capt_oats

^^^^^ This. It's ultimately a reflection on the management/coaching staff (whomever they may be) if we're consistently losing the same type of goals, from the same areas. If it's happening repeatedly, indeed for more than a season, then you can draw a couple of conclusions 1. they don't see the problem or 2. they don't know how to fix it. For all the new arrivals etc the central 'core' of the team would appear to remain McManus/Laing;Pearson/Lasley, 3 of those 4 are 30+ so in anyone's language it's a big ask to rely on them for the whole season, hence Kennedy being brought in & why the manager's clearly still looking at recruiting in midfield. However beyond that you're looking (hoping) that their failings & flaws as a unit have been identified & worked on. Having said that Baraclough has publicly identified the areas we're still looking to bring players in GK & CM so in that respect I'm happy enough that at the very least he's aware of those areas & for once it's encouraging to hear the manager identifying the same areas as most fans. He/the club have delivered in bringing in players in every other position so I've no reason to doubt that these positions won't be addressed by the end of the window at the very least. As an aside, I'm curious to see what sort of qualities the CM he's after has. The Dutch trialist we had early on in pre-season was 6' 1" & I know we've been linked with Jackson Irvine who's 6' 2". So if it's the case that he's looking to add height/physicality then that would be a box ticked that would be very welcome. re: Inverness game, agree with yourself it's a question of where we are defensively. If we're able to avoid shipping avoidable goals then we can definitely get something out the game.

If you watch Bara's post-match interview it looks like Dan Atkinson (trialist keeper vs Sligo) walking past in the background talking to Jim Hollman. I'd imagine it was him since all the outfield subs got a game.

I wondered the same myself after hearing the club talking about developing our own players. I've absolutely zero to base this on beyond what I've heard from interviews from the manager and Les Hutchison but I'd have thought it would be a conscious decision by the club rather than other clubs being reticent to loan out. Also, I'd think that the preference would be to bring in our own players first where possible and look at loans as an exceptional circumstance ie: the player is going to benefit us significantly in the short term or we're looking at a loan with an option to take them on further down the line. Speaking personally I find it much easier to engage with a squad who are our own players rather than an amalgam of stop-gap 1-year loans and similar short term contracts. If it is a conscious decision to move away from the short-termism of loan culture then in my eyes it's definitely a positive thing. Agree completely about the GK position, I'd much rather we took our time and brought in the right body rather than just lazily bring someone in because he's available and happens to play in goal. While there's an obvious urgency for this I'm still happy for the management team to try players out and not just jump at the first available option. To be fair the manager's already said that he's prepared to wait to bring in the right guy and given the fact that they've pretty much been true to their word in terms of the profile of the players they've brought in to date I'm prepared to take him on his word with regards that as well.

Well the trialist isn't Samson, he's starting in goals for Killie tonight: https://twitter.com/OfficialKillie/status/623541494402686977/photo/1 So that's something.

Not to be all "guy-who-plays-Football-Manager-a-lot" about it but, I'd imagine he'll play in the same Deep Lying Forward/#10 position just off a main striker in a 442 as he did last season with him dropping in to make a 451 when needed in specific games. The fact we've indicated we're still looking for a central midfielder should confirm he's not being brought in to play in midfield.

Great news on McDonald re-signing.

re: Walton, it seems like he's been linked with a ton of clubs for a loan. Latest one is Bury. May well be the case that we're just another name getting touted about. Agree that 19 seems a bit young and unlike Long, who at least had a fair number of first team games for Sheffield United, he doesn't have much senior game time at all. Which is clearly why you'd imagine Brighton would want him out on loan. He seems to be highly rated though and at 6ft 5" he's a good height.

Except 2 years ago we had a completely different management team, and putting it kindly, a different "approach" to recruitment. Were McCall still in charge then absolutely I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest Samson was being targeted. He's totally the sort of signing I'd have expected under that management. Having said that, he may well end up signing but it'd fly in the face of the whole "we need to be more effective in the transfer market" thing the club has been punting.

Just had a quick look at the Chinese Super League and unsurprisingly there's a limit on foreign players. At the moment there's only one team who have a spare space in their squad for an Asian player (which McDonald would qualify for what with him being Australian and everything) and that's Shanghai Shenxin who are currently bottom of the league with the lowest average attendance. Seems there's about 8 rounds of games to go. The sort of money they chuck about in that league is no joke, especially for the foreign "stars" (Asamoah Gyan is apparently on £227,000 a week for example) so you couldn't really argue if he decided to go down that route. That said, there's something about the timing of this, (all of a sudden after we say; "we'd like to know one way or another thanks" there's a "lucrative deal" from China on the table), that makes me wonder if it's more his agent flying a kite to see if there's any more interest in him over here. That said, given the likes of Tim Cahill's already playing there then it's entirely feasible, the move may well be for the start of their next season too, there's normally quite a regular turnover of players. Either way from the outset he's always said he'd take his time and weigh up all his options before making a decision. It's the right time for the club to want an answer one way or another though. If he re-signs great, if not hopefully we can put the budget set aside for him to good use.

Fair point. Though Clarkson & McDonald aside, Samson just seems pretty at odds with the sort of market we've been bringing players in from & the sort of players we've apparently been looking at. Which obviously isn't to say it won't happen but given IB's on record saying he was keen to bring Long back I imagined if that deal didn't pan out the guy we brought in would be from a similar sort of level/profile. The Samson stuff just all seems too convenient & looks more like 2+2 rumour based on circumstance.

That Express piece is just putting 2+2 together. Samson's getting binned, Bara's made it clear we're looking for a keeper = apparently IB is "keen" to sign him, yet there's no quote from Baraclough making that suggestion. It seems he's "likely to be a target" simply because we're in the market for a keeper. Two other keepers named there that the Express are linking us with Long & Christian Walton from Brighton are both the total opposite of Samson and much more in line with the recruitment we've seen so far. Long we're already known to be interested in, Walton is another England u19/u20 same as Laing, Kennedy & Long himself.

That'd be Brett Long not George

^^^^ This. The fact that Dom Thomas isn't 6ft + isn't a hinderance to him and Ricky Sbragia's comments about Jack Harper did indeed sound like a throwback to a less enlightened approach to football. Dom Thomas is clearly a talented football and he certainly doesn't he need to get leathered into the creatine and get ripped like a Ronaldo. However what he does need to do is build his core/upper body strength we've already seen plenty of examples of him just being shoved off the ball too easily and intimidated. It'll be increasingly difficult for him to show what he can do with the ball if he can't retain possession of it. The most blindingly obvious example is Messi (clearly not putting the two on a par ability-wise), he's 5ft 6 1/2 (Dom's 5ft 7 1/2) and if you look at the photos of him during his medicals he's not hugely muscular but he has the strength to take a challenge and hold off markers. Referencing the likes of Baxter, Cooper & Johnstone, great players no doubt and I completely take the point but they were great players 30 & 40 years ago. The game has changed and the culture around the game has changed. If he's going to reach the potential that he clearly has then he will need to become a better athlete. However as a few have said he's still only 19, there's still room for him to develop. It's really up to him whether he does or not.

Not to be all "guy on the internet reading too much into Evening Times interviews" but going by that interview Bara's saying that there are "two or three players we're looking to bring in to crucial parts of the team, and he's [McDonald] one of them". Assuming it's on top of Kennedy coming at centre half, Bara's on record as saying we're going to bring in a new 'keeper & you'd imagine (hope) that a midfielder's next on the shopping list. In the case of Skippy though, does this mean we're actively looking for someone in the role, be it McDonald or someone else. In which case we're looking at a forward group of: Clarkson, Moult, Fletcher, Moore +1 (McDonald or A.N Other experienced forward/#10) or it's more that we're in for him rather than necessarily needing to add another forward. Edit to add: I'd hope it's the former.

Nothing against Dan and this post isn't meant to be putting the boot in, clearly there are tons of different variables involved in the way last season went and by no means can you put it all down to the GK position, that would be both unreasonable and a bit mental. As folk have said he clearly has positive attributes and there's nothing to say he can't develop into a decent goalkeeper maybe even a good one however at the moment he's nowhere near the level to be considered a first choice 'keeper. It's maybe unfair to single out one mistake in a game he otherwise did well in but 3:32 on the club highlights vs Heerenveen last week is as much a reminder as anything of why he doesn't seem to instil confidence in the defenders in front of him. (He comes flying out for a lofted through ball, completely misses his punch and the centre half has to take the ball off the line). Yes, it was only a friendly, yes it ended 0-0, yes he seemed to otherwise have a good game but those are the sort of mistakes that he's prone to (and is clearly still making) and ultimately they're the sort of mistakes that result in us conceding soft goals. As prone as Long was to a mistake (the ones he conceded away to Aberdeen were up there with the OG Dan conceded away to Dundee in the 4-1 game), nevertheless if you compare the record of the 2 'keepers in the league under Baraclough (not including the play-off games vs Sevco) we conceded less with Long than we did with Dan (1.3 goals per game with Long over 13 games, 2.1 goals per game with Dan over 9 games). We also picked up more points with Long in goals than with Dan with 17 points in 13 games (1.3 per game) vs 8 points in 9 games (0.8 per game). For what it's worth, that's not to be read as an argument for having Long back it's just an observation on how things compared. The obvious caveat there is that Long was part of a hastily rebuilt team and the argument would be if Dan had the benefit of Laing, Pearson, Johnson & McDonald in the team he was part of then results may well have played out the same or better, who knows, but on a very basic level it'd appear that despite our defence being shambolic even with Long in goal we improved in terms of goals conceded and points gained when Dan was replaced.

1. Celtic 2. Aberdeen 3. Dundee Utd 4. St. Johnstone 5. Motherwell 6. Hearts --------------------- 7. ICT 8. Partick 9. Dundee 10. Hamilton --------------------- 11. Ross County --------------------- 12. Kilmarnock

In fairness I think it was pretty clear from his interview that it wasn't going to be a decision he'd be making quickly and as clichéd as it sounds he obviously wants to explore all his options, which is understandable given his age and the fact that this would certainly be one of his last moves. I don't think him not having signed already, even given it's been a while since that interview, says anything other than he's doing pretty much what he said he'd do. It's difficult to say how much of what he said was him simply being courteous to Motherwell but it definitely seemed like he saw coming back as a genuine option that he'd seriously consider however when it comes down to it the transfer window still has the best part of two months left to run so I'm not surprised he's giving himself some time. I'd imagine there would need to be a decision made one way or another reasonably soon but by the same token I wouldn't read anything into him not having re-signed right at this moment.

Here you go, as above, it's Luton: http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/Derby-County-Mark-O-Brien-training-Luton-Town/story-26860979-detail/story.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

He's got a LinkedIn page. Previous senior GK coach at: Cardiff, Ipswich, Cambridge & Norwich. Left Cardiff last year. Aye, the pro deflect thing is his.

It's live now (He doesn't clear it up):

Depends on club & manufacturer really, also what type of jersey they are ie: player issue or a "fan/stadium shirt". Invariably Nike are the worst for it though most manufacturers take the piss. Nike shirts usually retail around £65 but they've got Inter "match" shirts that were £90 rrp going for £63 in their sale. FWIW the £65 rrp ones are going for £45 at sale price. For what it's worth re: the new 'well shirts, I think the away one is cracking, I liked the Nike mock-up UBH did (http://oi57.tinypic.com/23u66o1.jpg) which I think looked like it took elements of the Roma jerseys (which I love, be it Kappa or Nike) but the one they've ended up going for is great, genuinely difficult for me to find a fault with it. The home shirt I like but being honest I much preferred the mock up earlier in the thread (http://oi62.tinypic.com/fu4y8n.jpg). I agree with whoever said they thought the design they've gone with was a bit busy. Having said that, it's still a belter of a jersey. When they get it right (some of the Lazio shirts for example) Macron do a pretty decent job indeed.

It's not the same guy but apparently Twitter has this chap on trial with us. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_van_Zeelst Story here: http://www.bd.nl/sport/voetbal/willem-ii/simon-van-zeelst-op-proef-bij-motherwell-1.5059231?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

the bold Esteban.