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The attitude towards Motherwell on social media has definitely swung recently. No doubt the inevitable 'too big for their boots' backlash accounts for some of that, but since Slattery's ban, 'diving cheats' is thrown out every time one of our guys goes down. Luckily, we have fair minded, competent referees who are immune to that stuff.

Sorry, I couldn't disagree more. I don't, in any way way condone what Slattery seemed to do (it wasn't proved beyond reasonable doubt), and he has been punished by the SFA. In short he was singled out for special treatment. We've seen several other breaches of Rule 77 since with no action being taken. As the governing body, the SFA and its employees must not get involved in petty vendettas against clubs. It and they should act with the utmost decorum and fairness. If it cannot do this then it will lose the respect of clubs, players and last but by no means least, the paying public and rightly so. At that point, the games a bogey. As Spiderpig says, the club and in my view the Society should call out the level of refereeing and VAR incompetence publicly.

I disagree. Blaming Slattery here gives the officials a pass. He’s already been punished, so anything that happens to him or his teammates following this should be judged on its own merits, not dragged in from previous incidents. We’ve already seen that different standard applied against Falkirk and Hearts. If officials can’t apply the laws fairly and impartially regardless of history, they shouldn’t be in the job. Suggesting a player or team can be refereed to a different standard because of the past just excuses poor officiating, normalises inconsistency and, at worst, bias. That’s on the referees, not the player.

Jennings? Valakari?

Its more than incompetence now, thats two games in a row, we have had ridiculous decisions go against us, potentially costing us 6 points and if you add in the pittodrie shit show, a cup semi final place and losing an important player for two games with the Slattery debacle. The club needs to be stronger and start calling out this nonsense with the SFA, as do all the clubs, the whole set up is a incompetent shambles not fit for purpose intent on pandering to two clubs at the expense of the other 40.

Yeah, there's no way that one's going down as an incorrect decision. I'm more interested in hearing Collum explain how both the referee and VAR managed to miss the Maswanhise penalty. My money's on a shrug.

MJC - (potentially enjoying) taking one for the team

I suspect what we will be told if it’s even discussed, is that the player on the ground didn’t make much of an effort to head the ball and didn’t move his head much so Welsh was always going to hit him on the head and as such shouldn’t have attempted to hit the ball. Not saying I think that’s correct just what we will be told as I’ve no doubt that they’ve all spent the last day thinking up a solution to their ineptitude and fuck up.

I keep saying this but foreign referees for VAR and an ex player to give context is what’s needed. Also if - as McGarry indicates in his article - Motherwell are being refereed to a different standard than other teams then the person to blame for that is Slattery. I’m not saying that the referees are right but if the article is correct then no cheating, no different standard. Personally I’m not sure it’s all down to the Slattery incident and more down to incompetence.

He will be challenged. But, as I said elsewhere on the forum, he’ll contort to justify the decision.

Won't matter what size of pool we have if they don't know the Laws of the game and are not held accountable when that ignorance shows like it did Saturday. Will anybody challenge Collum to explain why 3 of his team, 5 if you include the Asst Refs, either didn't know the Law or decided to ignore it? Not a chance.

Alex Gorrin was in that mould. He was a dead cert for a yellow most games from smashing somebody but really tidy with the ball.

To be fair they aren't bottom purely down to the goalkeeper. He looks decent but wouldn't be one i would be interested in

Prior from Livingston, the team at the bottom the league, heading for the championship with the most goals conceded so far, aye ok then 🤦‍♂️

If that’s a penalty, we might as well start coaching our strikers to get down to ground level and start diving head-first into the path of defenders’ boots at every opportunity in the box. Oh wait, that’d be a foul for the defender.

Another way to look at it is we’re not just dealing with a small pool, we’re stuck with exactly the type of personalities that are drawn to refereeing. Average Joes in the real world with small man syndrome who suddenly get to throw their weight around with impunity on the pitch.

When you take try and take out the subjectivity, you end up with the current hand ball rules. There are multiple issues that need to be dealt with, from refs not understanding the game to players being coached to cheat. One of the biggest challenges is the small pool of available talent and how to address that.

I don't think there's that many additonal officials needed for VAR. I think the biggest problem is the lack of people who want to be refs means there is a small pool. What we are seeing is literally the best we have available.

Exactly this. The offence took place before Welsh made contact, and the fact Kabore got a boot to his noggin simply highlights it was dangerous play on his part, as defined by the laws of the game.

Just watched the penalty again Do not think Welsh could have done anything to avoid this at all

I picked up a very pertinent point from the Society socials about the penalty decision yesterday and its about timing. At the start of the sequence, the Hearts player heads the ball whilst lying on the ground. Thats a foul. Its only after that that Welsh kicks him. The "victim" was so badly injured that he had to roll about several times.

I think if we were offered £500k for Ward he'd be off. McCracken? No way. He's always got a blunder in him, just not against us. Not rated by Dundee fans I know.

For me we signed Maswanhise and Ward for no fee. If we could get say total of £4 million combined for pair of them then its great business and you give JBA half of that to spend

I've not seen loads of either I've just thought both GK's have been decent in the games I've seen them in. I'd imagine both Gk's passing accuracy would improve in our side. Ox last season was a decent keeper for us before his injury and if Ward was to leave I'd be comfortable enough with Ox starting for us again. Might be harsh but Connolly is not for me at all. Too small and that performance against Aberdeen left a lot to be desired.

Can't say I've been paying much attention to opposition keepers, but had a wee look at their passing accuracy stats for the last couple of games. Ward was between 70-80%, McCracken 50-60% and Prior around 40% for both matches. Could be to do with how many long balls they're hitting, but given what happened with Oxborough, you'd wonder if they're the type of keeper Jens would be after.