Happy Dosser

At least that gave me a laugh!

A convincing and persuasive analysis, JWFC, and I thank you for it but it only persuades me that the manager is pretty clueless and stubborn to the point of self-destruction. If the board wait until the season is over I suspect it will be too late by that time. As some older 'Well fans have said, the signs for GA are ominous when you consider the dire lack of quality of the teams he has selected to play (but not necessarily of those he has brought to the club). Those seeking consolation that we are losing narrowly but not being "pumped" could look at the side relegated in the late 60s: IIRC we lost a significant number of games then by the odd goal but were seldom humiliated. Yet the split offers another avenue to relegation by introducing head-to-head desperation games in a situation redolent of Hibs in 2014 and Dundee in The Noughties, when they narrowly missed the top six and then collapsed after the split. I see little merit in the manager's approach and organisation: a sterile long-ball philosophy, a lack of a cohesive and functioning midfield, clueless wide defenders, vulnerability in central defence and an excruciatingly long-winded and delusional analysis before and after games. Thank God we have a goalkeeper. We can also see on these pages a significant number of older ST fans who say they have had enough and I too have thought similarly. Even the year we should have gone down in The Untouchables season, we had gifted younger players and IIRC we managed to beat a good few of the top six that season: it was the head to heads below that level which got us into trouble. It will be 60 years next year since I started supporting Motherwell but then it had a wonderful philosophy of playing football at a time when wages were only modestly above the levels of a skilled worker. I know the societal problems are wider and deeper now but it seems there is no vision or imagination at the club and these problems go back further than the recent fan-ownership period. In short, we need a charismatic visionary with an encyclopaedic knowledge of tactics and the UK football market and incredible motivational powers. Does anyone think the board are aware of the task ahead and are able to tackle the problem? I do hope they have someone looking at these pages.

Simple question: can we afford to sack him? And another: who would relish trying to manage this squad in a freefall/relegation situation over seven games? How many people really thought any other result was likely today, given the current "form"? The last minute sickener was exactly what I expected. Under Alexander, we are devoid of ideas, structure, imagination and I suspect the players have just about downed tools. Anyone showing an ounce of creativity is excluded from the team. Example: Woolery (not my favourite player by any means) came on to a bit of form during and after the Ibrox game and then got dropped for no apparent reason. And now a vital game against an ex-manager and several ex-players looms, with all the feeling of inevitability such a situation suggests. Hibs under Butcher is not the only example of a complacent club who thought they could not go down: Dundee in the early 2000s narrowly missed a top six spot when John Sutton played for them and went down on the last day of the season. In England it's often thought the international break can be a dangerous time for an under-performing manager. I doubt Burrows and Co. will actually wield the axe but I dread to think what the reaction will be if Saint Mirren beat us at home on the second of April.

Agreed. I can still smell the yeast from the brewery too but the strip is a classic for auld uns like me.

Consensus in the Brains' Trust section of the POD I sit in was that the players are "playing" to get the manager sacked. What has happened to Ojala since his injury? Chalk and Cheese. Did Delilah cut his hair or summink? He doesn't look fit. I presume Slattery doesn't play because he has talked back to GA or doesn't run around like a headless chicken at training or some such. Alexander seems to be as arrogant as McGhee and sticks with players simply to get up the noses of fans whom he thinks are totally ignorant of footballing matters. He spent most of the second half talking to the match official next to him and ignoring the freely-given advice from the stands . There was a mini-seethe around me when O'Hara was taken off and Donnelly remained and for a second I thought I'd missed an off-the-ball assault or other tasty happening. For about three seconds in the game we had a swift interchange of four passes involving Tierney, Slattery (?) and two others and that summarised the football today. The last two home games have been among the worst I have had to watch in the last five years. If I hadn't bought my ticket for The Leithers already I'd probs go down the bird reserve to spot a godwit next week.

Thanks for the clarification. And I thought Thistle were the darling Bambis of the fitba world cheered on by a well-informed and inclusive hipster/varsity fan-base.......

Perhaps that kind of behaviour began even even further back. Didn't Andy Paton say that he refused to shake hands with anyone after an Aberdeen player had stuck the head on him after the final whistle when he offered his hand? Laughable at the time to hear Ferguson complain that his St Mirren team were roughed up by Motherwell ruffians in that sell-out cup-tie at FP in the 70s too. As a player he was no stranger to the flying elbow himself. There used to be a YT clip of an Ayr v Motherwell match at Somerset where his skills in that regard were obvious.

Samson the possible answer to a GK crisis: things are worse than I thought.

On reflection and third Grate Thott for today: could Gary Woods be Stevie Woods' love child? Karma, ya bass?

Two other points which occurred to me to take forward into the next game: The Sheep have managed to find a worse goalkeeper than Joe ("I'm a blancmange at Fir Park) Lewis and something needs to be done about them stealing about ten yards at every throw-in (or shy as I insist on calling it). Referee Aitken and his linesman let them get away with murder yesterday. I don't normally hope a team gets relegated but their supporters are so obnoxious that maybe a spell in the lower league might restore a sense of proportion. I don't think they've ever being relegated, although they were saved by league reconstruction relatively recently. We certainly can't complain about that because we dodged a bullet there a couple of times (not counting Falkirk's ground problems in our The Untouchables shirt season).

No, it was Glass's sacking I was referring to. We could have done with him sticking around for a week or so. That said, I don't think anyone will give them a quick bounce or lift, more a dead-cat-splat. It's a real poisoned chalice up there. It's a wee shame for them, soanitis .

Damn! https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/scottish

History's a thing of the past .

After my fit of pessimism a few days ago, I was delighted with the commitment and energy shown today: what a difference. KVV is much better with Shields and Efford (thought his goal was wrongly ruled out) on either side rather than being isolated with little support from midfield and it looks like we may have a functioning forward line again. Taking the latter off late on was a bad decision because it took the pressure off the Sheep defence and invited Aberdeen forward. Thank God Kelly did his usual wonder save. Both Donnelly and O'Hara were surprisingly good today in a physical match but I was alarmed at Ojala early on. He didn't look match-ready and was all over the place but gradually he steadied up. A home tie not involving The Cheeks would give us all hope in the cup. Lovely to see Gallagher and Grampa Broon disconsolate at the end.

Quite so: we lost one to Leeds and the whole financial basis of fitba here is shot, compared to the obscenely bloated Sky-financed game down south, largely based on a corrosive and damaging advertising campaign to part desperate working-class people from their money. But "play responsibly" suckers! I loathe the rich Sky panelists who advocate such gambling. I had actually hoped the whole Premiership house of cards based on massive debt would collapse and restore a reset to more sensible values but perversely the opposite seems to be the case. Incidentally, thinking back to the '68 relegation, I think our last home game was against Clyde, and we were narrowly beaten (we seemed to lose by the odd goal so often that season). My abiding memory was seeing some of our "fans" laughing at out attempts to score that day, while I was almost reduced to tears. Silly perhaps, but I have always had a rather dim view of a section of our so-called followers, like the ones who have brandished the union flag in our games against Celtic in the past. I have thrashed myself with birch twigs in an effort to motivate me for tomorrow so maybe I'll pitch up at Firpers in a more positive frame of mind .

Yours is the entirely rational response, and I remember that 60s side (painfully). After that we discovered Dixie Deans, Keith MacRae, Peter McCloy and many others and have only been relegated once since then (albeit for three long seasons, like Hearts around that time). We have no chance of unearthing similar talent from within our borders now and we need to ask why Scottish football is in such a state (as if we didn't know). I completely accept mine is an emotional one but I suspect our lack of ability to compete at all against The Cheeks and our paucity of creativity or even a basic ability to organise a team effectively is the main factor in my pissedoffidity. I rarely post negatively (hence my silly handle) but two defeats from The Sheep and a spineless display and ritual evisceration by the Hens will probably do me for this season. At my age it really is the false hope which "kills", as well as a sense of shame at our lack of ability to compete with the arrogant and gloating Uglies.

I started watching football in 1962 and this is the closest I've felt to jacking it all in, something I've never considered before. The general standard is dire and we are a team without inspiration or identity, a thing of shreds and patches seemingly doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. As soon as I heard Celtic had taken Rogic out of cold storage to play against us I felt it it was inevitable he would score and Watt's goal the other night was no surprise either. In the words of that great political thinker Jim Murphy, it's deja vu all over again when you turn up at a 'Well game. I fear consecutive defeats from the Mutton Molesters will just about finish me off.

The middle photo is particularly nostalgic, with its Art Deco front. As far as I remember the turnstiles had "Irlam O' The Height" as the place of manufacture. Anyone else remember this detail (probably as you were carried over them for free)?

I try to go to every home game but recently I have avoided the visits of The Cheeks. I hate being in the same ground (and streets) with them and having to put up with their snash but the main reason I suppose is that we seem have given up the ghost before we get on the pitch and I can't take the humiliation at my age: I have memories of much better performances and results. It seems an age ago that the likes of Higdon and Ojamaa could stick it to them good and proper.

Yes, some excellent results today from our point of view. When you see how close Kidderminster H. and Plymouth Argyle came to causing upsets in the English cup against much better opposition than we're facing, should we not be able to cause an upset of our own if we show the right attitude and choose the right tactics? I feel "Brick Shit-House" Carter-Vickers could be particularly vulnerable at the heart of the Celtic defence but so much will depend on the extent to which GA can inspire the players to really believe they can win. Oh, and TETW we get a referee with a backbone..... May The Force be with us.

I predict his shortbread empire will crumble. Did someone mention Aberlour 12-y-o?

In a nutshell..... To which I would add: all three should have some level of football brain/awareness for the perfect midfield grouping.

We could do with unearthing a Louis Moult Mk.II then, plucked no doubt from the obscurity of English tier five football or some such. I wonder how much dosh we have left in the kitty for this season?

I don't see Woolery as a first XI starter: Roberts seems much more talented, more nimble and faster and with more of a football brain than the guy who has seemed a nailed-on starter under GA. To me he doesn't know when or where to run, and that's since I saw him in the first game against Hibs. But what do I know? KVV seems not to have totally convinced the manager, or maybe he doubts his attitude. Yet, once he came on yesterday, things started to happen. I still think he could work alongside Shields, with Roberts as a "winger". Watt was great as an out ball: the ball seemed stuck to his laces and he was great at winning "fouls" while emerging as a genuine goalscorer with great awareness. But those days are gone now and in the past they must remain . His comment that he went to DU for footballing reasons and not the money does not convince me at all. False badge-kissers always get on my nazzums. I doubt we'll move for a striker this month so GA will have to be creative and use what he has at the moment.

You may well be right about 0-0 and well_said may also be right about John Arrol, although for some reason Herriot stuck in my mind. I'm sure some results scholar will set us all right soon. I have a mental picture of the Watson header in my failing mind, but I may already have entered The Matrix. A persistent story re the Goodwin sending-off right at the start was that when he was summoned by the referee after the tackle, he said, "Aw ref, you're no going to book me already?" The latter reputedly replied, "I'm doing better than that, Sam. I'm sending you off." Something else I can't remember is his name . I also have a memory that the replay had been previously called off for fog because I turned up at Firhill, having walked from the city centre to the ground, only to discover it was off. Ah, here's nursie coming with my medication.........