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What players should be at our club in your opinion? Who would be an affordable, reasonable signing that we could have made that would make a monumental difference to how we are playing at the moment? I don't know how long you've been a follower of the club, but for the 25 or so years I've been a supporter, we've been consistently inconsistent - a couple of years of relative success, followed by dire, dire seasons, with the occasional middle of the road season chucked in. In that time we've had players who have been stellar during their stay, players who have been duds from the word go, players who have made slow starts and gone on to better themselves, and others who have faded as quickly as they shone after first signing. The players that got us a third place finish last term have had a dip in form, no doubt about that. The players that have been brought in this summer haven;t hit the ground running. Both of these factors have contributed to the sluggish start. White was brought in on his pedigree of scoring in the lower leagues - the step up to the SPFL was always something he was going to have to get to grips with and he's had very little quality service from midfield or the wings to help him. Lamie was signed after being part of a Livi squad that defied expectation for the last couple of seasons. He hasn't looked the sharpest, but just like Gallagher the year before him, he looked a decent player at Scottish premiership level last season, so was a worthy signing. Debut aside, Lang is full of running and effort and has taken the goals he has scored well. Is he as good as the hype around him suggests? Not yet and possibly won't get there, but if he was, he wouldn't be playing for us. We knew what we were getting by re-signing Long, a player who showed what he can do in fits and starts for a club like us. It's took him a week or so to get his fitness up, but he's back to being full of running and a nuisance, as he showed from the bench last night. O'Hara and Watt were re-signed on the promise of what they showed previously for us, and to an extent, you could add Hastie to that list as well. No one is disagreeing that the start to the season has been limp at best, but given the budget we have and how well the team performed to get third place- even if it was a bit of a slog after January - saying that the signings made should never be at the club, in my opinion, is a dreadful take.

Coleraine went from being a top end championship team to being comfortably beaten by a good junior team, lets not forget this same team knocked out Maribor in the last round away from home. Regardless of how far along they are in pre season going over there with the attitude that we should have progressed comfortably is ignorant to say the least. The park was terrible, that brings any side down a level or two, you cannot play football on that. Scotland might not be blessed with great surfaces but that is on par with a council run sunday league pitch. Both penalties looked very soft, the ref gave us nothing all night. We could have been out of sight in the first half and probably should have been but conceding that early penalty makes it a whole different ball game. At the end of the day, it wasn't pretty but we are in the hat for the next round and they aren't.

Tortuous but somehow ultimately triumphant. As drained as I've felt watching a Motherwell game for some time. And all looking so good too. We had a shaky moment or two in the first half, the free-header immediately springs to mind, but two up and a couple off the line it seemed like we were well on the way. And suddenly.... It wasn't actually that much of a surprise that Coleraine did get a penalty as they seemed to go out of their way to claim for absolutely anything and everything inside the box throughout the game, the vast majority blatantly chancing it. And they were none too shy in trying to create a picture for the referee. I don't know if there's any better angles of the incident emerged than the brief view we had of the first but from the snippet it seemed Carson was comfortably claiming the ball before a few seconds there was the coming together. First reaction was the going down of the Coleraine player and claiming for a penalty was in keeping with their previous attempts to win one, and if O'Hara did foul him when Carson had it under control it was incredibly stupid, We then had a horrible 15 minutes or so before the change of shape seemed to restore some order of a sort but we never at any time regained control of the game in the way we had in the first half so were always vulnerable. We rode our luck with the disallowed goal and just when it seemed we'd done enough another penalty and red-card to boot. Again another questionable decision. At that point it looked grim but I would at that stage, for all the performance was had been largely abysmal in the second half, have to give them credit for re-grouping in extra-time. How much of that was down to Coleraine tiring I don't know but down to 10 men, the substitutions having largely destroyed the midfield and the home side having the momentum I thought - again riding our luck once again with the one off the line aside - we did pretty well in extra-time. I might also have expected Long to do better with his chance in the first half of extra-time. And so to penalties. I think most of us will have thought us doomed when it got to that stage. Memories of several lost shoot-outs, Carson having already been beaten twice, their win against Maribor. It just seemed set up for disaster. But there you go, what a shoot-out from Carson and we're through. I've seen us go out in Europe in unfortunate circumstances and plenty of what might have beens so I'm not going to get too hung up on fortune being with us last night to see us through. The performances of many, and collectively for a fair chunk of the game is a different matter entirely.

Does he come with his own physio and a years supply of bubble wrap?

The same posters on this forum who moan about us signing people from down south and not from Scottish teams, will be the same ones moaning about us signing someone from a Scottish club. I'm all for giving our youth a chance but what margin of error will they have in a team lacking in confidence quite badly at the moment? As soon as any mistakes are made, they’ll be savaged by the usual suspects here in no time. Crawford at least has first team games under his belt at a level neither Cornelius and Semple have so far

I expect we will be playing in Israel with everyone tested before we fly out. Ideally their full squad gets it and we get a bye and night off watching dross.

Watt deserves a bit of credit for the shift he put in and the goal. One of the few players who looked interested.

Both were 100% penalties, soft I agree but pens nowadays. Fucking amateurish that we have players who regularly get caught in those situations. The ref & pitch were poor excuses. That was a part time pub team who havent even started their season yet and our keeper has to pull off a huge save, then save 3 pens to get us through. They dominated us for 110 of the 120 minutes, yes it was agricultural football and yes they were cynical and diving all over the place, but we are so naive its scary! Our defending at set pieces is comical, our attacking threat at set pieces is non existant. Our defence is all over the place, midfield is an absolute shambles and attack so so poor. We have no shape or proper gameplan and some of the worst professional footballers Ive ever seen in our squad. It is a VERY poorly coached team and the squad looks to have a terrible attitude all round. Something needs to give, and soon

Kudos to Trev, but serious questions have to be asked as to why he didn't save either of the second half pens instead of waiting until the shoot out. Aye, you can stop raging now. I was just joking.

Eh? I wanted him signed AND given a chance, then if he turned out good (which seemed the case in his short purple patch) our investment was protected. And how can you say Maguire, Semple or Cornelius "clearly arent good enough"? What basis do you have for this statement? Because the manager doesnt pick them? Remember this is a guy who gave his son a game in europe and he proceeded to make a cunt of it and throw away a penalty. A Manager who got rid of our 2 most influential players and leaders to replace them with nothing, who thinks Sherwin Seedorf is a fucking football player, and who had Liam Grimshaw as first name on his teamsheet for months! So forgive me if I dont fully trust his judgement With Crawford, he is 27 and has spent his career in the lower leagues. He got "his break" at Livvy last season in the top league, played less than half their games, got dumped and sent out on loan to us! Ive seen him play twice, he was ok but a bit anonymous at times in both games. Ive seen Maguire, Semple & Cornelius all play a few mins here and there and they have been ok/anonymous (although Maguire had a very good game v Celtic!, a higher calibre of team than Crawford has ever performed against) my point is that this looks like a panic signing and a slap in the face of our own players who have been waiting for a chance and are paid to be there in emergencies! What we need is a bit of quality. What we have signed is an average championship level midfielder on a panic loan.

Do you even watch football?

I think the club agree with you so they are putting these players out to clubs where they have a greater chance of getting more than 10 minutes here and there, remember there is no reserve football to keep their eye in.

Least it's not as bad as when we signed a york city reserve player......take a bow Mr Straker

The Livi coaching staff. The reason no one has seen him is he 27 and has only played 21 top flight games.

Who says Crawford isn’t good enough for Livingston? Other than people on here who probably have never seen him play.

It’s not overly encouraging that someone that can’t be considered a starter at Livi is allowed to leave to another league competitor. Not really what I was expecting after securing the best part of another 250k last night and were like a rudderless ship at times. That second half capitulation regardless of a woeful referee was torture. I’m willing to give him a chance as we’ve taken many a misfiring player and they’ve came good in C&A. The issue is this season too many of players that looked an improvement on what we already had but have failed to impress. As conveyed it is a kick in the nuts for the academy boys. with respect to the Cove Rangers clique, remember who their assistant gaffer is.

Barry Maguire isn't good enough. I've never seen Crawford play but given how good Lamie and White are I'm sure our third Livi reject will fit right in.

Really really poor signing. ANOTHER Livingston reserve? If I was Cornelius or Maguire Id be disgusted at that and be on the phone to my agent to engineer a move anywhere else. What a slap in the face for whats left of our Academy! Guess that also means Campbell is crocked?!

Can't you just ban him?

Never going to happen but with the money from DT in the bank which should help improve training facilities and help the club tick over this season, i’d use the money from Europe to sign AC on an extended contract at about £3000 a week and three new proven players ( 1 defender, 1 midfield & 1 striker) on £4-5k a week on two year deals with the view to moving one or two of them on next summer to recoup the money. could help get us through to the group stages - giving a instant payback - and should be enough to get us clear of trouble this season.

If the pools panel are sitting, we'll lose 2-1 to an injury time OG...

I do think we now have to invest, with careful consideration. As my earlier post my first signing would be an experienced centre half, we miss that organisation at the back that we had with the likes of Aldred, give Carson the captains armband, it’s not doing well on the arm of Gallagher. We are a bit of a mess out wide, Hylton, Seedorf , Hastie are a waste of squad places this season I’m afraid, let’s even look at a couple of loan wingers. Maybe with that we will see better balls coming in for Lang, Long, and Watt who really should be good enough, I really like Lang and think he’s very close to coming good. I also like McGinn and think he will end up a good, solid signing. I’m not convinced that Lamie or Mugabi should be in the starting 11 sadly. So overall I don’t believe the summer signings are the disaster some are making out, a mixed bag as it always is at any club. Other than that I’m afraid Robinson needs to get his act together because he’s also responsible for some pretty poor decisions this season. We look a complete mess at times and I’m still not convinced he knows his best 11, sadly that is his job so improvement needed.

Great draw for us avoided the big names so we have 2 winnable games, Great chance to progress, coyw

Automatic 3-0 win. We go again.

Great post, that pitch definitely a leveller. They never cut us open and barring 2 dubious penalties, probably wouldn’t have scored. its ok saying you know the ref was blowing for everything but if players throw themselves in the box, any challenge is risky. chris Long is not a goalscorer

Anyone checked the small-print of the Israeli lockdown rules? Does their definition of “professional” square with what we saw for lots of last night?

Disagree with those questioning playing 5-3-2 against lesser opposition. If that’s the formation we’ve been playing and are going to continue playing, why not play it? I much prefer 4-3-3 personally and did think the change to that last night worked for a while. In lieu of performing wingers, I’d still be keen for us to play this with three more central strikers. Having said that, I do think getting Carroll and Donnelly into last night’s XI would make a big difference. Even Dunne, if he ever gets fit enough to play for us again, would be better than Lamie/McGinley as the left sided centre back. I can’t see us strengthening at either end of the pitch given the numbers we already have there unfortunately, but think CM reinforcements are essential. Maguire needs to be given more of a chance also, but at the same time can understand why it would be difficult to drop a young inexperienced guy into this team at the moment. To echo what others have already said, I can’t figure out what the root cause of the problem is this season. Lack of leadership maybe, lack of confidence probably, players missing, teams treating us differently, who knows, but on paper I thought we looked improved on last year at the beginning of the season. Robinson will walk away some time before he’d otherwise be sacked so talk of that happening any time soon is naive, but we need to see some more intent on the pitch going forward.

For sure, a game of two halves. We should have been out of sight at 2-0 but we managed to turn in one of the worst second half performances I can remember from a Motherwell team. I’ve been going on like a broken record about the weaknesses in our squad but they are glaring. Without doubt, it stems from the management, we look devoid of ideas or any real plan, knocking it about a back three with no one dropping to collect, before launching high balls to two forwards as poor in the air as each other, doesn’t make sense. The spirit is gone and for some reason, I cannot get the images of the Sunderland til I die squad from the first season out of my mind. We’ve got a bit of billy big baws About us from many of the playing staff and it’s infectious. We have far too many players that are collecting a wage and contributing next to nothing. There’s a total lack of leadership And urgency both on and off the park and the summer saw us let go of the two players that offered that and we have not addressed it. It’s all fine and well for Robinson to say it’s 3 In 4 and we’re into the next round but I’m sorry, Glentoran was even until they got reduced to 10, we were dire against st Johnston and again last night, we scraped through on penalties against a team we should be hammering in terms of quality and fitness. Like many, including Robinson, I have no idea what out best team is and for Gallagher to come out in the press and say survival is the aim, I’m sorry, isn’t good enough. We are, like it or not, an established top flight club, coming off the back of a top 3 finish and playing in Europe, yet we haven’t kicked on. Our rivals from last season in Hibs and Aberdeen have improved their squads, we have regressed. The aim at Motherwell should be a top six finish IMO, or at least that’s what we should be building for. I’m more and more of the opinion however that this squad is in the most serious threat of relegation since Malpas and something needs to be done now. Whether that means giving cash to Robinson or starting there are and then investing in the squad is up for debate. The hiring policy is coming back to bite us in the arse as it always would eventually and the next crop of youth players looks a mile off in terms of getting near the team either by design or coincidence. Without doubt, there are decent players in the squad and if I imagine purely from the perspective of an 11 on paper that’s a stick on top 6 side, we are probably 2/3 players short however the bigger issue here is attitude. If We can bring in 2/3 players at decent level (Which we desperately need) with experience (which doesn’t mean signing drivel from non-league/league 2 England), it will certainly bolster a thin looking squad, but it won’t matter a jot if the attitude of the remaining 18 or so first team players and management mentality isn’t dealt with immediately.

O'Hara and Watt, both straight down the middle, pretty unstoppable.

He did not pull him down - he brushed against him and the player threw himself to the floor. Two of the softest penalties I have seen in a game. O Hara has not been great since he came back but you could see he was totally bewildered by the 1st penalty. The referee was awful and the pitch was worse. That said we should have pushed on at 2-0. Instead we resorted to being shit 2nd half. Campbell had better no be injured or we are in bigger trouble. Aimlessly punting Long balls to Seedorf has to be the worst tactics on plant earth. Again he showed against part timers he has not got the skills to make it at this level. Lang is OK and capable of scoring goals. Bevis has been decent also imho. We got through and tomorrow get to see the glamour tie we will not be playing. We simply do not have the players to go away from home and beat a seeded side. Be a nice trip for the lads but little else on tonight’s showing.

Genuinely what I expected our penalties to do. I would never have expected a professional side's approach to a game to be AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHH KICK IT!!!! Turns out I was wrong.

Hopefully kept out of fir park for the foreseeable. Don’t know if I can handle watching football without a couch in front of me

By no stretch Bevis the biggest problem in the team. Or even the biggest problem in the defence..

We need to go back to basics 4 - 4 - 2 defend properly and be had to score against Watched Barry McGuire in the same team as Campbell and Turnbull and the boy was an excellent ball playing centre half and someone decided to try and convert him into midfielder and has set the boy’s career spiralling backwards. If he’s a worse centre half than Mugabie I’ll eat my cock. Obviously Robinson just doesn’t fancy the boy

We NEED NEED NEED a clear out with Foyle, Robinson & Lasley first out the door. We cant afford to reinvest in another 3 Seedorfs, Whites & Mugabis!

What senior players? The jail bird? The guy that plays FIFA?