bigshinyhead

As others have said, we will have played at least 6 competitive matches against teams of increasing ability and, most importantly, we have improved game on game. I can't imagine a better preparation for a season. Win or lose, our young team will learn much from playing a team like Bucharest (who will be better than the vast majority of teams we can expect to meet in the SPL) and this could just be the springboard we need for a good start to the season.

OK, here goes. I hope we never have to go back to that fucking midden of a 'stadium' ever again. Parking? What fucking parking? It was the same against the Welsh mob. There are spazzy spaces in the car park but the sign said officials and guests only. If there were any parking facilities in place they kept it a great big secret. Fuck you Airdrie and your Shitebury Excelsior hole. Anyway, rant over, what a night, what a performance. Forget all this quality of opposition pish, when you consider the turmoil we have been through over the last 6 weeks, all the change, the players we have lost, the astonishing improvement in performance since the first game against Llanelli (who were a much worse team than Flamurtari), the ages of most of the team, etc, etc, we've every right to be ecstatic over the way things are shaping up. Even if Bucharest put us out then we will have had an astounding pre-season and will, in that respect, be one of the best prepared teams in the SPL come the start of the season. Good times.

Got this from a Mansfield fan on another forum I kick about on. Just one guy's opinion mind.

from here

Not sure about this. A verbal agreement is binding in Scotland I believe but I'm not sure about England. It may be argued that he'd only agreed to sign provisionally. Either way, don't know any club that would want to keep a player who didn't want to be there and due to his age we'll probably be due them a fee anyway so we'll end up having to give them something.

I agree with this. All the signings so far appear to be young, talented guys in need of a bit of polishing. We can't get too carried away and need to bear in mind the level they're used to playing at but I reckon that from the second half of this season on we'll be on fire. So just in time for our new lawn to be gubbed again...

Is there a separate wild card deadline for each leg?

I love this post! That would be the same 10 fans I could hear chanting over the Albanian commentator and the Flamytarti fans. And in Albanian: Flibbety wimpy wopple poppadop dippery flarty pump. Google that Stavros.

Actually, aye. Refresh the page

Naw

I think it will be a damage limitation exercise. They are an unknown quantity and the conditions will be very difficult. An away goal and a good assessment of the opposition would be a decent result. Then pump them in the return leg.

If it's the location I'm thinking of, the bastard got me a couple of years ago and did me at 79mph!!! And what a crackin' photie it takes too...

Agreed. I'm morally opposed to violence and mob justice but if they don't get charged then violence and mob justice is the only solution as far as I'm concerned. I also hope they were utterly fucked trying to get home after spending the night in the Welsh jail.

The SPL report says they made £11m profit, including £9.2m from the ground sale. This would suggest that the £9.2m was clear profit from the deal. Bear in mind that the new ground is situated in Ferguslie Park where land prices average 40p an acre. Add to that the price of a large meccano set and a lawn and the new ground looks quite a bargain.

A scoot about the net suggests that the SPL clubs collectively made £23m profit in 07/08 and £11m of this was made by St. Mirren including £9m from the ground-sale deal. They'll still be shite though...

Don't think anyone's in better shape than St Mirren. Didn't they rake in over £9m from the sale of Love St.? I think a few belts will be tightened this season but they'll be in a relatively comfortable position financially although they'll probably still be shite on the pitch. I predict a 10-way relegation scrap

My neighbour was there and left early because apparently the Celtic and Utd fans were knocking fuck out of each other Smashing example to set for all the kids there

I think he maybe misheard the question and that's his 'dream weight'. Seriously, I'm glad he was playing because the sight of him stopped me from buying a pie. Give him his due though, he was still running (sort of) after 90 minutes.

Pretty much agree with this. Yes we had a severely depleted squad but we should still have beaten a team of that quality. Their number 4 is the fattest guy I have ever seen in a football strip (outside of the old firm travelling support) - seriously, he is huge - yet he was dispossessing our players and winning 50-50's. There were enough senior players in the team to have beaten a side like this comfortably but despite all the shots on target in the second half, all but one or two were completely half-arsed efforts straight to their keeper. I have no doubt we can beat them away but I'm not sure we can score enough to progress. I expected a difficult game due to all the events at the club over the last couple of weeks but I simply wasn't prepared for being unable to beat a team as shite as Llanelli.

Because there just weren't enough Jim Gannon threads...

Thing is, the whole Setanta thing can't be ignored. It's been widely reported that several SPL clubs could go tits up if the TV rights can't be sold. Maybe JB's just ensuring that we're not one of them. Scottish clubs could end up relying on cash at the turnstiles as pretty much their main income source. Advertising revenue will also ultimately drop if advertisers aren't getting their trackside boards on the telly. I think we'll see a lot of belts being tightened this year.

That's assuming we hire a manager who can not only find some winners, but find some winners who are prepared to play for a bag of spicy Nik Naks and a can of Fanta every week. We may be raking in money but there is no TV deal in place so there is no guarantee that all cash will instantly be made available. Also, given that we have a first competitive match really fucking soon, I would prefer to have a team that at least know each other by their first names.

Around you?

Thank fuck someone is talking sense. Anyone would think he'd been a shite manager for us. Let's hope that any prospective applicant for the post doesn't decide to read some of the shite on here to guage fans' expectations.

OK, I may be in a minority of one here but I wish him all the best. We were flirting with disaster when he took over and he took a team of relegation contenders to 3rd spot and Europe. He made some good signings and worked well within the financial constraints that he was given. He was always going to move on to a bigger club and, like it or not, the sheepshaggers are a bigger club than us. So he hoowered himself about. How many of us have ambition in our careers? The thing with football is that it’s paying customers are fans. I may prefer to wipe my arse with Andrex quilted (with aloe vera) and that makes me a paying customer but it does not necessarily make me an Andrex fan. We support the team we love and expect those who work there to be supporters too but this is not always the case, especially when it comes to players and managers. So when they move on we take it personally and call them all the treacherous cocks of the day while forgetting the good they did at the club and forgetting that they came here and did what they were paid to do. He came to Motherwell and used us as a stepping stone to bigger things and in order to get those bigger things he had to do a good job here. As far as I am concerned he did that and the likelihood is that the next guy will do the same and I hope he does. I don’t give a fuck who our manager supports, I only care that he does a good job of managing Motherwell.