BigManTam

Did anyone see the replay of the League cup semi on BBC Scotland last night? Wild stuff.

But they are though. They can barely string a few passes together. Hit long and chase type football. As others say, it only gets you so far. Any mid table Norwegian or Danish team would pump them. This has been the whole revelation of the JBA regime so far - we (in Scotland) can play the continental way as well. The soil here is not cursed. Yes, there will be ups and downs (yesterday) along the way, but you can basically take a hoofball style team and make them actually play football. The big Q is - can we take it to the next level? Not only play tidy stuff, but make it consistently effective? I think we can get there by next season with this season as more of a development year (but could still clinch top 6). I'm probably getting ahead of myself now, but if JBA is able to really pull this off and get us either a cup win, playing well in Europe etc. it could really change things in Scottish football long term. Other teams will look at it and think - why can't we have that?

One thing I'd like to pull you up on - unless my memory is failing me, we were utter dug meat in last year's semi final. Our goal came from a big hopeful boot into the box and we could barely string two passes together the entire game. Last night was poor - poorer than we've become accustomed to this season. We still scored a goal and missed another couple of well-worked chances. We were miles better yesterday than the semi last year.

Dundee Utd on Wednesday??

Let's no go over the top here gents. A disappointing performance no doubt, but their first 2 goals - what can you say really? First one awful defending - thats nothing to do with our style. Second one they get a break and their forward scores probably his best goal of the season. After we got our goal back, St. Mirren did dominate and we crumbled at the back - but we were chasing the game and desperate at that point. What needs to change for us? It's been said a million times but Ap Stam won't cut the mustard. Hopefully Hendry can fill that gap but it's 50/50 right now whether he can, although I personally think he's much better than Ap at least. Crossing diabolical and what's even the point when we have nobody with any real threat from headers? JBA will be aware of this - we've made great progress so far this season but don't forget JBA has been here less than 6 months. He will need some windows to identify weaknesses and plug gaps. Robinson has been with St. Mirren and good while and has optimised his team (and they're still shite). A perhaps necessary lesson today.

Another thing I love about Askou is he doesn't hang around with subs when it's not working.

Our delivery is consistently terrible. Time for Hendry and Slattery.

Hendry was so unlucky with his shot off the line. Breezed past two Utd players as if they weren't there. Like what I'm seeing from him and still think he'll come good.

Would love a non-old firm team to win the league personally, even if it can't be us 🙁.

You may be right about future crowds, but why did near enough 2000 extra people turn up yesterday? Because we're sitting top of the table? Because we're on a run of 3 or 5 wins? They turned up yesterday because everyone is talking about us. Go read the match report on BBC or full highlights and analysis on Sportscene. We're getting praised. And rightly so. Someone mentioned on here that attendances had barely shifted in the past 10-15 years. During that time, we've put together decent runs and league finishes. But still, folk weren't turning up regularly. The extended supporter base don't need (they might want it) top 6. They need to turn up and know they'll see a show, even if we lose(i.e. yesterday). And I put myself in that boat as well.

Just because Falkirk did get all 3 points yesterday doesn't automatically mean they 'deserved' them.

Agree 100% about needlessly taking off players playing well. Could say taking Just off yesterday was due to returning from injury, but he did it earlier in the season as well.

My tuppenceworth on yesterday's game. More than anything else, I think we were a bit unlucky, poor finishing and, maybe most importantly, poor individual defending at the back. First half, as many have already said, was about as well as you can expect a Mothwrwell team to perform. I'm not buying this narrative that we were terrible second half. Said and Stama x 2 had great chances to score. Falkirk's first goal came from a big hopeful punt into the box and poor defending. Credit where it's due though, they played well enough second half generally to take something from the game. The decision to disallow our first was a real shocker. We do have a big problem up top - Stama again looked poor when he came on. Hendry looked OK but still early days from him so I'm hopeful he can improve. I do think he looks a beter option than Stama. Worrying though that he was never in the right place first half when all those crosses were coming into the 6 yard box. RE boo boys - as annoying as they are, they are in the minority. About 6000 home supporters yesterday. When was the last time we had that for a random league match? Will those extra fans come back based on that performance? Absolutely. I was entertained, and I'm already looking forward to Livingston next week. Small margins missing for this team but the fundamentals are there. This may well turn out to be more of a building season than a high performing one in terms of points, but based on the joy I'm getting from following our team at the moment, I have absolutely no issue with that.

As bad as it was, I'm happy to let Ward away with that one. Until now, his passing hasn't come into question - it's mistakes with his hands which have been the issue. Hopefully a lesson learned for him and one he can grow from. Another enjoyable game though it has to be said, even with the late defeat. It had a bit of the Hearts draw about it...in a great position and we just didn't quite know what to do with ourselves. Maybe Jens needs to add another string to his bow and get the team able to play low block, hoof it away type stuff when required.

Could see this one being a nil-nil or maybe a late goal to win it.

Watching back the highlights, Aberdeen fans will be gutted they didn't score. The two good chances from the first half aside, one of those 2 chances they had at the end of the 90 with Keskinen and Lazetic are converted more often than not. Could easily have been a 0-1 defeat! Imagine how different we'd be feeling if that were the case. Having said that, we missed a couple of our own great chances and we have earned that bit of luck over these 6 games. Make no mistake, that was a huuuge win last night. Could be the foundation for a solid season.

Went for O'Donnell as I just can't get over his improvement so far this season. I was desperate for him to leave the last two summers, but what do I know?

I thought we played fairly well. Better than the first couple of league games anyway and probably better than last week. Really enjoyed it. Viva the JBA revolution!

I should say having posted a couple of negative comments that (regardless of outcome) we're generally playing very well and it's been an entertaining game!

Ap "nearly man" stam at it again.

Said is doing my box in.

Could have been watt, fadinger (anyone else struggle to tell the difference between these two?), TJ or Longelo. Went for Watt to spread my votes out a bit.

I'll take it over 2 wins and a draw playing hoofball. Admittedly though, it does need to produce the wins at some point. The way I see it, it's basically a few few freak errors which have prevented us picking up AT LEAST one win.

Aye, if we had a van veen, moult or even a Bair up top we'd really be a force to be reckoned with. AP lacks the cutting edge, Osong has looked powderpuff in his (admittedly) limited game time. Our last great hope is Hendry - fingers crossed he can make an impact when he's back and gets a chance at a full 90!

Disagree on both accounts. We have played well, should have scored 1 if not 2. Dundee have only had one real chance, which was a lump in the box they managed to convert. We're heading and shoulders above the rest of the dross in this league (bar celtic).