Ya Bezzer!

Words.

07 August 2016 Heart of Midlothian A W 2-1 20 August 2016 St. Johnstone A W 4-2 18 September 2016 Inverness C. Thistle A D 2-2 01 October 2016 Dundee A W 1-0 26 October 2016 Ross County A W 4-0 29 October 2016 Aberdeen A W 1-0 18 November 2016 Kilmarnock A W 1-0 Celtic's away league record this season. As you can see although they have won all but one of their matches they haven't quite been the all conquering goals juggernaut that they have been at Celtic Park. From the last five there are three 1-0 wins and a 2-2 draw. If we keep it tight there is a chance we can sneak something but we will have to put in probably our best performance of the season. Taking the game to them is in my opinion suicide as they have the pace and ability to pick us off if there are any spaces. We need to defend from the half way line rather than the 18 yard line and make quick attacks down the sides to keep their full backs in check.

Besides Aberdeen, and St. Johnstone in what was a meaningless match, we are the only team to beat Celtic in the league for a couple of seasons. We are still the last Scottish club to win at Celtic Park. You can be as forward looking as you like but Celtic are miles ahead of anyone else in the league. McGhee is one of a very select bunch to actually get a win off them. As for young guys showing no fear, I was at Tynecastle last week and Ross McMillan probably had his nerviest match in a Motherwell shirt that I've seen. Was it a coincidence it was against a big team in front of a big crowd?

I don't know if you'll think this is negative or not but due to the Hamilton v Partick match it's impossible for us to be bottom of the league on Saturday night!

Rangers aren't very good but they are a bit better than most of the rest of the teams in this league, which is why they are 2nd in the league and have only lost to Celtic and Aberdeen. Their cup record is also pretty good they have made two League Cup semi finals and a Scottish Cup final in the last three seasons. They have only conceded 3 goals in 7 league matches at Ibrox. If we can score we'll have a chance as Rangers haven't been free scoring (only 10 goals at Ibrox, for comparison Motherwell have scored 12 goals in the same number of games at Fir Park) however given our record away to city clubs this season and Rangers home record I think Rangers will be small odds at the bookies to win this.

St. Johnstone beat Rangers 3-1 in the League Cup in September 2015 and that is Rangers only home defeat since we beat them in the play offs back in season 2014/15, 1 defeat in 36 home matches. Not the best draw.

He was rubbish.

I didn't get a good view of the 2nd goal and apparently he should have done better there but I went for Ben Heneghan. But he was probably the only player in our team that looked competitive in the personal battles and one to ones. Ainsworth came on a did reasonable well also but he was only on for 45 minutes.

All away from home. At home they have beaten Inverness 5-1, Hamilton 3-1, Dundee 2-0 and us 3-0.

Yeah but we'll have played Hearts and Celtic twice in those 8. The Top 4 teams this season are a different level from the rest, table doesn't lie and your kidding yourself if you think different. Our important results will be against the other sides in 'the pack'. We've lost 2 out of 9 against those teams.

Hearts dominated from first to last. They were just bigger, faster, stronger, better all over the pitch. We were lucky to get into half time just 0-1 down. Losing the goal 4 minutes into the 2nd ended as a contest, not that it was much of a contest any way. Lost all the individual battles all day. Hearts are a different level from us right now.

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.