weeyin

Not at all, I was just wondering if there was some negotiation details that he wanted to share. Otherwise, the situation as I understand it is pretty much this: By McCall's own admission, the club presented him with a new contract a number of weeks ago. For a few weeks, McCall says he's been too busy to get around to signing it. Last week we hear the story, which may or may not be true, that his agents/managers/lawyers/whatever have now read it and are trying to negotiate over a specific release clause. Unless there have been details published about that specific clause that I'm not aware of, I have no idea how good or bad that is. Certainly, just because some money grubbing agent who benefits from his client moving as often as possible, is complaining about it, doesn't mean it's unreasonable. And I'm not going to fault the club for the speed in which they got a contract on the table, or the fact that they want to protect themselves from a Paw Broon situation. If anything, the fault lies with the individual (or his advisors) who dragged their heels when it came to reviewing it. However, as someone who spends a fair amount of time working with contracts, I know even the most straightforward ones can take weeks to agree once the lawyers get involved. Oh, and I do agree Gannon was not treated well by the club, I just don't see any parallels with this situation.

Details?

You know it's been an international week when the Ins & Outs Thread turns to McCall bashing. I hope the apologies appear as quickly when he signs his new deal.

Do you know where Randolph was? Reserve keeper for a 3rd tier English team who played about 60 games in 7 years (and only 14 for his employers). I'm not saying Hollis is as good as Randolph, but I guarantee nobody on here had a clue if Randolph was any good when we signed him. He certainly hadn't proved anything with, as you liked to call it, "a string of games at this level"

Ruddy and Randolph were both reserve keepers untested in a run of games at this level. They both bounced around loads of reserve games with the odd loan here and there to pick up a few lower league appearances. Any new keeper we sign is also likely to be a reserve player and also untested in a run of games at this level. If the coaching staff reckon Hollis is ready to step up, I'd have no problems with their judgement.

So in summary: An agent bigged up a player. We signed him after a trial. He played a dozen or so games and we punted him. The agent was a bit shady. Riveting.

McCall said we'd need to wait until top half of the table was guaranteed before we could finalize the details on the offers, so hopefully now the ball will be well and truly rolling.

There's a wee bit of a difference between pub opening times and slavery too.

Wee bit of a difference between decades of racial oppression and deciding if we play ICT twice or 3 times in a season though, eh?

Off the top of my head, I think we were 2 - 0 nil down at half time in the famous 5 - 4 victory against Killie. Don't know if that was the last time though.

For total number of Scotland goals (before, during and after) a 'Well career, Faddy is up there with 15. Ian St. John only managed 9, apparently. Other likely candidates like Davie Cooper managed 6 , Willie McFadyen (2 goals in 2 games), Omar Daley has 7 total for Jamaica. No idea who has scored most while actually playing for us. Also I see McLair scored twice and McAllister 5 times.

It has been a ridiculously successful few years as demonstrated by the expectation levels of many fans. Our best under wee Tommy was arguably better than recent times (although McGhee's first year would be a contender), but the consistency has been very impressive - especially considering the financial constraints. You only need to look down a division to see what can happen; whether it's a poor run of form or poor management, things can quickly turn against you - just ask Clydebank, Dumbarton, Morton etc. who all played in the old Premier League, but never in the SPL.

No, but I'd swap one (and only one) season of bottom 6 for another Cup win. Overall though, I'd prefer to be consistently entertained, but that's easy for me to say as I was at Hampden for our last Cup win.

Fiver sent via paypal.

Congrats to the winners and a big thanks to Brazilian for taking care of the necessary again this season.

Blind squirrels and nuts come to mind.

In the modern footballing world, contracts (especially for managers) are meaningless. They get fired on the whim of the board and they walk out when they get a better offer. Rightly or wrongly, it's standard business practice and they are only relevant in regard to what compensations is received when the firing/walkout occurs. They never prevent either event from happening.

That's why he's a Marketing student rather than a Computer Science student

To be fair, they did answer a number of those points at the Well Society meeting - in particular about the league reconstruction. Whether you believe it or not is a different story, but a number of clubs see the merging of the governing bodies, improved voting strucutre and the redistribution of funds as a positive part of the bigger picture. The idea being that for a 3 year period, the more equitable distribution of wealth will give the lower league clubs more opportunity to grow. At the end of 3 years, the league structure is up for discussion again and the hope expressed was that the lower league clubs would then be in a better financial position to join an expanded top flight. If all that is true, then it is a reasonable position for me. The issue lies around the interim structure. There are clubs (and Aberdeen was mentioned as one) who still see themselves as Johnny Big Shots, who see things as of they were part of the OF and tend to vote the same way. Add to that that potential sponsors are said to want change to the league format, and that is where the fun begins. If I was given 100% assurance that after 3 years the top league was guaranteed to be expanded, I could live with the new proposals, as there are plenty of positive changes that are in the pipeline. If not, then the club could be voting itself out of existance.

I'm confident if we score at least 4 we will get a result* *result might include a draw

Or maybe he's having to wait until top 6 is guaranteed before the details can be finalized (just like the players). He made all the right noises earlier, so I'm not too worried, but this is Motherwell - if he goes, he goes and we'll carry on regardless. What is interesting is that, after all the doubts and complaints when we hired him, so many people are worried he's going to leave.

The big difference in Spain is that the parent teams have no intention of moving to a different country. I'm not against colt teams per se, as long as there are strict rules around them (no prize money, no transfers outside window, can't play in the cup, no promotion, no tv money etc.). I am, however, against OF colt teams, as they obviously just want to have their cake and eat it if they ever manage to bugger off elsewhere.

If the SPL and SFL merge, then surely it's up to all the clubs in the new body to decide?

On MFC TV the other day McCall basically said that he has talked to all the players' agents and is aware of who is interested in re-signing and hinted that at least a couple of players will be leaving (which isn't a big surprise). He added that, until we are guaranteed top 6, the board can't make any firm offers. It sounded like they are already actively looking for replacements, as he also mentioned that he was talking to the agents of prospects more often than he talked to his wife. I would imagine that Law is one of the players likely to leave and I have never had an issue with players moving to any team they want to (OF or otherwise). We'll bring in a replacement and keep moving forwards like we always do.