crazylegsjoe

Albeit he's not been found guilty yet, but that sits quite uncomfortably with me too. I thought it would be a nothing altercation with a loud mouthed fan too. I knew he was married at one point, but I didn't know that had ended.

He played 0 games for us and then left us in pursuit of first-team football and joined Colchester in January where he also played a grand total of 0 games. According to his wiki he's played quite regularly at Leyton Orient though.

Samson is the worst 'keeper of the decade for me. In fact, I'd probably extend that to the worst 'keeper I've seen play with Motherwell. Obviously Stevie Woods gets a bad press from years gone by, but as far as I remember he did actually have the odd good game amongst his bad ones. Samson's "mistakes to goals" ratio must be massively high. I always remember goalkeepers at my lowly level at boys club age being taught if they couldn't catch the ball to palm it away from goal. The amount of times Samson made a "save" but put it right back into the danger area was ridiculous. This was a guy who was 31 when we signed him and had been number one at two other clubs in the division, as well as making up the numbers in Scotland squads. Twardzik, Hollis and Nielsen were all relatively untested at this level, that's maybe why I was more forgiving of that trio than I was of Samson.

He was on no basic wage, but appearance money and win bonuses. I don't think he could've got them if it was an amateur contract.

His second last season he was on the bench from November to March. He had a drop off in form before we started using Daley, Law and Murphy on the right with him on the bench. When he came back into the team in March he was class, then carried that form into his final season.

There's absolutely no doubt that McDonald was an egomaniac and didn't miss an opportunity to tell everyone he was a Sellick man, but largely I've been able to look past stuff like that if the player is doing the business on the park - but McDonald definitely did. Looking at transfermarkt, in that 2.5 year spell when he was back he scored 30 goals and got 19 assists. That's some numbers, particularly as he was usually the more withdrawn of the front two. I was pleased with how sensible and balanced the XI was. I saw a World XI once that had Pele and Gerd Muller up front and a midfield of Ronaldo, Messi, Cryuff and Maradona and it annoyed me a lot, probably more than it should have.

The team of the decade ended up being 10/11 that I voted for. The only difference was Law for Humphrey in mine. I was rather annoyed when he left for Rangers, but looking back on it he was absolutely brilliant for us over his two seasons. There haven't been many others who were quite as consistent and important over two seasons as he was. I liked Humphrey a lot but I think people forget he wasn't always a nailed on starter. He spent a lot of time on the bench in the season before his last. The argument for Lionel's inclusion is a decent one, but I do acknowledge as well as the good times, how infuriating he was all the times he just couldn't be arsed. I did think Turnbull might have been a flippant inclusion but he did have quite the exceptional season. Jennings and Allan Campbell would've been next in line. He would probably still be behind Sutton and Ojamaa, as well as Moult and Higdon, but for me you can also place Scott McDonald a bit in the "overlooked for being a bit of a knob" category. He had a massive contribution to our decade.

Being a part-time Coventry fan, I was delighted when we signed Gael Bigirimana, as I'd seen him control the tempo for Coventry a good few times. Unfortuantely, other than a small period at the start of last season, it never worked out for him. Not robust enough to play in a Robinson team and even when we did go for sexy football eventually, Rodriguez-Gorrin came in as whilst McHugh could tackle and header and Bigi could pass, he could do all of those. I thought Brian Kerr would be a great signing as he joined from Newcastle who were flying at the time, having played in the Champions League with three Scotland caps already. But for a handful of spectacular goals (this is why youtube videos that agents promote can't be trusted), he served only to be good at hide and seek. Particularly if the game was a battle. He was allegedly a Motherwell fan too! I also thought that given how good he was for Dundee United, Nadir Ciftci would be a great signing. Despite the cult created in his name by our fans (which I can't fathom), he was actually very poor, particularly as I imagine we were paying a decent bit of his wages. He looked like "if he gets fit he could be good" in his first game, but still looked like that on his tenth. 2 of his 3 goals came in a meaningless final day of the season game. On the flip side, when Higdon left and Sutton came back, I was underwhelmed by it and actually wanted us to sign Lee Miller, who then signed an extension at Carlisle, before joining Killie a season later where he managed one league goal. Sutton scored 22 and we finished second again. Also, when Liam Grimshaw signed for a second time, I thought it was an unnecessary signing as we were already overloaded in the middle of the park, as much as I did like him in his first spell. As well as some decent performances in the middle, he's managed to reinvent himself as a solid, dependable right back and even knocked Tait out of the team.

Yeah, I can't argue with much of that. It's a weird one with Ferguson, where he's probably over qualified to be our number two, but under qualified to be our number one. If he's willing to stay on as backup then I'd probably take it. As for Maguire and Livingstone, I tend to be of the line of thinking that once a player hits about 21 and isn't really a first pick it does neither them nor us any favours keeping them. Thinking along the lines of Bob McHugh. I think both of them are in that category now. I was thinking Tait's options would probably be league two in England and for some reason Livingston was the team I had in my head if he left us and stayed in Scotland. Would be a great backup option for us if he was willing to be that. I thought Hartley would've been a goner in the summer, but he has come back in and done well. I'm still dumbfounded as to why he didn't start against Accies when we had no game for 20 days after it. Despite having a couple of good chants, I've found Mugabi to be clumsy with poor distribution so far.

Happy with both Grimshaw and Long getting extended deals. Mentioned on a match thread a while back there aren't actual many strikers in the Scottish Premiership who hit double figures from open play, with 6 so far, Long is on track for double figures if he keeps it up and he has looked really sharp in a good few games lately. Grimshaw has had his usual committed, unspectacular consistent performances at right back. As for the rest of the out of contract players, as things stand I reckon Gillespie must be offski and I'd keep Ferguson as backup to Carson. Would be for Tait, Hartley and Dunne being offered new deals, although given both Hartley and Dunne have been susceptible to injury and we have Mugabi and Gallagher already signed, I can't see us paying all four a first-team wage. I remain unconvinced by Mugabi but I guess what he's shown, thus far anyway, that he can remain fit. I really like Dunne but I wonder if Robinson is paying any thought to the fact he's spent long periods out with similar injuries in the past two seasons. I'm sure he had similar problems in his Oldham days too. It's harsh on Tait that after playing out of position for so long, he now finds himself on the bench when we've found a proper left-back. I imagine we'll offer him a deal, but at 30, I can't see him staying unless he's going to be playing. I'd keep Manzinga to see if he develops if his wages are low, but as things stand I'd probably get rid of Maguire, Livingstone and Ilic.

Has anyone ever signed a player on loan from an English club who wasn't "highly rated"? Motherwell signed Anthony Straker from York City in January 2015 and he very much played like a guy who was out of favour at an 18th placed league two side.

New contract for Trevor Carson until 2022. Did not see that one coming. Interesting....

I wonder why Hylton has been left off the list...anyone know?

My guess with Cole is that Wigan want him off their wage bill entirely. We were perhaps paying half his wages, but couldn't afford or didn't see the value in paying his full wages and were they to allow him to leave on a free, he wouldn't accept the wage cut that would come with joining us without getting a decent severance package.

Yeah, that's it. Using Blackman as a comparison, when we lost him that January he had scored 10 of our 26 goals in the league so far (38%), with Cole he had scored 4 of 33 (12%) so although we are light on bodies/options up top, it not such a tall order to replace.

Heneghan played for us in a really poor team and I wouldn't ever fault his attitude or application when he was here, but I really can't fathom why someone was willing to pay money for him that summer after the season he had. He looked slower than quick strikers and weaker than big strikers, but I guess there's a reason that scouts are in their job and I'm not. Just noticed that although we are the third highest scorers in the league, none of our players are in the top ten for the league. I guess that makes Cole's departure somewhat easier to compensate for, it's not like the season Nick Blackman had scored 10 before he was offski at Christmas.

I think I'm in the against camp. No doubt he was great for us the first time around, but he's only had two sub appearances since doing his ACL. We've been stung recently by January "gambles" in forward areas. Ross McCormack obviously last year and despite the ridiculous salivation he causes in this thread, Nadir Ciftci. Both fell in to the same "he'd be a player if he got fit category" and neither did. I'm not letting Ciftci's display in a meaningless game against Accies distort his overall time with us. We signed Ciftci when Moult had just left and we'd hit a bit of a mid season slump, we signed McCormack when we were struggling. This season we don't have that same struggle and we don't need someone to come in and save our season. I reckon he's as good as finished at Rangers, so they're not going to let him out on loan with a low percentage of his wages covered, so for me the move would represent us flinging money at 3rd place and I don't think it's wise to deviate that much from our modest business model which has served us well lately. Call me boring or unromantic, but I think I'd sooner extend Cole's deal to the end of the season and have a bit of continuity.

Tait, Maguire, Manzinga and Carson all start for the reserves today, but Sloth nowhere to be seen. There's every possibility we are trying to avoid any threat of an injury scuppering offloading him in January.

It does probably seem like a deal of risk/reward, sometimes you do need to pursue these in hope that they work and given we're fourth in the league it's hardly as if his underperforming has cost us anything at this stage. In fairness to Robinson, citing Fisher and Taylor-Sinclair as the first two examples off the top of my head, if he does get a signing wrong, he's usually quick to rectify the situation. When you make the sheer number of signings he has to, your bound to get one wrong now and again.

Only once v Celtic away, but I think that day we were scraping the barrel and it was just whatever 18 fit bodies we had made up the squad. We have a lot of options in centre midfield and given we've signed O'Hara and at one point Turnbull might be back, that would push them both further down the pecking order. A lot of competition, especially considering it's been the area where selection has been most consistent so far. Sloth punted and Semple on loan in the second part of the season would be something I'd get behind. I reckon the club and Carson would be happy for him to move on in January as well. It was probably only expected that we paid two first-pick goalkeepers for a maximum of six months, but the circumstances have been ones you just couldn't predict. At 31, he'll want to get back playing football and I don't think any of us would begrudge him that and I don't think Gillespie deserves to be ousted either. That said, I don't seem what the harm would have been in giving Carson the league cup against Annan when we had already qualified.

He got half an hour against Accies on Tom Aldred day and ran down the clock against St. Mirren post-split after that. I guess being able to work out that a standout in the 20s isn't ready for the first team is where a professional coach earns their salt. I couldn't fathom why we gave him a new contract this season when he would be behind Carroll, Tait, Dunne and perhaps even Ilic in the pecking order for left-back, to then send him out on loan for the duration of his contract. The fact he didn't even get a single minute in the league cup group section further affirmed that. You could understand if he was 17 or 18, but not 21. He's only played twice in the league for Morton since going there too. On the plus side, it now seems that we are producing players that are capable of commanding a place in the team. For years our youth system worried me when but for limited exceptions, we were only producing also-rans and fringe players. Hastie, Turnbull, Campbell and Scott all coming in, starting games and having a lasting impact has been refreshing. We've not had as many at once since the Gannon era I'd say, where at times it felt like he was just chucking players in for the sake of it. I now trust players will get their pathway to the first team when they are ready, but on the flip-side to that, I still always get slightly annoyed to see someone like Casper Sloth both costing us a first-team wage and potentially pushing Jamie Semple down the pecking order. I reckon we'll see him go in January though and even with that, I wouldn't be against sending Semple out on loan for the second half of the season.

The fact that everything did change with 4-3-3, Hastie and Ariyibi makes this season's rebuild Robinson's most impressive work yet. From January onwards last year we had a shape, identity and personnel that seemed to sit nice with all of us. Right now, due to injury (Turnbull, Dunne) and departures (Aldred, Gorrin, Hastie, Ariyibi, Main), that has been ripped apart, but Robinson has built it again without the style really being too compromised. Finally finding a decent, left footed, left back seems progress, Gallagher has seamlessly replaced Aldred and you could even say is an upgrade, Donnelly has stepped into Gorrin's shoes and added a few goals, Polworth has been an assist machine and between four or five forwards contributing goals between them, there's no reliance on one individual player scoring frequently in Turnbull's absence. Also a big fan of how Scott is being used. A lot of exposure to first team football, without being a guaranteed, relied upon starter every week is, in my opinion, the best thing for his development. When you have to sign the sheer volume of players that Robbo has to for Motherwell, you're bound to get one or two wrong along the way, but it does impress me when he gets one wrong he rectifies it quickly like Taylor-Sinclair or Fisher and does seem to have the foresight in cases like Donnelly, decides he's a project worth persevering with. I suspect we'll see Sloth depart a la Taylor-Sinclair/Fisher in January.

My instinct was at the start of the season, that we'd find ourselves spoiled for choice this season, but snookered next season. I thought that one would go due to limited first team football and the other to another club having impressed whilst in the team.

I can totally understand why he's the footgolf season poster boy, but for me he was almost close to pass marks. Normally you would ask questions how a team that finished 2nd the season before could finish 11th, but in our case you question how on earth our 2013/14 team managed to finish 2nd. The team from the season before would wipe the floor with them.

Find it hard to disagree with most of the Motherwell shouts on here, but for me Kerr's work rate and enthusiasm in a role alien to him gives Daley the nod for me. At least with the trio of Nielsen/Hollis/Twardzik, their inefficiencies were quickly exposed and they were discarded. We got Samson pretty much for a full season and the pain was so prolonged. Russell Griffiths' performances when Carson were injured the following season proved not being Samson was his best trait. Not to mention, Samson arrived with much more experience and pedigree in the league. Josh Law was a very harsh shout for me, I actually think he done a reasonable job at right back for us. I shoehorned Kieran Kennedy into my team at his expense. Put Joe Chalmers instead of Petravicius basically cause I forgot Petravicius had existed. Casagolda instead of Robinson. But it's good we're all picking from the same pool of players! I'd also like to reaffirm Mark O'Brien's place in the XI. The guy who took joy in kicking the ball as hard as he could the way he was facing and deliberately getting booked when he could win the ball. The anti-christ of football.