STUART McCALL was being ushered in to the Motherwell bootroom yesterday lunchtime when his eyes alighted upon a collection of signed shirts, boots and pennants, writes Richard Winton.

"Whose are these, then?" the manager exclaimed, recognising that the Fir Park kitman's shrine to James McFadden would provide an apposite backdrop to a conversation that was only ever going to be about one man.

The question pre-empted the predictable probing about the forward returning to his first club, a discussion which lasted just over 15 minutes and ended with the manager's assurance that no deal was forthcoming to bring the 29-year-old to Lanarkshire. Not yet anyway.