Ya Bezzer!

The worst thing that can happen today is we risk injured players just to put a team out.

On Sky Bet right now it's 8.5 for a straight win and 67 for 3-1. You can get 3-0, 3-1 or 3-2 for 34.

Don't think Top 6 is on the cards. Partick will probably be the best of the rest. Our main concern should be getting enough points to avoid the bottom two places. 40 points ought to do it so that should be the target, 13 to go. If we could get 3 home wins up to the split that would go a long way to doing that.

Boyd held up two fingers (not the v kind) and smiled at the crowd. That's what the supporters reacted to. At the time I didn't know what it was about but that's obvious what it was.

Carl McHugh

Pretty much. Hammell and Lasley went off because we had to change the shape, not because they were having stinkers. If players were subbed on performance Heneghan and Jules would have been off.

Like I said at half time we started the match the better team and pressed Killie back for the first 15 - 20 minutes. We didn't really have a lot of threat though. When Kilmarnock came forward they looked more dangerous as our two centre halves were getting knocked around every time by Sammon and Boyd. After 20 minutes Kilmarnock came more into the game, they'd already cracked one off the bar before they scored. A very poor goal from our point of view, defenders just weren't physical enough. After the goal Kilmarnock dominated up until half time and probably should have gone in more than 1-0 up. We looked in a sorry state at that point and not much different from against Dundee when the heads went down. The difference though was it was only 1-0 at HT and Kilmarnock didn't take their chances. Second half changes made a big difference. That said you couldn't see us scoring too many from open play (can only really remember one chance when McDonald hit one from 18 yards and the keeper saved it low to his left) but Kilmarnock defended poorly from set pieces and were made to pay for it. As you'd expect in the later stages we got deeper and deeper and Kilmarnock rallied and they had us camped in our own box for most of the last 10-15 minutes. Samson has made a tremendous save from Gary Dicker fired in from 20 yards that looked a goal all the way. Penalty, I couldn't say for sure if it was or wasn't. Looked like the Kilmarnock player went down kinda easy but very difficult to say if there was any contact from the opposite end of the ground. Overall I'd say the performance wasn't any thing radically different from what we've seen this season. We had good spells but didn't ever dominate the match, we looked shaky in defence and lost a soft goal, and when we went 0-1 down our heads went down and we looked to be struggling for confidence. The difference was we had a bit of luck that we've not had recently. Couple off the wood work for Killie that on another day go in, the missed penalty, a couple of scrappy goals where the ball falls for us ping ponging around the box, something that hasn't been happening for us. If Kilmarnock had got a second in the first half which they looked like they were going to get today would probably been a lot different but they didn't and we made some good changes at half time and managed to pull 3 points out it.

Changed to 3-5-2 at half time and looked much better for it. Killie still had us pressed back for spells but we didn't look like we were going to concede every time they swung a ball in. McDonald went back into midfield and fought like a trooper. Though Bowman and Frear made a difference too, Bowman gave us a target man to aim at and Frear gave us something down the left. Two of the crappiest, scrappiest goals you'll ever see but we'll take them! In truth we were lucky to win the match but we got some luck that has been deserting us recently. Hopefully the confidence goes up and we can build on this result.

Started the game quite well but Kilmarnock always looked like they had more cutting edge. When they scored, another soft as fuck goal, our whole team just fell flat. They look beaten at 0-1 with 45 minutes to go. Sammon and Boyd have bullied Heneghan and Jules, we can't win a header in our own box. Frankly our defenders are cissies.

Pearson scored 7 goals from midfield last season. If we'd had someone score 7 goals from midfield this season we'd be in a hell of a lot better position. The entire squad minus Moult and McDonald has scored 8 goals this season and one of them was a free kick by the assistant manager. Asking him back was hardly desperate. When any other midfield player we have available plays at international and champions league level maybe I'll change my mind about his qualities.

If you are conceding keeping it tight you'll never score enough goals to win going all out attack. Partick Thistle have kept 6 clean sheets in their last 9 matches and conceded only 4 goals. Guess what, they have 5 wins, 2 draws and 2 defeats. Whoever comes in has to get us defending better or that's it.

Of course. Silly of me to judge a player beyond the last 3 games. By the way, he scored in one of them.

Laing was garbage. End of story. You think if he was any good he'd have been about 5th choice centre back in this team? Kennedy, Hall, Heneghan, McManus were all plainly better options. Nobody is picking on poor old Louis, he just wasn't good enough. Anyway, congrats at getting a gig at the only club below us in the league.

I'm sure I've heard Coyle say in the past he wasn't interested in managing in Scotland and he was settled in England. Of course now his career is on the slid it might be different. Good player but I don't have a good feeling about him as a manager. I don't think he'd be interested any way.

The only thing that will save us going down in the next couple of years is a wave of talent coming out the youth set up. We can't bring in Top 6 level players any more in wages or fees, baring the occasional jewel (say Moult besides, well most of the rest). Hibs average attendances have increased by more than our entire support since their cup win. Baring calamitous management the Top six next year, and for the foreseeable future, will be Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen. Even if you look at Hibs this season it's clear that money talks. They have a midfield of McGinn, Fyvie, McGeouch, Shinnie, Boyle, Humphrey and had Commons in on loan for a spell. Compare and contrast with our midfield options. A financial gap has clearly opened up between the 10,000+ clubs and the others and that leaves 6 non city clubs battling to avoid the bottom two spots, over any length of time it's almost inevitable we'll go down. I don't want to be relegated but I don't see it as cataclysmic. If we failed to get promotion in the first season, it would probably mean a new chapter in the clubs history, but as a supporter I don't think it would necessarily be a bad one. In terms of attracting fans, Dunfermline and Falkirk do much better than we do in a lower division because, I'd imagine supporters feel their club can compete and their clubs are moving forward. On the other hand we struggle and our receding support looks nervously over our shoulder at some terrifying black hole of relegation. Our last three managers have now struggled and you have to at some point accept that we just aren't equipped any more to compete at this level outside the relegation zone. I know that will be a bitter pill for some to swallow, especially for some younger fans, who have only ever known a relatively competitive and success Motherwell team. Older fans will remember a similar situation back in the Eighties when the top spots in the league were sewn up year after year and for Motherwell it was rather grim relegation battles, enlightened with promotion successes. I think we are going back to that sort of hierarchy in Scottish football. That's the sort of challenge who ever we bring in is going to be up against and as a support I think we have to recognise that as well.

I think you are right about McHugh going to centre back but for me Pearson should be playing in the centre of midfield, he's far and away the best midfielder we have. Put Campbell in there with him, he did well at Accies on a plastic pitch and provides a pair of younger legs. Lasley can come on if Campbell struggles or we need a bit of experience later in the match. Frear and Cadden play wide, with Ainsworth on stand by. Front two pick themselves.

He didn't spend a penny when in charge of Scotland. We'd take a 70% win rate, right? But like I said, he wouldn't come near the place now.

Prepare to be amazed.

There won't be any great upswing in form whatever happens because unless we have a first XI out, which we've hardly been able to do this season, we just aren't good enough, we are a bottom 4 side. And that's that. So I'm sorry but I'm afraid a team with Clay, Chalmers, McMillan, Jules, Lucas etc are going to do any better than that. Basically our fate will depend on getting injured and suspended players back and hoping second string players can find some balls when the pressure is on. Robinson won't turn anything around, the only real question is 'Has McGhee completely lost the players?'. We'll find out next week. If we don't get a result it will surely be the end for him. If we can, I'd stick with him barring any more disasters of the scale of Saturday over Robinson being in charge. Until then I'd hope we can support at least the team and refrain from dimwit activism that causes more problems than it solves. We aren't lost yet, we aren't even in a relegation position at the moment and we could still achieve a reasonable league position come May. A win at Rugby Park puts us right back where, if you are being realistic, is about where we should be. Of course if we were to lose that is a different matter.

I literally jumped for joy when he left for Hibs but it was his first job and he's clearly done a good job else where since then. The incredulity of suggesting McLeish should be that he wouldn't touch the job with a barge pole.

It would achieve things. Things like making it even harder for the team to win a home match and generating even less turn over than we currently survive on.

8 out of 26 matches we have lost 3 goals or more. 15 out of 26 matches we have lost 2 goals. Our best two players by a mile are the front two. Everyone else needs to take a long, hard look at themselves. We're probably the worst passers in the league. I'm saying there is a connection between losing possession and losing goals.

If you paid with a credit card you might still be able to get your money back.

The funny thing about looking at St. Johnstone, considering some of the recent criticism of McGhee, is that Tommy Wright is probably the most defensive minded manager in the league. St. Johnstone don't play attacking, flair football, they churn out results.

After today I'm pretty sure he's the worst player I've ever seen. Didn't think he could do worse than when Morton ran him ragged but there you go, he has.