MJC

Yeah I didn’t think the pitch was in bad nick atall. Especially when you take into account the two storms we’ve had over the past week and last Saturday’s deluge then it was as good a nick as we could have hoped for. Time was one day of relatively heavy rain was enough to have Fir Park waterlogged and unplayable.

Actually found that quite enjoyable even though we didn’t get the win. I hate the term “on another day” but really, on another day we would have won that at least 3-1. Hopefully van Veen’s injury isn’t too bad, he’s a key player for us and it was great to see him set up the equaliser. And how Jonny Hayes didn’t even get booked for that assault on O’Hara is ludicrous! With us away at Ibrox next Sunday you start to look towards that Ross County/Dundee home double header as two games we really need to be picking up maximum points from.

Yip slightly unlucky to behind but it’s starting to look like ‘one of those days’. We really need to be much more clinical with chances, that has been a problem all season.

0-1 Uphill struggle now.

Unchanged starting XI by the looks of it.

That was a Hammell thunderbolt if I remember correctly? We won 1-0 but were comfortable throughout. It’ll be a tough one today. Really need a result with a trip to Ibrox next Sunday so hopefully GA doesn’t field a head scratcher of a lineup and we just go for it.

He’s a player who is improving as time goes on, which is all we can realistically ask for. He looked an absolute bombscare initially but has gradually grew in composure and confidence and I think it’s a good thing that we’ve managed to tie him down. Hopefully he keeps on with his improvement.

Bevis Mugabi pens a new 2 year deal.

Jim Paterson was decent as well, especially in 07/08 before he left and Hammell returned.

I see Stevie Hammell is 40 today. One of our best servants over the last couple of decades and a bit, from making his debut at Pittodrie as an 18 year old in April 2000 he made that left back slot his own for the best part of the next seventeen years.

He steered us out of trouble and got us to fifth in 15/16 after the disaster that was Baraclough’s tenure, though given the players at his disposal any competent manager would have probably done similar. What can’t be ignored though was that in his second spell we lost 6-0, 7-0, 5-0, 7-2 & 5-1 and only two of those hammerings came against Celtic, the side you’d expect to lose by such a score line to. And as already said he continued to come out with ridiculous self indulgent nonsense which embarrassed the club. That Cup tie at Ibrox in January 2017 where we lost 2-1 and his interview afterwards where he threw the entire team under the bus and “couldn’t give a monkeys” about the players was a pathetic display of petulance and bitterness, completely unbecoming of a manager of any professional football club and it was no coincidence imo that our season nosedived spectacularly between then and his sacking five weeks later. I’ve no doubt that Mark McGhee is a good coach, but he is also an absolute weapon of a man who’s ego, self importance and divisive manner will always count against him.

Aye that was early on in the season too and even then the alarm bells were ringing about Malpas.

All players and managers talk shite now and again, some more than others but Craig Brown takes the biscuit. The way he went out of his way to explain his decision to stay with us and how he looked “Stephen Craigan in the eyes” then the very next day he left just showed him up as the slimy, slippery wee rat that he truly was. And even after he’d gone he still couldn’t help himself rambling away in his stupid, squeaky wee voice about how much money he’d spent in our club shop the previous Christmas and such like. Of course no one in the media called him out on his bullshit, they never do and so many always have seen him and still do see him as this cuddly wee old gentleman and icon of Scottish football. In reality he’d probably sell his own grandweans for another shot at managing Scotland.

You’re not far off, it was against Dunfermline at the end of the season when we lost 4-1 at East End Park to set up that awful last day at home to St.Mirren. He did make another ridiculous comment after a 4-1 loss to Inverness at home earlier that same season when he said post match “I wish I could just have walked out after 75 minutes like the fans did” or something to that effect.

His first season in his first spell was brilliant and the football we played that season, particularly in the first half of the season was absolutely sublime. After that season though he clearly thought he was too big for us and the way he spend his second season basically whoring himself out to other clubs, arguing with fans and being more or less an unofficial Celtic mouthpiece then any good will I had for him disappeared. And don’t forget he hung about for weeks longer than he should have in summer 2009 when everyone knew he was leaving and we had a rebuilding job to do, but he wanted to wait as long as possible to see if he got the Celtic job before settling for Aberdeen. I was absolutely disgusted when he was brought back here and had absolutely no doubts at the time and still don’t that that was down to some personal friendships he had with people in positions of power inside Fir Park. He continued disrespecting the club during his 2nd spell and his sermon about how missing out on promotion with Wolves twenty years earlier was the reason he “was managing Motherwell today and not Liverpool” was and still is one of the worst things I’ve ever heard a Motherwell manager coming out with.

I’d forgotten about that, that’s hilarious If Dundee appoint that self important bag of wind then hell mend them, that is very much a case of ‘jobs for the boys’ with Strachan getting his pal a gig.

With heavy snow forecast on Friday could this game be in doubt? Maybe not for the condition of the pitch but the surrounding area and police travel advice might be a factor here?

As good a draw as we could have hoped for at this stage and a chance to get revenge for last years QF loss to them. The rest of the draw wasn’t as kind though with the Old Firm and Hearts virtually given byes to the Semis.

Remember Steven Craig leaving us for Aberdeen and him saying that he would be able to pull more birds in Magaluf or somewhere because Aberdeen were much better known than Motherwell were? I don’t know how he got on in Magaluf but he did very little with Aberdeen!

That was two years later, in 97/98 was it not? That was a horrendously garish kit but I always think of Eliphas Shivute scoring a diving header at Ibrox when I think of it.

Falconer signing was a big factor in our survival that season as we had Coyne and Arnott out long term and couldn’t buy a goal. I remember Dougie Donnelly on the Sportscene highlights of that Cup game saying in his analysis “it looks as though Motherwell could go the rest of the season without scoring another goal doesn’t it?” And at that point it really did. As for this Saturday, a 0-1 defeat.

They did exactly the same with Jimmy Calderwood. He had them consistently finishing in the top six and challenging for Europe, even achieving some great results in the then UEFA Cup. Yet they hounded him out and replaced him with Mark McGhee who, in his very first press conference with them basically said that getting that job was a second choice to the Celtic job. He then went on to have one of the worst win % of any manager they’d ever had before. If ever a club and a manager deserved each other it was Aberdeen with McGhee.

He wouldn’t last five minutes up there.

History suggests no. In league and cup double headers between the sides in recent memory it’s always been one win each. 20/09/95 - LCQF Motherwell 1-2 Aberdeen 14/10/95 - League - Motherwell 2-1 Aberdeen 30/01/96 - SC3 Motherwell 0-2 Aberdeen 13/02/96 - League - Motherwell 1-0 Aberdeen 11/03/12 - SCQF Motherwell 1-2 Aberdeen 17/03/12 - League - Motherwell 1-0 Aberdeen 11/12/12 - SC4 Motherwell 1-2 Aberdeen 26/12/12 - League - Motherwell 4-1 Aberdeen 21/09/17 - LCQF Motherwell 3-0 Aberdeen 24/09/17 - League - Motherwell 0-1 Aberdeen 03/04/18 - League - Motherwell 0-2 Aberdeen 14/04/18 - SCSF Motherwell 3-0 Aberdeen 12/02/22 - SC5 Motherwell 2-1 Aberdeen 19/02/22 - League - ??