Steve Diggle

I'll tell ye. It canny be that common for 3 SPL teams to be without a permanent manager at the one time.

It's not 'moralising' though. While I understand and agree that in this particular case the ball is in paul slane's court and he can do what he wants. Sad as it sounds it's a business model. if we don't sort the wheat from the chaff - by releasing those that don't measure up and keeping those who ARE good enough, then getting them on a contract and then selling them once they establish themselves to ensure that we survive as a club then we're finished. What part of that don't you understand steelboy?

The ppl who r slating him are wanting compensation for the club and the benefit of his talents for a season or two before he moves for buttons - they r thinking about the team Paul Slane (if reports r true) is wantn to move for nowt - so he's NOT thinking of the club Ppl may be slatin him, but to say ppl r not thinkin of the club is completely wrong. Perhaps it's yersel that should be gettn a grip Sum peeple eh?

1. We can indeed 2. Don't think anyone posted the i.d. of the Frenchies. 3. There's a whole thread on who the international might be

I don't think he's been harshly dealt with given the circumstances. If he's basing his decision on what's discussed on here then the situations far more bizarre than anyone here can dream up

No thanks

We're Motherwell Football Club not Jim'll Fuckin Fix It. We develop players so that we get a couple of seasons and a transfer fee out them before they go do their hero worship.

I don't relly care about Paul Slane, his da' or his agent. I care about MFC. If we don't bring dosh in via transfers in the area of £1M per year we go under

Then you perhaps take a decision early doors not to put him in a well shirt / shop window and hand him a huge tin of boot polish and two years supply of shoe-brushes. Every youth at our club needs to be educated that it's a two way street we are in existence primarily due to the success of our youth policy. We'll give them a development opportunity in the understanding that when they take advantage of that opportunity and get their dream move that we get appropriate compensation so that we can let someone else come in and Motherwell can continue - we're never too unreasonable in our demands and we understand that players generally see us a s a stepping stone. If they or their agents or their parents are not up for getting with the programme then get them hunted early doors. Maybe the club should be a wee bit tougher / play hardball at times instead of rolling over and having our belly tickled.

Bottom line here is that alarm bells should be ringing all over the place at the ark. The club can't afford to have any promising player from youth development move on for buttons. I'm pretty sure that all at Fir Park including Wee Craig know exactly what the current situation is with Slane and McCart is just a phone call away. And if Slane does move on the statement he made will make the club look a bit naive / silly. However in accepting that in the Bosman era players will run down a contract for freedom of movement and in siding with a player in these circumstances - how do posters see Motherwell Football Club funding their operations for the next couple of seasons on gates of 4000.

I don't really understand a word of that. But it looks as if you didn't understand what I was trying to say re contracts at all. I fully understand the current situation. The pant wetter stuff is wearing a bit thin IMHO

Folk are arguing both sides of an argument here OTF - nobodys getting life threatening injuries in the process - why can you not let it go? let folk have their say mate. The situation seems to have been leaked accurately since day 1 and I don't think anyone said anywhere that Motherwell haven't tried to keep him - however McGhee appears to have gone from heralding "the new Robbie Keane" (his words not mine) in his first few friendlies to someone he was about to let go for 40K in the weeks before he moved on. Give Gannon credit for trying to keep him. I've said on numerous occasions we need to be more creative in this - we need to be 100% fair with the youths that we sign - but these contracts can be loaded with options - whereby if they show promise the club can automatically upgrade their Ts and Cs within the timeframe and pay them more - making us a more attractive proposition for a young talented guy and at the same time building in a bit of a safegaurd against 'poaching' or 'head turning'. We, as a club, need to sit down and look at this to stop us being screwed over.

The future of our club depends upon getting money into the club from the young players we develop. Motherwell appear to have fucked up big time for not tying the contract up when he played in the first few friendlies under Mcghee. Paul Slane has the potential to bring us over a million in years to come. I'm cool if everyone is all for letting promising players get shite advice - run their contracts down and piss off for peanuts (and btw rest assured the compo will be peanuts). Downside to that is we'll be bankrupt and won't have a team to watch in the future.

That's what I thought. (Not for the first time either)

Striker Chris Killen is the latest Celtic player to be of interest to Middlesbrough manager Gordon Strachan. (Daily Record) Paul Slane is poised to sign a pre-contract agreement with boyhood heroes Celtic after rejecting a new deal with Motherwell. (The Sun) Middlesbrough are unwilling to pay a loan fee to Celtic for striker Chris Killen and winger Willo Flood. (The Sun)

To be fair he's been injured since the first day of the season and only made his comeback from injury against St Johnstone from the bench. I think you're using a technicality to say he's not a current first team player. If fit he'd have played more than Murphy IMHO. But I get your point. Anyone who's seen him though knows that he's one that will be in our first team regularly very shortly. I never said I'm not pissed off at Motherwell - it's something I mention time and time again. i think we're very poor at sorting this side of things out. I actually think we should be playing hardball more often. For instance I think there is a real risk with Reynolds at the moment - if he doesn't move for money in this window then I think we'll be screwed in the next one. We should constantly have our better young players on the best ' longest contracts we can provide within our budget with the proviso that they move if an offer of certain level comes in for them. I'd like to think we'd be using financial enticements from those fees (of a pre-agreed level) as an incentive. We need to be more creative / inventive here to make it win / win. Once again, Celtic would be 'within their rights' - however they should re-think their stance on the perception of lack of competition within the game here if they persist in snapping up young talent from their competitors for as little as they can get away with.

Melv's moral high ground comment has really pissed me off If McCart and Celtic have their woes that's fine. But I'm perfectly within my rights to be pissed off that Celtic want to treat us like a charity shop to buy their fur coat when they're currently running about without knickers. Theiy're run by a shower of megalomaniacs with superiority complexes who don't think we're good enough to mix it with 'em on a weekly basis. Yet we're good enough to do their youth development for them when they (having spent millions on it) have failed miserably.

That's probably a realistic statement of where McCart and Celtic are Melvin. However as a club Motherwell FC don't go to the press every International Break Weekend and bleat about lack of competition within their own league an their need to get to England. Your moral high ground comment is a bit harsh btw. We (posters) all understand how it works - but at least as a club we have a bit of humility about us. We don't go bleating to the press about how pish Queen's Park are!

Like I said earlier - I think the bulk of the strong staements have been qualified with an if. And it's hopefully still a big if. However lets look at the innocent party in all of this if it comes to pass and that's Celtic Football Club. If this comes to pass they will be showing all of Scottish Football that all that money they've spent on Lennoxtown has come to fruition. Their head of youth development will be showing he is doing a grand job of bringing youth players through the ranks there. No wonder thay want to piss off to England having burnt all those resources developing all that talent and not having any real competition from the diddy teams in the SPL hanging on to their coat tails.

To be fair most posts are along the lines of 'I'll wait to see how it pans out BUT if it's true etc etc etc'

I'm just glad it's no' a helmet

I'm wi' Yir on this - will wait to see how it plays out as I know / hope the club are doing what they can within our structure and it may be brinksmanship or whatever. However if true the wee chunt should be fucking sectioned (that's in mental health terms not sliced and diced). It would illustrate yet again the cancer that is The Old Firm and the West of Scotland Here's hoping.

Sterjovski would tie in with Brown's leads at Derby - good digging dunk. Probably end up nowhere near the mark but I love it when stuff like this comes up

Nah, he's higher up the pecking order than Craigan for me and is way better a prospect than Kinniburgh ever was.