DC'd

Tongue in cheek, obviously. The guy was horrific.

AIK Stockholm and Elfsborg both were at home in the previous round, both from Sweden. No real difference with ourselves and Hearts.

Jambo's have the section I think we'd all love to be in. Some amazing ties for them in Bilbao and Liverpool. And two easily accessible alternatives in Holland and Belgium. A tad jealous.

Atletico not qualify automatically as winners, for the Groups?

No votes thus far for Omar? Surprising. Cummins, composed and done all that was asked for him. Certainly did not look out of place, and encouraging to see yet another decent looking CB come through our ranks especially with Hutch inevitably moving on sooner rather than later.

McCall said in an interview the other day that he plans to give him 45mins. So, probably make way at HT?

What we can do is take heart from Dudelange of Luxembourg who have knocked out RB Salzburg over two legs tonight. I mean the gulf in class between ourselves and Pana is probably comparable with the gulf between the Dudelange and the Austrians. Perhaps a bit harsh on ourselves, perhaps we are closer in quality to Pana than what Dudelange would have been to Salzburg. But, either way - they have shown us how it can be achieved. They attained 1-0 victory at home, again showing how vital it is to keep a clean-sheet at home. They managed to secure a goal in the process to give themselves hope for the away leg. And took the lead in Austria giving them a priceless away goal, meaning Salzburg had to open up and score at least three times, meaning the minnows could hit them on the break. As such it finished 4-3 to Salzburg and the minnows going through on away goals. Just shows that upsets, as we know, can and do happen. Believe.

Early sweepstake on how many fouls Higdon concedes over two legs? Normally a style that European ref's have Zero-Tolerance over. Look how harshly Crouch, Carroll, Zigic etc are punished in Europe for just being in the vicinity of an opposing Defender.

Notable players that will be featuring: As well documented - Jean Alain Boumsong (ex Rangers and Newcastle) will return to FP. The Greek National Teams midfield pairing for the past decade in Katsouranis and Karagounis. Former Liverpool midfielder Sebastian Leto. And Greek European Championship and Champions League winner in Seitaridis. They are certainly the names that stick out the most. Despite Karagounis and Katsouranis' notable qualities and experience, there are no real stand out names to give us the fear, and their defeat to Odense last year must give us at least the slightest bit of hope. What was Aberdeen's results against them like a few years ago? I believe it was relatively narrow (IIRC)? Think that was back when the Group Stages were 5 teams and Aberdeen only played one leg against them in Athens?

Correct, normally swamped with pages and pages of predictions. For me, my feeling is we will be on board a plane to Istanbul in about a fortnight. Just gotta hope that once the draw has been completed and the dates finalised then like Nancy/Bucharest etc then the place is filled with suggestions/routes/prices etc. Was always very helpful in the past seeing the common route for us to get there, and between us finding the cheapest route/hotels possible on offer.

Now lets get them to add extra funding and we can call it the Cash Converters East Stand, we are half way there with the signage anyway.

Expectations? Well, we currently have two shots at making the Group Stages of the Europa League; either by being successful in our inaugural CL Qualifier, or failing that winning our Play-Off tie in the Europa – as such my expectations would be to at least come close to qualifying in one of the games. Granted that expectation is draw dependant – as we could face the distinct possibility of a Fenerbahce/Internazionale combination and then that expectation is blown out the window, however it could conceivably be a simpler task of Copenhagen/Sparta Prague and then that expectation becomes semi-realistic. Not asking or expecting to actually qualify for the Group Stages, but to give it a right good bash and not just surrender in the way we did against Nancy. Basically expectation is not to be humiliated in both games, just give us that glimour of hope in the same way Hateley’s last minute free-kick in Denmark, gave us that hope for a week that we could just do it.. As for the SPL, we do have an obvious threadbare squad – however how many times did you sit at Fir Park or an Away Stadia last season and witness the opposition make a second half sub and think “who the fuck is that!?”. Countless occasions that has happened where the opposition has brought on an absolute nobody, all this does is highlight the bare-bones of every other club in the SPL. We are not alone, and the nucleus of our first XI is still better than nearly every team in the SPL. As such I will be astounded if we finish below 5th this season. Many a person in this thread has stated is Jennings/Clancy really going to lose us a 20-30 point margin on some of the “bigger” teams that finished below us last season, no chance in hell. We still possess arguably the best goalkeeper in the league, especially now that McGregor has departed the Scottish game. Is Forster any better than Randolph? I haven’t seen anything to suggest he is! Kello perhaps would have been a good comparison, however he was frozen out and also departed. That leaves us with Langfield, Brown, Samson, Esson, Tuffey – none are in the same ballpark as Randy. We still possess one of the best upcoming CB’s in the league in Hutch, and how many games did he actually miss last season through injury? Very few, and granted he has picked up a niggle through pre-season, but this isn’t something to suggest that his injury nightmares of the past are back. He seems to have overcame his problems of the past, and thus we have currently at our disposal one of the best CBs in the league. Only real competition from our direct rivals would be ironically Gunning and perhaps the duo of Zaliukas and Webster – again without obvious bias – I’d take Hutch over all three. We still possess one of the most consistent and solid performers at LB, especially now that Dixon has departed Dundee United, is there anyone in the SPL that is capable of performing better in a 38 game season at LB that Hammell? Danny Grainger or Callum Davidson? No chance in hell, we have seen on countless occasions what Humphrey could do to DG, highlighting all his inadequacies at LB – how many players have tortured Hammell in the same way (OF Players excluded)? We still possess one of the most creative and consistent RB’s in the country, well assuming that he gets it through his skull that he is indeed a RB and not CM, in Tom Hateley. He received mass amounts of plaudits for his consistency and delivery from RB last season. Can only recall one exceptionally bad game he played at Tynecastle around Xmas time, and that I believe was because Omar was played in front of him, thus giving him no defensive cover (IIRC). Bar that he would walk into every team in the SPL (other than Celtic). Again only real competition from fellow SPL clubs comes from Dave Mackay – and granted he was once a target for us and seems relatively versatile – but Tom or Dave? No brainer.. We still possess one of the Top Goalscorers in the league last season, granted he has his flaws, granted he isn’t particularly easy on the eye most of the time. But bar Jon Daly (and OF players) he outscored all his peers in domestic games last season. Granted most of us would probably have Daly slightly ahead of Higdon, but both are similar sort of players, and do a similar sort of job for the team. Granted Hasselbaink and Heffernan etc may be more pleasing on the eye, but for end product and contribution in a defensive sense – Higdon is far more valuable that most of the SPL strikers, and is on at least par with his direct rivals in Vernon and Daly. We still possess one of the most hated midfielders in the league in Keef, from opposition fans. I only highlight that point, as if you are hated then you must be doing something right. That is the role that Keef (and Jenno for that matter) do for Motherwell. In the same regard that we hated Ian Black/Jim Goodwin etc – Keef is the same for us – loved by us, hated by everyone else. He does his job as good as anyone else in the SPL, and his rival was Black (as demonstrated by their clashes on the field last season as well) and now that Black has gone (and Hearts have been obviously weakened) then we still possess one of the best ball winning midfielders in the SPL. We still possess one of the fastest wingers in the SPL, and despite his obvious dents in confidence and his overall poor delivery, he still creates far more than most wingers in the SPL. Only really Templeton, Driver and Mackay-Steven are arguably better in that regard than Humphrey. And the first two mentioned are on a treatment table, more than they are on grass – and the latter if reports are correct won’t be at United come the Autumn. And that is not even including players like Law, Saunders, Murphy etc that would walk into most SPL teams. Looking around the fellow SPL teams and if you could hand pick any player (Football Manager style) and replace them with one of our current first XI, there is genuinely not many that I’d choose – perhaps Paul McGowan ahead of Carswell/Hateley in a CM role (to partner Keith), and perhaps Russell ahead of Murphy (despite Murphy’s superior performance at Scotland U21 level). Bar that we have a stronger first XI than most of the SPL and we have several players that our rivals would love to have at their disposal, thus my expectations will be top 5 or better. Cups are a lottery and anything could happen – so no expectations for them – however over a 38 league game season the best XI will more often than not finish in the right position – and I fully believe our nucleus is good enough to achieve that. Expectations: SPL – Top 5 Cups/Europe – Anything is a Bonus I also expect McCall not to see out the season with us, not because of an anticipated poor season, think he will depart and be poached by someone else. His results on paper for us have been excellent, his resume is far more appealing than when he first arrived here, he is closer to the end of his current contract than he is to the start of it, and with McInnes last season poached by Bristol City, then surely McCall is the next SPL manager in line to be picked up by a Championship club, once their Board start to panic around Xmas time. The financial restrictions, the turmoil of Scottish football, and the distinct possibility of a MASSIVE turnover of players next summer could be pivotal on him wanting to take up the reigns and challenge himself at that level – he would have guided us to our biggest points tally, our joint highest league position in nearly two decades, reached a Final of our biggest domestic trophy, guided us in Europe and guided us through a tough and challenging time – he would probably think there is little more he could achieve by staying. Only thing missing would be a win against Rangers, but the last half dozen managers failed at that task as well. Fully anticipate him to last either half a season, or for this to be his last season in charge. Predictions: SPL – 3rd (think it’ll be close for yet another season between us and Utd, but think we may fluke the Group Stages by receiving a winnable tie in the Play-Off round and Utd will depart at the first hurdle and that will catch up on us come the end of the season, with Utd coasting away from us when the Split comes) CL – First Hurdle – a resounding loss to Fenerbahce EL – Win the Play-Off against a mediocre seeded team in the mould of Sparta Prague / Club Brugges and then get horsed in every Group Stage game and finish with 0 points, but a £1m in the bank – saving us from the dreaded “administration” word. LC – Win our first match by being the seeded team, comfortably beating some 1st Division opposition and then losing out in the next round to Aberdeen/Hibs away. SC – Draw Rangers (assuming they take part next season) and knock them out and then lose the following round to St Mirren or ICT or the like..

Even for a ST holder, if you want to average it over a season: Lets take East Stand for example: £280 per ST + £30 for CL game + £25 for EL game (Just estimated) = £335 That is 19 home games + 1 cup game + 1 EL game + 1 CL game = 22 games per season £335 / 22 = £15.22 per game to watch Motherwell over the season, hardly worth crying over when they "cash in" on the CL.

100% agreement. At first, the thought of paying £30 for what is commonly referred to as a "Glamarous Friendly" did seem overly costly. But, looking at it in the perspective of the above quote, it really is a fantastic way to look at it.

How far away does Nancy's 5 Euro's per ticket (and discounted McDonalds) seem now..?

Aye, that was Unirea Urziceni (Champions of Romania two years ago, and played Man Utd last season in CL Group Stages). Steaua as we all know were in the Europa League. Cluj and Dinamo Bucharest were trips whilst in Austria. And pencilled in now along with Rapid Bucharest are Concordia Chiajna for this pre-season.

Reynolds and Coke being prime examples of above average Motherwell players that have made the "step-up" to Sheffield Wednesday, which has resulted in both being farmed out on Loan upon arrival. Should be enough of an indication for Jennings, albeit Jenno is far the superior player out of the trio.

Anyone got an idea what date last year Jennings penned his new deal? As at the time we all thought he'd be off then and we managed to secure him down. I presume he'd be working on the same time-frames and deadlines that we'd give to him. So, there may be a colleration between last years dates and this year, perhaps?

Yes, we fall into the Europa Lge, where again we will be unseeded. However, the list will be huge of the teams we can possibly face. Until the day of the draw, where those teams will be narrowed down to sections containing 10 teams (5 seeds and 5 non-seeds). As when we drew Odense, we were put in a group containing Man City, Villarreal, Dinamo Zagreb, Odense and one other. The current big names that we could possibly draw in the Europa Lge contain: Liverpool, Spurs, Atletico Madrid, Sporting Lisbon, Napoli, Lazio, PSV etc.

Now that the list has been updated and narrowed down quite considerably to very few permatations. Here is a quick helpful guide via the use of Expedia (obviously far cheaper ways of travelling than via Expedia) to current costs from Glasgow/Manchester to the potential places we could be visiting: Glasgow to Kyiv (Dynamo Kiev): Flights - £305 Flights + Accomodation Package - £377 - £455 Glagow to Istanbul (Fenerbahce): Flights - £438 (via London) Flights + Accomodation Package - £460 - £510 Glasgow to Athens (AEK Athens or Panathinaikos): Flights - £455 (via London) Flights + Accomodation Package - £330 - £370 (don't ask how the Package works out remarkably lower than the Flight Only) Glasgow to Brussels (Club Brugge): Flights - £238 (subsequently train required to Bruges) Flights + Accomodation Package - £385 - £430 (excluding Train Costs from Brussels - Bruges) Glasgow to Copenhagen (Kobenhavn): Flights - £190 Flights + Accomodation Package - £254 - £350 Manchester to Kyiv (Dynamo Kiev): Flights - £206 - £304 Flights + Accomodation Package - £278 - £350 Manchester to Istanbul (Fenerbahce): Flights - £240 - £311 Flights + Accomodation Package - £330 - £370 Manchester to Athens (AEK Athens or Panathinaikos): Flights - £330 to £370 (via Dusseldorf) Flights + Accomodation Package - £302 - £325 Manchester to Brugge (Club Brugge): Flights - £143 - £159 Flights + Accomodation Package - £290 - £330 (excluding Train Costs from Brussels - Bruges) Manchester to Copenhagen (Kobenhavn): Flights - £121 - £169 Flights + Accomodation Package - £197 - £280 **** Obviously current prices are prior to inflation after the draw has been made. **** Accomodation is based on a 3*** Hotel and 3 night stay (to cover whether its a Tues night game or a Wed night game) - Dated selected would be for the first leg to be away i.e. Monday 30th July to 2nd August. **** Obviously there will other methods of transport available for Bruges, and perhaps to an extent Copenhagen. **** Prices will obviously fluctuate nearer the time, and also after the Draw has been made, and advance booking discounts will not apply, just for a current rough guide of what to expect.

Not seen it posted elsewhere: According to The Sun, we are preparing for the CL with a Tour to America (which will entail 2 games) and subsequently on return to Scotland, we will have two home ties (presumably one will be against Everton) before our first CL Qualifier.

Warming now to the idea of Dynamo Kiev, and possibly seeing one of my favourite players of all-time whilst growing up play against us in the flesh at Fir Park, in Andriy Shevchenko. Would be quite a surreal moment to know that Shevchenko has played a competitive game at FP. We have been fortunate over the years to witness some very special players grace our turf in opposition colours, but would be nice personally to see Shevchenko (albeit well past his best) play at FP.

Lets not forget the typical reason for fans to fear going to Turkey and Istanbul is the infamous incident with the Leeds fans. And as much as it was tragic that it happened to be two innocent Leeds fans who died, lets not forget that it was a group of Leeds fans who incited the violence by pissing on, burning and tarnishing the Turkish flag. And for anyone who has ever ventured to Turkey, you will realise how vital and important the sacredness of their flag is. Its is literally plastered on every pavement, every wall, every shop, every car, everything you could possibly imagine. The Leeds fans degraded something the Turks cherish and rightly or wrongly they defended what is important to them. Its utterly tragic that innocent people were caught up in it, but that was not an unprovoked attack from the Gala fans. No doubting there has been trouble in the past, and if people seek trouble, they will get trouble. But, like Rangers and several other British teams have went over there and not had any increased problems than anywhere else in Europe. Many on here would have loved a trip to Holland, and most would have been delighted with Feyenoord (had they happened to have been seeded) but you would be as likely to be in a bit of trouble in Rotterdam as you would in Istanbul. Besides, the atmosphere generated, even for smaller games in Turkey is normally rapturous, so certainly would be an atmosphere none of us would forget if we were to draw Trabzonspor/Besiktas/Fenerbahce/Galatasaray. There is no disputing that Braga is definitely the ultimate choice so far, for accessibility, cost, stadium, travel duration. However, Greece and Turkey are adequate enough choices as well, and would at least give us even the smallest chance of a fluke upset. I mean Turkish teams in recent seasons have suffered shock defeats to lesser known teams. The Greeks themselves have been very poor of late in European Competition. Whereas lets not forget 12 months ago to the week, Braga were in the Europa Lge Final, they finished up this season only a handful of points behind Porto, we would be horsed in both games (granted most teams will probably horse us in both games, but at least with the Greeks/Turks, it may not be so comprehensible).

Train to Central, followed by Subway for the rest of the journey (St Enoch Station to Ibrox). Or alternatively train it to Central and then bus it from Renfield Street towards Govan/Renfrew/Paisley all will take you within 5min walking distance of Ibrox.

At no point did I say he was despicable, I said his current attitude and work rate is despicable - and that "current" term in relation to recent form, IS open to scrutiny. Granted he may be having a dip in form, as all players who for MFC will inevitably have, however its how he conducts himself during that dip in form. Everyone can go through a rough spell where things don't come off, but that should never detract from a consistant and acceptable level of work rate. Hell Clarky seems relevant right about now, and he is the epitome of someone who went through a real rough patch, but never did his work rate falter. And thats the point that is being made. We dont expect Henrik to turn 5 or 6 guys inside-out and then slot past the keeper on a weekly basis, but what we will expect is him giving his all - like the rest of the team do. Last night, he came on for the final 12mins (plus stoppage time) and should have ran himself into the ground, considering the sheer effort guys like Hateley, Las, Law, Jenno, Hump, Murphy put in to tracking back, closing down, covering space etc. If they can do the shift for 80mins, then Henrik can do likewise for less that 15mins. Had Hearts broken away through Templeton down our left, with Henrik posting missing and equalised, then we would have been in a far different situation to the wonderful scenario we now find ourselves in. I love Henrik and there is no disputing what he has done has transformed our season, but players can't live on past glories, and what was a momumental game for our club, seeing him come on and put that level of performance in, is disappointing to say the least. He isn't exempt from criticism.