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It beggars belief that anyone on here cant see the difference between the absolute gutless spankings we used to get regularly at the hands of the big two and what we have seen in the last two weeks. You'd have to be a real miserable barsteward not to accept that those two performances are as close as we have been to beating either of them in years. Yes its disappointing and frustrating not to have got anything to show for our efforts but surely folks are encouraged by the fact that we were finally competitive with them? It might also be worthy to consider how football has changed over the years and that the old ideas of playing 2 or 3 up top automatically give you more of a goal threat just isnt the case any more. There are many different ways to play. Some of which dont involve the use of out and out strikers at all. The injuries to our forwards have forced SK into adopting a style of play he may not have chosen otherwise. The extra man in midfield is giving us much more possession of the ball and more security for our defence. Before that we were much more effective as a counter attacking team and had to be as we had less possession with a man less in midfield. The last 3 games have been tough to take and naturally because we failed to score in 2 of them everyone looks at the strikers and is blaming Bair for not being good enough. But take a minute to look at the chances we have created. Who the chances have fallen to and who has had a part in creating them. Bair is offering plenty to the team. For all his good work he only had one chance on goal, hit the target and forced a good save from Bain. Other chances have fallen to Spittal, Slattery, Shaw etc. No one is criticising them for missing their chances and they still get plenty credit for the other parts of their game. I dont want to make out that Im some Theo Bair fanboy, because Im not. I can see his deficiencies the same as everyone else, but he is being measured by a different bar to everyone else in the team and that doesnt seem fair. Ive no doubt that when we have all our players back match fit he probably wont be near the first 11 as Biereth, Wilkinson and Obika will all be ahead of him, but until then, I think he is doing alright and if we start winning games again and he never scores another goal for us, no one will care as long as he is contributing towards the 3 points. The team has also been given a significant overhaul over the summer, so it wouldnt be unreasonable to think its still a work in progress and might take a couple more windows to address everything SK would like to fix. Rome wasnt built in a day, but the foundations are laid and Im quite excited to see what this team can become if SK isnt poached away and gets the opportunity to finish the job.

I thought Steelboy was the one on this site that became obsessed with certain players. Bair appears to be your SOD or Spittal. Not quite Burrows, but getting there. Most of the time you are debating with yourself as everybody...including me....agrees with what you say. Perfectly valid comments and questioning of a risky signing policy. If I am wrong, point me towards anybody who has stated that Bair as a striker is up to the standard we require. Or even that we should have signed him in the first place......project or not. Being realistic, going on about Bair's lack of goals or his signing is going to change absolutely nothing right now. Taking into account our injury issues, the below par performance of our other strikers on admittedly limited game time, the fact our best young prospect is far from first team ready and finally the formation our Manager seems to prefer. The same formation he adopted last season. So not one introduced solely to counter this season's challenges. Every single Motherwell fan would gladly swap Bair for a regular goal scorer or welcome a structure that could facilitate a proven goal scorer being played alongside him. If either Shaw or Wilkinson is that striker then I trust Kettlewell to alter things. But nothing I have seen so far suggests that either of those players is the solution. Shaw's attempts against St Mirren and Rangers were poor and cost us points. What would you be saying if Bair had missed those chances? Wilkinson looks to have some decent ability but has no pace and dithers on the ball looking to get a shot away. He himself has said he is not a target man, despite his height. I sincerely hope my assessment of both players is wrong as all I really want is my team to win games. No matter who scores. Biereth might have been the player to replace Bair but Charles Dunne robbed us of that option for now. One thing was perfectly clear on Saturday, we were a better unit with Bair on the park than we were with Shaw and Wilkinson contributing the sum total of zero when they came on. At a time in the game when others were finding it tough to keep going I expected a bit more effort and support from both.

I agree, but it’s the responsibility of the stewards/supervisors and police paid for by the Club to prevent this and implement a delay and/or abandonment. I can also guarantee that the kickoff would’ve been delayed to sort this out had the game not involved Celtic (or Rangers). However, I also don’t think this type of scummy behaviour would happen at another game in Scotland not involving those two. As usual with the policing/stewarding of fans in Scottish football, it's one rule for those two and another for the rest of us. And that's why I rarely go to matches involving them

I am willing Bair on and he is trying his best. The main issue is I don't believe for a minute SK had lined up for a regular start but injuries have meant we had no choice. I would be tempted to start Shaw on Saturday and let's see how he does over 70 mins or so.

Also, if the emergency in the Cooper had occurred in the away end the access is massively impacted by the overcrowding.

I think that is definitely the current plan. As I said in the Celtic matchday thread, there are many different ways to play football now. Not comparing us to Man City, but look at the way Pep keeps re-inventing the way they play to gain an adavantage over the opposition. They may have the best striker in world football right nie, but look at the goals they get from midfield even when Haaland isnt scoring. Even at international level, look at the success Clarke has had with Scotland using Dykes up top and getting the likes of McGinn, McTominay and Christie into the box. Its often harder to defend against midfielders arriving into the box late. If you cant afford a quality striker, its definitely a good way of trying to redress the balance. Of course teams will eventually work out a way of stopping that and who knows that mught already have happened with us. But SK has shown he is prepared to change it up when necessary. Maybe not as quickly as I would like at times, but he certainly isnt as rigid as Alexander and Hammell were.

Nothing wrong with a lot of words, and its hard to argue with many of the points you make. I think the only huge difference between your position and mine is one of perspective. Mines is that Bair was never the plan. In fact I dont think 1 up top was even the plan. We have been forced into it because our other options have been injured. We just happen to have stumbled onto the 4 in midfield out of necessity and it has had some success. For me I think Obika could get 10 goals a season in this team. The big problem is will he ever be on the pitch long enough to do that? Given the discussion previously surrounding Moult, I think criticism of SK in that regard is fair game, particularly in light of the length of his contract. Ive no idea whether Ollie Shaw or Wilkinson can score 10 goals or not but they need a run of games for us to find out. Clearly our budget has been significantly reduced in recent seasons, so it stands to reason the quality of player available to us has gone down and our managers have to be more resourceful. I think thats where loans for players like Biereth can be useful. Looking around the league I dont see too many other clubs with our budget signing players of a calibre that Ive thought wow! Wish we had got him! So I think we need to modify our expectations a little and hope that going forward SK can find another gold nugget from somewhere.

We’ve been having this discussion about Celtic and the Green Brigade for well over ten years now and they’re only getting worse. They are a very dangerous and sinister outfit who are able to bully and manipulate everyone due to their numbers and their victim hood mentality which makes them untouchable to so many in sport, the media and in politics. Indeed they have alot of friends in high places when it comes to politics. And just last week a steward at Livingston who was no doubt on minimum wage and simply trying to do his job and get a pitch invader off the pitch is accosted by Brendan Rodgers and completely undermined. What message does that send out? Celtic, their support and the Green Brigade are untouchable in Scotland and there is nothing that anyone can do about it I’m afraid. They are just too powerful and it goes way beyond football or sport. This is a club that trade on being or representing a poor downtrodden community battling against the establishment which is doing everything in its power to keep them down. To question them, to speak out against them publicly risks professional and personal harm and that is why the police, the authorities etc let them basically do what they like. Of course in reality and if you take a step back and look at them for what they actually are then any reasonable minded person will see that they absolutely are not a persecuted community, rather a big bunch of loud mouthed hypocrites who use ancient old grievances which have nothing to do with football in order to gain any advantage they can get. And unfortunately it works for them.

The Green Brigade and Union Bears are one and the same; scummy wee pricks. You can also add some of the Well Bois to that pot of steaming piss.

Good thought provoking post and I agree with most of it. SK is doing well and the team has improved immeasurably as you say. We can all see that. However, a glorious defeat is still a defeat at the end of the day. In the long term they may well help our goal difference if we're talking about practicalities. As OTF rightly says we'll now see what SK is really made of after 3 defeats on the trot. SK has indeed been forced into making large scale changes due to a horrifici injury list; not just in terms of personnel but also in terms of formation. At our level, there are always trade offs/ swings and roundabouts; however you want to describe them. Theo Bair is what he is, although hopefully he'll improve under the management's guidance. He's a good target man but no goalscorer and relies on the midfield to get forward to feed from him. If they can't do that or don't have the goalscoring instinct then we're in trouble. The flipside is that we have a strong midfield who can protect the defence, up to a point in my view. What happens when our strikers are fuilly fit is anyone's guess. Maybe it'll be horses for courses? One, less highlighted, concern I do have is that we play fairly narrowly and that puts pressure on the 2 wing backs. In recent games we've seen teams take advantage of that to notch a few, a few, important goals. I'm not getting at individuals here but I'd like to see Gent and Spencer start to see what they can do. They might provide us with more energy. We know what O'Donnell can and can't do but the jury is still is still out on Souare for me and I'm yet to be convinced. The next 4 games are important and will allow us to see how things pan out. I don't doubt David Martindale will have been watching St Mirren's and Celtic's goals against us with interest; so lets hope that particular loophole is closed firmly shut on Saturday.

Give them the minimum allowed , I'd happily take the extra cost on to the price of my season ticket if it keeps the scum away. The green brigade are untouchable in this country and are allowed free rein to do as they please.

Bonkers

Aye , the whole place needs sterilised. Before it can be used again.

Livingston have only lost to Old Firm this season and have 4 draws out of 7 in the league this term. I think that kind of sums them up. I'm an admirer of David Martindale, I think he does an excellent job at Livingston, and this will likely be a tight and scrappy match.

Yeah, it's his job to pick the team and he is currently going with Bair because he fits his system. If you don't want to offer an opinion on what a better option would be right now because you know we don't have better options right now, you might as well pick a cloud to shout at.

I thought that I'd let the emotion of the day subside before giving my verdict on the match. Firstly, I think that a draw would have been a fair reflection of the game. For all Celtic's possession, they created very few chances in the game. Indeed, I'd say that Motherwell created the better clear cut chances. In my opinion, with the exception of the dying minutes of the game, Motherwell defended very well. We have a solid back line that doesn't look likely to ship many goals over the season. One bad goalkeeping error and a lack of concentration in the 97th minute has undone a lot of good work. The first half performance was about containment and staying in the game. The second half was a bit more adventurous with some nice passages of play and some periods of sustained pressure by Motherwell. Unfortunately, the midfield did tire. Not surprising given the ground that they are having to cover. Someone earlier in this thread mentioned that Celtic looked fitter. I don't think that is the case. My view of that is that Celtic are sharper, quicker of thought and so get to loose balls ahead of the Motherwell players. Celtic Lso have the lions share of possession, which inevitably drains their opponents energy as they are constantly being shifted around the pitch. This takes its toll, over the 90 minutes. I felt that Slattery should have been replaced 5 or 10 minutes sooner than he was. He was running on empty and this was leaving considerable gaps in front of our backline. That is no criticism of Slattery who I thought had an excellent game. Celtic's first goal was a disaster. Lack of communication maybe, but Kelly should have got that. I'll need to see the highlights to see exactly what went on there, but live at the game it looked like one of those moments of indecision that results in a howler. At that point i thought it was all over. However, Motherwell rallied and a nice bit of interplay led to a tidy equaliser for. A goal that was well deserved at that point. It was a bit of a sickener that we then switched off in the final 90 seconds to concede so easily at the back post once again. This is an area of our defending that needs to be addressed. Conclusion, another valiant effort that shows that this team has something. The addition of a goal threat will make this team one to be reckoned with in this league. We'll be alright this season.

Just watched the highlights and I think some of the criticism for the goals is misplaced. The first we are far too slow getting out to the cross and Casey even looks like he's going to clear it, is obviously worried abut sclaffing it into his own net so leaves it which leaves Kelly flat footed. The ball bounces right at his feet making it impossible to get as he can't commit until it's too late. I seem to remember us losing similar goals to the OF at Fir Park on more than one occasion.... For the second the the ball switches from our left to right and then then comes into the box quickly leaving us no time to shift over and Paton lets Riley run off him at the back post. It's too good a delivery for Kelly to come for IMO and Souare has his man outside him. On a positive, our goal was another great bit of interplay which seems to have been lost in all of the disappointment. Edified to add - plus Bain made several good saves. A real sore one.

One thing from yesterday I found bizarre was fact Turnbull got booed by a fair few. A lad who is big well fan, signed new contract so we could get £3,000,000 in a transfer fee and no doubt getting at least 10 times more in his salary. Though I can see him looking to move if he continues to be on bench

In the long run, zero points is zero points and that can't go on. But I think most people can accept there is, in general, a difference between performances and results. If anyone's pleased about us losing, it's not the happy clappers.

Bair does fit with his system of setting up to lose three games on the bounce due to signing an ineffective striker. This forum is the cloud for all of us to shout at.