numpty

That may have been the verbal agreement that had been reached at the time, way back in February. But unfortunately we have no idea what subsequent verbal agreements may have reached that might supercede that one.

Because I'm a Motherwell fan, and I couldn't care less about Barcelona. And it's far from free to watch all that football on the telly, either, unless you like watching the fuzzy illegal version on your laptop

Think that was just the most convenient excuse to get rid of JG, to be honest. If the stories floating around at the time were halfway accurate, there was more to it than that.

Craigan was unbelievably cagey when he was asked if he would consider becoming the assistant to the new boss. My guess is this either means he wouldn't want to do it in a million years, or he already knows something-- maybe he's even been earmarked by Boyle to do a Leitch-esque "work with whoever comes in". (But given that he never wanted to be captain, either, I'd be more inclined to think the former.)

Not unusual to be honest, you usually get managers from all over the place applying when a job becomes vacant.

Can't say I'm actually all that fussed whether Gow or Fitzpatrick stay or not, but the intention is pretty clear and fair play to JB for getting right onto it.

McAllister's said more than once that he wouldn't be interested in coming back to manage a cash-strapped Motherwell, so can't see why he'd change his mind now when we have even less money to spend than ever.

Not interested in Butcher thanks. Our team is capable of playing better football than he ever seemed capable of marshalling.

So even if the 'allegedly' bit is true, he's signed *one* of the *many* youth prospects we've had over the past few years, who for all we know might have been gagging to join Celtic anyway? Hardly a serial offender. I'd be more than happy to see McCart back at Fir Park in some capacity.

Let's hope so. And now that he's gone, they do a Broonie and "change their minds"...

Doubt it. At his age, he's nothing to lose, however it turns out.

Did cross my mind too, but I don't see why the club wouldn't just have said so in the statement. Wouldn't have reflected at all badly on us, given they way they've arsed us around the past couple of days.

"Our management team" surely suggests Knox as well.

Departure confirmed on fishel site. http://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/index.php?op...&Itemid=133

Can't really see how, tbh. They have a vacancy, CB is obviously top of their list, and they're entitled to speak to him as often as they like until either he or somebody else accepts the job. If he goes, CB will have a lot more explaining to do to JB and the 'Well fans than Aberdeen will.

Makes Broonie's words in the first interview with Chico seem all the more carefully-chosen -- "if we're not going to Aberdeen, you can take it that we're not going anywhere else unless Motherwell get rid of us" (or words to that effect).... i.e. if he does go now, I don't think we can actually accuse him of going back on anything he's known to have said (rather than anything he's reported to have said).

Not until the speculative "he is certain to contact Milne today and tell him he will not be coming" becomes "he has contacted Milne today to tell him he will not be coming", surely

The impression I got at the time was that if we'd insisted on a contract, they wouldn't still be here anyway. Can't see that changing now.

It was disappointing, but I don't have nightmares about it. We certainly made enough chances to win the tie, but you just can't squander as many as we did against experienced European opposition and expect to win. If we played them half a dozen times, we'd probably have one once or twice, and unfortunately that night just wasn't one of them. I do fear that it's the best chance we'll have to qualify for the group stages for a very long time, though.

We played better football more consistently before "the O'Donnell situation" than after it. While I wasn't there to see it, from what I've heard, our performance in that Dundee Utd game was pretty much the peak not only of that season, but of the past several seasons.

Pretty standard tabloid style -- the Rancid's online articles are much the same. It doesn't look quite so stupid in print because the columns are narrower, and the paragraphs aren't separated by a blank line. But they obviously don't bother reformatting the copy for the website.

Can't think of anyone in the Scottish game off-hand, but no reason it needs to be somebody from the Scottish game, in theory -- the laws of the game are the same everywhere, and maybe bringing in somebody from outside with a less parochial perspective wouldn't be such a bad thing. Who knows, maybe it would even give the OF one less thing to be paranoid about, but I doubt it.

If they were required to police them every time they opened for business like they are football stadia, they probably would.

Presumably because those don't legally have to be policed.

Seems a bit unlikely. Wouldn't they have wondered why we weren't sending any referees over in exchange...?