capt_oats

Given it's a choice between him and #superJoeChalmers then I'd go with Frear.

Tony Hibbert out of retirement to do Faddy a favour IMO.

I think the difference in the Frear case is that with him having said he's interested in a move Cooper has, I believe, pretty much said that he won't play him. Along the lines of "I only want players in my side who want to be at the club" so while you might get a certain player chucking his toys out the pram or stamping his feet that player might still feature on a Saturday and get the opportunity to show what he can do etc. If my reading of the Frear story is correct the boy has basically indicated that he's not looking to sign a new deal and would prefer a move so his manager is now refusing to consider him for the first team as a result while the club are apparently knocking back offers for his services. I'm not surprised he's irked tbf.

I thought that myself. However reading the quotes attributed to Regan today are as follows: "One of the recommendations from the working group was to have no more than 16 academies in Scotland defined as elite. Any club can put a bid in, and they will be independently audited against a defined set of criteria. If they are successful, they will be included in Scotland's list of elite academies." From the sound of it that means that as long as the criteria is met then the academy will be defined as having "elite" status. As you say, the devil is in the detail and it very much depends on how those "elite" academies are treated within their own group. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38735136?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_sportsound&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=scotland

Given his background, age and the level that he's coming from (semi-pro in Canada etc) I'd be quite surprised if he was viewed as a replacement for Brill. He's 18 so is there a chance he's be brought in for the 20s? There was a vague mention that along with the Middlesboro 'keeper that was apparently in while Brill was away on his trial we'd also had the City keeper who ended up signing on loan with St Mirren in. A u23s 'keeper from a EPL side would seem a more likely shout as a replacement for Brill, though obviously I could be miles out on that. As far as incomings go I think it probably depends on who goes and who stays as much as anything. If Brill goes then that's a 'keeper we'd need in, if someone's willing to take Ainsworth then with Cadden looking like he's still carrying an injury and MacLean's dislocated shoulder then the right midfielder shout makes a bit more sense, on top of that there's the fact that we really need to address the left side of the team (as Alan Burrows indicated on the podcast the other week). That's possibly 4 players, given the nature of the January window that's quite a shopping list.

Draw: Hibs or Celtic vs Motherwell Kilmarnock vs Rangers* Ties to be played on or before 26th February https://twitter.com/ScottishFA/status/823576453182844928

Just got my email through too. Congratulations Jay.

Indeed. http://www.hibernianfc.co.uk/news/7190

Enjoyable game. Thistle caught us cold with their 2 goals, their 1st was an absolute shitemare for our keeper. Cracking effort to turn it round though. MacLean going off threw the side in the 2nd half, pretty much gave Thistle the midfield. Fair play to Craigan for having the baws to change things round when he realised his initial change wasn't working. Fully deserved to go through in the end. Decent performance from Thistle to get it back to 3-3 as at half time it looked like their head had gone after chucking a 2 goal lead.

Yeah, that was really just presented without comment. The 3 years younger point would make sense if we were actually signing O'Halloran but we're not, he'd be here til the end of the season. So unless both Cadden and Ainsworth are leaving (and there's been no indication of either going anywhere) I can't see why O'Halloran would be of interest. Cadden's got the right midfield spot locked down, Ainsworth's not getting to start. So I don't really see why we'd be looking to pay the wages Sevco would be after as a contribution for someone who's pretty much similar to a player we already have on our books. Again for the sake of argument you could possibly say we might look to go all out 433 and move Cadden into the centre? Samson Tait Heneghan McManus A.N Other Left Back Cadden McHugh Clay/Lucas O'Halloran Moult McDonald Edit: The fact that we're in for Frear an out and out left winger makes a lot more sense to me than the MOH shout.

FWIW: Ainsworth's got more goals than O'Halloran. 13/14 - LA: 11 MOH: 2 14/15 - LA: 9 MOH: 10 15/16 - LA: 3 MOH: 7 16/17 - LA: 3 MOH: 0 Ainsworth - 126 games - 26 goals O'Halloran - 121 games - 19 goals

^^^ This. Watching back his press conference he doesn't make any mention of there being an official offer. All he says is that O'Halloran is a player we'd be interested in but we don't know if he's available or if he'd be coming to Fir Park.

Just had a look on Twitter and some of their number seem genuinely rattled. I get that they're in a permanent state of rage but one boy there claiming that it's "fake news non story", another is still seething about the hero that tapped Lee McCulloch with the flagpole in the play off game. Dearie me.

Even then it doesn't really make much of a difference as Ainsworth would more than likely be starting on the bench anyway.

From the sound of things we're still in for Frear as well, so that's nice. The only way the O'Halloran thing makes any sense to me is if Ainsworth's on his way out. Which isn't a huge stretch of the imagination given he's out of contract at the end of the season but still...

I'd have thought a few (if not most) of those clubs he mentioned knocking back offers from would have been for Semple tbh. Though am curious as to what happened with Leighton, this is from August last year and the last couple of paragraphs mention of a deal being on the table from us but it's not a name you hear when the club are talking about the academy players; "Much as Burke faced a dilemma regarding his development, Leighton is at a similar crossroads: go and learn from the best coaches but become snarled up in the pecking order that predominates at big English and European clubs or stay in Scotland and find himself fast-tracked to the first team. Motherwell, for one, would love to have him back. "They would like me to go back. They have offered me a full-time contract and are in contact with me on regular basis. They have told me the door is open. Im keeping my options open."" http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14711158.Tom_Leighton__The_Scottish_youngster_on_his_time_at_Benfica_and_becoming_the_next_Oliver_Burke/

I may well be being whooshed here, especially off the back of the chat about looking further afield than the National League but while obviously I can see why Douglas might want to leave Turkey because, you know...*politics* I'd have thought that him seeming to be contracted until 2019 would make it quite tricky without a decent fee being involved. http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/barry-douglas/profil/spieler/91854

FWIW: I got my number off the confirmation letter I'd received when I signed up,

Totally understand your point but to pick up on the Dundee reference where Hartley's done well signing the likes of Bain, Hemmings and Stewart he's also signed a spectacular amount of dross. I think I counted 43 signings since he arrived at the club in 2014. 43 signings in 3 years if McGhee had that sort of turnover of players the lunatic fringe element of our support would be in absolute meltdown. Look at the likes of Yordi, Tankulic, Konrad, Gadzhalov, Etxabeguren and a whole list of others. Sure they've cast their net a bit wider but can you honestly say you'd take any of them over Tait, Moult, Johnson, Heneghan or Ainsworth? Similarly if there was a Marvin Johnson or Lionel Ainsworth cutting about in the 2nd division in Scotland then there's a fair chance he'd have caught the eye already. They've taken a punt on El Bahktaoui but by all accounts we had a deal on the table for him as well but in the end it was a choice between him and McDonald on account of the wage El Bahktaoui was after, again it's about value. If I have to make that choice then it's Skippy that gets my vote every time, it's not even a consideration. When it comes down to it transfers are likely to be a mixed bag, no manager is going to have a 100% hit rate. We have a market that we seem to be getting good value from and tbh I'd rather we kept making sure we recruited in a way that got us value than bringing in a Casagolda, Charalambous or Maros Klimpl just for the lolz. Edit to add: I'd have said that the fact that we were on record as having a deal on the table for El Bahktaoui shows that if there's a player in the lower leagues that interests us, we'll pursue it. The fact that he's only managed to score 2 goals for Dundee since signing for them is probably a decent indication that our judgement was sound in not just chucking money at him because he'd scored a ton of goals playing in league 1.

I'll give you Fletcher but Blyth arrived from Leicester who are hardly lower league. In fact as current champions of England they're pretty much the exact opposite of a lower league club. I'd argue that, if anything, the ones who haven't shown up as well as you'd expect are the players who have come in from further up the English league system; Laing from Forest, Kennedy from Leicester, Jake Taylor was at Reading, Belic came from West Ham even Theo Robinson was at a League 1 club prior to signing. Of the guys we've brought in from National League and League 2; Tait, Heneghan, Johnson, Moult, McHugh, Clay have all seemed pretty decent acquisitions. OK Bowman seems to have struggled a bit but he's been trying to break into a side with an established forward pairing.

The question of value is really the key point. Put in a bit of context QoS initially wanted £100k from Dundee for Kevin Holt. Granted he ended up going for considerably less but that initial quote is more than we're reported to have paid for Moult and Johnson combined plus a decent bit of change. Equally on the point of quality you could point to Nathan Austin who absolutely roasted our centre halves for East Fife, he was one of the names being mentioned as the sort of player we should be taking a punt on he seems to have struggled at Championship level with Falkirk and has been loaned back out to East Fife.

Would be utterly pointless given we've already got 3 options on the right side of the park in Cadden, Ainsworth and MacLean. Also, I'd rather not see MFC help them out with their wage bill, even if it is just a contribution. The quicker they go out of business again the better tbh.

Coulibaly was pretty much anonymous against us in the 0-0 at Fir Park, though equally he pinged one in from 40 odd yards against Celtic at Parkhead. When he's scored this season for Killie they've almost always tended to be eye-catching which I think tends to distort discussion of whether he's actually any good or not.

For what it's worth my take on Frear is that for the past 6 months folk have been banging on about needing a naturally left sided midfielder who has a bit of pace and can create. From the looks of things we've identified a player who's naturally left sided who has a bit of pace and can create. What's more, if we were in for Coulthirst then the fact that we've moved on to Frear when that didn't pan out suggests that we've been doing our research and have options. He's played 115 games for Forest Green, they're sitting 2nd in their league and reached the play off final last year (against Tait and Clay's Grimsby side). You can argue all you like about the standard of football at that level but Heneghan, Tait, Moult and Johnson have all been decent enough acqusitions while Clay has, for want of a better phrase, "done a job". Bowman maybe hasn't worked out as well as we'd have hoped but equally he's only had a handful of starts and has been competing for a spot against Moult and McDonald. By and large cherry picking players from that level seems to work to a point, it remains to be seen whether or not it will consistently translate to selling for profit but we also need players to play in the first team first and foremost before we're looking at selling them on. If you take a look about Forest Green's forum or the bits and pieces you can find online then he seems to have been an important player for them. Whether he'd be any good for Motherwell, who knows? That's the gamble really. At 26 yeah, he's a couple of years older than some of the players we've signed from that level before but equally he's hardly in the twilight of his career. On first glance from the clips I've seen he looks quite rapid but the one thing I would say is that he seems a bit slight that'd be my concern rather than worrying about him only having scored 1 goal this season, especially when he's chipped in with half a dozen or so every other season. On a purely numbers basis he has 3 times as many assists credited to him than Marvin Johnson had at the same level, granted that's over more games but still the difference is marked and it's not a huge number of games more. Marvin had 13 assists in 108 games, Frear has 43 in 150. Anyway as GazzyB says, he's not even signed yet so this entire spiel may be completely redundant.

Scores 1 and sets 2 up here in their game on 7th January. It's the first game on BT's highlights package here: http://sport.bt.com/vanarama-national-league-highlights-show-matchday-28-91364134849004