joewarkfanclub

Went into a slide tackle in the 2nd half, got up holding his hammy. Walked off, so hopefully a strain rather than a pull.

Thoroughly enjoyed that last night. Really entertaining game of football despite the conditions at the end. Thought we were excellent, first half especially, and even played some nice football throught the midfield (I knew we could do it!) Mugabi was fantastic first half and Watts goal is a thing of beauty. Dare I say, Moultesque! He is without doubt the most important player in our team and we should be doing everything possible to keep him. Id be really disappointed if he were to leave now, as thats the 2nd time he has done the "Im staying" goal celebration in front of the East Stand. I understand that money talks, but he seems really happy at Fir Park and is sending out the right signals. I thought Kelly and the back 4 were pretty solid all night and it wasnt until the sending off and the absolutely atrocious conditions at the end that we looked under any pressure at the back. Goss had his best game so far and both he and Slattery showed that we actually have a couple of decent footballers in midfield. Up top KVV played well, but I thought his decision making in front of goal 2nd half let him down a little. But the conditions were terrible so I can cut him some slack there. Woolery was my MOTM though. Thats his best game for us and he finally displayed what Alexander gave as the reason for signing him. Absolutely unplayable and with an end product as well. Hopefully he can keep that up. Armchair football is the way ahead!

Telt ye!

Home tie against lower league opposition. If we cant win this tie, we dont deserve to be dreaming of winning a trophy. Not to say we will win. But good teams take care of business. Hopefully we can strengthen in the window and banish our inconsistencies.

Game live on Sky. Might save myself the diesel, another night of eye bleeding football and cursing myself all the way down the road for being stupid enough for believing we cant be as bad 2 games in a row. So we will probably win now!

Missed the first 20 mins and my stream went down for most of the 2nd half, but saw enough to know it was our poor incarnation that turned up. It absolutely baffles me how a team can look so great one week and an absolute shambles the next. Albeit before the good performance, there was plenty evidence of our frailty. Even allowing for Goss dropping out for Grimshaw, the drop off in performance was ridiculous. Its pointless even trying to comment on formation or tactics when the mental side of the game just wasnt there. Alexander looked absolutely raging after the game, and rightly so. Hopefully he can get some sort of reaction before Tuesday. But like he said in his post match, it shouldnt take a performance like that to get a reaction.

Yup. They are going to suffer like we did when we got to the League Cup Final. Fixture carnage. Although I dont think they are going to have Celtic 3 times in 8 days!

Its hard to know how this one is gonna play out. I guess it all depends on what Motherwell turns up. That might depend on team selection given there will be players returning from injury and suspension. If I was GA, Id be tempted to go same again. I think the performance level v Hearts was arguably our best of the season, so nobody could have any complaints if he chose to do so. Challenge those players to go and repeat the performance and get the consistency we need if we are genuinely going to challenge for top 6. If they cant, then we can always freshen it up second half.

They way the european leagues are set up now and our current co-efficient, its perfectly possible for a team like ourselves to qualify for a group stage. I wouldnt call that pointless, and financially it could be quite lucrative. Obviously Id be happier if we qualifued by winning the cup, but keeping in good form throughout the season would certainly assist with that particular dream.

No failures today and lots of notable mentions. Goss had probably his best game for us so far and Maguire, Woolery and Shields all contributed really well. Lamie was solid at the back and took his goal well. However, the standout today for me was big Bevis. The guy is a total unit at the back and his marauding runs up the right hand side are something to behold.

Had a long think tonight before deciding how to respond to what was an incredibly satisfying performance and result. Without going over the top, I thought the first half was more "effective football" than top class entertainment. We smothered Hearts and prevented them from playing with our intensity and workrate, without being particularly easy on the eye. We limited them to very few real chances and defended very well whenever it looked like they were going to open us up. We deserved to go in at half time in the lead purely down to our endeavour and the goal itself was probably the best bit of football we played all half. 2nd half we played a lot more football through the midfield and it was really enjoyable to see. Getting the 2nd goal and having the extra man allowed everyone to relax and it was really nice to see that we can actually play a bit when we choose to. A really good day at the office. If Alexander and the players can continue to get the mix right between playing effective winning football and entertaimment, then there wont be many complaints on here or down Fir Park way.

Collum in charge. Might as well all go home now! No way we finish this with 11 men on the park. GA will be in the stand too!

After a magnificent week watching the national team play silky free flowing attacking football, its back to the weekly grind of club football! Just hope SOD can use the experience to drag all those around them up to his level rather than the other way around! Hopefully he will have some encouraging words for Liam Kelly and Tony Watt to pass on from Steve Clarke. The more internationals we can get in the team the better!

I hadnt realised at the time that he actually gets a touch on it before it hits the post. It was a good enough save already but a triple save is quite phenomenal.

We were knocking it about like Aberdeen and couldnt buy a win. Funny old game innit!

KVV. Did what a striker is paid to do. Shows what might be possible if we had more possession of the ball and put in more deliveries like that.

First of all, great 3 points. Most welcome. Our points total and league position cant be argued with and quite rightly make the manager bomb proof. But there is no getting away from how unenjoyable it is to watch. We are going over old ground, but it will only be suffered as a stop gap while we are maintaining our league position. If he doesnt think our current midfield is capable of playing more football than we are, fair enough. I would disagree with that, but can suffer it until he can sign better players. However, if this is the way we are going to play for the duration of his tenure, I may have to find something more enjoyable to do on a Saturday afternoon.

Which pretty much answers the McGinley/Carroll, O'Donnell/Mugabi argument.

That was a great game! Abercrombie was incandescent with rage!

Im hoping the "lessons learned" means that we press and defend from the front. That way we might not have to defend our own box so much as we will have more of the ball winning it higher up the field.

This. Its not rocket science.

He was some goalkeeper as well!

The difference with McLeans teams were that he was bringing us up from the old First Division and had to play a certain way to keep us in the league. His teams were always set up first and foremost to be hard to beat, and sometimes it wasnt pretty, but over time that changed. The team that finished 3rd and nearly won the league were great to watch. Of course that was pre Bosman so you didnt have the same turnover of players every season and building a team over time was still a thing you could do. We all have to accept that, whether we like our current style of play or not, GA has us sitting comfortably mid table and unless that changes he is not going anywhere. That said, Im not sure any of Wee Tommys teams gave away 65% possession of the ball to St Mirren at home. He would have went ballistic!

So who would you play?

I have absolutely no issues with us parking the bus and grinding out results against teams that are better than us. But we shouldnt be doing it against the majority of teams in our league, especially at home. I dont think you can compare the way we are playing now to the way we played at the start of Robinsons tenure. That was a very physical up and at em high press. It maybe wasnt pretty at times but the swashbuckling nature of it still had the fans pretty excited by the sheer effort and determination to win. It wasnt until Moult left and we got some injuries and form dropped off and we could no longer be effective playing that way that the fans turned. Thats where Alexander is now. Its up to him how he wants to turn it around.