Andy_P

Really? I think Brown is, and always has been an excellent commentator and Lewis Irons is a really good side-kick. I thought they gave a pretty fair appraisal of the game too. Clearly supportive of Motherwell but not biased to the levels I've heard some club commentators.

There's an obvious relief about getting off the mark, but one point from nine with the set of fixtures we were given. It isn't good enough is it? It just feels so disjointed at the moment. A bit of a makeshift defence. A midfield that feels like it has yet to properly click, on the wings at least, and nothing too much to get excited about in front of goal. It looked a bit like a square pegs line up again with either a central midfielder out wide if we were playing 4-4-2 or as it turned out a striker wide with the 4-3-3. But getting in front you thought, right here we go. We've got the lead, should have a little more confidence to go about our business and what do we do but immediately give another stupid penalty away. Credit to them for digging in a bit when Livi had the momentum after their equaliser to manage to get ahead again but it felt inevitable that they would equalise sooner or later in the second half. Not good enough to go and kill them off and not good enough to kill the game and see it out. Just waiting for it coming. Much improvement required.

Your thoughts and votes please...

Your choices then for Dundee Utd: 1: Carson 2: O'Hara 3: Campbell/Gallagher Which gives a total after Game 2: Trevor Carson 4pts (1 MOTM) Sherwin Seedorf 3pts (1 MOTM) Nathan McGinley 2pts Mark O'Hara 2pts Allan Campbell 1pt Declan Gallagher 1pt

Fair enough. As per reply to Shaka I wasn't actually sure what cover there was to consider doing as you suggested. But as your regards point about no youngster to promote, you surely aren't expecting a first team ready youngster to be on hand for every position if by some quirk, like the left-back position now, there are four players for that position unavailable, are you? With the best will in the world not everyone is going to make it to the first team from the youth side and not all of those who do are necessarily going to be in a position you might find yourself short on.

Cheers. I'm not as familiar with all of the youngsters on the fringes of the first team as I could be. Believe Devine and Hussain are more central but wasn't sure about full-back cover.

Which youngster?

You're right. I'd been looking at the stage where other teams came into the competition and it went from 3rd Qualifying to Groups and I'd wrongly assumed that was the Play Off. The Play Off stage of course still has to be populated by the Champions League drop downs hence there's no teams showing.

All of which perfectly reinforces the intended point that you can put anything in whatever context the writer seeks to present. That the picking and choosing of applicable points negative or positive can be done subjectively to suite whatever context and argument you wish to build. Thank you for further illustrating that. And you're right of course I wouldn't for a second put last season's team in the same bracket as the 93'94 side. That was never the point as I'm sure you were fully aware.

Been all over social media this morning following Robinson's press conference.

The 3rd qualifying round is the play-off stage.

Prelim > 1st Qual > 2nd Qual > 3rd Qual > Group Stage.

Glentoran certainly has the potential to be awkward. I'm quite happy we have been drawn out first. Under normal circumstances the prospect of a trip to Belfast with 1000 odd 'Well fans would be one to look forward to. Current times I'm happy enough at being drawn at home. If they're fast though there should be some useful footage easy to hand on them which should be of help. They were on BBC NI on Friday night in the Irish Cup Final and I think the Semi-Final might well have been on a few days before that too. I can't agree though that it doesn't hold any excitement given the potential for what lies ahead if we can overcome either or the two.

It's a true achievement because we actually accrued more points than any other team and that got us to third place. We took 4 points from 6 in the games before the and were denied the opportunity to extend our lead in third place over the team in fourth when the league was stopped. The supposition that we would have dropped out of the top six is no more or less valid than the supposition that we might have tonked Aberdeen 3-0 again and ended up eight points clear in third by the end of the season. Again it comes back to whatever context you want to place it in.

Settle yourself in your favourite chair and enjoy.... https://kassiesa.net/uefa/ .... and if you're anything like me by the time you've digested it all our European campaign may well have come and gone!

I don't know about that. You can surely attempt to put anything in whatever context you wish, but that doesn't necessarily mean a negative or positive viewpoint hasn't been applied to the context. You mention Tommy McLean. When was the last time you heard someone put that 93'94 third place finish in the context of Celtic being at their lowest ebb for about 40 years. Or that both Hibs and Hearts were having budget cuts because they were in the midst of ground reconstruction? Is that not putting that in context too? It is, but it's just applying the context really negatively. The same as someone dubious of Robinson might suggest that there is little worth attached to the achievement of finishing third in the table because that particular season they only happened to be marginally less bad than another nine teams what was a poor standard of league, Just the same as someone more supportive of Robinson may put a third place finish in the context of that team having the second or third lowest budget in the league and achieving beyond the expectation level.

Not ideal preparation losing both McGinley and Donnelly. I don't think he was especially culpable today but whilst I'm not overly convinced about Donnelly at centre-half I think I'd still have a shade more confidence in him than Bevis. You know the opposition centre forward will get rattled by Donnelly for one thing and he's no stranger to starting moves from deep. But anyway... Happy enough seeing Hastie given another opportunity but if you were trying to revert to type from last season then perhaps Hylton should have got the nod over Seedorf, with us retaining him to potentially replicate his impact from the bench again. I thought the first half was a continuation of Monday night's second forty-five. The better team. Loads of possession. Just not doing anything nearly enough with it and the few chances that were created were spurned. Unfortunately Hastie again didn't really show much and a change at that stage was reasonable at the break in the hope we could push on a bit in the second half. But I don't really know where this Watt on the left wing has come from. I just don't see it. I don't think it a coincidence that when he was in the box he got one of our few close things. Ok, Hylton isn't everyone's cup of tea but he's got the odd goal from there, got a few assists too. I don't see what we gain from playing a penalty box striker wide when that option is available. The lack of use of Polworth too was a puzzler. I said after Monday as a starting point I think it's an ask to squeeze both Turnbull and Polworth in without them trying to do the same job but to have him go from getting a full ninety minutes on Monday to not being used when you are crying out for people to make that defence splitting pass is again quite baffling. And as for the apparent step up in quality of deliveries we were going to get after the responsibilities were removed from him.... But going back to Watt though I do think he has to accept more than his fair share of blame for the goal. Did the hard bit by taking possession, working himself to gain an extra bit of space for the clearance then messed up the easy part with a really weak ball right to a Dundee Utd player. A decent ball across goal later... But the second half in general was just really poor. Lots of huffing and puffing with very little in the way of inspiration. Utd were pretty comfortable. Need to see White's "goal"again. Didn't appear to be too much in it at first glance. We'll see. You desperately hope we can get a win against Livi in midweek as the prospect of going to Easter Road looks fairly daunting at the current time given the respective starts.

Ha ha. You've had that typed up and ready post since about February!

Your thoughts and votes please...

I'll try and keep on top of this and actually count up who folk voted for. So after Game 1: Sherwin Seedorf 3pts (1 MOTM) Nathan McGinley 2pts Trevor Carson 1pt

They are testing the access tonight and have listed an email address tvsupport@motherwellfc.co.uk for anyone with issues. Might be worth giving them an email and seeing if they can point you in the right direction.

Time to get three points on the board...

First of all on a forum level, albeit its almost all down to the fact none of us can get to games at the moment, its quite nice to see a match thread almost hit double figures in pages again. Just like old times! Remember your friendly forum will still be here for your pre and post match rants when we can get back inside grounds again! As for the game itself it was one of those losses that really rankle because so much of it was self-inflicted. Daft challenge for the penalty, abysmal attempt to convert ours and passing up a couple of decent opportunities when they came our way. Robinson said as much himself but we're marking time a little until we get to the end of the transfer window. Whether it's Campbell or Turnbull or whoever the breadth of choices in midfield suggest we are future proofing for a sale. That being the case there was always going to be a decision to be made as to the make up of that midfield. It looked like Robinson fudged the issue to an extent to begin with and concocted a somewhat curious looking midfield to start with. What I would say is that playing David Turnbull on the left-wing didn't cost us the game, but we certainly weren't as effective as we might have been in that opening half. I don't quite agree with the suggestion that we are resigned to playing 4-3-3 because we have no other options but it is a formation that helped us do pretty well and if we are going to use it, it makes sense to use players in the roles they are most effective, most suited to it and that brings the necessary balance within it. If that means Polworth (whom I really rate and were it not for having Turnbull around would have starting most weeks) has to bide his time so be it. If it means one of O'Hara or Donnelly are benched then again so be it. The penalty you could see coming. Difficult to contest. From then on in I thought we gradually took control of the game but it was particularly painful viewing in the first half as they sat back, let us pass the ball around for a couple of minutes at a time until it wound its way to Grimmy and he fucked it out the park. The anticipated and obvious change came at the break and the balance got a lot better. We just didn't create many chances from our territorial dominance and missed the opportunities that did come. I felt a bit sorry for Lang. Foul in the opposition half. Cover behind him. It seemed harsh. Assuming we do start with a genuine winger against Dundee Utd I presume that will be Hylton and I hope in Lang's absence he can look as similarly revitalised as Seedorf did in his cameo. McGinley showed a good bit more last night than what we saw in the Rangers friendly and a "new" defence that included Lamie and the returned Carson and was only beaten by a penalty gives us something to build on. All in all not especially great but that it was really through us shooting ourselves in the foot that prevented us coming home with a point gives a modicum of comfort at this point in time. You would not want to go very much longer before we register that all important first win however.

Your thoughts and votes please...

Since my evil moderating powers extend to seeing a bit of info concerning where you post from I should immediately remove myself from the guessing game... I will however join those in congratulating you on your fine taste in Scottish football clubs and welcome you to the boards.