Joeboy

He was injured in pre-season, which ruled him out until October, after which he was virtually an ever present until he joined us in January, for £110k (not a free). So you're not even half right.

My guess is that we were paying 50% of his wages and they recalled him to either let him go permanently, or loan him to a club willing to cover his entire wage.

He's only recently started back running on the treadmill after a long term injury. Robinson said the reason we signed Mugabi was that due to long-term injuries to Dunne and Devine we lacked cover to see us through to Christmas at centre-back. He's obviously impressed enough since then to get his deal extended.

I actually think our squad is a bit on the heavy side, numbers wise. I'm not convinced that the O'Hara or Mugabi signings were particularly necessary. I'd like to have seen us have a bit of faith in Maguire, Devine and Semple to cover those positions through injury. As much as I'm saying this having not seen them much, I'd be surprised if Ilic, Sloth or Mazinga make much of an impact. Ilic and Mazinga I reckon will see out their one year deals then float off into obscurity. Sloth is a weird one as he has a decent pedigree and a two year deal, but I think the fact we've signed O'Hara says it all. I don't know whether a target for a top number 9 fell through, but it seems we have several of similar levels of ability. I am going to guess that Robinson had a few "top" strikers in mind that didn't come off or that he feared another McCormack by putting all of his eggs in one basket. With any big rebuilding job we've had in the short to medium term past, there has never been a 100% success rate and I guess that will only be the case. I think our squad, perhaps without a proper quality, proven goalscorer, is well covered for most eventualities, even if carrying a wee bit of deadwood.

Wasn't Hartley fit when he signed permanently (albeit facing a suspension for the Dougie Imrie incident) but got injured in training a few days later? That's certainly how I remember it, I may be wrong.

We have three first team centre backs in Gallagher, Dunne and Hartley and we have Devine and although he's being used in midfield, Maguire to step in. No need to sign Hall, waste of funds.

I think McCall's approach to recruitment that summer was mental. He signed Lawson and Vigurs, who excelled in a midfield three and then signed Sutton, who could only play in a front two. I think McCall just went out and signed the best players available to him, without a shape or a plan. I still think it's a mystery we finished second with that squad and that told with the way things went the following year.

The biggest one I think I got wrong was Bigi. As a part time Coventry fan, every time I watched him down there he was brilliant. Great passer of the ball, made the team tick and was central to every piece of good play. That just didn't happen for him up here. Whilst I don't remember him being overly physical down there, I didn't think that side of the game would affect him quite as badly as it did. I also thought Louis Laing had potential to be a really decent signing when we got him in permanently. But in hindsight, anyone who followed Mark O'Brien could have looked like Franco Baresi and Laing's well career was destroyed by an East Fife striker within a month of the season starting.

I was appreciative of the job Main done as a lone striker in the second half of the season, but as noted above, that was massively helped by the fact that we had a midfielder in Turnbull and a winger in Hastie regularly contributing goals in this period, where Main scored once. The thing for me is that if Turnbull goes this summer, I don't know how likely that is personally, then I'm guessing it gives us a midfield three of Sloth/Campbell/Polworth. While Polworth's numbers stack up well for assists, he's never been prolific in terms of goals. I think the closest I've ever seen to a central midfielder getting 15 was Stephen Pearson getting 9 in 2015/16, but this was in a season where both Moult and McDonald hit double figures. Again, I don't know how likely Turnbull is to leave in the summer (he may even get loaned back if he does go), but if he does, I think it's much less of a long shot trying to replace those goals in a centre forward, rather than a like-for-like midfielder. Considering that, I think it's probably best that Main's no longer on the wage bill.

Yeah, I reckon it will be a pretty massive job. There's probably a reasonable chance that every single out of contract player will depart. I think the slight stagnation/injury/compensation fee pronged trio might put a lot of teams off Cadden, but he could still have offers. Other than him, the players who have been in the side since our upsurge in form now seem to have suitors, which in turn has proved those who have fallen out of the team since then are, bottom line, not good enough. Looks like it's a balance between those hoping for a move to further themselves and those hoping for a move for first team football. A long with those out of contract, I wouldn't be surprised to see Donnelly, Hartley and Johnson also go. Since that Ross County cup game, they've played 41 minutes between them, which would tell you their future doesn't lie here. If I'm thinking right, that leaves us on 9 contracted outfield players (Tait, Campbell, Grimshaw, Dunne, Turnbull, Livingstone, Scott, Maguire, Gallagher) and 3 goalkeepers (Carson, Gillespie, Ferguson). A big job ahead, indeed.

It's a tricky one with Main. Up until the semi-final v Aberdeen last season, he hit 8 in 16 games and has scored 6 in 39 games in the time since. I didn't get to many games in the first half of the season, but when I did he looked a shadow of the player from last season. I think you could be looking at someone who was a player who went through a goalscoring patch, rather than a goalscorer now suffering a drought. I've been to a lot of games since Christmas and since then he certainly has done an effective job at the task in hand. We've obviously turned things around in this time and Main has been great foil for the three behind him. When you look at the goals we've scored in this time from central areas. Turnbull has scored three from coming from deep positions (v Accies, Hibs and St. Johnstone) as did Campbell against St. Mirren. Then we've had Hastie's goals which have been quite similar. If you look at his goal against Hearts, Main sets him on his way and is looking for the return ball, which had it been any of our other wingers, he'd probably have got, but Hastie obviously steps in and smashes it in the top corner. I guess given just how good he was initially, we'll always see this season as disappointing, but I think if he had a full season, playing with this team and this formation, he might have been a 10 goal striker, maybe not much more than that but still. There's arguments for and against giving him a new deal and I'm still torn myself. It all depends on which players would be around him next season, but I could see us letting him go and not replacing him with someone as effective.

The chat I had heard last summer was that he was on £3k a week at Bury, but had a 25% relegation wage drop clause, meaning he would now be on £2.25k a week, so he'd have to take a further pay cut to stay here you'd think.

I thought the question was who has won a World Cup and played at Fir Park, not who had played at Fir Park as a World Cup Winner.

Gattuso with Rangers?

I think Grimshaw has been excellent since he went in at full back, I have no qualms about him there with Tait at left back. I think people overplay the importance of having full-backs playing on their natural sides, I think it's perfectly fine as long as they are comfortable using their weaker foot, which Tait clearly is. For someone who has only been connected with us for a few years, the way Grimshaw conducts himself comes across as someone who loves the club, he seems to get it. A definite new contract for him if you ask me.

As I said, in the rebuild thread, I'm torn on McHugh. What we have to consider is that given he signed his current contract at the start of last season, it's a captain and first choice central midfielder's contract. The wages in that won't reflect a backup centre half, which is the circumstance I would keep him in. Good player to have about the squad, but I'd only keep him if the wage of his new contract reflects his current role in the squad.

It's mental that we have this academy graduate who's come into the first team, taken it by storm, scored twice on Saturday, one of which a fantastic solo goal, yet you come on to the match thread and we have people giving in-depth analysis of each and every part of it to try and discredit the lad. Gees peace.

He was on off the ball and the open goal podcasts yesterday and said he is on warfarin (a blood thinner) and can't do contact sports until May 25th when his dosage of that ends. He said they are still trying to find the root cause but he hopes to get the green light to return for pre-season.

If he was willing to change his wage from a first team midfielder's wage to a backup centre half's then I'd consider it, otherwise I'm veering towards no.

Yep, it definitely is being relaid indoors at the minute.

I know we are talking teams of totally different scales and ability, but Main's performance last night reminded me of Giroud for France at the world cup. Nothing of note at all inside the box, but a lot of graft as the focal point outside the box, allowing the ball players behind him to play. After his initial purple patch, it would be a bit sad if that's all he ever was, but it might be what the team needs just now.

Enjoyed both the game and the result last night (who knew actually playing football could work) but I'm trying to use the fact that it was a rank rotten Hibs side as reason not to get carried away, especially after Saturday. The back four looked to have a much better balance to it, even with a left footer at right back. I'm not as negative about Hartley and McHugh but it was quite clear to see how our style of play benefited from their absence. Grimshaw for me was excellent against Accies at right back and was very harshly dropped against County and was again superb last night. Lets give him a run of games there. He seems to be the one player in the squad that doesn't let frustration or how the games going alter his good attitude, you get the same from him every week in that regard. I was very impressed with Hastie both physically and technically and whilst I feel sorry for Frear, who's been waiting so long for us to play a formation with wingers, I'd like to see Ariyibi and Hastie continue. Main scored 9 in his first 16 games for Motherwell and has scored 5 in 31 since. I guess the fact he came in and played with an arrogant swagger, which we all enjoyed at the time, is possibly counting against him now. It must be difficult to go from a ratio of better than 1 in 2, to worse than 1 in 6. I don't know if he's now a good player going through a bad patch, or a bad player who went through a bad patch, but his best career return being 10 goals (in a season he played 44 games) probably tells that story. I thought he was dreadful against Ross County in both quality and application, his body language looked like he couldn't be arsed. It's good to see that at least the application part of that was sorted last night. I'd probably have gone with Sammon last night (who I perceived to be the lesser of two evils) but on the night Main done the job asked of him effectively. Hopefully we can halt the stop-start nature of our season and get a result against Dundee on Saturday, who'll be buoyed by last night's result.

For me, I'd pin more of our problems on Saturday on Robinson than I would the players. Obviously Robinson didn't stick his hand out towards the ball like Hartley, or play everyone onside like Taylor-Sinclair, but he set us up for the result we ended up getting in my opinion. So many times on here we've seen people say that wing-back isn't Frear's best position and he would be suited to playing in front of a left-back. So what do we do, we play a left back yet drop him, despite his creativity saving our bacon against Clyde. Had it been a back four and a narrow midfield, I could've lived with it, but Rose spent the first half hugging the left touchline. Bigi coming on at half time was a breath of fresh air - and while he will still continue to divide opinion - it wasn't that he done anything earth shattering, he actually just started passing the ball to Motherwell players. I've heard people say "we shouldn't bring him into the team to play side-to-side passes", I don't know about anyone else, but if it's up to me I'd rather see Bigi play a sideways pass than watch any one our midfield battering rams continually lose the ball going forwards. Robinson has to own the signings he has made to supposedly improve our squad. From what we were led to believe, Rodriguez Gorrin was meant to be an upgrade on Bigi. We'll continue to hear the "he isn't up to speed yet", I refuse to believe that's acceptable for a guy we signed on June 20th. Grimshaw, Cadden, Main and Sammon never really offered much between them and whilst I'm not going to credit them, the awful lopsided formation they were sent out to play did hang them out to dry. So far this season, we've drawn (and then were effectively beaten) by Stranraer, scraped through a win against Clyde and whilst I came away from the QOS game speaking postively, had they taken their chances against us early on, we could've been lamenting that result too. All of that on top of Sunday's result certainly drop my optimism for this season. Although he should've scored a couple, fair play to Johnson for waking the Hibs keeper up. He has to start next week.

Marc O'Hara of Dundee, who the papers linked us with a few months ago, has now signed with Peterborough. Wonder if he was one of the Scottish based names Robinson had said he was talking to.

Agree with the vast majority of this. Robinson obviously has a style and identity and Grimshaw and Rose have been useful players in that. My only concern with Rose is his injury proneness. He had two lengthy spells out at Cov last season. I'm happy to admit I got the Grimshaw thing wrong, I'm probably on record on this thread a good few times branding his signing unnecessary. He has proved me wrong with a few vital performances in the latter stages of the season and deserves an extra year. The creative midfielder, if we want one, could be Bigirimana for me. I think he does have the ability but he doesn't suit our plan A. I can't see him being on a wage that befits a plan B player, or being happy being one. I expect him to go a year early and if he does, I'd be happy to internally replace him with Turnbull rather than stifle his progress signing someone. A naturally left-sided wing back and a quick striker would now complete the list, along with Aldred signing permanently for me.