The African

Leitch is one of those players who, in a better financial climate, you would have liked to see get another year. He has not been lucky with the serious injury and had few real chances since then. The truth is though that we can't keep them all and I wish him well in his future career. Any word on where he might be going?

Disappointing is an understatement. I suppose we can, to an extent, put it down to a number of factors, only some of which will have consequences for next season. The facts that our season was over, we had very little to play for and we caught them on a good day and they are a better side than us, as the league table shows, can be seen as valid and forgotten about. This really wasn't a game we could hope to experiment in and, once again, McGhee has tried to be a little too clever and been found out. I would not be too hard on Luke Watt. A youngster given a chance in a game that passed more experienced players by is always going to look out of his depth. I see that some have questioned his attitude and said that it looked like he wasn't trying, but we have to remember that looks can be deceptive. Hopefully he can come back from this disappointment. Thankfully we did not risk any other young players and their possible development. What I think this does show though, is that the issues that have dogged us over the past two seasons which were not sorted by McCall and Baraclough still remain and need to be addressed. Our key players are all a year older and we have no obvious succession policy for most of them. The work hasn't been done over the past few years so now the job is not only more urgent but also harder as it has to be achieved over a shorter time frame. This is all the more difficult as we are entering a period of tighter budget and necessary financial expediency. I hope McGhee is up for it. This is where a good manager earns his salary. Getting the players fit and organised will get us so far, but to improve, our squad needs more than a freshen up. Good luck Mark.

I wonder where McManus will go to pick up more money than we are offering? England would seem unlikely at his age and I doubt his form over the past couple of years with us would have put him on many team's wish list.

He may reconsider now that Hibs are not coming up this season.

No. He had his chance with us and didn't make it.

Falkirk is obviously a better fit for McHugh than we were. Good luck to the lad. Will be interesting to see how he goes next season if they manage to get by Killie. He had a fair go with us and didn't make the grade, so no regrets. If he improves and has a stellar career, then it is down to him and those around him. Can't say it is likely, based on what I saw of him at Fir Park.

Very good result. Fifth place confirmed which, I think, most of us will be quite happy with.

Samson is an experienced pro so he hold know that nobody is guaranteed a starting place. Throw in a change of management since he signed and he has to accept that he has been behind Ripley this season. He is also not the only player being offered reduced terms, so taking it personally would be a bit daft. With Ripley more than likely not to return he has a chance to stake a claim for the starting position, though I reckon we will look to bring in more cover, unless young Long is considered good enough to make the step up. Samson might be able to secure a gig elsewhere, but it is not likely to carry any more guarantees than he will get at Fir Park or indeed much more cash. McGhee spoke highly of him when he started against Hearts and has offered him a deal. The ball is in his court.

Samson will probably get another start in one of the final two games and a chance to fight it out for the starting jersey with whoever we bring in over the summer. If he thinks he can do better elsewhere then good luck to him.

The difficulty with the "tradition" and "fun filled scamps causing nobody any harm" arguments is, to which clubs should it apply and which clubs should not be allowed to use it as they fall into the "known arse holes" category.

We are serial offenders. We cannot just blame it on a bunch of hypocritical and hypersensitive h**s from last season.

Cannot blame the club for the security increase. They have tried to rely on the common sense of our support in the past and it has not exactly worked out well (no pun intended). It is a sad day when the actions (and no little expense) of the club are dictated by a handful of stupid people who can't or won't take a telling, but it is where we are.

Joe Wark was the complete aerial espionage as fullback. The only thing he couldn't do was get a cap for Scotland. I am still bitter about this injustice.

Brilliant! Congratulations to all involved.

Nothing against the players mentioned, but is it possible that we are repeating mistakes here? The transition/rebuilding should have started two or three seasons ago. Our squad core is now another year older and the cracks are becoming more and more obvious. For whatever reason, inept management, laziness, sentiment, we have stuck with "tried and tested" and regressed because of it. If our budget will allow us the luxury of keeping all of these older players on while bringing in the necessary new blood then okay, sign them up, but times are hard and money tight. Thes players will have to be replaced sooner rather than later and that process has to begin sometime.

Agreed. Surely it isn't beyond the realms of reasonableness that playing kit could last for two or even three seasons? Perhaps they could synchronise changing the second (and if necessary third) kit so that only one is changed each season? This could cause issues when we change kit supplier but it should not be too difficult an issue to overcome. The fact that we do not have a huge support and that shirt sales will not be a huge earner also makes a sensible move in that direction more possible.

My first game was a nil nil draw with Aberdeen in the early seventies. I am pretty sure it was a league cup match in the days when they had group stages. I must look it up when I finally get my books unpacked. Was brought up in Edinburgh but my Dad was a Motherwell man and he brought me up properly. My brother was weak and foolish and became a Hibs fan at seven. I suppose every family has one.

A pity that Europe is now beyond us. It might not be a great money spinner at our level, but I still get excited by the prospect of Motherwell in Europe, possibly because it remained out with our grasp for so long in the seventies and eighties, when it was worthwhile. Still, let's get as high a league finish as possible, and give a few youngsters a run when the chance presents itself. Good luck to the Hibees in the final.

Just out of interest, and with regard to European qualification, what is the scenario should New Rangers qualify by winning the cup? Are they in a position to take up the place? I am sure that there used to be rules concerning the amount of published accounts that a club possessed, before being allowed to compete on the European stage.

Seems a little unfair to criticise the club over transfer policy. If nobody offers the club a decent fee for a player then they are scarcely responsible for that fact. The whole system is against clubs of our size and situation (both financial and geographic) and, as such, we have tried to play by the rules and generally been screwed.

Ripley is in a situation where, if everyone is honest, it would be a no brainier that another season here would be in everyone's best interests. For himself, he is a young player with promise who is getting the necessary game time at a reasonable standard which he is unlikely to get elsewhere at present. He is by no means the finished article but the improvement seen over this season is obvious. For Middlesborough, he is a young player getting the chance to develop further in an environment that has, so far, done him a lot of good. He is getting valuable game time and is also not costing them so much as we will be paying a proportion of his wages(not that this will be a factor if they go up to the EPL). I trust that they will also have access to him, in an emergency, if required. For us, we get the use of a good young keeper who is improving and better than anything else that we have at the moment. The fact that he will go at the end of the season is the nature of loan signings and a bit of a bugger but it is something clubs like ourselves will have to live with in this day and age.

English lower league football, - mid level Championship and below, is certainly a fine example of the law of diminishing returns. The amount of money spent does not seem to increase the quality of the product exponentially. This is most probably due to the lack of sufficient talent. Great news for the less talented players who are obviously being overpaid. Not so great for the other markets in the vacinitty who suffer as the expanding English market soaks up all the available cash and resources.

Financially, this now becomes quite a significant fixture. If we can get something from it and secure a top six place, we will make a fair amount of money. It would guarantee at least sixth in the league and the possibility of better than that plus hopefully better gates at our remaining home fixtures. Lose, and we are relying on other results to get us there and the possibility of scrabbling with the other also ranks for seventh, eighth or ninth. Given where we were after the Killie defeat, top six would be some achievement and the extra cash it would generate would be very handy. Let's hope we can do the business ourselves and get over this initial finishing line without having to rely on other results.

Shows the folly in thinking that other results would get us there. We need to get a point at least on Sarurday, then the rest can do as they please. Celtic are the best team in the league, but we are on a good run and are at home. COYW!

Sod's law would be that we get fourth place and then Celtic lose the cup final. I would take that to be honest. We would get more money for the higher league finish a and while I like the idea of us playing European football, the truth is that it is so early in the season we have little chance of getting to the stages where we actually make some money out of it. One game at a time though. Let's fight and scrape for every point from now until the end of the season and see where it gets us.