Malky79

It is a feeling. For one thing his bad decisions in our matches only seem to go one way. Sure he has probably given us a few free kicks or decisions that were soft down to basic mistakes but when I watch games he is in charge of involving us I see the same thing time and again. Bad, nigh on inexplicable decisions against us. Last night we had three, although linesman is more culpable for one of them. It isn't that important in the end whether he deliberately out to stick the knife in or whether he makes continual calamitous errors. I only wish to see him never ref at the top level again. As to why, who can say. Maybe deep down he is a bitter fan of another club and holds an axe to grind over some perceived injustice, someone at the club slighted him, maybe he gets a thrill out of fucking us over after fan reaction from the Jennings game. Who can say except the man himself and I doubt he'd ever admit to any such bias. Like I say it not that important but one way or another he should never referee at the top level again, corrupt or out of his depth in the extreme.

Had time to reflect. No hiding we have some defensive problems just now. Forget the last goal the game was gone but the first goal was slack and the situation for the first penalty award saw us badly exposed. Defence been chopped and changed to often, usually forced I accept but between that and less protection from the midfield than last season we are fragile at the back. However 3 huge decisions in one game are enough to sink most teams. We played not to badly for most of the game last night, created chances and on another night could have been in the driving seat long before the officials stuck the knife in. I honestly believe O'Reilly has it in for us, man should be sacked. A normally reliable source assures me he has given 10 penalties against us in 9 games starting from the Jennings game. That decision itself was so bad it looked corrupt, at the very least any official in the stand marking his performance last night should be making sure he is swiftly demoted. We also need goals to come from someone other than Higdon, a fine line between hero and villain and last night missing the pen and another earlier chance proved costly. Wouldn't dream of dropping him I know another he will get back in the goals, but he needs Murphy, Ojamma, Law and Humphrey chipping in. This league is pretty tight. I don't think any of our rivals for 2nd place really have the quality and depth of squad to run away with it but we need to dust ourselves down and pick up a couple of wins soon to make sure we don't fall away. With a good few contracts due to run down I'll be concerned a good opportunity to finish in europe again might slip away by January and board might feel need to cash in on fairly poor deals for us to cover shortfall in revenue.

I'd fire in the £300 one if I was a first team member of a few seasons standing, decent gesture that not gonna go unappreciated by fans.

They would all be up there for me as contenders, at least the first one to see if the knock on effect of us not losing momentum would have seen the h**s choke. I'm not as confident they would have but what I'd have given to find out. However given the if's and buts around that I'd have to go with the cup final against Celtic. Beating them to win the cup in a one off result is one I'd change. Edging out the CIS cup final loss to Rangers as it a lesser cup and that debacle a few weeks back which I genuinely maintain is the most embarassing performance/result in my Well supporting lifetime.

I hung back until the tannoy was making the abandonment official and whilst that message came over clearly enough I certainly didn't pick up on the message that season books were not valid. As has been mentioned the system is not the best, and taking into account relatively poor acoustics with a lot of people talking to each other as they leave it is far from an ideal way to get the message across. It was then much more clearly put across by the stewards that season ticket books were valid. I appreciate that the club will make the effort to sort out ticketing problems for those that were left without a ticket but I don't really understand the change in protocol for dealing with a match abandonment? I suppose the thinking is that with season ticket holders needing a MA voucher to get in then whilst there will still likely be extra tickets in circulation it should be notably less than before as approx 3000 season ticket holders in the past have been getting tickets they didn't need where as now maybe the extra tickets will be in the hundreds. I do think that such a relatively big change in procedure would have been better off communicated to fans long before the issue of an actual abandoned match took place. Circumstances of an abandoned match are slightly hectic and miscommunication and problems are not entirely unexpected. So full marks for efforts made to remedy individual problems, could do better in the execution and communication department. Least we all now know for the future what the score is. Maybe I underestimating those in charge, can't beat a bit of a cock up for getting maximum fan attention and this is how in future all communications will be exchanged?

To be fair to those running it this was a free event ran by people giving up their time in aid of a good cause where it turned out there were more people than expected. I'm quite sure if it was repeated or something similar was done in the future they'll have observed all the things that could have been better as well. Most people seemed to enjoy it.

Exactly given we only expect a small handful of these guys to make it, it should all be about developing them as players. arguably as they get closer to first team you want to see emphasis placed on the pressure to win games but it should definitely be far from first priority.

Faddy or a solid centre mid, happy with either. Get both even better. Faddy good enough to play pretty much anywhere in midfield or up front.

Seen examples of the tweets above, no real problem. It appears a standard thing for him to do applied to everyone. McCall's comments are much more annoying. I half think he maybe bigged up the Celtic support as a means of trying to make his comments after Rangers game seem less like a cloying pals act/sympathy for his former team. I can understand him having a bit of a moan about our crowds being a bit on the low side, we been having largely successful time of it and it isn't rewarded by crowds increasing. And throughout it if you happened to read messageboards you'd find from somewhere constant carping/pessimism/criticism from plenty moaners even if they aren't representative of wider support who appreciate the relative good times we had pretty consistantly under McGhee/Brown and now McCall himself. That said I believe we took a good support through for this cup tie, the only fans he should have been praising were ours and I can't think of any circumstances where he should be praising the OF hordes, that sticks in the throat. Overall point about the club having a doff the cap, know our place mentality rings true and seems to be reflected on the pitch in the last two games. Aberdeen was a decent performance let slip, the h*n game pure diabolical and not seen it but believe any improvement yesterday was marginal at best. Overall we not had a bad start but we need a performance next match to get some positivity back.

There are fans that are like that but when I think of the good Motherwell teams I've watched over the years not one has been a bunch of long ball merchants. Be it Cooper, Russell et al late 80's, cup winning team, the Krivokapic, McKinnon, Lambert team, McGhees 4-3-3 Porter, Clarkson and McCormack frontline to the current lot. Not saying I never see long balls or the occasional hopeful punt but by and large we always try to play football. Partly the reason I suspect Gannon was such managerial poison, he was blinkered to the occasional need to be more direct. Don't get me wrong I'd be happy to hear our youth development is modeled on Barca/Ajax style and we play football that keeps mindless hoofs to a minimum but I also content to see defenders clear their lines when we losing shape and in serious danger of gifting opposition a cheap goal.

Not expecting much tomorrow but I do expect a response of some sort. So expect we'll lose but not as heavily as might imagine.

On a slight side note to Page, but the comment on his ability to mark and not tackle caught my eye I recently read Soccernomics by Simon Kuper and some other dude. A lot about stats and stuff, but anyway ability to tackle is seemingly not that important in a defender(I suspect it not entirely without value, have to do it sometimes) but one of the nuggets of information in the book was that Paolo Maldini wass at one point in his career and I don't mind if it was for club/country or both making on average a single tackle in a game. It was his positioning and reading of the game that was far and away more important. As it is I happy to see Page get some games, he has at times playing for us surprised me and done alright, other days he looks a bombscare. If we are going to need him anytime soon I more than happy to see him get games elsewhere for a spell. I expect he'll leave at end of his contract also not really making an impact here.

Scott Leitch was average at best. Put his foot in well enough but gave the ball away all to easily with slack passing and horrendous hollywood types passes. All round Lasley is far better, that said a relatively prime Scott Leitch beside him would improve our midfield at the minute.

I disagree with that, both legs of Pana game we aquitted ourselves well enough. There were avoidable goals that I don't think we should have lost but on the whole we played well against a better team. Result in the away leg was worse than it looked due to the team being knackered and vulnerable late on as we possibly naively still tried to push forward whenever we could to get a goal. Home leg to Levante was I'll give you poor, away leg in itself was decent especially with some of the young lads flung together. I expected a proper doing and if the team on wednesday had shown the same character I reckon we'd be talking about a rather pleasant win rather than the clusterfuck of a performance we got.

The fact that they are built on sectsrian hatred. Ugly horrible club old and new!

I have to say I was surprised to see the same team start again. Kerr and Cummins looking a bit rocky and Hutchison also looking like he needs an older head along side him still, if Ramsden is 100% it again he should be coming back into th team. Hately had again last couple of games looked inneffectual in midfield. Kerr going forward looks not to bad and he seems a big unit, might be a bit of a gamble but I'd have been happy to see him take up role in midfield to get stuck in alongside McCulloch and put Hately back where he at least sometimes plays well. No real accounting for whether Humphrey is going to perform or not but he should have been hooked earlier. Whoever it was that said this wasn't the most gutless display they have seen, well it most gutless I can think off in about 25 years when you take into acocunt how much the fans wanted a result and the medicrity of the opposition in front of us. This is a gutted h*n team, which had lost another two of its experienced and relatively talented players(Templeton anyway) and we have a better team that completely failed to show up last night. It is right up there at the least! I blame McCall and the players both. Irrespective of what manager thinks players need to take responsibility for themselves on the park and Randolph aside everyone of them should have had a sleepless night last night. Might let Hutchinson off as well on account of blood loss.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

And mjc being right as nearly as galling. Still only right about one every 50 predictions mind.

Ffs this is a redneck.

Sandaza off after headknock. Hutchison seemingly had blood flowing, hope he not as dazed.

I not complaining about it either.

3rd goal was offside as Law was behind their keeper when previous Well player got a touch on it and with only one defender on line strictly speaking offside as far as I understand it. We were denied a stonewall pen as well but over the piece it still a decent point. Should have been 3 no doubt and can argue the toss about changes and using subss to kill game but frankly any change be it tactical or time wasting can work for you or backfire so no going to get worked up about those. It is still frustrating as hell not to see the game out but on the whole we are going great guns and every reason to be positive. So bring on wednesday there is no better game to take frustration of today out on!

With magennis at right back and considine at left we really shouldn't!

A great is maybe pushing it, but he up there among our better ones so far. Turned around a team that looked a bit bereft of confidence, got us to a cup final. Took us to 3rd in league and so far going pretty well again in the league. Pending on the manner of his leaving he'll be fondly remembered even if things end up going downhill but I think to seal that great status he needs to cross the line regards a trophy or top last seasons league campaign and put in a genuine challenge for the league. Which mad as it sounds looks at least an outside chance of happening if we win even one out of our next two games and should we win both?

Like most games all 3 are winnable and loseable. If given a choice that we were to win just one it would be the Rangers game. Lot of games left in the league to pick up points in, although I do believe going for 2nd place should be the main focus of our season. But silverware be nice and quite frankly losing to them in the 3rd div doesn't bear thinking about.