seem to be the ideal man for the battle on thursday but he looks like he's got ability. ruddy - outstanding start, keep it up! kicking looks a bit sus tho, but we can live with that. and the youngsters since they might as well be new signings. slane - superb, i hope we don't end up depending on him too much but he looks outstanding. he struggled to get involved out wide in romania but was far better in the middle. forbes - i was excited about him after seeeing him at ayr a couple of years ago and in a few reserve games. it's obvious he has a wand of a left foot but he still has to prove he can compete in centre mid in the spl physically and to be able to play at the required tempo. his passing is definitely special, hopefully the rest of his game won't let him down. saunders - looks composed on the ball and very good in the air. the best thing we can do for him is to bring in a first choice right back and let him develop at his own pace. hutchison - he already looks the part physically, thursday night showed that he's got a lot of learning to do. he reminds me of stephen mcmanus a bit and is another one who will benefit most from a couple of seasons as back up to learn his trade rather than being thrown in straight away. mark reynolds at left back - not a fan. i don't think he's got good enough distribution to play fullback, it's telling craigan takes the free kicks from the back and not him (and back in the day craigan left them to partro). he might be handy if we need to nulify a right winger but i wouldn't want him there every week. for all the criticism of him and craigan as a partnership they must have a pretty decent record together. they played together all through the season we finished 3rd and we only lost six of the 25 domestic games they played together last season. to me that's impressive and gannon would be foolish to disregard it. we definitely need two new strikers and a right back and anyone else with a bit of quality who is available. also guys like hammell, lasley and o'brien shouldn't be marginalised too much as our squad is too small to lose guys who have done a good job in the spl previously (obviously in a smaller way with o'brien). i think these three guys are out of contract at the end of this season so if you add that to jennings and coke that's five out of contract next june plus ruddy only being signed for six months. the long term view has to be looked at as well.