Andy_P

We have indeed all seen your script before. About once a week for a last three years.

Your thoughts and votes please...

If all are fit I would expect the same starting eleven from Thursday. This would tie in with Robinson's approach to the games at Ibrox and Parkhead last season where Mugabi was called upon as a third central defender, with O'Hara and Campbell in front of them. I hate going into an international break on the back of a loss, with nothing you can do to remedy it for a couple of weeks, but I suspect that's most likely to the be case tomorrow. Not helped by our already lowly league position. Maybe this will be one of those odd days where something goes our way and we come out with an unexpected result.

Pathetically searching for omens, not long after our previous record sale moved to Celtic we drew 1-1 with them. I'll take that.

You might expect that on Sunday he won't have a huge amount of opportunities to burst forward and try to cross or find a team-mate in the opposition half. I might so go so far as to say his repartee of crosses out the pitch and as high and far into the stand as he can should be a definite tactic against Celtic!

I am absolutely going to get carried away with the result. It's only a few days from Saturday's discussion where t was suggested nobody looks back and is interested in the performance or whether fortune has smiled or mocked you and that it's only the result that counts, only the goals that are scored, that's what goes down in the record books etc. etc..

Your choices for Hamilton:- 1. David Turnbull 2. Allan Campbell 3. Bevis Mugabe Which gives a total after Game 5: Allan Campbell 9pts (2 MOTM) Trevor Carson 6pts (1 MOTM) David Turnbull 6pts (1 MOTM) Sherwin Seedorf 4pts (1 MOTM) Bevis Mugabe 3pts Nathan McGinley 2pts Mark O'Hara 2pts Stephen O'Donnell 2pts Declan Gallagher 1pt Jordan White 1pt Ricki Lamie 1pt

Your thoughts and votes please...

Gillespie, Tait, Carroll, Dunne, Hartley, Heneghan, Johnson, McHugh, Moult, Main, Bowman. A conceivable eleven all signed from League One and below since a director of recruitment was installed to focus on those levels. That's not including Carson, Long, Frear etc. nor Kipre who came higher up from Leicester. Not world beating sure, but enough in there from those individuals to keep the team in the division, get to two Cup Finals that were not to mention any more because we didn't win, a third place finish that seemingly doesn't really count, and helped contribute towards the club moving to a debt free position. But aye, a lot of shite. Get rid of the Director of Recruitment. Don't look for players at that level any more. Can the recruitment be smarter? Absolutely. Have there been bad signings? Definitely. But dismantling the whole set up is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's toys out the pram stuff. Here's another eleven. As signed by the greatest modern day manager in Motherwell's recent history, some say. Took us to third too. Kept us in the division. Even won that Cup that thirty years later they still talk of. Still managed to sign every single one of this lot though along the way. Gardiner, Sneddon, Murray, Maaskant, Jones, Shanks, Caughey, McCabe, Baker, Shepstone, McLeod

I would certainly wouldn't disagree with you, or indeed Grizzly, in terms of the importance of the Academy in the recent past or currently. I couldn't agree though that a return which is likely to net us sums could be construed as "poor" however. I'm also you with 100% on the calibre of players coming through. I've long been an advocate of the "Fitzpatrick" type players. Guys that are by no means world beaters but play a part for a few seasons, get 80 or 90 games before being usurped by the next set of graduates or a new signing. The only thing I'd add is that we surely all know why there was and remains a focus on the lower end of the English market. Whether the failure of the Turnbull sale and the Covid-19 situation has meant that the balance on shifting further towards the Academy structure rather than recruitment is more belated than it might have been, I don't know, but I don't get the sense there isn't the same desire to develop our own.

Tommy Wright? You just want another Irishman so you can still roll out your Blarney Stone kisser line every three weeks.

Stream fine with me too. Took advantage of the tip of connecting to the router via ethernet today and not a hint of buffering. A minor glitch with the sound that had the effect of knocking my commentary very slightly behind, and somewhat helpfully disappearing around the time of their goal, but can't complain.

Not necessarily no, but the point was in reference to previous Accies games at Fir Park where we have been leading or at least dominating and then capitulated. See today, the 2-1 loss at Christmas, the 1-0 loss in 2018 and the Christmas game when Hartley offered Imrie some festive wishes.

Campbell, Turnbull, Hastie, Scott and Maguire are all Scotland U21 internationalists that have played for Motherwell over the last two years. That's five alone. McKinstry and McAlear have been snapped up by an English Premiership side and one that twelve months down the line was. They are two of the players that would likely be added to that list. Off the top of my head, and whilst their numbers may have been limited Livingstone, Devine, Cornelius, MacLean and Semple have all come through the youth system and played in the first team over the last two or three years. The players that have come through the Academy and played over the last three years could quite conceivably generate something like £10,000,000 in tranfers and add-ons. I think your constant banging the drum for youth development is noble but you are miles out in terms of what has already been delivered by the Academy and to repeat my response when you made much the same point a week ago, I think it is unrealistic bordering on the naive to expect eleven youth team players who are first team ready to slot in at a moments notice.

Deflating stuff and a result that leaves you wondering where the next win is going to come from. Not for the first time we've seen that movie against Accies. Hem them in for a good part of the game and then, almost like a switch has been flicked, out of nowhere suddenly we're behind. There's no doubt that the changes allowed them to kick down a door that was already coming off its hinges I can't help but think Robinson was partly influenced by the turnaround in the game at Fir Park at Christmas. That time when it was beginning to slip away he tried to ride out the storm and bring a defender on. It didn't work. So he went the other way this time and the outcome was no better. I have to say for just short of an hour or so I thought it pretty good. It goes without saying that there was still nowhere the required potency in and around the box but I don't think I could have asked for much more beyond that at that stage. We were playing them off the park. The corner count soaring and the possession was being used pretty sensibly. I would have preferred to have Long start this one over White, but can see why he wanted to persevere with him. Particularly in the first half when Turnbull seemed to be omnipresent about 30 yards from goal looking for the killer ball, with the runs he makes I'm sure that would have been more productive. But it's difficult to argue he made little impact when he did come on, albeit it was a different contest then. But when we hit that point that pretty much everybody watching knew we'd reached where the ideas ran out, the changes didn't work and Accies referred to old script that has worked so well for them. We could, and should have been behind before they got the goal they did. We had already ridden our luck somewhat. I have actually quite enjoyed much of our last couple of performances. I would go so far to say that the two displays in the last week were more enjoyable to watch than some of the wins we turned in last season. But when it boils down to it, that's bugger all consolation if for all your easy on the eye, possession rich football you can't score for the life of you and you're sitting only a couple of places off the bottom of the table. It's redeemable. I'm sure it is, but with Celtic away to come and then an international break there is likely to be further pain to be endured when you look at the league table before we can begin to do anything about it in the league.

Your thoughts and votes please...

Your choices for Hibernian:- 1. Allan Campbell 2. Stephen O'Donnell/David Turnbull 3. Ricki Lamie Which gives a total after Game 4: Allan Campbell 7pts (2 MOTM) Trevor Carson 6pts (1 MOTM) Sherwin Seedorf 4pts (1 MOTM) David Turnbull 3pts Nathan McGinley 2pts Bevis Mugabe 2pts Mark O'Hara 2pts Stephen O'Donnell 2pts Declan Gallagher 1pt Jordan White 1pt Ricki Lamie 1pt

On the referencing of the 19'20 form whilst it would be stupid to attempt to argue it was all sweetness and light, I still tend to think, much like the start to this season, the margins were often quite fine. If you consider that two of the losses were through goals conceded in the last three minutes, hang on in those games and suddenly two losses from a dozen games across the ninety minutes (albeit we went on to lose one of them on penalties) isn't quite as bad a picture. In that run I'd say Livingston was one of the Motherwell performances I can recollect in recent memory, St Johnstone away wasn't great and we were blown away by Celtic. The rest weren't massively different to much of what went before or after. I think a little like now, we weren't a millions away. Improvement needed, yes. Finding that little bit extra that gave us an edge earlier last season, we definitely need to find that, no question. The concern is, is that the longer that "not far away" argument goes on the less credence it has and the more evidence there is to suggest that we for whatever reason we've regressed and been overtaken by others.

I would give the ticket office a phone and check the progress. Based on how they handle the processing of ticket dispatches for away games in recent times it has been phone one day, pay a pound for postage, and the ticket is there waiting the next when I get home. So I'd assume if they had it to hand it would have been dealt with the same way. But I know that one of the sections in my work had delays with cards they issue as the provider shut down for an extended period through Covid-19. If you are getting a brand new card and they source them externally it may be something along similar lines.

Your choices then for Livingston: 1: Campbell 2: Carson/Mugabe 3: Seedorf/White/Turnbull Which gives a total after Game 3: Trevor Carson 6pts (1 MOTM) Allan Campebll 4pts (1 MOTM) Sherwin Seedorf 4pts (1 MOTM) Nathan McGinley 2pts Bevis Mugabe 2pts Mark O'Hara 2pts Declan Gallagher 1pt Jordan White 1pt David Turnbull 1pt

That was much more like the kind of thing! Still nowhere near as clinical as we could be and there remain weak points in the team but after what had gone before, after Hibs start to the season, what a really encouraging display. I think most would have anticipated Hibs to have won by a couple and the pressure really heaped on the team going into the derby but we can approach that with a good degree more optimisim than we might otherwise have. Perhaps still a little too much of the long ball at times, but not so much as in earlier games and if White is to be the focal point perhaps the decision making on when he is best placed to receive a direct ball will improve over time. I thought he was a bit unlucky (again) with the disallowed goal. The only impediment to Marciano saving it was his own daft defender that deflected it past him. Seedorf's position, albeit behind the last man, had no bearing on his ability to stop that shot. I thought White grew into the game as it progressed. From being initially constantly giving away fouls he managed to turn it around and begin to draw them from the opposition and for probably the the first time we began to see the ball stick with him and him bring others into play. Early days to see if he can build on that. Other positives from Lang, until he began to run out of steam, O'Donnell likewise too in his first start. Definitely a performance that can built upon.

Your thoughts and votes please...

Game 4 already? Doesn't time fly when....

So for clarity, you want to put an untested central defensive partnership that includes someone with no first team experience, another with less than half an hour's Premiership experience, neither of which you admit you have seen, in a game away to the joint league leaders and joint highest scoring team in the league?

Essentially what Stephen Pearson did in his second stint, and to a very much lesser extent in his third.