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Presumably with Ronseal wood stain.

Don’t quite understand the comments on Wilson - from my view he had a solid game and had some good interchanges with Williams in attacking sense. Noticeable that manager kept him on the pitch for the whole game and trusted him in central role when Longelo came on. he might not be starter ahead of Longelo / Williams but nothing I saw gave me the fear.

I'm not sure why Ewan Wilson is being picked on tonight, I wasn't too impressed with him under Kettlewell, and I presume JBA didn't fancy him either, but he got forward well tonight and linked up with Williams on several occasions, and when he moved to centre half when Longello came on he looked comfortable playing the ball out. He will be third choice behind Longello and Williams on the left, and may fall further down the pecking order depending on signings, but he looked ok tonight.

I emailed the club after the Genk game to complain about the new pod seats, i subsequently received a phone call this afternoon from Brian Caldwell who explained the difficult choices the club faced in the pod to get the stand compliant for the HB game. He explained that for a host of reasons mainly the limitations of the pod in its current form it was a straight choice of either not using the seats in their old form, for the Euro games, with the resulting loss of revenue and relocation of ST holders that involved, undertaking extensive remodelling of the pod seat profile and reducing seat numbers to get new flip seats or go with the seats we have fitted now. So it seems that what we got was the only viable option open to the club, given the timescales and limitations involved. I think that the "new seats" will be with us for a while, but from what i was told i suspect that replacing the pod on the current footprint may be the preferred option, as i say thats my opinion, so i could be wrong. Having said all that it was nice to have some personal feedback on a complaint raised from the CEO, thats a good way to run a business so long may it continue.

I thought he was Austrian? 🤪🤪

Probably get my nose bitten off as you aren't allowed to criticise them but I hear bois are doing a walk tomorrow to stadium which will be great and well supported.....however....can you leave the flares at home? I know we have plenty cash but we cant keep paying out fines for flare displays. Get that drum and vocal chords in full flow. Thats best way to support us. COYW

Its a pre season friendly get a grip

Agree with above. Randomly my season ticket seat was next to him. Got to know him well over the years. He would have loved the fitbaw this season. RIP my friend

I take it back what I said that just was the only positive for me to come from the tournament…. That news today was a positive

3-0 Stenny..........I am stealing MJC's thunder 🤣🤣

Whit, they’re eating your dinner? I know we don’t pay a lot but ffs I’d have thought it would be enough for them to feed themselves.

Invest in pampers

I can understand MJCs concerns. To use an analogy - after you’ve tasted caviar and champagne, going back to soggy toast and cold tea would be let down. However, that’s a hazard all clubs of our size face. We had a progressive thinking manager (Bobby Ancell) and a fantastic young team in the early 1960’s (Ancell Babes) but again due to the draw of bigger clubs and bigger wages, it was broken-up. The most high profile players who left being, Ian St John to Liverpool, Pat Quinn to Blackpool and Bobby Roberts to Leicester City. Shortly thereafter Bobby Ancell left and that ushered in the Bobby Howitt era which for me looking back now was probably one of the poorest in our history. I didn’t think so at the time but barring our exploits in the Texaco Cup it was a pretty poor time made worse by seeing clubs of a similar size to us getting a chance to play European football - Dunfermline and Kilmarnock to name two. I just hope history doesn’t repeat itself but we need to give the new manager time to put his own stamp on things. COYW.

Must have watched that secret training video I shared with them.

Winner of most colours in a sentence isssssssss. 🤪🤪

I'm not one for public sentimentality and anniversaries are for those we forget, he is sadly missed.

Aye! And they also had cheeky wee bastards Like you back then as well 😂😂

I can, it's my hoose.

Exactly, sadly there always seems to be one player that gets singled out. Remember the terrible stick SOD was getting a few seasons back. I think as fans we make an effort to give Ewan plenty encouragement. The lad is wearing the claret and amber jersey and trying his best and personally I thought he done just fine last night

Regardless of position on whether to stay or go, this is the most exciting part for me. I truly never thought Id ever see Motherwell Football Club do anything, other than exist hand to mouth. The turnaround in 2 years is extraordinary.

They could beat us 4 - 0 and I still wouldn't be embarrassed. You need to try and separate other people playing football from your own self-esteem.

... his big team got pumped last night

A good way to improve fitness is to play games.

I see the block e contingent are determined to get the club fined again with more idiotic pyro nonsense.

I remember as a kid being quite excited that we signed him and it was for quite a bit as far as I remember. I also remember getting a football card of him from a packet of chewing gum and being elated. He was wearing the Motherwell admiral kit with the 2 claret stripes down the front. Rest in Peace Mike.

I’m happy if I see us play decent entertaining football every week. OF course, finishing higher up the league, winning a cup would be more than welcome but when I started watching Motherwell as a wee boy it wasn't because I thought they might win the league or the cup and it’s still the same today. They are my home town team and I still get excited at the chance to watch them every week, even although that’s via streaming now. I think there may be a lot of people just like me who have found their way back to Fir Park, not because of trophies but because, once again, Motherwell are Playing football that is a joy to watch. I just hope that we can continue trend.

MJC on the other hand is a glass bone dry kinda guy 🤣

As much as I liked Ward, £800k for a keeper who isn’t that great a keeper in his final year of contract….. when we got him for nothing…… is a decent bit of business.

He'll be off to Ross County then.

I don't think I'd be looking at isolated transfer fees without looking at the underlying data sets. Kieran Bowie wasn’t bought purely because of goals scored over a few seasons. Clubs don’t price attacking players on raw goal output alone, otherwise half the market would make zero sense. They look at things like age curve, contract position, physical profile, league-adjusted output, projected development trajectory, injury history, resale potential and expected value over the life of the contract. That’s why younger players consistently command premiums over better current players. If you look across Europe over the last 5 years or so, players aged between 18-22 routinely transfer for significantly more than players 25+ with better immediate output. That isn’t my opinion, that’s just how recruitment models work nowadays. Same with the Raskin comparison. He plays for Rangers, is younger, has European exposure almost every season, and is sitting in a completely different transfer ecosystem. The Old Firm market is not the Motherwell market. I know we don't like that, but it's the truth. If we strip emotion out of it and look at Just objectively, here’s the career profile a buying club is probably looking at: 26 years old Spent years moving between Danish first and second division football Spell in Austrian second tier One very strong season in Scotland 3 World Cup goals, which absolutely helps visibility Now compare that to what I believe recruitment departments call “transferable asset value”. At 26, a club buying Elijah probably gets 3–4 peak years. At 18 like Lennon Miller, a club potentially gets 10+ years plus a second sale. That future value gets priced in. I think where I disagree is this idea that “performance merits a £Xm valuation”. Football doesn’t work like that. If it did, loads of players would be worth far more than they eventually end up moving for. Recruitment departments are increasingly data-led these days. They model future value, they don't tend to reward past performance all that much. Personally, I think Just has been phenomenal for us. But if I was sitting in a recruitment department trying to build a valuation model, I’m not getting anywhere near £10m (or even £6 million) based on one excellent Scottish Premiership season and three World Cup goals in a group-stage exit. And that’s not talking him down. That’s just how the market tends to price these things in my opinion.

I think you are underselling the player on almost every level. I am not an expert on transfer fees but I would imagine that finished articles sell for more than their younger selves. Would Ronaldo's first couple of transfers be anywhere near his transfer fee to Juventus? Three goals in a WC is three goals. As somebody joked earlier, he scored two more than the entire Scotland team combined and they played lowly Haiti. How many Scotland players in history have scored 3 goals at a WC? You can't underplay that sort of achievement. Just was fantastic last season and had more of an impact than Miller did at any time in his Motherwell career. EJ is worth £10 million. Compare with Engels at Celtic. Just had a better season and look at the money Celtic have turned down for Engels Unfortunately Motherwell will never get £10 million for him because he plays for Motherwell but there are worse players that have commanded more. Look at the valuation of Fernandez at Rangers. Was there not talk of £18+ million for him? We need to be talking our players up not talking them down.

If I didn't already know I was too old to be wearing the new shirt, the music on the release video would have reminded me. I'm off to have a lie down and listen to some Jesus and Mary Chain.

Welsh was an established pro who wanted minutes to get away from Celtic, and we benefited from that. Rice is different. He chose Rangers over a pro deal at Motherwell, spent four years on the fringes, and stalled his own development. We shouldn’t be the club rebuilding a player’s career for a direct rival.

I was not a fan of Wilson as a player and I thought we’d seen the last of him when he went off to Raith but credit where it’s due, I thought he played really well last night and looked a better player than the one that left us. The manager sees something in him and sometimes that’s all that matters to raise your game, confidence goes up and performances improves… long may his form continue

Definitely not for that amount of money.

Well done to Captain Sparrow and his young crew. Off to the North Atlantic next week for the next battle. Hopefully get through that with no astro turf injuries.

Absolutely ridiculous comments from some on the lad...he may be the type of player we keep around the squad, because he will be relatively cheap and can do a job. Slating a guy after 30mins of a friendly is a new low from some of the heid-the-baws...not that I'll be forming an opinion of him after tonight's performance either but ffs give him a chance

The constraints of the current Fir Park site are plain to see. But with the principle of development for a football stadium already established there, nobody will ever convince me there isn’t a viable proposal that responds to those constraints in a creative yet pragmatic way. Whether that’s a complete demolition and redevelopment or a phased approach of continually replacing and upgrading the stadium bit by bit, I’d take either of those over relocating to an identikit plastic shithole on a soulless brownfield site on the edge of town. Every realistic option at Fir Park has to be exhausted, and sensible compromises made where necessary, before we consider something as drastic as leaving our home for Ravenscraig.

I wish I was confident enough to be able to plaice a sizeable bet on us being able to seal our progression after the first leg. But I cant be the only sole harbouring doubts. Hopefully our new keeper can catch a few. Cod only knows how we will get on in the away leg if he cant keep it out the net! Hopefully, it goes ok as Im sure our recruitment team are continuing to trawl other leagues for new players!

The overwhelming concensus so far re the "seat upgrades" in the POD seems to be that it has been a shambles and resulted in the pod now having the worst seats in the stadium. For me i hope the club are taking note and acknowloging an error has been made. The only decent response would be to admit the error and try to resolve the issue asap, if that means ripping the new seats out and replacing them with a proper fit for purpose seat then so be it. I know the ST prices were partially standardised over the 3 home stands,but now those fans in the pod are paying a premium price for the worst seats in the stadium, which is a disgrace.

By the sound of some folks experience of the “new” seats in the POD stand, maybe the club should put a first aid kit under every one of them.

That was a hangover from the previous season though, not from a standing start, and had been building from about March. He should really have been dealt with as soon season as the previous season had ended rather than prolong the agony. As shite as Ricki Lamie was the worst thing he ever did was score that goal v Livi or Alexander would never have made it to the Sligo game.

Financially we are doing very well, no argument from me on that score. You can also add on a modest 5/6 figure fee for the Ox. We also have the relocation of the stadium / replacement of the POD stand to factor in. However, healthy balance sheets don't increase attendances. On the playing side, I was not surprised that JBA left at the end of the season. Despite his positive words I never thought he'd stay with us very long. I'm sure the directors would also have been well aware of his intention to move months ago. Kyrk Macmillan is doing a good job as far as I can tell, but it was a mistake to tell the fans that everything was ticking over nicely during the search for a new manager when it clearly wasn't. It was also naive of the directors to tell the fans that all our best assets wouldn't be sold at the same time. That raised unrealistic expectations.

You get the sense that Motherwell have got under the skin of the SFA last season. What should have been a real positive for the game in Scotland with one of the smaller teams genuinely competing (and often outplaying) with the 4 big city clubs now has more of a sense of reprisal than celebration about it. Is it possible that the authorities felt genuinely threatened by what Motherwell were trying to do? It seems far fetched in the extreme to think that is possible and yet for the authorities to come down on Motherwell not once but twice with punishments that don't really fit the crime seems more than just a coincidence. I can see no positive motive in actively targeting Motherwell in this way and yet as fans of the club and for the club itself there is a palpable sense that we have indeed been targeted. I have found myself drifting away from football in recent times largely because of the governance of the game both nationally and globally ( look at FIFA in the WC). Motherwell were pulling me back in last year. They were a breath of fresh air and yet the powers that be seem determined to drain the life out of any flicker of hope that things can be better. There is an inconsistency about the SFA response to many of these matters. When there is so much to fix in the game in this country (Old Firm pitch invasions being one) it seems a little like booking someone for parking over two carparking spaces whilst a riot is kicking off all around. It's all a bit weird.

I’m not complaining, but it’s Interesting that after all the hype about Rangers and Celtic wanting to sign Elliott, Just and Maswanise, they’re both prepared to dole out transfer fees on players from abroad of the level that was suggested they may need to pay us for these players. Not prepared to pay Scottish clubs proper transfer fees for their players but hoping they will jump at the first number THEY decide they WANT to pay. They don’t want other clubs to become financially independent and/or stronger. 😡

Hoping our new manager is one of them! 😍😍😍

Less James Joyce. More Yootha Joyce.

Well, we've tried everything else to stop him posting, so I suppose lying was worth a shot.

If you're looking for traditional, the hoop comes with white shorts.

I see our resident arrogant know-it-all has made a reappearance.