MJC

The “wee club, punching above our weight” thing is nonsense. Self defeating nonsense and a ready made excuse for not performing well in games or competitions. I am under no illusions about the size of club we are, we are obviously a ‘smaller’ club than the Old Firm and the City clubs but outside of that, there is not much difference in size of supports etc. From our point of view we have been a top flight club for well over thirty years, in which time have won the Scottish Cup, regularly competed and finished in the top half of the league which has on a good few occasions now earned us European qualification. And yet STILL, we have supporters saying “oor wee club, we really shouldn’t expect anything other than survival” and other such nonsense. Some inside the club seem to buy into that too it would appear. So how long do you have to punch above your weight before that becomes your weight?

Hopefully the likes of Crawford, Mugabi will be squad players next season and not regular starters otherwise we will be in for another dismal campaign. I’m happy for GA to get the summer transfer window before he is properly judged in the job. As for your point on the “punching above our weight” mentality, that is something that is unfortunately deeply entrenched in the club these days and I believe plays a huge part, perhaps subconsciously, in a lot of the apathy we have seen over the last few years, even on the park. Any player or manager joining us will know that there is no real expectation to go the extra mile or to try and win a Cup, because so many within the club and the support are happy to see us as this tiny wee club that are miraculously able to play in the country’s top league. I love the club and always will, but I truly despise that outlook.

My views also. O’Donnell is never captain material, indeed we don’t really have anyone in that squad who are. There are no ‘leaders’ that will shout, motivate and give instructions on the park and we haven’t had that for a while. Gallagher, like Hartley before him seems to be slightly out of his depth in the role.

That doesn’t sound too encouraging about Campbell tbh. Hopefully he’s not out for any length of time as he will be a massive loss. He almost literally is our midfield.

It could simply been a case of extremely poor recruitment by Robinson. Let’s face it, the last three summer transfer windows have been utterly abysmal when you think of some of the dross Robinson was allowed to bring in and that was reflected by the on field product which was dismal. Even when we ‘finished 3rd’ last season we were pish for large spells especially from January ‘20 until the season was abandoned and this season with yet another batch of poor signings we were even worse. I’d say it’s highly possible that this season is purely the result of having a poor squad with many players who have a stinking attitude. As for Wednesday night, I have no faith in us doing any better than the previous three meetings with Accies this season. 2-0 home win.

Horrible game but job done. Bring on the Hibs!

Suffering f*ck. Totally unprofessional from us.

Great goal!!!!

Doesn’t look good for Campbell there.

HT in ET 0-0

Hard to disagree. Penalty shootout defeat coming up here. I don’t see us having anything about us to win the game before the end of extra time and I wouldn’t trust any Motherwell team as far as I could throw them in a penalty shootout in such a big Cup tie.

It certainly is. We’re playing a struggling Championship side at home and we look completely insipid. In spite of how poor we’ve been this season, this performance is unacceptable.

He’s an excellent goalkeeper at our level. You shudder to think where we’d be had we had had to rely on Chapman being our No.1 for the second half of the season.

I said as much last weekend, he has been our best signing this season. As without him we would be in serious relegation trouble.

I don’t think anyone can argue with that. We’ve had that issue for the last four years now, with the exception of Turnbull’s excellent 3/4 season in 18/19. We need a big improvement on the recruitment front this summer.

Who’d have thought that re-signing a former player who couldn’t get into our first team almost a decade ago wouldn’t end well? It was bad enough when we were re-signing the likes of McFadden and Pearson but at least they had both made a big impact on our first team in their previous spells.

So far nowhere near enough urgency from us. We look powderpuff especially up front.

We’re not exactly blessed with attacking options so it’s to be expected I suppose. Hopefully we get this one sewn up long before we need any subs on though.

It’s nights like this that you really feel the restrictions hitting hard. A beautiful spring evening, a Scottish Cup tie at Fir Park and a very winnable game and it’s behind closed doors. As for the game itself we should have enough about us to win, but taking nothing for granted.

One of my all time favourite days following Motherwell that was. At Hampden, comfortably seeing off Aberdeen and their media chums and a brilliant atmosphere in our end. The Electric Bar was absolutely bouncing that day/night. That and the other Semi Final from that season (the Moult game) were days that are what makes the shite times supporting us feel worth it.

Stephen O’Donnell signs a new two year contract. I genuinely did not see that coming.

That’s unfortunately the way it is for us now. Even the players we bring though from our own academy, ie. Turnbull are away after not even being a regular in the first team for a whole season (or at least would have been had he not needed his op in summer 2019). Hastie was away after a brief purple patch and the likes of McKinstry was gone before a lot of the support even knew who he was. Going back to the early 2000s when we had McFadden and Pearson breaking through we at least managed to get a couple of seasons out of them before they moved on but that just doesn’t happen now which is hugely frustrating.

He’s been our best signing this season. I know he had a nightmare against Kilmarnock but overall Kelly has been solid for us. When you think that at one point we were looking at the possibility of Chapman being our No.1 for the remainder of the season then Kelly has been a massive upgrade.

My thoughts exactly, beating St.Mirren is always very satisfying.

Full time 1-0. Big win that, well done ‘Well and great to finally get a win against that mob.