Ya Bezzer!

Nothing in the Motherwell programme that season, haven't found anything in the newspapers and obviously nothing in the Scottish Football Review League book which only covers competitive matches. Good luck!

Ripley. Made important saves at 0-0, 1-0 and 2-0, a goal for St. Johnstone at any of those points would have turned the momentum of the game. I thought Ben Hall was excellent also and deserves a mention but Ripley got us the 3 points tonight.

Thought the scoreline flattered us a bit as I think St. Johnstone probably had more good chances to score. Ripley was excellent tonight and saved three certain goals. The first 35 minutes or so was pretty poor fair, both teams looked leggy but considering the number of game call offs recently and the fact that training has probably been disrupted by the recent weather maybe that wasn't so surprising. We got better just before we scored and had St. Johnstone on the ropes for 10 minutes but both our goals were a little bit fortunate. Second half was better but we didn't really hit the heights of the last few games but still a welcome three points against a decent side, albeit one that lost two of their best players early in the match. Also have to mention Ben Hall, his goal might have trickled in but his defending was excellent tonight. Would have been my MotM if not for Ripley.

Pathetic that we are sitting having our dinner not knowing if a 7.45pm kick off is going to happen or not. Why the hell is the referee turning up at 5pm, or supposed to be, apparently he can't even get there on time.

St. Johnstone have a good solid team, no real weaknesses but perhaps an area we could get them at would be that guys like Mackay and Anderson are no spring chickens can be got at with pace. I think we are also catching them at a decent time. Their impressive away record is there for everyone to see but they have also only won once in the last four and haven't scored in their last two league outings. That's an important fact because they don't keep many clean sheets and have won this season by outscoring teams. I was looking at the league table today and was quite surprised to see we have something like the 5th best defensive record in the league, our big downfall has been scoring goals (2nd lowest). Now that we have started scoring again I think we could perhaps put a wee bit of form together and a match against St. Johnstone is an ideal opportunity for the back line to keep up the good work and for the forward line to show the goals scored in the last few weeks are a sign of things to come.

If I was to compare Murray Davidson to any other player in this league it would probably be Stephen Pearson....

Lee Erwin could absolutely transform our season by scoring 2 goals against Kilmarnock and fuck all against everyone else.

Don't see how this suits them at all. Bottom of the league for another week, Kilmarnock playing an out of form Accies and could potentially leave Utd 10 points clear at the bottom if they win today. And I keep saying it but United would have fancied their chances today with a good home crowd and improved performances over the last couple of weeks.

The only teams to beat them by two clear goals in the last three months were the top two, Aberdeen and Celtic. We are not playing a team that loses 2, 3, 4 nil every week, it's been 0-1, 1-2, 1-1, 2-2 scorelines.

This. They have already beaten us this season and we lost twice up there last season. Three games of good form does not make us a wonder team. Dundee Utd have been playing better than their results and even if they don't get out of the mess they are in they will probably still turn over a team or two by the law of averages. Our recent form gives us the edge perhaps but we are not Barcelona.

They already have thrown money at the problem. They have brought in guys like Guy Demel and Florent Sinama-Pongolle, both former English Premier League players. By all accounts Dundee United gave Inverness an absolute mauling yesterday but they can't stop conceding poor goals and their goalkeeper has had a bit of a howler. Don't think United will roll over by any means but we have to be able to exploit their defensive weaknesses and with 7 goals in our last 3 games, and it could have been 10, 11, 12, hopefully we can do that.

Only 3 points between 10th and 5th now. Also 11 points clear of bottom (effectively 12 points with GD) and 4 points clear of 2nd bottom (effectively 5 points with GD and with a game in hand). Hopefully we can push on now and start looking up instead of down.

Superb result. Fancied we might get some kind of result as I thought we had played well in the last two matches and Celtic's home form is a bit ropey (two 0-0 draws in the last four before today) but didn't think we'd win, and certainly not from 1-0 down.

Tremendous!

Good come back!

Typical they score with a deflection straight after we should have scored.

Two of Celtic's last four home league matches have finished 0-0. Celtic Park is not an inspiring place to play these days with half the seats empty. Clearly Celtic have the best team in the country but I wouldn't exactly say they are brimming with top quality. Nir Biton and Leigh Griffiths are their best players.

Nothing against Conor Ripley but if we are losing money and paying too much in wages he shouldn't be here with Samson and Twardzik on the books. If Ripley was doing a John Ruddy fine, but while I think Ripley has done OK, I don't think he's done anything more than that. If the option was there for us to send Taylor and Ripley back to their clubs while we bring in another midfielder, I wouldn't be unhappy with that.

Yet when Hammell and Lasley were missing we got pumped twice by average sides in poor performances.

Attendances always drop in the run up to Christmas, which is one reason I'd rather have a winter shut down in December than January. You could re-start the season with Boxing day games, but anyway.... Yes, our attendances have gone into steep decline in the last 2 or 3 seasons. Our European and Cup failures, I think got many thinking "what exactly is the point?" Even successful seasons have lost a lot of their appeal due to our complete inability to compete at even modest levels in European football. The achievement of qualifying loses something if you are then pumped out by part timers from Iceland. The Scottish Cup, which is probably the bright spot in any season, when fans dare to dream, has been a complete and utter disaster. I'll bet there are supporters who saw the Albion Rovers match and haven't been back since. In times past we've had a hardcore support of about 4,000 and that's remained the case for pretty much the whole time I've been coming to Fir Park, ie, the mid 80's. But now we are only attracting about 3,000 and that is quite a big drop from an already small support. How do we get fans back? I don't know. Despite all the media coverage, I think football in general is not as popular as it once was. Young people in particular have other interests and just don't seem to bother with it. We had five young lads just start in my work and only one of them follows football. In my day, every boy had a team almost without exception. So I think that in general football is, maybe not a dying industry, but certainly one who's virtual monopoly has been smashed. This is inevitable going to impact small to medium sized clubs ability to maintain supporter bases. As well as reasons particular to our club and more general reasons, I also think Scottish football has to an extent cut its own throat, with endless negative press and media moaning. The general impression of Scottish football is one of a poor product in continual crisis. Actually it's not as bad as 'we' make it out. Look at England, they have not let the falling standard there interrupt the hyperbole.

One thing that's bothered me recently, and this concerns both McGhee and Baraclough, is why we keep switching the wingers. Ainsworth is a right winger and Johnson is a left winger and when you have them switch sides they are both a lot less effective. If you are going to bring on Ainsworth, as we did yesterday, it's pretty pointless in my opinion to have him standing out on the left, half the time.

How about I disagree. Hammell's return, like last season, has been a huge benefit to the team. And for me the two best players on the park yesterday were Moult and Lasley.

First half was probably our best performance since the play off matches. 2-0 going on 4, 5, 6. Really the game would have been done and dusted without a couple of great saves and missed chances. Second half we looked a bit more tentative, like a team needing a win with a 2-0 lead to defend. We did still create chances but let Dundee come out towards more. When Dundee scored it looked like the old story of spurned chances but actually after a wee sticky spell immediately after, I thought we ran out comfortable winners. Looking through the team it was hard to pick out a failure, changed days from a couple of months ago.

Is that the same Roy McBain that was at Inverness? Must be some age!

Lot being made of Dundee's lack of recent wins but they haven't lost many either, 3 in 10 and two of those were against the top two Celtic and Aberdeen, so that doesn't suggest they are going to be easy prey. Not seen Dundee this season but looking at their team it seems to be a bit of a mix. I like the goalkeeper, full backs and forwards but I don't think they are the best down the middle of the park and that's where we are going to have to dominate. I agree to an extent with Capt Oats about not messing around with the team and formation after the last performance but maybe we could also do with a more physical striker (Wes Fletcher?) because I think they can be gottten at in the centre back positions. I've got a cold coming on so I'm putting my health on the line and probably an absolutely horrendous week at work next week by attending in this freezing weather so we better win!