numpty

Well in Scotland, Killie would be the obvious "not exactly setting the heather alight" example, though of course they've only had theirs a few months so far. (It does look to be a better quality surface than NDP though). I'm sure Alloa do get some better results on their pitch than they would on grass, but I'd suggest that's still at least as much down to other teams' unfamiliarity/fear of it, as to any attributable improvement in Alloa's silkiness of football since they've had it. Overall, of the 12 SPFL clubs who currently have artificial pitches, their average league position is a decidedly mid-table 6th, which (admittedly without having looked into them in any more detail) doesn't suggest to me that they're having a measurably positive effect on those clubs' results in themselves.

Are you sure it's not? What about all the other teams with artificial pitches who are playing considerably less well?

From what I saw of the LoI this year, gems were in pretty short supply.

FWIW, although he admitted that was a factor, IB said O'Brien was subbed because he'd taken a blow to the face and the doctor's advice was to make the change.

youtu.be/glNX1ynRbBg Looks like they're uploading them as private videos now, so they don't show up in searches.

In which we discover where folk who live in Barbados choose to have their holiday home...

Or, perhaps, he decided he didn't want the job as a result of the interview. An interview isn't just to see if an employer likes the look of you, it works both ways. Other than being equally skint, I'd imagine things are a bit different at the club now than they were the last time he was in charge.

Let's hope he wasn't the guy who told the club he'd only lend the money on condition of anonymity, then...

Given how many he's banged in for us in the past, I'm sure he has a good scoring record against most teams in the Premiership. Just not happening for him the way we're playing just now though, so shaking things up a bit gets my vote.

I took it to mean no significant year-on-year increase, at least compared to any other club, which is probably true.

Malky Mackay appointed Wigan boss: http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/30113956

Yep, although I fear there could be some grain of truth in the Solano thing given the recent 'Well Trust emails. But if memory serves, Ardiles at least has "applied" for the Motherwell job before in recent years.

Which would still be adjudged as being in line and therefore not offside for most of the years I've been watching football. But I don't know what this season's directive du jour (directive du saison?) might be...

'Flow?

Not going to get too excited by that, I'd imagine that's pretty standard for any vacancy that pops up. Some agents will chuck their clients' names in the hats pretty much automatically as soon as they read about it on the interwebs.

And to be honest, I've been kinda grateful to have no access to live coverage of any kind on match days so far this season...

One that thought it would be cheaper than being taken to court by the players who were presumably contractually entitled to it?

Can't really help, but don't forget Phil probably won't be in any squad photos from that year, as he didn't rejoin us until halfway through the season.

Yes, draw was held at the dinner on Saturday and winners announced here: http://www.thewellsociety.co.uk/2014/10/04/well-society-raffle-winners

Far worse places he could have ended up. Certainly not sure it's any worse than another season watching him played out of position one week and on the bench the next.

My mistake, the email did actually say that we'd only won 4 out of 19 since reaching the 2011 Cup Final. I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse...

I probably would too, once. But they're not really comparable achievements anyway -- in recent years we've shown we're more than capable of beating any team (well, except one) that we'll face in the Scottish Cup... just not when it mattered. But over the same period, we've never really looked capable of beating teams of the standard that would get us into the Europa League group stages.

The pre-Accies email the club sent out put it rather more starkly -- of the 19 knock-out ties we've competed in under McCall, we've won 4. Even given that a few of the losses were against clearly superior Euro opposition, it's hard to argue that's in any way acceptable for a team that's proven itself to be the second-best in the country for most of that time.

If he thought a second offence had occurred in the box he had no option but to give the penalty, whether Brown was already off balance due to earlier contact or not. Only if he didn't think that should he have pulled it back.

Nothing in my Inbox either. Though if it's this guy, his Twitter bio does describe him as "the main man at motherwell football club" (capitalisation his)... https://twitter.com/frewsy1