Joeboy

Good stuff! Shall no doubt see you about!

In the second leg, Humphrey, Jenno and Hutchy started instead of McGarry, Hammell and Lasley (shock horror Gannon leaving those three out)

Forgot about Sutton! Reynolds and Craigan ahead on virtue of starts. Knew Hammell was one short to Gannon dropping him.

No, Bredabli, Aalesunds and Odense were in July/August 2010. Reynolds left in January 2011.

Craigan and Reynolds have fourteen starts. Murphy has nine and five substitute appearances. So one appearance this year would put him in front. I reckon as much as Murphy can have games where you don't seem much of him, you still have to consider the fact he has hit twelve and thirteen goals in the past two seasons whilst playing most games in midfield. Not many players could boast that.

Anybody else staying at the Atrium Hotel?

Does anyone know how Saunders and Page got injured? Both completed the ninety minutes at Raith Rovers, while there were plenty of subs still to use. Also, when is Hutchy due back?

Aye Kenny Arthur should easily have saved that free kick too! Jorge Cadete was playing for Partick Thistle that day.

Probably a sensible option. Travelling all the way up there to have the game cancelled at half time for a Scottish Cup tie was frustrating enough, can only imagine how you'd feel if it happened for a friendly.

People have short memories. Bar three or four wonder strikes a season, Brian Kerr was a horrid Motherwell player and contributed the square root of fuck all!

Personally, I doubt we will enjoy just as good a season as last year but you never know. All teams in the league will be cutting their cloth accordingly and resulting from that I can see Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts having a clearly bigger budget than us- although all three did last year and were nowhere near us. Outside of Celtic, from what I know of each team's current squad, I reckon only Dundee United could arguably have better attacking options than us. With the talk of all the panic having Higdon, Murphy and Ojamaa (38 goals between them last season) still to choose from is good, as well as having McHugh and Daley (who has shown once or twice he can be a threat if he's arsed) from the sidelines. Jennings will be a big miss and I don't think any other central midfielder in our current squad can offer us what he did but I think every other club will be losing at least one player of his calibre, Hearts have already lost Black, Skacel and Beattie among others, Hibs have lost O'Connor, Aberdeen have lost Arnason, St. Johnstone have lost Morris and Sandaza, you could go on. I think in light of that Jennings' departure won't be noticed just as much. It's rare that a team is the "best of the rest" two years running and I doubt we will be that far up the table but I do fully expect us to be challenging for the top six, with the potential to fall a bit short if we are badly hit with injuries (See 2008/09) Due to their stadium, Ross County's budget was already going to be severely restricted and I doubt Dundee will be able to gather a squad in little over three weeks that would be better than us over the course of a season, so I think talk of relegation is perhaps a bit dramatic.

League one teams can't qualify for Europe through their league? Every day is a school day

Aye, definitely Leitch's son.

One of them is my mate's wee brother Paul McCafferty. Normally a right winger I think.

He didn't, but was highly impressive on loan at Stenhousemuir. I don't think anyone is suggesting he is the next Cafu or anything- but of the under 20s he seems to be rated as highly as anyone and the way our squad looks just now I can imagine we will see a lot of the under 20s this season. Fritz (Onthefringes) watched the 19s quite a few times last season so he may be best placed to tell us who we can expect to be in the first team squad this year.

I don't think playing a 4-5-1 to accomodate Hateley would be a good idea to be honest. Higdon plays far better upfront with a partner and although I think Law has all the attributes to be a fine creative central midfielder, strangely I think he performs much better on the left. I do fully expect a midfield duo of Lasley and Hateley right enough. From all the hinting from McCall's interviews on MFCTV he sounds like he would like to play Saunders right back this season and Devlin is obviously emerging. Although if Hutchy isn't fit for the Champions League it will need to be Saunders and Page at centre back as even Cummins is still recovering from an injury.

Has anyone even thought about considering the difference in level?

We didn't play a 4-3-3 formation much in his final season and he did very well then.

I reckoned before all the uncertainty we would need to sell Murphy to see a forward come in. Looks less likely now. Would take him back in a heartbeat though.

Wouldn't begrudge Jenno moving on at all. Considering he has no family or no ties to the area, it would probably be a sensible career move from him to go back down South given the uncertainty about Scottish Football just now. Goes with my best wishes if he does depart. Will be a massive hole to fill though- we only won one and lost four of the six matches he didn't start last season.

Is it just a lottery as to whether we'll be home or away first?

Here's the Worthington lad's wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Worthington

If we could offer Craigan and Clancy contracts and they turned them down, I'm sure we can afford at least one defender from that.

He has. Imagine a significant drop in salary were he to come back to Fir Park though. Imagine he will go to a lower down Championship side or League one.

http://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2012/06/06/chris-humphrey-statement/ Story on the official site now. He claims he didn't know he wasn't allowed to go out or there was a curfew. Which I suppose reflects well on him, but this statement does undermine the manager a bit and may impact on his chances!