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Whilst I agree with you regards financial limitations impacting the quality of the players we can recruit (that also applies to most teams in the League), it's not just about poor entertainment. When results are not good that poor entertainment becomes unbearable and other factors become a frustration. Match day is again suggesting a Manager reluctant to try anything different, be it formation or personnel. A Manager that seems incapable of a fresh approach. A new approach that admittedly may not work, but at least would provide hope and indicate a willingness to adapt. And it is not just about the past two losses. There have been matches all season that have raised the same issues, Underperforming players making the same errors week on week are starting no matter what, substitutions are like for like until such time as the game is lost and we are chasing a miracle. Then it's full panic mode and irrational. That's what did for Alexander and unless SK is willing to adapt then I see exactly the same outcome for him. And that would be sad. I certainly don't see him again getting away with a terrible run like he took us through last season. And on the past two performances allied to the semi final a similar period is a possibility. The next three games could be pivotal. And if those three games go against us, I very much doubt we will be able to point to a top six placing as the end justifying the means. Looking at the squad list in yesterday's programme, we have 27 players in our first team squad and that excludes a few additional players that have featured this season or have sat on the bench. So let's call it a squad of 30. And yet yesterday we could not get a functioning eleven on the park. They are his players now, many were recruited by him, several had a history of serious injury prior to signing. It was no secret that Spittal and Bair would be moving on. If the quality of those available players and injuries mean we have no option but to stick with the current set up, then SK carries much of the responsibility for that limitation. No excuses. No mitigation. He has been allowed to recruit. I defended SK last season because I felt he deserved leeway and was going through a learning process, with a squad that was partially inherited. He needed time to build his squad and implement his ideas. The past few games have made me question that reasoning and dig deeper. As for driving fans away. It is not the lack of entertainment causing me to give Dundee a miss on Wednesday. If it was about lack of entertainment I have had plenty of opportunities to walk away since I first started attending games. I even survived the Malpas years. I am avoiding Dundee because I truly believe that I would be watching the same players as Saturday, squeezed into the exact same formation that restricts the quality players in the team, trying to kill the game for 70 minutes in the hope of sneaking a goal late on. And I'm fed up, scunnered with it all. Watching your team should not be a chore, whether they entertain or not.

Precisely this. Scunnered. I’m a season ticket holder and I cannot recall voluntarily missing as many home games as I have done this season and last. Unglamorous football will never drive Motherwell fans away, but predictable, amateurish and negative shite will.

I wouldn't write him off just yet but I'll say this. There have been quite a few players come to Scotland from Australia in recent years. Very few of them have been any good.

Took a little time out last night to not think about football and digest what I saw yesterday. For the first time this season I am genuinely worried. We have had some poor performances this season, but they have generally all had some form of mitigation and we have generally bounced back with a win. Wasnt too enamoured with the starting 11 as Davor and Halliday together generally never goes well, albeit the change from a box to a diamond should have helped. But with Maswanhise being asked to play through the middle we really needed our wingbacks to push high and support the front 2 and this never happened causing us to get deeper and deeper until our defence and midfield were camped in our penalty area. We could have gone ahead if Balmer had converted but it was absolutely no surprise whatsoever when we conceded, and even more annoying that Hibs didnt have to do anything to work for either goal. The half time subs for me were all wrong. Stama wasnt having any impact, but he had been left so isolated he deserved at least a chance to show what he could do with Watt alongside him and Maswanhise out wide. He must be really evaluating his decision to join us now. We did get marginally better in the second half, but it was such a low bar it would have been impossible not to. Going 3-4-3 did improve our attacking impetus a little but it left us wide open at the back so was no surprise when we lost the 3rd and putting the game beyond us. My main bug bear from yesterday is that SK is back to picking the wrong starting formations and making baffling substitutions. We never seem to play to our strengths. Kaleta is an absolute flying machine and has proved he can deliver a good cross. But we dont have any patterns of play to get him on the ball in positions he can take on the defender. Miller has absolutely no support in midfield. It was telling that he started to look more effective when Paton came on as he at least seemed to be able to carry the ball and pass it to a team mate! Our defenders are all too similar. Casey, Gordon and Balmer all like a header and a wrestling match but none of them are great with the ball at their feet. Seddon really needs brought back in there until SOD or McGinn get back. With Davor and Halliday in front of that 3, its no surprise we cant keep the ball or build any passages of play. SK has some big questions ahead of Wednesday. He needs to find the right answers before this bump in the road turns into another malaise. I wont be able to defend another winless streak if he hasnt learned anything from last years.

That was Kettlewell's Motherwell at it's very worst yesterday. Shocking defensively, slow in midfield and nothing up front. That's all that needs to be said. On a separate note and I know this has been covered before but can we please, PLEASE stop putting small away supports in the top tier of the South Stand and leaving the lower tier empty?!? Not only does it kill the limited atmosphere there is but it also looks awful. I'm not buying this nonsense about preventing crowd trouble or giving us an advantage. Just stop doing it!

Kettlewell will never switch to a back four for a starting line up. He’s not brave or intelligent enough to do so.

As my mates say, Halliday is the guy you bring on for last 20 mins when trying to see out a game

The only real alternative in there at the moment is Halliday and he cant run. Maybe with Paton in there and Watt up front to help Stama, it wouldnt be as big an issue, but right now who can tell? I wouldnt be averse to trying Seddon in there to see what he can do but then you have the problem with the back 3 not being comfortable on the ball. Of course this is all predicated on keeping the back 3. Moving to a 4 would provide different options. Ox Kaleta Casey Gordon Seddon Miller Halliday Paton Maswanhise Watt Stama

I'd tred carefully there David. I know there is an argument to be made in favour of pragmatic football/managers when it gets you results, and I was broadly with you on the Alexander argument. Not that I (or you) was supportive of Alexander per se, I just didnt see him getting sacked when he had got his top 6 and qualified for Europe. The problem with it is that the environment becomes toxic before you even hit the winless streak as the football is so bad its not worth watching. So the minute results go against you the outcome is inevitible. FWIW, SK has shown that he can be more than that. Some of our football under him has been pretty good to watch. Peak Spittal, Slattery, Paton, Miller last season in our first game at Ibrox was a joy to watch. So Im hopeful that the current "Alexanderballesque" performances are a means to an end due to our injuries rather than a preference of style. It would seem madness for a fan owned club who claim to have a community ethos to choose to serve up football that will drive fans away instead of attract them. The proof will be in the pudding though. Lets hope it tastes sweet!

I like that team. For as much as Halliday certainly tries, I think he needs a bit of time on the bench. We need to give Tony Watt a run of games, and playing him with Stama could hopefully open up a good partnership, especially with TJ's ability alongside them on the wing.

Absolutely. Didn't really understand yesterday's subs. I would have swapped Seddon for Wilson at HT and brought on Paton then as well. Watt comes on, fair enough, but then plays wide right. Ebeye was also the wrong choice. He's fine in the box but you have to get the ball in box for him and we didn't do that.

Think problem we have now is we have hee haw options in midfield if davor and halliday don't start. We are pinning our seasons hopes on an 18 year old to carry the whole midfield. Worrying times

Dundee will expect a 3 5 2 so I would change to a 4 3 1 2. Watt needs minutes and he at least put in a shift when he came on Ox Kaleta. Casey. Gordon. Seddon Paton. Miller. Wilson Watt Stama. Maswanhise

We have had shocking runs of form before under kettlewell and this could easily be the start of another if he doesn't act and change our approach,yet again it looks like the opposition have sussed us out pretty quickly.for a professional team to be averaging 3 shots a game is nothing short of embarrassing.

I prefer the away fans in the bottom tier,it adds to the atmosphere and looks better when you see the game back on the tele.there is no advantage by having away fans up top,it's just a petty move by us and nothing more.

I won't bother expressing most of my detailed thoughts on yesterday's depressing debacle as they mirror many comments above. Suffice to say we approached the game all wrong. Hibs are decent on the attack, as we saw, although defensive blunders helped their cause no end. They are however weak in defence and so we should have adopted a more attacking attitude both in team selection and tactics. I have no problem with SK's cautious and dull defensive approach to games providing that it works. However teams have now sussed us out as we're starting to see and it now doesn't work. Today we didn't seem to have any coherent gameplan and simply repeated mistakes of previous weeks. We all know what they are. SK is a relatively young and inexperienced manager and will make mistakes but he shows no signs whatever of learning from them and that worries me. Today Hibs were bigger, stronger and faster than us. We were worryingly lightweight in both midfield and attack. Our injury list has been horrendous and undoubtedly affected results and thats not SK's fault to a large extent. However Callachan and Nicholson did have concerning problems in that sense, when they were originally signed. That aside, our recruitment, taken as a whole, last summer, seems to have been poorly planned. If we were going to play our current system, why wasn't Bair replaced with a large physical target man? If Nicholson was to get injured (not an unreasonable assumption at the time) who would be his replacement? What defensive midfielders did we sign apart from Davor? In short, little cover in these key positions. We've now had 2 very poor results indeed in consecutive winnable games. We can't afford this run to continue. Its now up to SK to earn his corn.......

Simplfied as blah blah blah de blah we will see on wed you canny polish a shite you can put glitter on it but its still a shite thank you 👍

We look to have completely lost our way. There are multiple reasons for this but the easiest one to resolve imo is the back 3. If SK is to persist with the back 3 in McGinn (& O’Donnell’s) absence then it needs to have someone that is comfortable pushing forward with the ball. Seddon was integral to our win over St Johnstone so I’m baffled why he hasn’t started in that role since when the likes of Balmer has been far from impressive, One issue a little more difficult to resolve is the front line. The manager doesn’t appear to have great belief in any of his summer signings and it’s looking increasingly likely that one or two will move on in January. Personally, I thought Stama started brightly enough today and would like to have seem him getting 15 mins alongside both Watt and Maswanhise. Finally, we need to be careful how we handle Lennon. He’s carrying too much on his shoulders at the moment as captain of a dysfunctional team and our sole creative force.

Missed today but not a shock seeing the line up. Last 3 games - Rangers, County & Hibs we have been up against sides low on confidence & shipping goals. All three games we set up to keep it tight instead of actually having a go. Mental. Lessons learned - apparantly not! Get 2 men up front, plus Mawahinse (spelling forgive me) on the wing. That will give us options and threats. Give Miller support. Get wilson back to LB!