Joeboy

Abuse from Motherwell fans today is 100% unwarranted in my opinion. His overall attitude may logically explain why he gets more abuse from uneducated keyboard gangsters than say Lasley, Hammell or Murphy would have got for missing that penalty. My knickers are very much untwisted, I just think that it takes the shine off Hateley as a pro if his girlfriend is retweeting something in which she basically admits he is a "bluenose" while our season ticket, gate and well society money is funding his wages.

I for one think that the abuse he got for missing a penalty, especially when he was supposedly having a fine game today (wasn't there so can only take the opinions of others there) but given all the details of my last paragraph I won't be sad to see the back of him. In his first three seasons he was a great right back for us, but this season he hasn't been as great and doesn't appear to be applying himself just as much. As for all the shite his girlfriend has been retweeting, if he has any level of professionalism he will be strongly telling her to delete them, but I highly doubt we'll see that.

I was frustrated by us missing the penalty and of late I've been far from Hateley's biggest fan this season, but giving him that abuse on the merit of just missing a penalty is out of order. Wasn't the best penalty but it was worse than Murphy's last week who didn't receive a spate of abuse. Most of the time I'd wholly disagree with what Ojamaa tweeted, but today he did have a bit of a point, while at the same time he was quite unprofessional in the way he put it across. Most people abusing Hateley wouldn't have been at the game to begin with anyway. The boy posting he hopes Hateley dies should be ashamed of himself, I remember seeing a Rangers fan say that to Edu in the summer and hoped our fans were above that. That's the danger of people who don't have two brain cells being allowed to use the internet. Despite me thinking today's burst of abuse was unwarranted, Hateley could do a lot more to endear himself to the fans. His hard done by attitude on twitter, the "shut up" gesture at the Hibs game, the cupping of his ear when he scored against Aberdeen all contribute in lowering fans opinions of him and in turn make it more natural for those to swoop when he makes a mistake. Add to that the fact his burd is retweeting people who say they wish he played for Rangers, including one who claims "not just because he's a bluenose". That's simply not on in my opinion.

Obviously there may be underlying reasons why we can't turn down a six figure fee coming into our account, but I think we are selling ourselves very short. We would have been due compensation for Murphy in the summer, surely that fee, coupled with his services for another half season would have been far more acceptable. As far as I remember we got over £100k for McCormack and that was only a part development fee - surely Murphy's compensation would be the similar or more, given he's been part of the first team squad for seven seasons. Wish him all the best for his move, we'll really miss him. Can't be many SPL sides who can boast a player who has hit double figures four years in a row, with the majority of his appearances being from left midfield. As for Page, he goes with best wishes too, never really let us down, but he just seemed to fall a bit short on quality. Strange how Craig Brown rated him higher than Shaun Hutchinson, yet their careers have taken contrasting paths since Brown departed.

This, 100%. For the fees that clubs are going to be willing to offer for him, selling Murphy in January will have no benefit to Motherwell whatsoever.

All varying examples of unprofessional behaviour, some worse than others. While I'd say Faddy and Humphrey's incidents are far less unprofessional than Ferguson's, Randolph refusing to play in a game due to another 'keeper being signed is pretty substantial in terms of unprofessional behaviour, with the only saving grace between that and Ferguson's incident perhaps being you could say Randolph was young and naive and there isn't as much "should have known better" than there would be with Ferguson. I'd say Quinn being charged with assault, just after being given the honour of being named club captain after Phil O'Donnell's untimely death, and Bob Malcolm signing an autograph with a sectarian message and drink driving and falling asleep on the wheel are definitely comparable levels of unprofessional behaviour. There isn't one club in the world, in my opinion, who would cite Boozegate as a reason for not signing Ferguson if they felt he could improve their team. I haven't seen any of his performances this season in League Two being perfectly honest with you, but consider these two things. 2011/12 for Barry Ferguson saw him play 42 times in the Championship, captaining his side to the play-offs. He also has 45 international caps, has experience of playing in the Premiership and the Champion's League. 2011/12 for Simon Ramsden saw him play 18 times in League Two, so well that it lead him to be released. So if bringing up Ramsden on the back of that - to play in an unnatural position - is believed to improve our team, then I'm fairly sure it's logical that bringing Ferguson in would improve the team, especially considering it's been evident in a number of games that we haven't replaced Jennings. Some games we have got away with it when being good going forward has helped compromise his loss. Also, I don't know the ins and outs of Ferguson's move to Fleetwood, but they have are a club on the up and are being bankrolled as far as I'm aware, so them being prepared to match his wages is quite possibly a reason he's on loan there, rather than say at a League One side. Hope that is a reasoned enough response for me being a fucking moron.

Darren Randolph refused to play for Hereford once, simply because they had signed another goalkeeper. Chris Humphrey broke a curfew on international duty. James McFadden missed his flight home after winning his first international cap and going out on the razz. Paul Quinn got arrested for assault whilst playing for the club. Bob Malcolm was signed after falling asleep at the wheel drink driving, with previous for signing autographs with sectarian content. As long as you don't/didn't approve of any of them playing with Motherwell, your comments are fair enough. For what it's worth, I'd take Ferguson in our team on a 6 month loan in a heartbeat. Short term fix that we could be doing with.

Personally, I rate Zaine Francis-Angol but I think talk of Hammell not being our first choice left back is utter madness. Zaine is a fine deputy though.

Don't think Zaine should be in front of Hammy, but since you are asking he has played four full league games this season.

I think doing away with the match abandoned vouchers is farcical to be honest. Just have staff trained to deal with an emergency correctly and have everyone singing off the same hymn sheet and it's not a problem. Printing tickets just causes disruption, longer waiting times and cost (however large or small it may be). In my sixteen years of going to Fir Park, I've never been impressed with the way things operate regarding tickets.

I thought Ojamaa's form was poor at the start of the season (for example Panathanikos home saw 10 passmarks and him for me) but I reckon since he was benched and came back into the side he has been very good. He is the best foil for Higdon at centre forward and he has been highly creative, I'd like to see many he has assisted. When he arrived, he wasn't touted as much of a goalscorer, more of a creator and his early purple patch probably served to raise expectations. Taking all of that into consideration, accepting less than £200,000 when he has eighteen months left on his contract would lack ambition my part. He is not a tenth of the player David Goodwillie is. But if the cash injection really boosted the club then so be it. I just wish like others have said, that we had better negotiation skills regards selling our players, perhaps similarly to Dundee United. Goodwillie has not made an impact whatsoever down south yet they managed to make a pretty penny off him, I wish we had more of a brass neck. That said, if you look at it from a business perspective- if you had said this time last year that we would sign a forward who would score 9 goals before the end of the season and resurge the seemingly stagnant season and have a selling value of £165,000 in a year, it would seem a good move.

As far as I'm aware it's not an improved contract, just one that matches his existing terms.

Not on ESPN. Moved to the Friday night "at the request of both clubs".

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm sure the figure of compensation we got for McCormack was £120,000 and that was a reduced figure as he had only been at the club since he was about 21. Not sure exactly how the fee is decided but Murphy has been at Motherwell since his early teens and is in his seventh season of first team football and if as stated above Aberdeen got £400,000 for Maguire, you'd surely assume taking the cases of Maguire and McCormack we would be due more in the summer. The club must be pretty skint if they do need £60,000 that urgently. I'd even say if we weren't due compensation, for the sake of £60,000, I'd rather keep him until the end of the season.

I like anyone have my opinion of Motherwell players, but for the most part I find hurling abuse at the players during a game being counter productive. Last season when Higdon "done the Higdon", if it was gestured at the Motherwell support that day I would blame him at all. There was one guy in particular that day who I thought was going to burst a blood vessel, he literally was on Higdon's back the full ninety minutes, a spate of abuse any time he touched the ball and in my opinion Higdon had a good game that day. If a player is having a bad day, be it through bad passing, being beaten for pace, having no luck in front of goal, the crowd getting on his back and slating him for me would only psychologically make things worse, i.e. make him more likely to miss the next chance in front of goal and criticism of that degree is just detrimental to the team. I would criticise an individual player to my mates around me in the ground or in the pub afterwards, but vocally hurling abuse isn't really my style. I did temporarily lose it at Hateley against Hibs on the Friday night fixture though. He forayed up the field and after being tackled he just stood, 70 yards out of position with his hands on his hips. Compare that to Hutchy the other night, who made a mistake and lost the ball while trying to go forward, but burst his arse and recovered with a great tackle. If Hateley was worried about the Motherwell fans perception of him then perhaps he could take a leaf out of Hutchy's book in such an incident. Maybe that would help endear him to the support more. For the record, I think Hateley has been a great player for us, don't rate him as a midfielder, especially in a 4-4-2, but he has been a terrific right back for us, last season particularly. But this year he seems to be not half as good and not arsed with it. All I ask from a Motherwell player is that they have the best attitude and application possible, where lack of decision making or technical ability may frustrate me, I'm human enough to see that it's not always their fault. Hateley's attitude and application have been wrong this season and as a result with every game I have less and less time for him.

By MJC's logic you could say the same about the Craig Brown era. By estimations, under Craig Brown, we earned 3 points after going behind. 6-6 v. Hibs (May 2010) 3-3 v. Rangers (May 2010) 1-1 v. St. Mirren (November 2010)

And Randolph had never saved a competitive penalty until this season. Could be our time.

I don't think he was quite as bad as you make out. I'd have Buzz in my team before Kaven, Dubordeau, Corr, Meldrum or Fraser.

I'm sure McCall said regarding Grainger's goal "There's not much you can do when you're beaten by a strike like that" or words to that effect. Have yet to hear his thoughts on the first goal yesterday. Being a point of second is tremendous, yes. I was delighted with the victory yesterday, I think it was important to get a home victory and get the proverbial monkey of our back, the manner it came was secondary really. But it won't always be the case that Hollis scoops that header out at the death and the "standing off" comes to cost us. I do really think we are missing Jennings and the role he would play in such a scenario and the position he would take up and we could do with a bit more bite in midfield - perhaps a chance for Carswell - but it's a really difficult one because on top of the skipper Lasley on current form none of Law, Humphrey or Murphy deserve to be dropped to make way for him.

One thing that did irk me yesterday was our failure to shut down Quinn for the first goal. The strike was a worldly, yes, could Hollis have stopped it, no, could we have prevented it being taken, yes. Don't know what benefit we think standing off someone in that area has, we never learned our lesson from the same thing when Grainger scored against us at Tynecastle and because both strikes were executed superbly there's never any mention the poor attempts to close down.

Went for Lasley myself but I wouldn't question anyone voting Higdon, Humphrey, Murphy or maybe even Law which is pleasing news.

For me, simply because McHugh can be arsed, Daley can't. Good to get the monkey of our back yesterday. Lasley had the best game he's had in a long time and I thought both wingers were great again and quality from Higdon yet again, we've definitely not had a player who's scored eleven goals before Christmas in my time going to games. Wasn't sure about McCall's subs at time but it was one of those moments that reminds you why he's the manager and we're the punters in the stand.

Don't think our next first choice keeper will be as good as Ruddy or Randolph, unless we pluck someone miraculously from obscurity. I reckon we could do worse than give Hollis a chance to prove himself. The only thing I will say, from what I've seen of him so far, granted not much, he seems solid if unspectacular. There have been times where we have relied on Randolph being spectacular to bail us out.

For me, Hollis wasn't at fault at the goal. Only saw the highlights on Sportscene as unfortunately a mountain of uni work dictated I couldn't go, but I'd say if anyone is to blame for conceding it was Fraser Kerr. Whether it was offside or not, play to the whistle, by all means ball for offside and raise your arms, but don't stop take your eye off your marker, that's schoolboy stuff. As the cross came in, he was ballwatching and nowhere near McGinn and you could see Cummins coming off his man to try and compensate for this but he was too late. A bit of naivety and lack of experience showing there. Possibly the fact there wasn't an experienced, organising centre half yesterday may have contributed too, I'd imagine Craigan would have balled at Kerr the second he strayed.

As far as I'm aware the West End punters have made their way upto Mac's Bar (formerly Charlie's) in Hill Street just round from Greggs. I've been in the Waverley a few times and never witnessed as much of an argument, although I'm far from a regular. You had a bad experience in there or are you just being presumptuous?