Andy_P

I'm fairly sure you've been saying much the same thing about Lasley and the midfield for at least the last three years Dave. Yet here we are looking at a third top three finish in succession with Lasley the constant in that much maligned midfield. We were supposed to crumble in that area when Jennings left, the same when Law went but Lasley has been the rock that has enabled others to come in like Carswell, Vigurs and now Leitch and make a contribution. In much the same way that it can be frustrating for some to see Ainsworth reticent at tracking back so, the way our team is generally set up with an emphasis on attack under McCall, will our central midfield be under greater pressure than most. He wasn't supposed to be captain material either in some people's minds yet he has helped cultivate a togetherness and character in that squad that has helped eek out results like midweek through leading by example. I personally can see no discernable difference in his level of performance this season to that a couple of seasons ago when some were suggesting had he been a year or two younger would have been a potential Scotland international. Hope he's around leading that midfield for a season or two yet.

Broken wrist I think that was Haggis, but yeah just as he was about to commence a loan spell at Firhill.

Like them both. Yeah there are tweaks I would perhaps have liked to have seen but we know what the drill is by now in terms of templates. Both improvements on this year's efforts for me.

Your thoughts and votes please....

I think the onus has to be on us to go for it early on. My hope is that with nothing for them to play for we can get it done and dusted quick sharp and help push any of the Caley players who just want the season over so they can disappear off to a beach somewhere, along that road. Unlikely it will be so straight forward and we've shat in the nest of teams who do have something to play for ourselves, so we know there's every chance they'll be a threat, but for me that has to be aim.

Aye that was one of the best. We were part of one of Sky's double or tripple header things so I remember being in Motherwell Point from early on watching a bit of a thriller between Man Utd and Middlesborough having no inkling of what we were about to witness a couple of hours later. I think we'd only be given a few hundred tickets and even then our end was heavily infiltrated. It was all about their 9-in-a-row party and nobody had given any thought to the fact we were in deep shit and staring down the barrel at a play-off against Airdrie, which nobody really fancied at all. They didn't factor in at all that we wouldn't just roll over. We were just sensational that day and every bit of experience we had in that team was used to the full. Any hopes Rangers had of killing the game early just never materialised. They couldn't get the ball off us for about the first 5 minutes and much of that was spent in their half. That just set the tone for the full game. It became clear just how few 'Well fans were in the "away" end at that first goal which I think just pumped up everybody that was there even more. There was some serious goading going on some of which boiled over when our second went in. There were coins pouring down the top tier as we celebrated below and I mind one of my mates cracking one of vile ones in the row in front who had been particularly mouthy as the celebrations were ongoing. It was all the more amusing as he thought he'd been caught by a coin by one of his own. And Gaz, I've heard John Chapman himself recount that very story about the post match drinks although if I remember rightly his response was a much more subtle one liner along the lines of "I do hope you enjoy your champagne David". Happy days!

I wouldn't be upset in the slightest if we were to extend his deal beyond this season. On the park for someone who had barely played (if any) top flight football before signing for us then I think the biggest compliment you pay him is that he hasn't looked out of place at all. He's made a very sold contribution since arriving and fits the Motherwell mould pretty well with the versatility he can bring to the squad. Off the park I smiled at his remarks following the injury he incurred at Inverness when he had to go of about chucking a bit of sawdust on it and he'd be fine for the next game and if as is being implied earlier in the thread he's not on much whilst playing for us, then it reflects well on him. Obviously something is better than nothing when you've no team and there is the opportunity to impress on what is effectively a 4 month trial - not many players get that - but combined it goes to show there's a fair bit of spirit and determination about the guy.

The outcome was exactly as hoped for and the day made even better with Aberdeen losing and Dundee Utd, perhaps unexpectedly, dropping point at Inverness. The first half was a good reaction I felt after last weekend. We started positively and at a good tempo and passed up a couple of half decent chances before we got our noses in front - whether intended or accidental! Pretty poor goal to lose both in terms of the free header Mackay was allowed and the passage of play that earned them the corner in the first place. Again though a decent response if a slightly bizarre equaliser. Quite odd that one of the most important goals of the season was met with some of the most muted responses and celebrations of the season given how the referee had handled the situation. A nervy old second half ensued and having looked bright offensively in the first half, defensively we looked largely sound in the second and restricted Saints to very few opportunities. Let's just keep it going on Wednesday!

Not that I'm disagreeing with the sentiment of getting extra bodies in to back the team but Alba's delayed transmission rather than live no?

Your thoughts and votes please...

Another example was cited where an investor could take a percentage of a transfer fee of an academy player's transfer fee in return for more immediate investment. I suppose any such arrangement would come down to a variety of factors, not least the people looking to invest and the sums involved.

Well I can only take Weir at his word and he stated and repeated that it remained Boyle's wish that the fan ownership model succeeded and this was the route the board wanted to continue to go down too. I've no reason to doubt that. But certainly at the same time it's fairly obvious that even with less than a third of the funds required for full ownership the WS remains a very attractive option for MFC when times are tight. Indeed a considerable loan made this season is due to be repaid shortly. Personally though for me that was always going to be one of the ways the WS could assist the club and I've no issues with that at all.

There was formal thanks given and noted for Dempster's efforts but no direct discussion of her departure. And a welcome for Burrows (who was present at the meeting as a WS member). I'm not that great at guessing numbers but certainly the room (it was held in the Millennium Suite) seemed pretty full. On the numbers front can't remember if it was on the screen or announced but I scribbled down that we currently have 1271 members with 79 having joined since the payment options were revised earlier this year.

Went along last night. Quite an odd night on reflection. It bumbled along in much the same way as most AGM's do. Thanks offered. Election of new board member undertaken. Financials discussed. Membership levels advised. Discussion of future events and the questions posed how to take the WS forward then.... ...BOOM we got the show-stopper news of a fairly major change of strategy from the club who will now begin to actively seek external investment. My immediate was that this was a sign the game was perhaps up for the WS fan ownership model. Over the course of the remainder of the meeting the WS board and Derek Weir attempted to offer re-assurance that isn't the case, but I find it a little difficult to shake off the view that the importance of the WS in the overall club strategy has been downgraded given the slow pace of uptake. Essentially, going by what Weir said, the club still want the WS model to work. They still want full fan ownership. But having got just 30% or whatever towards that goal in close to 2 years they realise it isn't something that is going to happen soon. Having got feelers that there are people willing to invest in the club directly but not through the WS, they've decided to look at that avenue as the likes of Killie and Dundee Utd have done previously for finance in the more immediate term. What they say they will make clear however is any investor will be fully briefed that they are still working towards fan ownership in the longer term and so any investment they make should be made with that knowledge. In other words they aren't going to give someone a majority shareholding in return for money or anything like that. The role for the WS in that intervening period until the £1.5m is reached? Well life goes on as normal it seems. The attempts to attract more supporters and businesses into the WS continues. The attempts to build on the money raised goes on unchanged. The reasons for seeking additional capital from Derek Weir seemed sound enough. The safeguards he talked of and the commitment to the WS in the longer term seemed fair enough too. As for the WS response though, the "we only really found about it on Wednesday and haven't discussed it as a board yet" remark from the WS board before Derek Weir began to intervene and offer the club's perspective seemed a bit rabbit caught in the headlights like. More to come in the days, weeks and months ahead clearly.

In reading the discussion over the merits of Lionel Ainsworth I can't help but think back to pre-season and the early weeks of the campaign where the regular war cry was how desperate for pace we were, how much we needed width over a one-paced congested central midfield, how we needed creativity and how Sutton was a waste of a shirt if he was being starved of the kind of service best suited to him. Well we got our pace. We got our width. We got creativity. We got plenty of the deliveries for big Johnny Handsome. And what do you know, we even got double figures from the guy as well. And folk give the impression they'd be happy to see they back of him because he doesn't track back enough. Mental! Just mental!!

The same four or five posters to give the impression they are on the verge of a breakdown every time things don't go our way.

I know, I know, you don't need to say it.... We do it, because we always do it.

I'd say there's more pressure on Utd than there is on us. Saturday's result against St Johnstone will have assured them they can't bank on the Scottish Cup for European football and if it's going to be through the league then they really need to be beating us on Saturday. Whether that translates into them coming at us all guns blazing or wilting a bit remains to be seen. They were clearly way ahead of us in the previous two fixtures but the scorelines can't be taken in isolation. There were several factors in each game that contributed to those outcomes, not least the fact we were shy of a few regulars in each. It is well within our capabilities to come back down the road with at least a point.

And in doing so it also leant a bit of weight to those who hold the theory that perhaps finishing higher in the table isn't all its cracked up to be when it comes to Europe the next season. Whilst we were building up a bit of momentum against Breidablik and Aaelusund towards the Play Off Hibs had long since been papped oot by Maribor.

The club will argue here that with the pricing schemes in place and initiatives in place currently that they are putting the building blocks in place to secure the support of the future. I'm thinking here of the season ticket deals that get up to two kids for free with an adult season ticket in parts of the ground. Or the free tickets that are given out to a couple of boys clubs or youth groups for home games. For me that's a little bit like your youth development policy where you put in the investment - or in this case, take the financial hit - and it's only going to be a few years down the line you'll see if that investment translates into those kids taking up season tickets of their own. I still have reservations that once a kid hits the ceiling of their juvenile ticket circumstances might mean we lose them and all the hard work in making this affordable and getting them into the habit will have been for nothing. Take a laddie who has been paying £70/£80 for a juvi ticket, leaves school at 16 and starts work but is only on minimum wage. £70 to something like £300 for a season book is a helluva jump. Of course I have absolutely no figures to base those concerns on so it may not be an issue at all. I also believe we should be courting visiting supports more. Some good stuff does and has gone on. Like making tickets available at Fir Park for local Celtic fans for example. Probably got us a few more sales. The donations to the Hearts Federation on their first visit this season was probably recouped and additional monies made by virtue of that gesture. But let's try more. We have an excellent social media set up that we could use to our benefit. We could do something like you get with Ticketmaster where you get an email sent to you automatically to alert you when one of your favourite artists is doing something. We could build up a database of email addresses for each opposition team and tweak the preview emails Motherwell fans get to target them. There will loads in that email relevant to them already. Add in prices so they have the info. to hand and don't have to look for prices. Let them know what's of relevance to them in the programme so they might buy it etc. If they have two successive away games lets do what we can to convince as many of them that Fir Park is the one they should go to. Put in travel details. "Paisley to Airbles in just XX minutes on the train" shite like that. Time consuming perhaps initially but once templates are built up it, should be easier to maintain and manage over time.

Personally I would think it's more down to the age factor. Folk are generally happy enough to reminisce positively or negatively if given the opportunity. I mean I'm 40 so I'd have been between four and seven when McLeod was manager. I can remember my tammy getting used for the sweep on the bus or going to places like Berwick where it seemed like it took the whole day to get there and getting excited about seeing big fuck off oil tankers in the North Sea. But I couldn't for the life of me offer a meaningful contribution as to McLeod's success or lack of as manager. I'd guess a lot of posters would be the same in that their knowledge of the game would only just be forming around the time he left.

One of those' feels like a win' equalisers. Incredible character shown by the team to come back after another two goal lead goal been lost. And with Aberdeen and Inverness drawing and United losing it's been a fine couple of days for us. I think it was either on Facebook or Twitter on the way over but someone made a telling remark along the lines our players being greater as a team than the sum of their individual parts. That was surely embodied in the way we played, lined up and eventually got our reward today, I made a joking remark about "total football" given the way at one point today we had a right-back in centre-midfield, a left-back in a back three, a left-back at right-mid and a centre-forward at left-mid. It sounds mental but it completely summed up the way went about our business. Everybody just got beasted right in and did whatever was asked of them wherever it was required, they worked their arses off and we used the footballing qualities that we do have to great effect. Couldn't have asked for a better start. Bit more composure and we could have been further ahead too with Leitch and Anier's chances. Wonderful save from Gunnar from the penalty. It was fantastic to get the second but galling that like Easter Road and like at Paisley we couldn't see out the two goal advantage until half-time. However well we'd played and done, it was difficult to suppress that horrible feeling that it would come back and bite us. Yet despite Celtic having a good bit more of it in the second half we continued to threaten. The one off the line second seconds before they equalised was a sickener. And we still looked as dangerous in their box as they did in ours as the game wore on. Like a few I suspected it was too little too late when the substitutions were made but what an impact from Ainsworth to set up Sutty for the equaliser and sparked as good a jumparound in the East Stand as there's been for a while. Absolutely delighted with the point and the team were a credit to themselves. Great afternoon's work!

Your thoughts and votes please folks...

Sooner or later they are going to down tools to an extent. I suspect it'll be more towards the end of the season but if we managed to get a lead then perhaps the motivation of one or two of their players might be tested. A sneaky wee point would be splendid!

Just read the thread through for the first time and in terms of points I'm thinking six, those coming in the home fixtures against St Johnstone and Inverness. It's the discussion towards the end of the thread though which was what immediately came to mind that being what exactly do we view as a success. Now it goes without saying that you obviously want to finish as high up the table as possible, so ofcourse we want to finish 2nd. The players will want to finish 2nd and ofcourse in terms of finance the club will want us to finish second. But personally when the dust settles whether it's 2nd, 3rd or 4th we finish, if we've qualified for Europe then I'll be more than chuffed with that. If however given where we were about half past four on Saturday and we don't make Europe then that is really going to hurt. The last five games certainly has the potential to test the bottle of us punters. It's not beyond the realms that we could go into the third fixture behind Dundee Utd in fourth place which I fear would send some on here into a "crap"- "pants" meltdown... But first things first. United and Aberdeen to win their Semi Finals to give us the potential "luxury" of 4th place giving us Europe and then into the manky lot a week on Saturday!!