Ya Bezzer!

Impossible. His Twitter is shite.

A wins a win but today was pretty laboured against a team three leagues below us. Berwick never really threatened us and parked the bus but they did it fairly well and perhaps we could take some tips from them about defending. Overall Moult was kept quiet and we struggled to create much in the way of chances for much of the match. In the latter stages Berwick tired as you'd expect and they started sitting even deeper. This allowed us to start getting a few decent crosses into the box which is where our goal came from but it was pretty basic stuff. You'd have expected more from all our forward going players today. Newell came on and showed a little bit of movement, Fisher was anonymous though. Frear scored the goal again you expect a Premiership level winger to doing more against part time defenders. He's got the ability to beat players but too often his final ball is poor. Very difficult to judge the team on these league cup matches as we've been handed a pretty weak draw. We've had virtually no defending to do over the four matches but I can see problems from diagonal balls being played into the space between Tait and Kipre. Look out for that. Still big question marks over players like Dunne, Fisher, Tanner, Rose, Carson etc. We'll almost certainly learn more next week than we will have over the last month.

Had most of the ball but as the game has gone on we've looked increasingly desperate and sloppy. Can only remember one save from the Berwick keeper. Berwick are well organized and have defended pretty well up to now and can't break them down. Getting nothing from the right today, need more from Tait and Tanner. Frear has been more involved but his final ball hasn't been good enough. Cadden doesn't seem to know what do when a team in sitting deep and there is no space to run into. He's been ineffective playing behind the strikers.

Looked like a facial injury - perhaps a trip to the dentist!

Will surely be 3 at the back with Tait playing right midfield and Cadden and Tanner supporting the striker.

I think making wholesale changes is a pretty stupid idea. First of all it weakens the team, secondly I think it has a psychological effect on players performance in the sense that you are giving out the idea that it is an 'easy' game or that it doesn't matter much. It's also not fair on younger or less experienced players who aren't getting the same level of support that arguably they need more than established first team players. If you want to introduce other players you should be playing your strongest XI with maybe 2 or at a stretch 3 alternated in or out. Once you start making 4, 5, 6 changes I think you are not even really learning much about the players you are putting out there.

The structure of the league hasn't changed much in 40 years in which time we've brought through a list of youth players as long as your arm, in fact, the major change over that time has been to go from a top league of 10 with 2 relegated to a top league of 12 with 1 relegated. It's simply a matter of priority. If we hadn't brought through guys like Ally Maxwell, Dougie Arnott, Phil O'Donnell, Chris McCart, Jim Griffin etc when the standard of the league was much higher and staying in the league was much tougher our last cup win would be on the very edge of living memory. The strategy is just all wrong when we release Dylan Mackin while paying out the second year of a contract to Jacob Blyth to be our fourth choice striker. That just doesn't make sense either in youth development or from a financial point of view. As for Zak Jules - the mistakes he made in a Motherwell shirt were purely negative. If they had been made by a youth player we might actually have got some benefit out of them in the long run.

Season 2017-18 Former players plying their trade in the Scottish Leagues Carswell, Stuart - Dumbarton Clarkson, David - St. Mirren Chalmers, Joe - Inverness Caledonian Thistle Cummins, Adam - Queens Park Currie, Max - Stranraer Ewings, Jamie - Dumbarton Fitzpatrick, Marc - Airdrieonians Forbes, Ross - Morton Hateley, Tom - Dundee Hetherington, Steven - Alloa Athletic Higginbotham, Kallum - Dunfermline Athletic Higgins, Chris - Ayr United Lawless, Steven - Partick McDonald, Scott - Dundee United McHugh, Bob - Morton Mackin, Dylan - Livingston Martin, Alan - Queen of the South Mensing, Simon - Forfar Athletic Moore, Craig - Ayr United Murray, Euan - Raith Rovers Neill, Morgyn - Stranraer O'Brien, Jim - Ross County Page, Johnny - East Fife Reid, Craig - Ayr United Reynolds, Mark - Aberdeen Samson, Craig - St. Mirren Smith, Darren Lee - Stirling Albion Smith, Graeme - Brechin City Stewart, Ross - St. Mirren Sutton, John - St. Mirren Thomas, Dom - Kilmarnock

McHugh was a class apart today.

I try to give as balanced a view as possible. Seems like you are the one only seeing the negative. Didn't read the bit about liking the look of Tanner? Or me saying McHugh has the potential to be one of the best midfielders in the league? Or the positive contribution of Bigirimana? But I don't mind. Steam right in with your reading comprehension issues if you like. I'm all about discourse.

I've been told by someone at the club that the strategy is definitely to move Heneghan on.

A very low key match that was almost too easy for us. Morton, I thought, were abject. However you can only beat what's in front of you and we did that convincingly. Just a few thoughts on the new look side. I like how Carson looks to distribute the ball from hand as quickly as possible but you suspect if Samson had completely missed a cross, as Carson has in both games now, there wouldn't be a jovial 'swing on the bar' chant. Defensively we've not really been tested especially today with Morton offering next to nothing but I just have a creeping fear about the back four. Kipre is good on the ball but unfortunately that's about 10% of defending and I just feel that there are errors in his game. Dunne also looks like better opponents could perhaps take advantage of careless play from him and we know all about Heneghan. I suspect this is going to be the weak part of our game this season. In central midfield we look like we have a good pair in Bigirimana and McHugh. Both look good but I thought McHugh was tremendous today and if he can keep that level of performance up, and last season seems to suggest he might, he can be one of the best midfielders in the division. Bigirimana looks energetic and quick thinking too with decent ability. If we can keep both fit then it should be a definite improvement on last season and a strong central part of the 'spine'. I also like the look of Tanner. On what we've seen he perhaps doesn't have the technical ability of Henrik Ojamaa (Mk I anyway!) but I think he can play a very similar role cutting in from wider positions into the middle. Something we lacked dreadfully last season was midfielders getting into the box and being offensive minded and on that note it's good to see Cadden getting another goal and attacking those central areas of the 18 yard box. When you have midfielders doing that it makes it much, much harder for the team defending and it's something we need to keep doing, although it should be noted that Cadden did well in the league cup group stages last season before he reverted to type and his form dropped off in the league. It's something he needs to really work on and hopefully he can go some way in the coming season. On a less positive note I have to bring up Elliott Frear. There's that much thrown up "7 assists" stat but I remain to be convinced by him, both last season and from what I've seen this season. In all three matches I've watched so far this term Frear has really been a very peripheral figure who has contributed very little. RIght now he's the player that needs to up his game the most out of what looks like the starting XI. Up front Bowman looked more like the Bowman from last season than last week. He gives you a lot of effort but considering how dominate we were in the match he never really looked like scoring. Fisher hasn't really impressed me either which leaves us with Louis Moult. Another fantastic free kick from a class act. If Moult does leave before the window I hope we have a good quality replacement lined up otherwise we might be lacking in that department. Overall a decent display against poor opposition but it's one of those one's where you aren't sure how good we really were because the opposition was dead in the water after a couple of minutes.

In what little I've seen of him he seems a lot more comfortable on the ball than off it. Probably most of what makes defenders good defenders is off the ball, reading the game, positioning, communication, holding a line, discipline, awareness etc. Like the rest of the team we'll only be able to judge when they play better quality opposition when the league season starts. Morton will be a step up but still below Premiership level.

Morton supporting mate says they were poor against Queens Park and if they play like that "you should batter us".

Ciftci is a difficult character and a big risk. In terms of ability he's a big step up from what we've got but it's one of those one's where it's either going to be a master stroke or a disaster.

I agree and disagree. I agree we should have enough to see off Morton. They finished the season pretty poorly last term and it doesn't look to have improved looking at the results so far. They tend to raise their game against bigger teams so I'm sure we'll see that but we should definitely be looking for a home win at Fir Park. Disagree that we were miles better than Queens Park. We were fitter and saw them off in the end but I didn't think we were exactly convincing for the first 60 minutes or so and I doubt Morton will drop off to the extent Queens Park did in the latter stages so we are going to have to out perform them and not rely on a stamina game.

Word for word what I was thinking.

Will be interesting to see where McDonald ends up but it certainly won't be back at Motherwell. Was just looking through the squads at the weekend and noticed Kilmarnock currently have one striker - Kris Boyd. You'd imagine other teams in the league are on the look out for a striker too- Ross County, Dundee....and outwith the league but still in Scotland, Dundee Utd.

Didn't think any of the starting XI deserved it. Went for Bowman, came on, got two goals and finished them well.

Overall the score flattered us but you have to say we were pretty clinical at taking our chances and Bowman took his goals well. QP were blowing out their arses in the last 20 25 minutes and we dominated and got the goals later in the game but for the first 60 minutes it wasn't like that and we didn't look very robust when the opposition was on the ball. Step up in quality next week, we'll see how we fare then.

Well I was right about set pieces. Cummins isn't a good defender but he is actually good at winning headers at corners and free kicks. We look sluggish but the worst thing has been our final ball which has been dreadful. Must have played 6 long balls out to the left hand corner with no one there.

3pm

If Louis Moult is the whore, Motherwell FC is the pimp. We'll be desperate to get him out the door before the window closes, along with the opportunity of any chance of cash. Absolutely no doubt we'll be using every media contact in the book to make sure the whole world knows he's available.

I go along and watch Queens Park if Motherwell aren't playing and the last time I was there I saw them beat Morton 2-0 fairly comfortably however I don't think they will be at full strength as they are rebuilding their squad especially in midfield and forward positions. David Galt isn't a bad player and he can hit them from distance so I'd definitely suggest we don't let him get space around the 25 yards range. We will need to concentrate at set pieces as well as they have a few players that aren't bad in the air. This is a game we should be winning though so I want to see us keeping the ball on the grass, passing and moving and using the width of the Hampden pitch. If we are professional there shouldn't be any problems but if we slack off then it might be an uncomfortable afternoon. Slightly worried where the goals are going to come from.

Yes, which is why some valuations around here are not realistic. Also why I think it might not be worth selling him and just allowing him to leave next season. I think it will be a close run thing between what we can get for him and what's he's worth to us over a season.