Ya Bezzer!

Just over 3,000 there tonight. Maybe if more fans turned up instead of throwing in the towel....

Abject from beginning to last. I said before the match it wouldn't be easy tonight and we'd have to work to get anything out of it, well we went out on to the park tonight and didn't lift a finger from minute 1. Firstly McGhee deserves a bit of stick tonight, I cannot understand our team line up, formation or tactics tonight but calls for the sack are ridiculous. We don't have the players to be aiming for Top 6, it's as simple as that, although McGhee could help out by putting the eleven best ones on the pitch. Overall though the squad just isn't good enough. Players tonight couldn't control simple balls, never mind pass. We constantly gave the ball away, players didn't want responsibility and hid and the hoof ball out from the back was a clear sign of our creative problems in midfield. Anyway, on tonights performance it's going to be a struggle against relegation. The goals we gave away were so simple it was almost unbelievable and we had absolutely no threat going forward whatsoever. Not a happy combination. McDonald should be a stick on ever match, why was he left out today? Moult has been streaky in the past and tonight he as poor as he was last season when he was deservedly dropped. Bowman, after a promising start against Accies has shown very little. Clay, I just don't know what he brings to the team. Lasley breaks up the play but we need something better than Clay to play beside him. Cadden has been head and shoulders our best player this season but even he looked tired swimming against the tide of the match. McManus and Hennigan were absolutely dreadful tonight. The only positive was that McMillan had a decent enough game until things started to run away from us. McLean didn't make as much impact but he should be given further chances. Overall 1 win in 9 is not good enough and tonights performance suggested that run might go on for a while. Fortunately Ross County are really struggling as well. Needs to be much, much better on Saturday.

Hopefully the fact that Inverness played at the weekend means we will have more about us in the latter stages. Aberdeen seemed to struggle against Accies after their cup match.

Yeah, Inverness have struggled for strikers in recent times but they get a lot of goals from midfield - Draper, Tansey, Vigurs, Polworth can all chip in. Meekings and Warren get their fair share too.

I read somewhere that Derek Townsley was a manager now at a English non league side.

We've not had a great start to the season but all our defeats have been against expected top 6 finishers and 3 of the 4 have been against city clubs (Rangers, Celtic, Hearts). We also have a win, a draw and a defeat from our last three home matches - it's not like we've had an especially bad run. 3 points would be more than welcome though as a few of our rivals have tough looking games midweek - Hamilton are away to Aberdeen, Ross County away to Celtic, Kilmarnock have Hearts, while Dundee are away to Partick and one or both of them will be dropping points. A wee chance to create a gap in the table.

Inverness have only lost 1 match in 7 in the league and that was an unlucky 1-0 defeat to Rangers where they missed various glaring chances. Don't think this will be an easy 3 points in the bag. We are going to have to put in a shift and work hard to get anything out of this. We are also going to have to stay switched on if we are drawing or winning. Inverness have got quite a few late goals this season....91st minute winner v St. Johnstone, 89th minute goal to get a draw off Celtic, 93rd minute equalizer against Hamilton and another late goal at the weekend.

Some interesting attendances from 1982-3. For a start there was a bigger crowd at Fir Park against Rangers (19,159) than there was at Ibrox (17,000). It was the same for the matches against Celtic. At Fir Park (17,022 but lost 7-0!), at Celtic Park (14,983). Otherwise the attendances weren't any better and sometimes were worse than today. St. Mirren (4,292) Dundee United (4,555) Kilmarnock (3,016) Dundee (3,295) Morton (3,124) Aberdeen (4,929) Hibernian (3,815) Also worth looking at the away attendances. At Pittodrie (8,000) Second top of the league and challenging for the title. At Easter Road (4,000) At Love Street (3,563) At Rugby Park (3,300)

During the SPL period clubs did ratchet the price of attending football to way over what it had been but these days I don't think you can blame the clubs too much on pricing. The banks have more or less abandoned Scottish football and many have no overdraft facilities and have to generate their own cash flow. Clubs ran on significant overdrafts for decades (look at the fees Motherwell paid for the likes of Rob McKinnon or Tommy Coyne, unimaginable now) but that just isn't possible now in the current financial climate. You have to pay to stay alive basically. The drop in quality is also something really outside our control and is directly linked to the English game. The exponential rise of wages in the English Premier and Championship is probably the greatest single blow to Scottish football in its entire history....and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.

He has been our best player this season by a considerable margin.

Don't know if it's been posted elsewhere on the site. From BBC. Motherwell manager Mark McGhee says the club are "very concerned" about midfielder Carl McHugh's head injury. McHugh, 23, has not played since sustaining a wound after coming into collision with Kilmarnock's Dean Hawkshaw on 6 August. "It is really grim," said McGhee, with the player having suffered delayed concussion. "It has not made much progress. It is just not getting better. We are doing everything we can." Republic of Ireland Under-21 cap McHugh, who has over 160 senior club appearances, joined Well in the summer from Plymouth Argyle and the win over Killie at Rugby Park was his third appearance for the Steelmen. The wound required stitches and McGhee added: "He is having a really difficult time and we are very concerned about that. "There is no time given to this injury. They don't say it will take six weeks or eight weeks, they actually say it could take six weeks, eight weeks, it could take six months, that is the nature of it and we just hope it doesn't take six months obviously. "It is a complicated and nasty condition that he has ended up with. "He is seeing a guy in Dublin actually this week to put his mind at rest." Meanwhile, McGhee confirmed defender Joe Chalmers is to have a groin operation next week and will be out for six weeks. However, midfielder Chris Cadden has recovered from a hamstring injury and could return against Celtic in Glasgow on Saturday.

Missed out that Alloa Athletic went there and lost 0-2 to two late goals with Celtic playing what was more or less a first team XI, it was only Sinclair that was rested, with Griffiths injured. No reason we shouldn't be going there to at least compete but then maybe too many of our players have similar attitudes to some of our fans who's attitude is to fully collapse after the slightest adversity.

Our crowds are down by between 500 - 1000 over the traditional numbers of the last 30 years ago. There are lots of reasons and it is no one thing. Big clubs have performed poorly in recent years and bring fewer fans, prices are high and one thing I especially worry about how many juvenile fans we retain when they have to pay full prices, there's the general economic conditions and outlook and probably far, far more people work weekends than did in 1986 or 1998. Then there is the impact of television from England and abroad and the ever falling standard of our league and the lack of competition.

Let's be honest about this, if we can't give young players a chance now when the overall standard is much lower than it was when the likes of McFadden, Lasley and Hammell broke through when will we ever do it. You can watch U20's football till the cows come home but there is only one way to find out if a player is going to make it at senior level and thats to play him at senior level. Quite frankly I have no time for all this "there not ready for senior football" balonie. They are not Under 16's, they aren't even Under 18's they are Under 20's and they are all taking a wage home from this club. A lot of those guys are 20 years old or coming up to 20 - David Ferguson, Ross McLean, Dylan Mackin, so what are we doing - spending a lot of money we don't have on some glorified youth club? There have been lots of players that have gone on to have great careers, not because managers thought they were ready, but because managers had no choice but to thrust a young player into a team due to injuries, suspensions and a whole lot of other reasons. Managers will very rarely because, understandably, they are covering there own arse. It's also worth noting that plenty youth team wonder players went on to do nothing in the senior game, while bang average youth players thrived at senior level. That's why I think you have to give EVERY player at that level a chance at the top level, not just picking out two or three chosen ones. Now I completely understand why its not always appropriate to bring on a young player, or start one, and I know we can't have more than two or three at any one time. Matches this season, right across the league, have been very tight in the bottom 8 teams say, and every manager wants to get points on the board at this stage of the season and stay away from the bottom. But I'll give you an example of when young players should be getting a chance. Hamilton Accies. After 50 minutes of the game we are 4-1 up at home and what happens? We make one substitution and its Lionel Ainsworth. For me there is really no excuse for not getting one or two young lads into that game.

Hearts beat Hamilton 3-1 and Inverness 5-1. St. Johnstone have a good core squad now like we have had in the recent past and which will gradually fade just like ours is doing now.

There has been a lot of draws this season. Dundee haven't won in 7 (and are away to Hearts next) Hamilton have one win in 8. Kilmarnock have one win in 8. Inverness have two wins in 8. Partick have one win in 7 (and a game in hand away to Celtic) Inverness have two wins in 8. These are the teams we are competing against and right now there isn't much between any of them.

This post is about 1,000 times more depressing that anything I saw last night. Some people need a serious wake up call. We are trying to run a top level professional football team in a global market on the back of 3,500 supporters. What do you expect? Silky football, squad bristling with talent, sweeping teams aside....etc. We got beat by a bigger better team last night. Man the fuck up.

Went for Heneghan. Just do not see what others do in Clay. 8 matches, 0 goals, 0 assists, consistently wants 1 or 2 seconds after his first touch that you just don't get in this league, what does he do? We lost Pearson and we've replaced him with a guy that's nowhere near the level of player that Pearson is even towards the end of his career.

With all due respect I think this line of thought is rubbish. We scored 5 against Hamilton (good goal chopped off), scored 2 against Partick (good goal chopped off) and scored 2 again tonight and had plenty chances (don't know if the chopped off goal was good or not). Our wide players are just not good enough, and that includes Johnson when he was here. Before we went with Moult, McDonald, Bowman, we'd scored 2 goals in open play from 4 matches and not won any of them. Do you remember the Dundee game? Anyone who thinks were are going to win games in midfield needs rattled on the forehead. Our biggest threat is our offensive threat and if we don't use it we'll be in trouble.

He was good in the first half when we were more compact but when the game opened up he didn't have the legs to be effective.

Better than against Partick but he's not going to win many headers against Soutar and Rossi. Bowman has to play up top.

Cadden going off was a huge blow as we now have no pace or out ball. Otherwise I thought we defended well and had the best chances to score. Not sure what happened at the goal, looked like a big deflection but the guys at home (or in the Cooper) will have a better idea. Need to change it in the 2nd half, Ainsworth surely has to come on with the lack of options we have.

Don't know if you've noticed but we don't have a midfield. Who are you going to put in there to counter Paterson and Nicholson? Chalmers is better on the ball than off it and can't defend for toffee. We are at our best when we take the game to the opposition. You can have us set up conventionally and have a Dundee level performance where we have no punch whatsoever or you can have us set up offensively and at least we'll score a goal or two. Hearts have some decent players but they aren't some terrifying juggernaut like you suggest.

We should be playing to the strengths of our squad, not Hearts.

7 goals in two games suggests it does work, even if only 5 of them counted due to inept officiating. The biggest problem against Partick was application rather than personnel or team shape. Would be disappointed if we did change it and Bowman might just be the chap to play against Levein's hammer throwers. Hearts have lost or drawn 14 out of the last 20 away league matches so I'll be disappointed if we don't pick up a point at the very least.