MJC

That is undoubtedly true but unfortunately it mirrors life in general, where the minority ruin it for the majority and as the saying goes “if you fly with the crows you get shot with the crows”. There are plenty of decent, well meaning people within the ‘Bois’ but sadly there are also some thoroughly nasty and dangerous individuals who clearly have a lot of influence within the group. And they are best avoided for the average match going supporter who simply wants to support the club.

The ‘Bois’ care about the ‘Bois’ and their reputation and getting attention on social media and wider publicity. The actual reputation and potential damage their behaviour causes to the club itself is clearly way down their list of priorities in comparison. Otherwise why do they keep defying the clubs requests? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. They are Green Brigade wannabes.

Granted. But football is and always has been a sport where spectators criticise and ‘offer advice’ to professional players when they are nowhere near at the same level of those players whom they are telling how to do their job better. Social media has obviously given those type of people (me included, I admit) a much wider platform to air such ‘advice’.

That’s all fair enough and yes, maybe I am a bit of a dinosaur and completely out of touch with modern training methods. I certainly don’t have a sound knowledge on sports science and nutrition and the like. Simply put, in my opinion as a ‘tone deaf’ supporter, I think we got our priorities wrong. Those who are far more qualified than me to say otherwise will probably disagree.

I’m not taking the piss. They’re professional footballers, they are capable of playing a game three days after the last one. The problem we had with Stenhousemuir is that we dropped key players and didn’t take the tie as seriously as we should have done. If there was any game where we should have rotated the squad and played fringe players then it was the Freiburg game because we were never winning that and in the grand scheme of things the league and league cup are far more important to us.

If common sense had prevailed then it would be being played at 3pm today. It was a nonsense that we postponed it this weekend in favour of ‘Europe’.

Total non-event and hard to muster up any emotions after that. It’s just a pity we postponed our game at home v. Aberdeen this weekend as we could really have done with getting our season back on track after last Sunday’s debacle.

0-5 pumping.

We’re not going to win every game and any ‘Well fan with their head screwed on knows this. We are also hugely up against it when it comes to winning one of the domestic cups. However it’s the manner of our exits against opposition we have been more than capable of beating over the years that irks more than anything else. Lower league Stenhousemuir, drop eight players, lose, out the cup. Aberdeen who we have beaten three times already and are easily outperforming in the league…rotate the team, leave key players out, lose, out the cup. And there have been more examples.

Personally for me it was going for a pish in the East Stand in the Prelim Champions League qualifiers against PAO in 2012. Unremarkable as that may sound, I just remember thinking “this is the Champions League, sort of, and here I am using the facilities in the East Stand during a Champions League prelim qualifier…‘91 has nothing on this surely?” As I exited the ‘facilities’ PAO scored their second goal but my heart was beaming with pride.

He’s done well so far. Good results in Europe and an excellent away win at Hibs. But today was a black mark on him.

“Sorry, you cannot add anymore reactions today” I went to give you a like for that comment. I genuinely don’t understand the mindset of some Motherwell fans when it comes to domestic Cups.

Yes I am raging we got put out. And Hearts could also struggle on that awful pitch. But I would expect Hearts to treat the tie with more respect and field their strongest side or at least not drop eight first team starters. Plus they have better players than we do. It’s all academic now for us. Yet again we have let ourselves down in a winnable domestic cup tie.

But Rangers and Celtic drew each other so one of them won’t be in the semis. Hibs have to go to Ross County and Hearts have Stenhousemuir on that awful pitch. Both of them will probably progress but you never know. And Killie and Aberdeen drew each other so one of them will be gone too. Us winning the competition was always a long shot but to whimper out in the last 16 against a lower league side is a real sore one.

I’ll be forever grateful that 1991 happened in my lifetime because I just don’t see us ever winning silverware ever again.

I cannot for the life of me get my head around why some in our fanbase dismiss the League Cup as a “diddy cup”. It is not. It is a major honour in Scottish football and one which we have only ever won once in our history. We’ve got so many Motherwell fans who love to tell all and sundry that we are this tiny wee “diddy club” yet turn their noses up at a major trophy as if we’re in with a shout of winning the Europa League.

We probably wouldn’t but we would stand a damn site better chance than doing anything of note in Europe. This is the competition where we reached the semi finals in the last two seasons, taking big crowds to Hampden as a result. Who knows? Had we not fucked up royally against St.Mirren then it would have been us having a crack at an out of sorts Celtic led by Wilfred Nancy. If you’re still in it you can still win it but we yet again decide to act like Man City or Liverpool in the cup when we have nowhere near the squad depth and quality to do so.

We’re not going to win the league and we’re not going to go any further in Europe, so the domestic cups are our best hope for tangible success. So to treat it with such disrespect by not fielding the strongest eleven is blindly arrogant and downright stupid. We have a history of treating the cups as if they’re not all that important. Jens did it last season and paid the price, McCall was notorious for it, Kettlewell and Robinson were guilty of it too. And all the while we have to watch on as St.Mirren and St.Johnstone get to lift the league cup trophy in recent years. It’s just not good enough and a slap in the face to the support.

Absolutely disgusted but not surprised in the slightest. Motherwell FC just cannot be trusted to win cup ties. And blame has to go to the manager today for arrogantly dropping half the first team. He’s not the first manager to do this and unless we as a club start making it crystal clear to managers then he won’t be the last. And spare me “Ach it’s only the league cup, we’ve got bigger fish to fry” because quite frankly I don’t give a toss right now. And fuck Europe while we’re at it. Unacceptable Motherwell.

This is dreadful. Yet again we don’t take a Cup tie seriously and drop half the team. I’m sick to the back teeth of us doing this.

Yes and no. We need to move on but we absolutely should not forget or stop highlighting the scandalous officiating at the end of this game.

It’s one of the only two trophys we can realistically win. That kind of outlook might work in England for the top sides but we aren’t going to win the league title and we’re never going to do anything of note in Europe. Just dismissing it as “it’s only the league cup, let’s just rest players” is an incredibly arrogant and naive take on it.

They do, but in reality they were never going to be as bad as they were last season when it certainly was our best chance of winning silverware especially with the manager and players we had. We didn’t get anywhere near it though but that’s history now. Celtic will more likely than not win the treble this season because they are the biggest club in the country, have the most money and therefore can afford players of a far higher standard than anyone else. But I still want us to go as far as we can in the domestic cups because that keeps our albeit slim chance of winning a trophy alive. I certainly don’t want to see us whimpering out in the last sixteen against Stenhousemuir.

We’re the top flight side playing against a lower league team in a Cup competition which we have reached the semi finals of in the last two seasons. We should ALWAYS be aiming to go as far as we possibly can in the domestic cups even if our chances of winning the competition is slim. But as we saw with St.Mirren last year if you are still in it you can still win it. Celtic were the favourites to win it this time last year as they always are, but had St.Mirren fielded a less than full strength side in earlier rounds and lost then they wouldn’t have won the trophy against a very much out of sorts Celtic side when they played them in the final.

Our strongest available starting 11 should play tomorrow. No excuses. We have been stung too many times in Cup ties when we’ve rotated and rested players. Tomorrow is a must win game, anything less is unacceptable.