Casagolda

He never played a game as a striker for Legia, instead playing on the right wing. Scored 2 goals in 43 games last season. Doesn't sound like a striker to me. After his initial burst he failed to score regularly for us either. He can be effective setting up others but he is far from a prolific scorer.

That is complete crap. Anier and Sutton started 18 league games together. Sutton started all but one game and was seldom ever a lone striker, in fact he was the striker more likely to play off the front with McFadden or Anier playing up against the centre half. In close games Sutton was always the one who would drop back to defend on the wings, not McFadden who was unable to adequately move up and down the pitch and not Anier who was far too aggressive and reckless to trust at the back. Plus big John isn't great at holding up the play to wait for support. Like Higdon he is great when he knows where he he passing/heading the ball before it arrives at him. He also can't really dribble. So Anier's main attributes were being fast enough to be a threat with balls over the top, skillful enough to beat a defender with the ball at his feet and able to finish when a chance came his way. Last season neither McFadden or McHugh showed they could do any of those three things reliably.

Fixtures Summary Initially 16 home games so possibilities of being bumped in the split Home game first which is good, actually 2 weekends in a row. Kind of shit for the teams that wait 3 weeks until they get a home weekend game. 2x Home St Mirren ICT St Johnstone Hamilton Dundee 2x Away Dundee United Kilmarnock Ross County Celtic Partick Thistle Aberdeen Midweeks Away to Dundee United (mid August, 2nd game of the season) Home to Celtic (late Jan) Home to St Mirren (early April, 2nd last game before the split) New Year Away to Accies

Took McCall until Tuesday to work out what he could have done to thwart Utd, shame we were playing a different team. I believe he was caught out by the return of McLean and StJ playing 2 men up front. McCall needs to realise we aren't a good side adapting to other teams. Play our own game and try to impose ourselves. Playing 3-5-2 was stupid since it isolated Hutchy in wide areas and gave their full backs free reign to be an easy out ball while they had the length of the park to themselves. Easton was in acres of space as he lined up the cross for the 2nd. We really struggle outside of our standard 4-4-2 The midfield was a joke with Anier and Sutton both playing mainly in the centre of the park we had no width to provide easy out balls, ZFA did okay but anytime he got 30 yards from goal Croft and their full back doubled up on him. Lasley, Carswell and Vigurs were doing a lot of standing about similar to the LAwson - Vigurs - Lasley trio from the beginning of the season, they couldn't space themselves out and didn't understand where they should be playing to be effective. The galling thing is we did the exact same thing earlier in the season at McDairmid playing with no width and we got horsed that day as well. That must be the end for Neilsen. I don't care who is in goals but not him. Hollis has been back on the bench, hopefully he will be in for the Hearts game.

Hadn't seen this channel before. Went to look for this goal right away, McKinnon and Lambert free kick routine re-enacted across many a fitba park in motherwell. Goal is at 3:30 but you would miss a rare goal from Toastie.

I think you have to take longevity into account. Sure Bobby Donnelly was terrible but the boy only played a handful of games. The guys that are the worst to me are the ones who hang around like a bad smell. So my team will only include guys who spent more than a season at the club. Colin Meldrum Kevin Christie Brian McLean Jamie McGowan Derek Townsley Ian Ross Paul Harvey Andy Roddie Omar Daley John Hendry Trevor Molloy

Letheren tweeted that he is fine plus they have another keeper John Gibson they have been developing for a few years. It really comes down to whether we want to pay the money to keep Dan. How much does a third choice first division keeper earn?

As well as those goals we are a shambles at set pieces and have already conceded 6 goals from balls into the box. McManus clearly hasn't been an upgrade from Ramsden at centre half where as Ramsden has certainly been a downgrade over Tom Hateley at full back. Let's assume McManus and Hateley would have cost the same in wages who would you rather have?

If it has been posted it would have been exposed as bullshit. While some teams only play Rangers once, some teams play them twice and teams would play them at least 1.5 times on average over a number of seasons. So simply dividing the increased average Rangers match attendances by 19 is bad maths at best and dishonest at worst. I'm sure teams who are going from 3 games against the OF to 1 are going to be effected more than those who have guaranteed.

No it wouldn't breach any rules, it simply means that Sky have the right to cancel their contract with the league if Rangers and Celtic aren't part of it. If either of them are relegated the SPL would continue but the TV contract associated with the league may be voided. Are you thick? TV revenue accounts for around a third of income for Motherwell, probably more this season if we finish 3rd and have had no significant cup runs. To say clubs shouldn't be relying on this revenue is idiotic. Cup monies would also diminish without Rangers existence. The Setanta deal didn't collapse because of extravagant money spent on showing the SPL, it was the money they spent on acquiring EPL games.

Lasley got a one game auto ban for his red then a second game 14 days after the incident for it being his second red of the season so he is still on 5 yellows. For the Aberdeen league game we could have a lot of suspensions. Clancy and Hutchy are already out. A booking for Lasley at Celtic, a booking for Jennings at either Celtic or Dunfermline would see them suspended. Bookings in both those games would see Hammell and Higdon suspended too. Obviously red cards vs Dunfermline and straight reds against Aberdeen in the cup would also be served in that Aberdeen league match.

Congrats to Keith. He has been superb for a good while now and is such an important player for setting the tempo in midfield. Tom Hateley must've been in with a shout too. 3 assists (Las vs Utd, Murphy vs Hibs and Hutch vs ICT) plus his last minute winner last week. Izaguirre won the PFA POTY award last year with 1 goal and 4 assists...

Cheers for the quotation marks...who is that attributed to? Higdon had a good game but I'm not confident he will have a run of good games. It is great he is scoring goals but even his happy clappers (there were fans applauding when he won his first header...it went to no one) can admit his touch hasn't been the greatest, he has tried too many first time lay-offs when he should be trying to hold the ball up and he has been fighting defenders rather than for the ball. As for others not playing well. Steve Jennings had his first good game in a while and looked fit enough for the ninety, Humphrey shows it in flashes but he did nothing spectacular yesterday and Murphy had another quiet game on the wing. Credit to Clancy as well, he is good player if he can cut out his stupid errors, he had a great game at Tannadice.

He is partying in Ibiza and when I spoke to him last night he was delighted at the result. I'm not a big fan of Higdon either but there is no doubt everyone wants him to play well, there is some doubt if he is good enough to play well in a lot of games. He has managed to score goals albeit they all been first time strikes or from close range but is still woeful in his link up play and general effort about the park. I don't want to see him sprinting about like a looney but in yesterdays game he stood and watched Kenneth walk the ball into our half several times without even making a move towards him. The game suited yesterday against two centre halves who like contact which meant Higdon didn't look like an arse turning and reaching out for defenders like he did against Aberdeen, Rangers, Hibs and Celtic while the ball was still in the air. He did play much better though but I still think he needs to work harder off the ball. He is having a very similar start to John Sutton who scored goals but was like the tin man in all other aspects of the game.

Shite again. Only on the team cos he's tall. UNACCEPTABLE

No messing about, 4-4-2 Randolph Hateley Hutchinson Craigan Hammell Humphrey Lasley Jennings Law Higdon Murphy Just get right into Rangers. They are poor in centre mid so Lasley and Jenno should handle them without needing to have a central 3. Plus Higdon showed he isn't effective as a lone striker so we definitely need to keep two upfront.

Dario Quinn is missing from the squad list on the official site. Have we released him?

Reading some stuff in the Ins and Outs thread but I thought I should give this a bump. "It is expected that two out of five or six board members would be elected by their votes and that is a measure of how fundamental will be supporters' input." - Leann Dempster Source (page 2) The plan now doesn't seem like one member, one vote but rather one member, one vote for a small part of the board. I thought we were going to elect the full board of directors through the membership and have control of the club through democratic means, that doesn't look likely now. If Boyle is gifting his share, worth 75%, to the fans then the fans should elect 75% of the board. This looks like democracy lite and not what John Boyle led most people to believe and definitely not as palatable. You are essentially parting with your hard earned cash to be part of a group that have no power to run the club, what's the point?

Found some mock up motherwell kits on a football manager forum.

Is anyone else concerned that according to Kenny Black we only have a budget to bring in one more player and that it will probably be a defender. First we have plenty of defenders, we don't have a left sided centre back but I'm not too concerned with that and we lack a replacement left back but I would rather trust Tom Hately out of position or Halsman instead of spending limited money on cover for Hammell. Second we only have 3 strikers. If we get an injury then we are bare bones with only Howarth, Lawless and Gary Smith which seemed to be trusting to luck. If we have such limited funds a striker should be the priority.

Not really important but I noticed Higdon has number 9 on his shorts which means Jamie Murphy might have changed number, possibly to 10? I would imagine Hutchison will be taking 4 meaning the lowest open number is 11 (which Murphy might have if we keep 10 retired) then 15, 17 then 19. Hollis might get bumped from 12 as well. Again not really important but its preseason so little things are more interesting.

Aye we better start writing checks to Alan Gow, Nick Blackman, Mark Reynolds and Marc Fitzpatrick.

Yeah, our defense looked really solid against ICT!

With Jennings suspended for the next 3 league games Hateley has to play centre midfield. Page has played 2 games at right back and one at left back. I thought it was a mistake to put Hateley to right back at Killie instead of switching Page and moving Gunning to left back. We need two of Lasley, Jennings and Hateley in centre mid to be competitive so Hateley should be fine at right back for United leaving us a defence of Hammell Gunning Hutchison Hateley with possibly Hollis in goal.

Motherwell 2 Celtic 0 It is an .avi file and around 50MB. Quality is decent, audio is shit. If you weren't at the game the BBC highlights don't really show how the game went, we created far more chances and despite Celtic having lots of shots in the highlights we were never under real pressure except at the end of the first half.