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My tuppenceworth on yesterday's game. More than anything else, I think we were a bit unlucky, poor finishing and, maybe most importantly, poor individual defending at the back. First half, as many have already said, was about as well as you can expect a Mothwrwell team to perform. I'm not buying this narrative that we were terrible second half. Said and Stama x 2 had great chances to score. Falkirk's first goal came from a big hopeful punt into the box and poor defending. Credit where it's due though, they played well enough second half generally to take something from the game. The decision to disallow our first was a real shocker. We do have a big problem up top - Stama again looked poor when he came on. Hendry looked OK but still early days from him so I'm hopeful he can improve. I do think he looks a beter option than Stama. Worrying though that he was never in the right place first half when all those crosses were coming into the 6 yard box. RE boo boys - as annoying as they are, they are in the minority. About 6000 home supporters yesterday. When was the last time we had that for a random league match? Will those extra fans come back based on that performance? Absolutely. I was entertained, and I'm already looking forward to Livingston next week. Small margins missing for this team but the fundamentals are there. This may well turn out to be more of a building season than a high performing one in terms of points, but based on the joy I'm getting from following our team at the moment, I have absolutely no issue with that.

Bloody hell. What a ridiculous take and unfortunately sums up social media fans. If anyone thinks we r failing it is only because we see how good we can be. All this talk of winning ugly etc only goes so far and you only have to look at last few years to see that and the eventuality. This team has potential and it is only that to do something we haven't seen in years. I am dismayed at response tonight. Some funny people about.

and is it that poor ? we are 3 points off 3rd and at half time yesterday we were 3rd. No one outwith Celtic and Hearts have won more than 2 games.

Hibs won their first league game yesterday since match day 1. It shows you how close league is this season with old firm poor ( long may it continue)

Now that I've calmed down after yesterday , still greatly pissed off to have lost a game we really should have had won by half time. Defensively in the second half we were a shambles. I don't buy into the McGlynn tactical genius angle. He did what every team should try and do they stepped up their press. However we let them and sat off them. We let them hem us in at our own 18 yard box for much of the second half. Instead our midfield should have been exploiting the space in the midfield Dundee's press was creating but we didn't. Our final ball and decision making was very poor in the second half. Utterly woeful defending gave them the lift they needed and once they scored we panicked and I don't think any Motherwell fan couldn't see the winner coming for Dundee. Our self destruct button has been off the scale this season. However key influences were the loss of Longello Koutrombis looking like he'd never seen a football Hendry blowing out his arse after 50 mins Set pieces and crosses into the area absolutely pathetic, no pace on the ball and accuracy even worse. Said has all the attributes, except one, his final ball 9 times out of 10 is piss poor but he is still an asset. Substitutions changed nothing it was like for like, although SOD was an improvement on Koutrombis We are poor up front and that with a self destruct defence / keeper are killing us. With all that said we were unlucky that AP didn't score in the second half as bad as we were. Much is also being made about the fact we've only won one game out of 8 and its a fair point. However if we look at the league table no one from Hibs down to Livingston have won more than 2 games. Quite an incredible stat. Its little wonder a very average Hearts team look like potential League winners cos they can score goals. Very frustrating but for self destruction our play would merit us being where Hearts are. We need to start kicking on soon or we could get dragged down to a position our play doesn't merit and that would be a shame. By time the Liv gam comes Ill be back to normal but if we lose that the manager will sadly start to feel the heat. Anyway ramble over.....

Calm doon and wring yer pants oot, if we are in the same position with 8 games to go it might be a relegation battle but now its just poor early season form.

Its the September review. This is October.....

This is where I get really frustrated. 2 weeks ago we were close to getting a great result at Parkhead had it not been for a horrendous error. Fast forward 2 weeks and we have a bad 45 mins and suddenly we are relegation favourites, manager under pressure, etc etc. Yes that's not everyone's views but I just hate the meltdown every time we lose a game of football Keep the faith

Im with you @texanwellfan. Patience required and given how damn good our football has been I've got faith we're making huge leaps forward. Results will come.

I get the frustration and disappointment but I hope everyone can have some patience and maintain positive support for the manager and the team. I’m pretty sure the vast majority were confident of getting a win yesterday which makes it even harder to take. We are playing a style which has yielded some of the best football seen at Fir park in years and we are only 8 games into the season. Yes, there are issues but let’s not start getting on the backs of the manager and the team so soon. I’d much rather support continuing our current style as we try to fix the issues. Some fair comments regarding our issues but that should not be transferring into booing or getting on the players backs at the game. I’m hoping Slattery will help make a difference when he comes back in and i think i agree with earlier comment about going with Walsh/Gordon pairing. I also hope that we are looking for a Longello back up and another striking option we can get in January or are we planning on Suele(?) being that?

We’re not winning this one. We’re toothless up top, our final ball is generally pish, and the defence is soft with a dodgy keeper behind it. All we’ve really got going for us is some tidy midfield play that rarely leads anywhere. Martindale won’t need to do much. He’ll just let us play in front of them and wait for the usual daft mistakes that gift them a goal or two. If we do lose, the midweek game against Dundee Utd before the semi turns into a cup final for us. The pressure’s on JBA and the players now.

By all accounts the new pitch is much improved. Not grass but not the shocking surface of seasons past. Win or lose, it will not be down to the surface.

Usually try to avoid posting immediately after games to give me time to clear my head. But yesterday was too much. in no way do I condone any of the irrational abuse aimed at some players which others have highlighted earlier in the thread. Maybe having to put up with some of that stuff is the price we have to pay for playing the attractive football that has seen a sizeable increase in the number of fans attending games? But I do think fans are justified in calling out our Manager after performances like the second half yesterday. He rightly has had plenty of praise for changing our approach and making football fun again. But he must also expect criticism after days like yesterday. It's not all down to the players. He has the power to alter things if needed. My view leading up to half time was that Katroumbis was done, having been injured when fouled and then seconds later further aggravating the injury with a block tackle. He battled through until the break but did not look like he had recovered. He was kept on regardless and really struggled in the second half. I consider that a managerial error. I mistake which Falkirk exploited time after time down that wing. I lost count of the number of times they got in behind and should have punished us. Team selection wise I had hoped to see Welsh return at CB, pairing up with Gordon. I am not Gordon's biggest fan but have to admit that he and Welsh have been great as a pairing. Welsh seems to have helped Gordon regain his confidence and composure. McGinn may be Club captain but for me he finds it challenging playing centrally given our new approach. Even panics at times. If he cannot make the team at right back then he should not be squeezed in out of position just because he wears the armband. I thought our central defending was poor yesterday and I believe Askou's team selection played a part. Up front I thought Hendry did ok, and was perhaps a bit more mobile than Ap Stam. But he was no better in the box. What was the reason for starting Hendry ahead of a striker who was excellent at Celtic Park and who at last looked to have found his goal scoring touch? Unless Ap Stam was carrying an injury being dropped will hardly have helped his confidence. Admittedly he did miss a chance when SOD put in one of the few decent balls into the box that we saw all game. On that front both Katroumbis and Langelo wasted too many opportunities. So! Frustrated but not bailing ship yet. I love our style of play and find it refreshing and enjoyable. I took along a couple of Falkirk fans to the game and they thought we were fantastic, more so first half of course. The drive back to Fife was a tough ask! Still relatively early days, but we need to start winning games we dominate and our Manager has a part to play in that. He also has to reflect on his own contribution when things do not work out. Evidence suggests it's not only the players that have things to learn.

Not losing goals is the secret to winning games, we have been scoring but our defence, and goal keeping have let us down.

I don't agree that we're hopeless at both ends. There are only 3 teams who've scored more goals than us, we've failed to score in just one league game and clearly haven't struggled to take the lead. But there's no way we can rely on scoring 3 or more goals to win a game.

Not sure about that Gaz. Yes, of course there's some; there always are. Our support like all others contains a mix of types. Some purists like pure entertainment end of. The result is almost a crude outcome. At the other extreme you have those to whom the results the end all and be all. That doesn't mean that it's about "Look at me". You're probably too young to recall the great Dundee side of the early 60s. The exact same discussion was had about them.

First half Falkirk should have scored, they missed a sitter but I felt comfortable for the 45 minutes, from a defensive view. We were playing good stuff and I thought we were comfortable at the back outside that one chance. Second half we were so open from more or less the kick off. Didn't help that our passing got sloppy. So what was the difference? I just feel like teams work us out and if that's happening within matches, what's going to happen over a season when we are playing teams 3 or 4 times? I don't actually see the problem as an offensive problem. We've scored in all but one match this season and we've scored multiples in 4 out of 8 league matches. We have a defensive problem. Now I can't pin point exactly what it is, you'd probably have to go back and analyse all the goals we've lost but for me that's where the issue is.

I think thats exactly the point JBA was making post match. If we slow the ball down and take the sting out of the game we maybe stop them building up a head of steam, and dont leave ourselves so open to the counter attack. Its still early in the process, but we do need to address our rin game management.

I thought Falkirks gaffer nailed it when he said we gave them a doing first half but with only one goal in it there’s always a way back . It’s stating the obvious but if we play that well we need to go 2-3 goals up and then can play more possession football and nullify the opposition 2nd half . i know we’re not a Liverpool level team but when Klopp first came in they had similar issues for first season or so . I suspect we’ll get there and pick up wins . Not saying we’ll be top 6 but I do believe we’re moving forward in the right direction .

There seems to be a couple of points of view here that folk are debating, when in fact both have merit and neither are wrong. There is no doubt that our crowds are up because of the entertaining style of football we are playing. Id probably add in the general feel good factor around the club into that as well. Our support is engaged because they feel represented and listened to. We have had plenty managers over the years that have put winning teams on the park and the attendances didnt move. During Alexanders period of success Id suggest the crowds even went down slightly as season ticket holders couldnt motivate themselves to go every week due to how painful it was to watch at times. So the current upturn is no coincidence. That said, there is a pretty big BUT in the equation. The entertainment factor will probably keep folk coming along in the hope that we can strike a better balance and convert our play into points. Where it becomes a problem is if we continue to slip down the table, the players lose confidence in what they are being asked to do, and before you know it performances also drop off. We are not there yet, and the manager isnt stupid. You can tell by his comments and reactions that he is as frustrated as we are. Hopefully he can find the right balance in the weeks ahead. Having a fully fit squad to chose from would be a help.

A disappointing outcome yesterday but in fairness Falkirk deserved all 3 points. I didn't like their tactics however and at risk of annoying the MSM, thought they were overly physical and relied on the long ball. They played a weak ref like a fiddle. In the first 45, we looked world beaters with some excellent expansive and fast football. The best I've seen for some time. However we were totally powder puff in and around the box and hardly troubled Bain for all our possession. One solitary goal was never going to be enough. If we'd gone in 4-0 up and break few would have argued and I include John McGlynn in that. We were never going to keep that level up but I was surprised that the game turned as early as it did. McGlynn made some tactical and personnel changes and JBA was outthought. On the park our midfield crumbled and we had to endure mishit passes, unenforced errors and a drop in work rate. When Falkirk pressed our defence, we looked totally uncomfortable with panicky passing. Falkirk's first goal was late in coming but come it did and the second was inevitable. Thankfully we managed to avoid losing a third. For our part I echo much of what has already been said. We're conceding too many cheap goals and I just wonder if McGinn's best days are behind him. It was noticeable that Falkirk targeted our left wing before, but especially after, Longelo retired. We sat too deep and just didn't have the midfielders to cope. We are very vulnerable under pressure. Up front our troubles continue and have now emerged as a very serious issue that threaten our season. I'm not an Ap Stam fan but presume he wasn't fit enough to start. Callum Hendry, even when match fit is not the kind of striker we need. He's not a natural chance converter. We're making too many wrong decisons in the final third. I only hope lessons were learned yesterday.

We need to start winning football matches. It’s no use playing nice tippy tappy stuff in the middle of the park where the tippy’s very tappy and the tappy’s very tippy and Tam Cowan and the like can bill and coo about “fantaaaaastic fitbaaw such a joy to watch” etc if it ultimately amounts to nothing because we are hopeless at both ends. It’ll be very tough again and of course we have that abomination of a park to contend with next Saturday but hopefully we can get the result we badly need.

This weekend last year we lost at home to Dundee. Think back to the shite we had to endure the shite tactics and players picked and signed by the bellend . I know whose team I would rather watch , win lose or draw.

With himself I hope.

Honestly in shock at that. First half may have been our best football yet. It was that good. We can blame VAR all we want but VAR didnt make the players not show up for the 2nd half! Complete turnaround. No composure on the ball, no tight triangles, sitting back rather than hunting in packs. It was as if they believed their own hype at half time & went home. That will teach them!