Ya Bezzer!

When he came on he raised our tempo x 2. At the sluggish pace we were playing before he came on we probably had another penalty shoot out on our hands.

Fadinger

You'll probably know that I'm not Slattery's biggest fan but he came back last season and was pretty good. These two games this season, garbage. Watt wasn't very good either and when you add that to our central defensive issues that's a big hole right down the middle of the pitch. Plus there is the centre forward position, again didn't see anything convincing from the guys that played there tonight. You aren't going to do anything at any level of football unless you sort out the spine of the team. There were occasional good spells of forward play, the two goal scorers did well. Maswanhise when he came on. But there was also fairly long spells when we looked disconnected, slack play, poor passing, poor delivery, poor set plays, laboured movement and tempo. It was all about winning tonight but unless performances improve we are going to come a cropper in one of these matches and if we play like this against Rangers it's going to be a very bad start to the season. Two games in, now we need to see better play.

I see Peterhead have signed Niall McGinn. He must be some age!

Cosgrove was terrible at Aberdeen and then went on a mad run of good form out of nowhere. Honestly, you'd have to imagine that it was a one off since there has been little sign of him repeating it.

There was a time when we could bring in players from the English Championship or good level players from Rangers and Celtic. Those days are gone. That makes finding a strong spine much harder than it used to be and the likleyhood is any good player brought in is leaving after a season. If we'd kept all our good players over say, the last five seasons, we'd have a pretty good team. But the financial reality in 2025 is it's very, very difficult for a club our size to build a side that's got any quality.

It'll be a lot cooler and played on a decent pitch so that takes away some of the reasons/excuses from Saturday. Askou has said he'll be utilising the whole squad and treating these games as 'competitive pre-season' so I think we will see changes. Could be an opportunity to play some younger players, especially if we can take the lead. At this stage in the season you can't expect a well oiled machine, it's more about getting into the knock stages, so it's result over performances for me.

Honestly as a Motherwell fan an alternative history might be a better read than actual facts! 🤣

If we're averaging 3 goals per game you should come more often!

Easy one today. His middle name is Jethro apparently!

For ultras once they got their 'fuck the police' chant out the way early and played with their ball they hardly made any noise at all.

I think this is one of those times where continental managers come in and assume players at a top league level can actually control, pass the ball and play out from the back. He's going to find out they can't.

No need to pay at all. Just print off some random QR code show it to the guy at the barrier and he'll wave you through! 🤣

First game of the season, very hot weather, a pitch that is shite at the best of times and was even worse today, all these things pointed to it being a difficult opener and it was. I thought going forward we were alright all things considered, hardly scintillating but taking the above into consideration, OK. Defensively we were a shambles. Clyde played right through the middle of us about three times in the first half. No one looked comfortable playing out from the back, poor passing was standard and the sweeper keeper thing which I assume came from the manager looked like it was going to cost us and it did. Can't really judge any of the new guys at this stage but I thought Fadinger looked OK in the first half. O'Donnell is still gash and Stamatopoulos looks like the most fragile Australian of all time and you can see why he didn't take up Aussie Rules. Clyde hit the post, we probably should have scored at least one more and Maswanhise was the stand out. O'Donnell needs replaced ASAP and I think there are some big question marks over the likes of Balmer and Koutroumbis. Out of that back 4 and keeper the only one I think is viable over the season is Gordon.

I think I've only been to Hampden since Covid. I'm out of date on the away tickets.

The ticket office isn't selling tickets for the away league cup matches but on the web site I can only see bus tickets for Stenhousemuir - not actual tickets for either match!

Can you pay at the gate or buy tickets on the day? I mean it's New Douglas Park so it's going to be a turgid shit show but it's also the first game of the season!

For me the kit is a bit bland being pretty much all sky blue with minimal design. Would have been better with a claret band, trim and white shorts.

It's all about demand. If 3, 4 or 5 clubs are seriously interested in him then we can turn down £4.5m. If only 1 club actually steps up then you bite their hand off for £4.5m.

For me Cetic's midfield isn't that great. You have McGregor, who's getting older, and Hatate but other than that I think Miller is better than Bernardo or Engels. So it's not outwith the realms of possibility than Miller can go there and get first team football and he does look like the long term replacement for McGregor. Celtic paid £11 million for Engels. Now he was brought in from a bigger club and a higher level of football so I don't think we'd get that but surely if you are using Engels as a yard stick we should be looking for 6 - 7 million for Miller.

He definitely looked fat at the beginning of last season. Struggled for fitness and form. And while it's easy to blame Critchley for Shankland's lack of goals I don't think it was the full story, Shankland is a proven striker at this level and it would be stupid to say otherwise but he does have a few 'off' seasons on his resume. And his lack of pace means he was never likely to get the 'big' move that was suggested in the media.

It's almost as if teams with 30,000 fans can bring in better players than teams with 4,000 fans. FC Twente would challenge Rangers and Celtic in our league. They are miles and miles ahead of most Scottish teams. When our league campaign kicks off we will mostly be playing teams of a much lesser level. Anyone reading anything into this match has a seriously high regard of Scottish football.

I think McGinn has been a good servant but I'd be concerned about a defence with a 33 year old O'Donnell and a 35 year old McGinn (October birthday) in it.

They do have two matches against Panathinaikos before they play us. If they struggle in those games there might be a wee bit pressure on them on the first day of the league season. Alternatively, their tails might be up.

I thought Askou, generally, came across quite well in his interviews. However you worry slightly when managers come in and start talking about 'modernising' Scottish football and adding extra 'dimensions'. Might I suggest there is going to be a big learning curve for Mr. Askou. You got the impression Wimmer tried to do that and realised pretty quickly it was a no go.