Goggles & Flippers

A number of players promised a lot and have failed to deliver. Many were full of praise for the manager switching things up when previous ones persevered, evident sometimes these pay off and other times they don't. The Celtic games took it out us, I've seen it before in games where the perceived feeling of injustice is a hard one to shake. Remember Dundee and the goal that never was last season? The home game against Celtic must have been like a defeat. Lets not jump on the bash Robinson bus too quickly, the first half yesterday was all one way traffic. Some of you cunts are all sugar or all shite

Were you able to hold it together Jay? ..... Stay Strong

Aye we got it, it's just WeeYin's one was much better

BBC are reporting in region of 500k, so you'd hope 150k left over after Wrexham and Boyle/Les get their cut. 150k is what we used to secure both Marvin and Moult, so lets keep the faith. In a few years time you'd expect that investment will have paid off 10 fold. We've found players before who were unknown and produced the goods, these apocalyptic threads (or more a few naysayers who post in them) are as intrinsic to Motherwell FC as panty wetting over Hampden ticket provision. Hartley for me is now key. Funny how this place 6 weeks ago raved about how Bowman running was instrumental to Moult performing. Now for too many he's as pish as he was perceived in the summer. Oh how we enjoy the rollercoaster.

Expect your twitter to be bombarded by Celtic fans claiming you are a thug and expect the wee fella to take a cynical dive in front of his mother just before bedtime, you get the evils and sent to empty the bin.

FFS, Sky Sports centre going mental on my phone for all the wrong reasons

After some of your chronic posts, nobody on here suggests you take a night or two off. Rose does the donkey work and continually gets a start telling me the manager either values his contribution or he's flogging one of his signings in the hope he comes good. I'm inclined to go with the former. Frear has had precious little time to impress this season and it must be frustrating for him as from January to May he was consistently our best player. I'm inclined to not agree with your suggestion for those reasons. As for your second point, agree wholeheartedly.

Board approached his agent and said what will it take for him to stay. Agent asked for XXX, which was steep as Robinson said. Board went away and found what the agent was asking for somehow, brought it to the table. Agent said, erm nah, change of mind and reneged. I don't fault Moult in all of this at all.

Come January my shopping list would be (in order): 1./ Replacement for Moult regardless if he leaves then or not 2./ Tie up Hartley 3./ Bring in Defensive cover 4./ Encourage McHugh to find his form 5./ Determine if Plummer is first team material 6./ Ask Santa to gift some extra composure to Kipre and Dunne You would hope there would be a little cash with the cup run to make a 50k punt here or a 100k punt there like we did with Moult and Marvin, look how that panned out. A couple of things seem to result in a good ROI in the current environment and are easily marketable are speed, workrate and as always ... goals. Technique sadly is not so important.

I didn't imagine in July we would be headed in the right direction until next summer, where Robinson would have had 3 windows to build and learn. That was confounded as of late November, upwards of 500k in the bank for the cup run and at one point sitting 3rd in the league. We have made a quantum leap this season and exceeded every expectation. The two wins against Aberdeen this season have maybe gave us a false idea of where we are. I don't see a loss to Hibs as being that bad, the manner in which we did, well thats open to debate. The Celtic games just showed whats its like to be the poor bugger in the yellow bib chasing the ball in that 1 touch triangle game they do to warm up ..... effectively for 270 minutes, of course it's going to be a bit demoralising combined with the feeling that we were wronged. What I would have given for a international break in late November. A league season is all about taking chances and riding luck and it normally evens out over the course, some of the points we've earned so have have had a rub of the green and some we've been denied through an inch here or there or a lack of sporting integrity. There's a number of fringe players who can now get an opportunity to stake a claim for a start in the 2nd half of the season. Personally I'd go for (based on current injuries): ------------------ Griffiths ----------------- Tait - Hartley(McHugh) - Kipre - Hammy Grimshaw ----- Rose ---- Bigi ----- Frear ------------------ Tanner ------------------ ----------------- Bowman -----------------

I've been subsequently told that his injury is bonafide by someone close to whats happening.

Turning on my cynical hat here but could the injury to Moult be inflated to ensure he's sidelined and comes to a new employer (deal maybe already agreed) without any possibility of being unavailable? Just saying there may be more to this.

If we sell him for 2 bob and a ginger bottle in January then Wrexham get 25% of said 2 bob and ginger bottle, however I suspect we'd be looking for 25% of any sell on fee similar to Marvin .... and that pocketed us no less than 400k. A sell on in January is not only about what he goes for on the day, it would be nice if a few struggling teams down south seen him as the answer to jumpstart their season or push them onto a playoff spot. The ensuring bidding war would be nice. However it would all be about the sell on. If he stays with us and we get an extra 200k for a league finish then so being it but we do get hee-haw else. Best solution, sell him for 250k, loaned back to us for rest of season, 25% sell on .... we get that, I'll take Flow out to One Devonshire and hand him the menu. Griffiths equal to Carson .... easy tiger

Because we hadn't played them in 9 months I've forgot how much I hate them, the only dilemma I've got today is which one of the two in town I hate more. Unwashed conspiracy theorists or loyalist conspiracy theorists.

Club fucked if they do, fucked if they don't. I didn't see any coins go the way of Brown but I certainly did see pie crusts. All that did was give them a pivot to take the conversation away from their antics. So for that reason plus its a bit stupid to do, some of our support created a rod for our own backs. Would the significant damage to the stadium been highlighted otherwise? I take it Celtic's safety officer walks through their stands and confirms that they are suitable. After the Friday night game where they wrecked the South, I trust all damage is settled by the visiting club? That's said we'll probably be given a do-ing on Saturday and they'll revel in their little green world.

Thompson is just a bit of an eejit who like most referees in this country will run into a lot more fans of the Old Firm than of your wee teams in their daily working life or in the supermarket. Can't tell me that will have no subconscious effect. For an easier life, I'd be more inclined to go for that than he deliberately went out to do us. Can you blame him though, look at all the hacks and pundits, decided it was all over before the ball was kicked. Same thing happened with the semi and all they could do was hang onto the dirty Bowman bullshit. For me we should have had them on a high press with two players on each man. The centre mid's would be gubbed but it's what you have to do. Thinking Tommy Coyne vs Italy in WC1994. Regardless, a brush of the arm does not result in a professional athlete going to ground with their legs buckling, maybe Alan Shearer would like to do a study on how a toe to the knee cap does after he's done with his heading survey.

I think there will be a lot of empathy from the fans of every other team in Scotland after that. I'll echo a few things, Andy's post being pretty much succinct and on the money for me. The first 20 minutes were poor and lacking composure and full of panicky clearances. The one highlight being Cedric's sublimely timed tackle. Upon watching the highlights, it was bloody dangerous and deserved a yellow, I don't know if Thompson was made aware at halftime he overlooked that. Was that in the back of his mind later on ..... From 20-30 we started to come back into things but that died away again for the last 15 of the half. There was only a short period of time that we pressed and harassed them, forcing them into mistakes. However I don't think we played as poorly as we did against Rangers in the first half and pretty much nullified Celtic. The only major gap in the stats was 60-40 in possession and 2 corners to 0 for us. The first goal, it was a lack of composure again, giving away the ball cheaply and an impressive finish from Forrest. Reminded me so much of the England equaliser vs Scotland in that we lost the ball in the same part of the park and diagonal ball which is slotted away. The goal instantly turned on the entertainment for too short a period. Gordon's save from Louis was absolutely brilliant and Tierney should have got a yellow and us a penalty to equalise. I don't think it was malicious or dirty, just clumsy and would have resulted in a foul anywhere else on the park. In the box it kinda has to be a yellow. As for their penalty, the question I always ask is, if it happened in the centre circle would it result in the same outcome? Would it even been a foul? Would Thompson even spoken to Cedric? There is something wrong with a team where such a gulf in talent and earnings feel the need to blatantly cheat to get ahead. That isn't the sign of "unbeatables", its the sign of "deplorables". It killed the game as a spectacle and an event. Personally, I believe in sporting integrity, I don't like play acting, manipulation of the officials or time wasting. I'll happily call out Motherwell players as much as those of our opposition. Any Celtic fan out there should be ashamed that one of their "unplayables" felt the need to do that. I can understand the tactics and conserving energy to a degree but I can't help feel if we pressed them they would have looked decidedly average. In doing so would we have had anything in the tanks for the last 30? If's, but's, maybe's. Positives: club coffers must be looking like Gringotts, Robbo got a new Ted Baker suit, a lot of our players that took a punt on us were rewarded, while not our best performance we played with integrity. Negatives: McHugh's teflon status has to be reassessed, Well fans being dicks to each other, Celtic and their fans

Intae these poppy shy arseholes. That is all!

Just glad we've got a manager who's aware the other teams in this league study what you do and combat it, unlike McGhee and McCall near the end, who would flog a dead horse. Nice to see he's got a plan A, B and C.

There does seem to be big geographic holes, Killie makes sense, either us or Accies makes sense but not both. No presence in the Highlands, Perth or Dundee. Falkirk with their facilities and track record overlooked and Partick with what they have on the horizon could rightly be very pissed off. While selfishly I'm glad my team has done enough to qualify, on an altruistic national level, I think the game has been let down by those who have steered this. I can't help but feel that the biggots in town could fund this themselves therefore giving more to the smaller teams and potentially improving the competition and standard, but they'd never see that as viable.

Meant to quote On The Fringes and cited you by mistake. I was agreeing with his post. Getting back to the final, after today, I can see something like this line up on the day. The dilemma is going to be 3 players in particular I reckon McHugh, not performing well but is club captain, so a big decision to drop. Rose, unglamorous role but those who don't ball watch notice his influence. Bowman, do you drop a successful duo to play one up front to gain an extra defender or midfielder against arguably a team with so many strengths going forward? ------------- Carson -------------- Tait -- Kipre --- Hartley -- Dunne ------- McHugh ---- Bigi --------- -- Carswell - Campbell - Rose -- -------------- Moult --------------- If it's purely on form then McHugh would drop out and our best performing player from January till May in Frear wouldn't get a look in because he has no form to display because he's got nowhere near so far. I haven't seen enough of Petravicius or Tanner for them to warrant a start. Bigi and McHugh on paper are defensive midfielders but the above leaves Moult exposed, but I expect our defence will be run ragged by Tierney and Forrest so need cover. I have no fear Campbell can compete with Brown but I think he's naive and not as street savvy. Does Grimshaw got more about him in training than McHugh? Would you go with Bowman up front with Louis and stick with Bigi as cover when a lot think he's more an impact player? Will Tanner or a number of the other fringe players do enough over the next few weeks to get a look in? I like everyone else would also like to see McHugh get his mojo back. Is Grimshaw's tenacity maybe what we need from the start? and hopefully Plummer can stake a place as I think Dunne needs competition. Big Cedric just needs to put some Vicks on his shirt to keep him switched on. Personally, I think our best chance is below (subject to no injuries or other players emerging). Bigi or McHugh would be a toss up for the start instead of Grimshaw but we know what he's capable of (from 18 months ago) issue is getting game time between now and the final, plus big game and young head opposed to experience may count against him. We know who the manager will tend to favour: ------------- Carson -------------- Tait -- Kipre --- Hartley -- Dunne ------------ Grimshaw ------------ -- Carswell - Campbell - Rose -- -------- Moult -- Bowman --------

Your boss leave early today?

I've had this discussion with a few friends, would I swap our league places in the past 10 years, splitting the old firm, best of the rest, and European qualification for silverwear when the likes of ICT, St Johnstone, St Mirren and Killie have all managed to pick up a cup? Likewise, in a heartbeat.

I can understand Thomson who is a former player and also has an affinity for another team of approximate size located roughly the same distance from Glasgow city centre as we are. But English (who seemed to be the organ grinder) and a host of others did not show any empathy to where Bowman found himself. They focused on the broken nose. Two players could feasibly go for a 50-50 and one ends up with a broken leg. No malice involved, just what happens. This incident was no different.

I can't understand why the hacks and pundits were allowed free reign on the witch hunt without anyone calling them out. To be fair the only one who mentioned the Louis eyebrow in the first half was Hugh Keavens, so kudos to him for that at least.