steelboy

we can't say he didn't warn us “There will be challenges, there will be ups and downs. There’s no doubt, just like we did last year, we’ll have some massive blips and bad results and fans will say they’re not going back again, but if we can maintain the consistency and keep bouncing back, then that’s what we’ll try to do.” http://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2014/08/08/mccall-hopes-for-memorable-year/ how about a manager who tries to avoid bad results?

we signed a load of shite last summer as well.

mchugh and erwin can't get 10 minutes during the week but start today. classic mccall.

i don't see it. which of their players do you think are making more than our top players? if there is a difference it's that they are paying their top wages to young attacking players and we are paying them to gunnar, mcmanus, hammell, lasley and sutton.

he didn't outperform mcinnes or wright last season and the rest of it is good going but isn't going to get you a job in the championship or in the door at the ibrox. his awful cup record, poor record against the old firm, terrible european record and our downturn since the players he inherited left are all black marks against him.

i don't think there is much difference between us and dundee united in terms of budget. there is certainly no one in their squad who we couldn't have afforded to sign when they joined united and the squad sizes are similar. have you even looked at the dundee squad?

i just mean that he is currently being out performed by tommy wright, john hughes and jackie mcnamara and more notably by the less experienced alex neill, alan archibald and paul hartley who all have smaller budgets. even robbie neilson is doing arguably a better job this season. he obviously gambled when he knocked back sheffield united that he could get a better job either in the championship or at ibrox. that isn't going to happen now without a remarkable turnaround. being scotland 3rd coach is hardly a great distinction. it groups him with mccoist, butcher, kenny black and andy watson.

leitch made some mistakes the other night but also took some responsibility and played some decent forward passes so i'd keep him in. the rest of the midfield were different shades of shite. i'd pull vigurs and ainsworth who you can't count on to turn up and bring in erwin and ojaama and go for it. even if we end up losing the game let the fans see some attacking football. unless you went to dingwall and/or celtic park you've seen a maximum of two goals in two months, fans are already voting with their feet so we need to see a decent performance to keep people coming along. mccall's stock as a manager has fell a long way, he doesn't have much to lose at the moment by sending out an attacking team. he's being shown up by less experienced managers with smaller budgets at the moment so getting a club down south is totally out the question unless he pulls something incredible out the bag.

have celtic even been fined for all the riots and the stabbing their fans have been involved in recently?

i agree with that. poor signings and an overly generous bonus system have contributed as well. however if we had made even two semi finals in the past three seasons (as ICT, aberdeen, st johnstone, falkirk, dundee united, hearts and hibs have managed) or just a single cup win like st mirren or killie then i think we would have been in profit.

we don't need to imagine, they publish accounts every 12 months which tell us. 3 consecutive years making losses and probably a 4th on the way.

the managers and the players are losing us fortunes every season through sheer ineptitude, the fans might as well get in on the act as well.

faddy said in the papers that he wasn't asking for much but we don't know what he considers to be much, the guy was reported to be making 45 grand a week when he was at edinburgh. if we are paying law more than he was making at alfreton then someone at the club should be looking into this. we've been stung in the past with some questionable signings where it's likely that the contract given out had more to do with personal relationships than footballing ability: andy roddie, tony thomas, john davies and casagolda spring to mind.

another thing that annoyed me was not competing for the bounce ball after their 'head injury' when they had done that to us earlier. we've got a terrible record in cups, the club are skint and we either don't have the bottle or the brains to do something as simple as that.

there were some unbelievable decisions from our bench tonight. josh law playing for 120 minutes and contributing exactly nothing. taking off ainsworth for ramsden because it was 10 vs 10. not bringing on erwin to try and grab a goal or even just to take a penalty. someone also needs to have a word with wee dan and tell him to stop bouncing up and down at pens, he's faced 9 since he's been here and not looked like saving one. positives were good performances from kerr and leitch plus big sutty and mcmanus stepping up to give us a good start to the penalties. the less said about the captain hiding on the halfway line the better, surely if he's not going to take one he has to come off?

josh mccall is indestructible.

have the club said anything about season ticket figures for this season?

they have brought in some decent players in january in both their previous top league campaigns. there's no reason to think they won't do it again.

QR scanning is about 50 times faster than the snail's pace of our ticket office.

is this possibly a reaction to low season ticket sales?

'affirmative action'. Do they want kevin harper back?

fan ownership will be difficult but until a better option appears it is the only way to go. if the current board cut the society adrift in november they will have to outline their plans for the mid to long term. we have heard about directors funding this and that but no precise details of the people involved, the amounts or the form of this funding.

fans putting their money in has all ready had a positive impact by funding the losses that the current board have run up. people that think some multi millionaire is going to roll up and start underwriting us are living in cloud cuckoo land.

we scraped a lot of results last season but the entertainment was terrible. there have been two, possibly three, decent games at fir park in 2014. you have no idea how many season tickets we have sold, it's possible that we have lost money due to people not renewing because of the prices or because of the end product on the park. pay 20 quid to watch a terrible game of football whilst the sub goalkeeper picks up £2500 a week, it's not exactly appealing. i don't think anything will change until we have a new manager in the dugout. mccall had the scope to overhaul the squad last summer and made an arse of it, this summer he has done nothing which will benefit us long term. every player in the squad is here because they were given a deal by stuart mccall yet our squad is extremely unbalanced. publicly blaming a young player playing out of position for the st johnstone goal while staying silent about his mate sicknote simon getting raped in the air sums mccall up.

the football we are playing is terrible though. we sat through some of the worst football matches ever seen last season and the club responded by putting the prices up. it was obvious crowds were going to decline. the club is asking for more, without giving anything back. look at our summer signings, a tiny keeper, two loans and a non league player on a 1 year deal to complement all the over 30s in the squad. there is nothing there that makes you think we have any long term plans. the club haven't announced how many season tickets we've sold but i would guess it's way down.