Welldaft Mk1

QR2 is I believe regionalised. So I want an easy non expensive trip and eminently winnable tie. I would prefer Wales / Ireland etc to Iceland or Faroes. Been to Iceland already and Faroes is a bit meh. Save money for QR3 where we can hope for Basel, Slavia Prague assuming we are not seeded.

If I could cherry pick right now I would take St Patrick’s Athletic. A trip over to Dublin would be immense. Capacity of 5400 with ave attendance of 2000. We could hope for 1-2000 tickets. If it was say a Bala Town or Crusaders then capacity would be an issue. I think both are sub 3000. Of course neither of those teams may win thru to QR2.

If we finish 4th I will literally piss my pants laughing

Well said YB. I have Celtic on -2, -3 and -4. Do I feel bad - no. If it does go on to be 4-0 or 5-0 at least I get a decent deposit on any Euro adventures. This game means literally nothing to me. More interested in how County v United finishes.

And there we go again. An upward spiral from this season would be qualifying for the Europa League / Champions League or winning the League :-). I accept the games have not been a lot of fun and we have played some god awful football these past few months. So I do understand where you are coming from. I am also prepared to accept that Alexander has made mistakes. But as far as I can see he and the team got more right than wrong. That is all I can ask from a Motherwell team and Management. It was not that long ago we had 65% possession and double the shots on target and were losing 1-0 to Accies and United at home before Robinson resigned.

We may have enough bodies for defence and yes as has been mentioned we have had more disruption and injuries in this area than any other. All that said we have conceded the 3rd most goals in the league this season. 55 in total which will no doubt be a few more come FT tomorrow. As poor as Hibs and Aberdeen have been this season they have conceded almost double figures less and in the case of Hibs only 42. I am not happy with LB situation. I think both options are not top flight standard. Clearly the Manager thinks otherwise. We need to try and get a settled back 4 as it would surely help. I never thought I would say this but I would be much happier if Lamie stayed on. He is probably ahead of Sol and Ojala in terms of reliability. And certainly goal scoring threat.

This is why I love this forum....well kind of. "Not convinced GA can turn things around". Turning around a season where we finished at worst 5th and qualified for Europe. Genuinely laugh out loud moment ! Just as well Big Stall is not a fan of Hibs or Aberdeen ! Face facts - we cannot afford a team that can play like Man City and win games playing well all the time. We could afford a team that could try to play more silky football and lose more. Genuine Q - would that keep the fans onside. I can see it now. "We are in the play offs...but fair play to Alexander we are trying to play football". NOT in a month of Sundays. Not EVER !

We would certainly be seeded for Q Round 2. I seem to recall that we were only seeded to meet Coleraine because ironically they managed to beat Maribor. That meant we crept in as the lowest ranked seed. We probably would need as much if not more luck for that to happen again. That said it is a lesser competition than the Europa league so one would expect more lower seeded teams.

You are right. I misread the prize money distribution. So finishing 4th gets us £130k more in SPFL prize money + guaranteed extra 200k Euros. Finish 5th and you potentially get an extra home Euro gate. If we were to enter 2nd qualifying round you would hope a more winnable tie such as a Glentoran / Coleraine. No guarantee but we would be seeded and a decent chance of progressing. The extra game would probably make up for SPFL prize money shortfall. Being selfish I would rather have the extra Euro game so not entirely fussed about 4th or 5th. As it happens I expect United will get the draw they need on Saturday to finish 4th.

What is weird about that is that is does not feel that way to me anyway. Missing out on last campaign due to Covid probably does not help. I have been to 7 away Euro games but my last away game was Panathinaikos. That was in 2012. 10 bloody years ago. Seems like ages because it is ! Hopefully we get a favourable draw in terms of travel.

I have said it on another forum. Finishing 5th may prove more lucrative as we would be in 2nd qualifying round with a decent chance to get 3rd qualifying round. That is worth 350k Euros + home gate. More that the extra £100k for finishing 4th in SPFL. That plus the chance for the fans to get to more than one away Euro tie. So I would be more than happy to finish 5th and actually hope we do.

Great result. Could not bear to watch and just checked the result. Alexander has taken some stick. Correctly so given his 2022 record up until the last few weeks. But by Christ he deserves credit and so do the players. A motley crew but whatever the rumours you don’t not have the teams backing to go on and win 3 crucial games in last month. A lot of criticism about standard of players. Hello… we have Dundee United paying Watt twice what we could. Dundee offering Lamie an extra £70k per annum. We are not going to sign perfect players. Man United cannot do that. I am delighted and praying my passport application is expedited by mid July.

Never say never, but the likelihood of this leaking before Alexander finds out is pretty much zero. There is a lot of sense in what David posts above. Watt leaving at Xmas to our nearest rivals for Europe did not help the situation. It absolutely made it worse and probably upset the team dynamic as well as losing arguably our best outfield player. I was not at Tannadice on Saturday and I acknowledge that highlights only tell half the story. But it looks as if we had the better chances by far and although United probably had more possession it is hard to be overly critical. I think Tierney was unlucky. I think Woolery should have done much better. His chance reminds me of the one that Shields had away at Dundee. Neither sadly had the skill to not whack the ball as hard as they could. If Woolery takes the pace of it and has similar accuracy it is a goal all day long. I hope I am wrong but I don’t see us beating County. They have as good a team as us and in Regan Cooke a more lethal striker than we have. I cannot see our defence keeping a clean sheet. KVV will be back which is a positive. We need the rub of the green and even a dodgy referee decision but that could go against us also. In summary I suspect the rumour of GA leaving is just that. Especially whilst we have an outside chance of Europe. Once our final placing is decided then I am sure both the club and Manager will take stock. Both parties might decide they are better off moving on. Time will tell…

Sadly I think you will get your wish. Of course were we to get into Europe and a couple or few games, it might help to give us additional the revenue to help the squad be a little less garbage next season. Just a thought…..

As far as I can see we had 2 players booked yesterday. Slattery and Sol. Have I missed something ?

ABSOLUTELY. Few could understand why he was benched. Two games later he cracked a ball v St Mirren but for a wonder save was a goal all day long. Then the belter today. Make no mistake that was a phenomenal finish. Lots of rumours as to why he has not been starting. I have no idea if any or none are true. But we’re it not for him we would not be top 6. I am happy clappy mainly but that is squarely on the Manager.

100% this. How we got there was not pretty and perhaps even lucky. But we are top 6 and Aberdeen and Hibs are not despite their bigger budgets. So if we have had a shite season what have they had. I am away to enjoy my evening unlike some miserable sods on here.

If that is all you are going to post after getting a last minute equaliser to get top 6 the. do everyone a favour and get tae fuck off this forum you miserable barsteward.

Oh well - last week obviously a blip. Glad St Johnstone and Dundee are losing. Pretty much sums it up.

I would leave midfield and the forward line as last weekend. Both areas were decent enough. That said Alexander likes to tinker as we all know. If we know it is going to be a physical battle we may see Donnelly and or OHara make an appearance in place of Goss. I would be disappointed if the defence stayed the same. It was a miracle we only conceded 2 last weekend. Get SODs to right back and Lamie to left back. With Sol, Ojala and Mugabi making up the 2 CB roles. Playing people out of position never really works that well.

He was average at best. Even thought Sol was dodgy at times today. Mugabi struggled against Jones. Need to totally revamp that defence today. Conceded 2 but could have been 3 or 4 easily.

Not read all the posts but not having this. I assume u have been sarcastic ? I thought he was poor today. An unfortunate header maybe for the 1st goal but his passing was woeful. Mainly back to Kelly. Second half he was robbed of the ball by simply fannying about. I call it as I see it. I want him to be successful but he was poor today

Maybe a defeatist attitude but the Old Firm are that far ahead and Hearts also (to us anyway). Disappointed to lose today and certainly because we yet again shoot ourself in the foot. But chances are we would have drawn either or both Old Firm to get to or in the final. Good money for the club but depressing for the fans. We would sell 6000 tickets and they would have 35/40,000. And we would get rogered. So I would always take top 5 and hopefully Europe over cup semi. Problem is we are unlikely to get the points required to achieve that. You kinda think we have to score first soon surely. Or we have to get a game changing decision in our favour. But the reality is we will get a red card, an own goal, a penalty and onside goal chopped off. That and there will be another 7 changes. We could make top 6 and kick on from here but there are literally no signs that is likely to happen.

We will be safe from bottom two spots. As for Top 6 and the cup I think even with our current form both are 50/50 for successful outcome. Hibs are missing 9 players and although a few could be back Boyle has left and Nisbet is out for the rest of the season. That is like losing two Tony Watts. They are struggling to score. I know we will help them to rectify that….. For the league we have easiest 3 games apart from maybe one other. Ross County for example play Hearts, Aberdeen and Celtic iirc. Our GD does not help but I think a win and a draw may be enough - 40 points. We have been poor last two games but there is really not much in these games. You have to hope, nay pray we can get the rub of the green and or a dubious decision in our favour. Surely we have to score 1st in one of these remaining games.

To be fair that had as much to do with the Ref and Linesman being inept arseholes !!