Ya Bezzer!

We've maybe not had a severe winter but I bet the number of days with lying snow was a lot more than average. At the end of the day we are sitting at 55 degrees N lattitude, it's hardly been out of single digit temperatures for months, there is hardly any sunlight and on top of that we have one of the highest grounds in the country. Grass just doesn't grow in those conditions. The miracle is that there is any grass on the pitch at all and if you go back and look at your old videos you'll see how much better the pitch is now than it would have been in years gone by. There were a few ropy patches on the pitch but really it's mid March - what do you expect? I'm also of the opinion that professional footballers should be able to perform in a range of conditions and not just on perfect pitches, so I don't really have a problem with the pitch, as long as the surface is relatively level (albeit with a slant!)

We need to forget about Partick Thistle. They have the points in the bag. They have 10 points on us and probably only need another 6 to be confident of being safe. They might have the top three coming up but we very nearly took three points at Pittodrie and two of our rare wins have been against Inverness and Dundee Utd. In fact Partick only lost 1-0 to Aberdeen last time and have beaten Inverness twice this season. It means nothing. I've said it before but Partick can lose 7 out of 9 and still be safe. If they got 3 points before the split they are home and hosed. Our trip to Firhill is going to be a very tricky one but even if we win it it's hard to see Partick going into complete melt down and not picking up the points required else where. They aren't even in bad form at the moment and they have beaten St. Johnstone and Dundee Utd in the last couple of weeks and have managed to pull results out of the bag when needed, a 4-0 win against Inverness, a 5-0 win against Hamilton. What we need to do is match or better Ross County, beat them at Fir Park and at the very worst we go into the last match with everything to play for and at best, might even be safe if Ross County drop points else where.

Steven Fletcher was playing at the top level in Scotland at 17 though. Lee Erwin is no kid, it's his 21st birthday the day before the Accies match. We blood players far too late and hinder their development. If you look at the players we've brought through and who have gone on that have gone on and done something most of them were playing at 17-18 years old in the first team.

They aren't lacking in stature in the back four though - Canning, Hendrie, Garcia Tena and Devlin all over 6 feet. I'd still have Sutton back though.

We need to win this one and we will win it and we'll win it handsomely with Scott McDonald scoring more than one.

Where is he? Yesterday he was picking the ball out the net three times at Peterhead in the illustrious capacity of Brechin's No.1

They might lose ground but that will be (probably!) all. I'd be amazed if 37 points didn't keep them up. That's 2 wins from 9. They can lose 7 out of 9 as long as they get those 6 points. Realistically we need to match or better Ross County's results up until we play them post split and then win that match, and then do the same after. At the very worst that takes it up to the last day. What we can't do is let Ross County get 5 (effectively 6) points ahead. Then it becomes pretty difficult for us and the odds of survival get quite a bit longer.

Does anyone really believe all this stuff about Marshall recruiting the goalkeepers. Goalkeeper is arguably the most important position on the field. No manager worth his salt is going to put out a team where the most important player on the pitch wasn't ultimately his choice.

Thomas Cerny sitting on the bench at Hibs as well, but Oxley is only on loan so he might be 1st choice next season.

1. I said before the game I felt we had to pick up something from the match. Later this afternoon the league table could look very different. 2. We were 1-0 up and we blew it in catastrophic style, not a morale booster. Neither will be going bottom of the league today if St. Mirren do the business or Ross County pulling away. 3. Again we were 1-0 up and blew it. Their defensive record had nothing to do with the defeat. 4. People were talking about Long's goalkeeping last week with justification. 5. Partick Thistle could be potentially safe before the split if they win their home matches. If they win today they go 9 points ahead with a huge goal difference and then play us at Firhill after a match we absolutely must win the week previous against St. Mirren. There is not a single person here that wouldn't take Partick's position over our own. Really Partick just have to take something from the 2 home matches coming and then win at home against us to be fairly confident of being safe.

It's difficult to protect the goalkeeper when he's not in the 18 yard box. The truth is if you can get away with murder if you are goalkeeper who is a bit taller. The mistakes last night were as bad, if not worse, than Twardzik's against Dundee when Twardzik was absolutely slaughtered. And Long's mistakes were certainly more crucial to the defeat and potentially more disasterous for our season. The facts are that Long has made as many bad mistakes now as Twardzik in a third of the games. I don't think it's a good idea to keep chopping and changing the goalkeeper but Long situation is like that of the team, he's getting close to the last chance saloon. He/we cannot afford any more mistakes.

Are you aware that it's March? We've 9 matches left and we probably have to win 5 of them to avoid a play off at the very least.

If Accies can beat Ross County or even get a draw we still have a chance to over take Ross County but unfortunately our terrible goal difference could really hurt us now because basically all our rivals are points +1 ahead of us. For instance if County win tomorrow they are essentially 6 rather than 5 points ahead of us and I doubt if we are going to make up that many points on a team in decent form. If County win tomorrow, I think our best chance of finishing higher than 11th is drawing Partick into it by beating them at Firhill. Before that we will need to beat St. Mirren. In the meantime Partick have two home matches so we will have to at least match their results when we play Hamilton and Kilmarnock. We just simply cannot afford any more slip ups barring post split miracles.

I genuinely want to see his pass completion stats. Must be something like 10%!

Unfortunately I think tonight is going to be highly significant in our eventual fate. Tonight was very much like the St. Johnstone match earlier in the season where we did well to get ahead at a tricky venue and then just imploded and made terrible, terrible individual errors. We desperately need our near neighbours to do us a big favour tomorrow or we are getting very close to the last chance saloon. If County win tomorrow then we simply have to beat both St.Mirren and Partick before the split to have any chance of finishing outside the bottom 2 in my opinion.

Goalkeeper to blame for both. Defender did the right thing heading it back except the goalkeeper wasn't even in the 18 yard box!

It's a strange thing but even though we have seen a big improvement over the last couple of weeks and as you say most of us would have been happy with 4points, results elsewhere have not gone for us and we are in probably a worse position now than we were a couple of weeks ago in terms of avoiding the bottom 2 spots. There is still a lot of football to be played of course but I think if you are looking at our situation in any kind of impartial way it's looking less and less likely that we can finish ahead of Ross County. Not only are they in better form than us, on paper at least, they have the easiest run in of all the teams. Partick Thistle could still be dragged into things but they have (realistically) 7 points on us, have two home matches coming up and entertain us at Firhill before the split. I reckon Partick only need 9 points to be more or less guarenteed safety, so taking that on board we are probably going to have to go there and win. Next week is going to be a big week. Both Ross County and Partick have winnable games (St. Mirren also) while we have a tough one at Aberdeen. I don't think we can afford to come away from that one with nothing but time will tell.

I think it's very difficult to sell English players back to English clubs. The reason these guys ended up at Motherwell was they weren't deemed good enough in England to play at a certain level - the level with the transfer cash - and it's going to take a lot of convincing to get English clubs to buy them back. Our main focus should be on developing our own players or bringing players on from the lower Scottish divisions and that's where we have failed badly in the last ten years or so. Who is our most successful sale over that time? Probably Jamie Murphy who has never played higher than League 1 down south. Livingston, Dundee Utd, Hamilton, they have all produced very good players that have gone on to play at the top level of the English game. If you can get a reputation for producing players like McArthur, McCarthy, Robertson, Snodgrass etc, especially more than one, then clubs are seriously going to look at your home grown players but at the end of the day it comes down to producing quality players that can play at the top level and we just haven't been doing that. There is a good argument for saying Airdrie have brought through more good young players than we have over the past 6 or 7 years and when you consider they have struggled badly over that time with just a few hundred supports that shows just how badly we've got it wrong.

I can't remember the last time I saw as much blatant diving but to be fair it wasn't just Kilmarnock that was doing it. You'd have to point the finger at Marvin Johnson and Scott McDonald as well. There was one where Johnson did about 5 'sausage rolls' across the pitch that was especially ridiculous. Maybe it was all down to having an especially weak referee - Beaton vies with Willie Collum as the worst in top flight Scottish football.

The best I've seen of Josh Law today. Mentions for Keith Lasley and Marvin Johnson

Today was a much better performance than most this season but I still felt we looked a little lethargic. Not quite the same zip we had last week. In terms of finishing outside the Bottom 2 I think the damage might already be done as Ross County look like they are motoring now. Ross County putting 4 wins on the trot together has really made things difficult for us. However we certainly look much more competitive and all we can really do now is to pick up as many points as possible and cross our fingers and hope things else where go for us. Thought Lasley, Johnson and especially Josh Law were all very good today but the lack of width with Conor Grant in the team was a problem as was players making runs into the box. Probably need to be looking for 30 points before the split.

Not sure about that! But let's face it Ramsden is no great left back either and it didn't stop us putting in our best performance of the season. Straker can't be used as an excuse - we need to win this one.

Good news, especially the length of contract. We need to vary contract lengths because what has happened this season should never happen again with well over half the squad out of contract. Plus as good young talent we can maybe hang on to him longer or negotiate a good deal. Now - get him on the pitch!

I just don't understand why changing to summer football makes Scottish football more attractive to broadcasters. For a start there is going to be a European Championship or World Cup on every two years. Even assuming we don't qualify and the schedule isn't upset Scottish football isn't going to get a look in when the entire world media is focused on international football. We'd have all the winter season finals and promotion/relegation playoffs during our regular season that would steal all the limelight then we'd have all the major sporting events of the summer coming in Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, Wimbledon, the golf Majors, the horse racing season, all the Grand Prix races, athletics, rugby world cup and on and on. And of course the winter season and the summer season overlap for 50% of the year so nothing really changes for at least half the time. My interest in Irish football didn't increase from "no interest at all" because they changed to a summer season and I suspect the average English fan would have a similar attitude to Scottish football. The elephant in the room is that Scottish football is completely uncompetitive. Only one team is going to win the Premiership and most of the cups for the foreseeable future. Without competition there is basically not going to be any interest outside of the die hard supporters and if there is no public interest there are no advertisers and therefore no television interest.

Well I think a big part of that problem was him not getting game time, something Manchester United probably greatly regret now. Dom Thomas is 19, he needs to be getting games now.