fizoxy

The fact is that rangers will be in the spl soon enough and he is still young. He'll be a first team regular on a far higher wage and playing in front of big crowds half of the time. A footballer's career is short and they should absolutely be looking to make as much money as possible. I'm sure many of these English players who come up here to make a name for themselves have the old firm in mind. But really, he was leaving anyway, so where he ended up should be irrelevant. It's also cringeworthy watching the bangers give the guy abuse on twitter. Will anyone be going on about ambition if Mcfadden chose to stay on with us?

Could it be that the club are treating this like an approach for a player, and are hoping for some compensation? As far as replacements go, I agree with the above, that it will be someone out of nowhere. Who was the favourite last time? Was McCallister not close?

I've heard some dude is just a phonecall away.

I'd agree that we could be more agressive in promoting our players, but we as fans would counteract that pretty quickly after a bad game or two. I think the clubs of the players mentioned above prob pay higher wages and spend more on the players overall development, but I'm sure the perception of them being a bigger club adds a premium to the price.

I guess you could also look at it from the point of view of what a player is worth to a selling club. If a premiership club sells a player they can lose marketing revenue, and possibly ticketing revenue, which could be significant due to large supports. There is also the potential loss in prize money from losing a key player, which is significantly higher in the English leagues. Since a relatively small number of players posess the skill set to play at that level, I would imagine the cost of replacing him would also be high. Then there is the fact that at the higher levels, should a player be made available there would be more than one club bidding, driving up the price. I know the above is an extreme case, but in Scotland the maximum potential value a player can have to a non old firm club is the difference between an average attendance and a full house, the prize money for 2nd place, and the money generated by an early round European run. I don't think merchandising would be a significant factor, and this would only be for the better players. Then there is the fact that there are very few players in Scotland with a level of skill that couldn't be acquired from elsewhere. Factor in the Scottish football economy (low attendances, poor tv deal, many clubs in debt) and you can see why transfer fees are low, because there is no way teams are going to pay silly prices just because. Finally, the market usually determines the price, and when it comes to Scottish football it is a buyers market.

I'd be interested to see how these transfer fees are ironed out. I assume things like the cost of developmment, time at the club, players current wage, age/experience, cost of replacement, etc, are factors. I'm sure these aren't arbitrary amounts, and there must be some sort of accounting practices for it considering the size of the industry. Based on this it may be that we as a club aren't getting ripped of as much as we think.

We won't see many better years as well fans! The champs league is the highlight.

Easy. You go the manager of the other team and buy him for 5mill. Seriously though, I think the players wages and the time remaining on the contract are major factors in the transfer fee. We shouldn't be gambling on one player over the course of 6 months to get us the prize money to cancel out the small fee, we need the guaranteed money. I hope it works out for Jamie, he has done great for us and deserves the move.

Shame to see clancy go. Hopefully a fully fit Saunders can step back in with hutch (if we can keep him). Would love to keep Jennings, but he's put in a good shift for us over the last few years, so wouldn't grudge him a move to a bigger payday. I don't think European football is going to be a big factor with these guys deciding to stay, as if they can get more money elsewhere due to the form they showed last season they should probably take it. However, I think the euro games may give us an edge over other clubs when were looking at out of contract guys. Over the last few seasons I've learned to not worry about losing guys, as we've had the knack of finding some gems out of nowhere.

Letting rangers away with breaking the rules the way they have sets a dangerous precedent, particularly when there are other clubs in financial trouble. Living with the old firm is bad enough now, so imagine how it's going to be when we flat out tell the world we're their bitches. I don't envy the decision makers here, but if they apply the rules to rangers any differently than they would to any other club then Scottish football is a joke.

Hope it's what finlay said, and not that Celtic or rangers are interested.

The commentary is pretty good, and beats having to use a vpn to listen to pishy radio Scotland. I agree regarding the links to MFC tv, there should be a more obvious login/signup link.

Motherwell > Blackpool > Edinburgh > Falkirk > Memphis, TN > ?

Hammell has been our LB for something like ten of the last twelve years, and is on pace to surpass Joe wark's games played total. Both have played in great and dreadful motherwell teams, so I could see why hammell may be regarded as "this generations wark." I kind of have a problem with the fact that corrigan has had more comparisons to wark than hammell and seems to be held in higher esteem. Also, the "best ever" and the "best you've seen" can be two different stories.

Screw the 'experience'. If regular euro competition and the best start to a season in years isn't going to persuade more people to part with 20 quid plus every other week, a frickin dancing robot certainly won't.

It's the same coping mechanism our fans use when we lose a player. i.e. Sutton was slow and shite, Foran only scored penalties etc. We normally start getting stuck into them when the contract is almost up! As far as I'm concerned Higdon has been brought in to do the same job Sutton did, and McCall pretty much spelled that out. Similar ages, similar styles of play, and similar goals record, so I'm not complaining. It's great to see us address a need almost immediately. With the slightly longer close-season this year it would be nice to have our squad settled before the pre-season training starts for a change. However, I'd be surprised to see more than a couple more new faces.

My grandad (Jim Frame) passed away this week. He was a big Motherwell fan, and took me and my brother to the '91 final. When I found out he took a turn for the worst I managed to sort things with my work (who have been immense this week) to come back over from the states in the hope of getting to say goodbye. I got in on Tuesday and went straight to the hospital, and he was still hanging in there. He was totally made up that all (10) of his grandkids were there to see him, and finally passed away on Tueday night. One of the last things he said was a prediction of 2-0 to the 'well. I was fortunate that someone in my family had a spare ticket for the game, but It's hard to gear up for it considering what has happened this week, and I'd gladly trade for watching a live stream at 9am if it meant he could still be here. However, it does bring a smile to my face that in his own way my papa has a 100% record of taking me to cup finals!

In a strange twist of fate, I'm back in Scotland for the week and going to the game. Still hasn't hit me. I'm expecting the "holy fuck!" moment to arrive soon though.

Can any of us exiles fly a plane, or are rich enough to have their own plane? I know that I'm not John Boyle's best pal or anything, but if he sent a plane over for us, I'd totally not say anything about his streaks.

Darren Randolph is probably one of the most polished players I've seen in a Motherwell jersey. We've had some great raw talent come through the club, and some excellent players do us a turn at the end of their careers, but this guy is class.

Surely he can't be, he just came back from his suspension for this game? I think it was las that was running the risk of suspension, and not Jenno as mentioned earlier.

Great first half, but I'm still bricking it! St J had a chance to take the lead early, but since Randy's save we've looked excellent and Hump hasn't even been involved yet. Hutch and Jenno are my biggest worries for suspensions, but I don't see McCall making changes for that reason. Maybe Jones for Hump at some point but that's it. Randy just needs to make sure he doesn't waste too much time on the by kicks! Wish I was there. I'm resisting the urge to check out flights for the final, cos that's just tempting fate.

http://tykestv.info/index.html http://myp2p.eu/broadcast.php?matchid=113269&part=sports

'tinternet is the best bet. Doubt we'd even get the final on TV over here.

Yep