Ya Bezzer!

As others have said Hearts form is not great right now and they have conceded 10 goals in the last 4 matches. Jack Hamilton didn't look too clever to me for a couple of the goals against Accies. You shouldn't be losing goals at your front post and he also came out and did some juggling 15 yards out that ended up being cleared off the line. It should be noted though that only Celtic, with a late goal, have beaten Hearts at Tynecastle in the league, and I always think teams are more dangerous when they have goals all over the park which Hearts have, especially in Walker and Paterson.

Paterson for me isn't even a right back. He started off as a striker and I think he should be playing much further up the field.

Bardsley and Hutton have ruled themselves out of playing for Scotland again as far as I know. Tait has done well in my opinion although I wouldn't be considering him for international level at this point.

No surprise to see you complaining about Lasley. If he saved a child from a house fire you'd say you were disappointed he didn't get the goldfish out too. Actually Lasley was excellent yesterday, especially in the first half when we dominated the game. He ran out of gas a bit, as a 37 year old is likely to do, but there was a reason McGhee keep him on and that's because we needed his experience and battling qualities when Partick had has pressed back for periods in the 2nd half. He proved yesterday he still has a lot to offer. Yesterday was probably our best defensive performance of the season. Samson had very little of a serious nature to do yesterday despite Partick having more or less half the possession.

Most of the team did well today, Moult, Cadden, Lasley and Tait especially, but it will be a long time before we see another player as good as McDonald in a Motherwell shirt. Very good goal today too.

Before the match we had 3 pages of moaning and doom mongering, after a match we could have scored 7 or 8 goals we get about one page worth of grudging approval but even then mainly due to the opponents being so poor. No wonder 95% of the Motherwell support doesn't post here.

The Drearies will have to wait until next week to complain relentlessly because this week we played well, scored a great goal and went Top 6. I gave my opinion of the first half earlier but in summary it was an excellent performance where we could easily scored 3, 4, 5 goals. Second half was a little bit strange, Partick threw everything at us to try and get back into the game and we defended deeper and as a result the game became very stretched, it was like the last 10 minutes of the 90 from 45 minutes in. We had a couple of good chances earlier in the second half and Tait and Cadden were both unlucky not to put the points in the bag. McDonald, who was absolutely immense today, should have been greedier rather than trying to pass to Cadden and he'd probably have scored as well. Otherwise though it was about seeing out the lead. Thought we defended well throughout and I think McMillan acquitted himself well again. Ferguson had a couple of hairy moments when he got turned but overall stood up to Azeez quit well in the physical battle.

Did you get a free feather boa as well?

Only half time but an excellent and convincing performance so far - could easily be 4 5 6 up. Partick have been a shambles at the back but we've defended well up till now and pressed the ball high up the park. Might be of interest to a few pre match doom merchants that Lasley has be excellent today and the team shape has worked well. Only half time though an other 45 minutes of hard work required.

Won't Ferguson play left back, McMillan move up and Cadden play on the right? Samson Tait Heneghan McManus Ferguson Cadden Clay Lasley McMillan Moult McDonald No wonder the traffic is down on the site, the resident Drearies out already making even looking at this site an utterly depressing experience. *** WE COULD GO TOP 6 TODAY **

According to Skybet Motherwell 2.90 Partick 2.40 Don't normally beat on us but I'm tempted.....

Laing wasn't worth a place in the team at a time when we are letting goals in left, right and centre. If that's not a failure I don't know what is. Truth is Heneghan, Kennedy and Hall all showed much more than Laing who was on the end of quite a few public humiliations. Therefore I say "See you later chump."

It's poor. It's not an "absolute disaster" when a win could put us Top 6. Get some perspective. As for 'performances that went before' we've beaten Ross County 4-1 and Accies 4-2, in our last 4 home matches. Cheer the fuck up.

Dom Thomas should have been getting an extended run in the team years ago, instead he's been left to wither on the vine. If you add up the 31 fragments of game time he's had it doesn't amount too much and he's not been exposed early enough or long enough to first team football. Does he have a future? I don't know but I'll say this. Probably the best young player we've developed in recent times was Jamie Murphy. Jamie Murphy took probably about three seasons to settle into first team football, in the beginning it wasn't even certain what his position would be - midfielder? winger? striker? What Jamie Murphy got though was a chance starting with sub appearances that gradually transitioned into starts over an extended period until a time when he became an automatic pick. However, we had to develop him into a player, he didn't hit the ground running, like say, Chris Cadden has. For me Dom Thomas has not been given that same opportunity to develop at first team level over an extended period. For a few years we seemed to completely lose focus on youth development. McGhee, who brought through the last batch of really good players (Reynolds, Hutchison, Murphy), seems to be doing something similar again. Unfortunately for Dom Thomas his crucial development years might have come a bit too early.

Jack McMillan has impressed me since he came in. He'll make mistakes of course but I think he looks a promising player. It was a bit unfair I felt to put the other two on at that stage in the game. Dundee were on the top of their game and throwing on two young players weakened us and put them in a difficult position. So I don't think it's really fair to judge either player on yesterday's performance but Dom Thomas was looking to get into the game, certainly didn't hide but I don't think he had one good touch in the match. Very frustrating day for him. MacLean was similar to the other matches in which I've seen him. He didn't really get involved in the play and it seemed to pass him by. But the main thing was that we completely lost our team shape with those two substitutions and until it went to 2-0 we were a bit of a shambles over all. At 2-0 Dundee probably took their foot off the gas a bit and we came more into it again but I felt it was a poor choice in substitutions. Lasley was perhaps not fit and had to be replaced but I felt although Ainsworth didn't have a good game he could have stayed on.

Outplayed and outfought after the thin margins had gone against us. If you were at the game yesterday you should know we were actually doing pretty well, playing decent football and looked like we were good for a least a point if not three. The fact that our goal was a cross is completely irrelevant. It should have been 1-0 Motherwell and if that had been the case the way the teams were playing it looked more likely we would have gone on and scored again. Players didn't go in the huff, we had several good chances just after that incident. What happened yesterday is the better team in the first half had a good goal disallowed and then conceded from an individual error right on half time. Those are game changers. Dundee should be 1-0 down they go in at half time 1-0 up. Their tails are up, ours are down. As for playing Hammell and Lasley being a disaster, it obviously wasn't as we were well on top in the game. Hammell obviously wasn't considered to be half fit or he wouldn't have played and with Lasley there was no one else to play with Lucas and McHugh out injured. In fact we were much worse when McGhee put the young lads on and took Lasley off, the team completely lost its shape.

As the league table shows there is very little between any of the teams operating in the same wage bracket. Right now we are as many points from the Top 6 as we are bottom place. We were well on top yesterday when Beaton didn't give that goal, if it had been given I'm sure we would have gone on and probably won the match. Games will be decided on very thin margins and yesterday one of those margins was outside our control.

Have a few Morton fan friends and they are raving about Forbes. He was also miles ahead of anyone in our team when they gubbed us last season. Although to be fair the midfield we put out that night was Thomas, Taylor, Leitch, Grimshaw.

Samson pulled off three or four good saves.

Today we could easily won today if we didn't have absolute whallopers as officials. We were much the better team in the first half and we lost a goal at the worst possible time right before HT. Second half wasn't good enough but most teams, not just us fold at 1-0. It's almost coached into players these days because of the emphasise put on getting the first goal.

Very poor 2nd half performance. First goal is so important so when we score it it would be nice if the ref or linesman were paying attention. We actually played some decent stuff in the first half but Dundee scored against the run of play in about 44 minutes. Poor mistake from McDonald giving the ball away. 2nd half Dundee were transformed and we looked sorry for ourselves. Substitutions were poor, expecting two kids to turn the game was hopeful, afterwards we seemed to have no shape or game plan. Clay was anonymous yet again, only looks good when the team is firing on all cylinders. Forward players didn't click today - Cadden, McDonald, Moult, don't think Ainsworth should have been taken off though.

Beaton strikes again absolute joke of a referee. Could clearly see the keeper holding the ball against the net behind the post. Been much the better team, Dundee didn't deserve the goal. Haven't created too many clear cut chances though need to be a bit sharper in the final third.

Obviously I wasn't at the Hamilton - Dundee match but it looks like our performance was a lot more impressive than Dundee's, who won, but maybe not in any style. Even there goal came about from the striker missing the ball, the keeper diving the wrong way and the ball trickling into the net. Our record up there isn't bad, W3 D1 L2 this decade although those wins were a few years ago when we had a much better team but it was only a controversial late penalty that denied us last time. As always making sure we get the first goal will be huge as the crowd is bound to turn.

What is this forum like? Now Lucas is some kind of super player that will rescue the season! We need him to do it more than once but he did well today. Hopefully he will but he still has a lot to prove. The main thing though was we worked hard and look like we were playing to a game plan. Early in the match Ross County were actually better than us, we kept giving the ball away and we really need to work on our ball retention. However the first goal gave us confidence and took it away from County. I was actually talking to a Hearts supporter earlier in the week and he was saying how so often the first goal decides a match. Teams just seem to fold at 1-0 these days and that certainly happened today. We did much better today but you also have to temper that a bit with the fact that Ross County were probably the worst side we've played this season. We have Dundee and Partick coming up and it's important that we keep improving and get at least another 4 points before the tougher matches come round because the league is very, very tight in the bottom half and teams are pulling off results that are unexpected.

Team changes made a big difference. Lucas did well and McDonald and Ainsworth gave us a lot more attacking options, pace and movement. Heneghan improved immensely from Wednesday and McMillan has settled right in at left back and deserves credit. A word of caution though, I thought Ross County were very poor. Can we perform like that against a better team? Still a big boost for our confidence and hopefully we can go to Dundee next week and get at least a point.