Ya Bezzer!

I'm pretty sure Arnott scored 23 goals against the OF. He scored 60 odd, maybe into the 70s overall in all competitions so that was a pretty big chunk of his career total. The best strikers were in my time where, in order 1. Tommy Coyne, 2. Scott McDonald, 3. Owen Coyle. The best pairing though was Arnott/Coyne. Over a 100 league goals between them for Motherwell and most of them playing with each other. Besides goals one of my all time favourite memories is Dougie ripping the shit out of Basil Boli who got sent off after a late tackle and then took a maddie and started jumping up and down, stamping his feet and throwing his arms about at the ref. Hilarious.

Of all the centre forwards I've seen go through Motherwell over the years only Tommy Coyne was better.

I'll owe an apology is we finish 10th or above at the end of the season under Baraclough. Since that's not happened yet, I'll hold off for the moment.

I understand the 1 but don't understand the 0! Hopefully McDonald comes in and does a 'Willie Falconer'. 7/8 goals is a bit much to ask but 4/5 goals could be the difference between escape and a whole lot of trouble. Too much to ask for a 'Mickey Weir' and a retina damaging yellow kit as well?

Hopefully this means we have two up front now. Old fashioned 4-4-2 till the end of the season, no more fucking about playing players in weird positions. That way everyone knows what they are doing which hasn't looked the case the last few weeks. Get some tackles in, press them, get to the bylines, play direct, basic stuff, none of this 'I'm a Tactical Genuis' bullshit.

Aye, get them on a bread and water diet, yeah, that'll save us. Even people on defending Gannon now. I've been saying for a while now this is a collective failure and we can now include the support in that. The forum has lost the plot.

I've been a critic of McManus, I gave him the nickname 'Cowardly Lion', that's pretty harsh criticism, but he's contracted for another year and I'm sure he doesn't want to be playing away at Cowdenbeath on a Wednesday next season. He's entitled to speak his mind, especially if it's a valid criticism. Would you stay silent if you thought your manager was making a cunt of things? If Baraclough was doing his job properly these sorts of comments wouldn't be leaking out.

I can't name him for legal reasons but it's on a charge eating a sausage under the influence of alcohol.

If the dressing room is now in a state of schism or in revolt with Baraclough it just proves he is a weak manager who is well out his depth. Also, the criticism of Baraclough in the Wilson piece is spot on. I meantioned it before that match on Saturday. We did not have a single striker on the bench. Chris Sutton is our only experienced centre forward and the 2 other young guys have 1 goal each in their careers, the last coming 6 months ago. Considering we've hardly scored all season you'd think that would be a priority position.

I would actually give him the next two games. I'd actually consider the Inverness match to be well beyond us at the moment and it would be unreasonable to expect us to get anything from it. Kilmarnock have been up and down but that is as close as a winnable match as we are going to get at this stage. He's not had a lot of time to get the new players settled in and our crisis was not his making, it's just that he doesn't seem capable of getting us out of it. Giving him the next two games seems like the best compromise between fairness to Baraclough and the expediency of survival. If he can't get a win there then he has to go, 1 point from 30 is grounds for dismissal in any circumstances, never mind when you are at the bottom of the league and going headlong into a death spiral.

That won't help us. We need to headhunt someone and have them available to step in immediately. Not very ethical but these are wartime conditions.

It's not a complete doddle and if you think that you don't understand the real bind that we are in. I don't know what you do, but I bet you aren't completely dependent on 15+ other people to do your job at even the most basic rudimentary level of competence. I bet you can go into work in a stinking mood or feeling a bit down and still do what ever it is you do, maybe not as well, but still do it. There aren't many people making a living as Insurance Broker psychologists, or Council Admin psychologists because they aren't required. Contrast with sports psychologists. The fact is footballers can't do their job under these conditions and that's why team spirit and confidence are absolutely crucial to any success as a football team. Look at Rangers right now. They should be romping that league. Why aren't they? Because of poor management and a bad atmosphere around the place. The players are looking at their shoe laces. Just look at a player like Fernando Torres, who goes from being world class to a laughing stock on the back of a crisis of confidence. Professional and top level sport isn't even broadly compatible with most 'normal' employment. What we need right now is someone that can rally the players, get them to believe in themselves, get them out their funk and then we have a chance. At the end of the day, the average supporter could pick a team and a formation, work on tactics and all that but most of us wouldn't be good managers because a manager has to capture the hearts and minds of a dressing room full of individuals, get them believing in a cause, foster team spirit, build up confidence and so forth and very few people can actually do that, especially when the dressing room is in a very negative place. That's what football management is really about. Ultimately that falls on the manager's head. Keith Lasley might be a year older but in terms of potential he's not gone from our player of the year to a complete haddie in a close season, even although some will tell you that. And there are lots of other players in the same boat. Ainsworth, Sutton, Vigurs, Carswell etc, etc. Even Ojamaa who came and went without doing much. The potential that got us to 2nd last year is still there but we need someone that can harness it. A football team is like a army without a general, they are looking for great leadership and if they don't get it they will inevitable fail.

Inverness have won 5 of their last 6 away matches and are undefeated in 8 matches overall. They have also never failed to score in those 8 matches and have only conceded more than 1 once. Should be the first X on your coupon on Saturday morning.

He didn't want a semi professional side to check us out? Are you serious? If that was the reason it was crazy. And were the closed doors matches not bounce games? Different from 90 minute friendly matches. Often these matches are only 60 minutes or even 45 minutes and are more like kick a bouts. Spectator friendly matches might not be competitive but they at least take the form of one. We had a pay at the gate friendly and as I said we never broke a sweat. I've been to loads of friendlies, but this was unbelievable. Anyway, the proof was in the pudding. We ripped Stjarnan a new arsehole in the first 25 minutes and then ran out of legs after which Stjarnan ran us ragged.

There is a big difference between Jim McIntyre and Ian Baraclough though. First of all Ross County have not been taking hidings. They took a bad one against Aberdeen but before that you have to go back to October when Celtic gave them a doing. Meanwhile we lost 5-0, 4-1, 4-0 with a couple of weeks in January. Secondly Ross Counties record isn't great or they would be on the same point as us BUT they have not put together really terrible runs since the start of the season when Adams was in charge. They lost the first 7 matches of the season but Jim McIntyre has never lost more than 2 games in a row and they have been picking up points fairly regularly, even if many of them were draws. Again contrast with us. we've lost 4 in a row twice and 5 in a row already this season. It's these terrible runs that are responsible for the collapse in moral that we've seen this season. Ross County obvious believe they can get out of this because results show that. We don't because we have been losing virtually every weekend. It's pretty obvious that Ross County have improved under McIntyre, hang in in games and pick up points on a semi regular basis. They also had time to improve since their bad start was from the very start of the season. We don't have time to improve, we have to improve now. In 2015 Ross County have picked up 8 points to our 1.

Not that easy though is it. I'm guessing most aren't not trying deliberately, especially someone like Keith Lasley. It's much deeper than that. The squad is obviously completely demoralized, don't believe in the manager, there's no team structure, no style of play, no plan and the good guys in the squad are looking round the dressing room and seeing a lot of substandard players, kids and loanees. We've had injuries but even so we've had 10 different line ups in the last 10 games. What are the players supposed to believe in if the manager doesn't even know his best XI or what the hell he's doing. Players out of position all over the place, strange substitutions. You think professional footballers don't see what every single person on this forum sees? The whole 'pull your socks up' spiel is kinda the equivalent of a letter in the Sun about Middle Eastern foreign policy. Ie, ignorant bunkum. The club is in crisis, we need strong management and we've got a guy reading platitudes out the Idiots Guide to Teach Yourself Project Management. Football is not working in an office. There are no forums out there with hundreds or thousands of guys like you and me discussing every mistake you make in your job. There are no journalists printing stories in every newspaper every time you fuck up. If you send an e-mail without an attachment, thousands of people don't boo you and shout abuse. There are no podcasts about your in tray. We've got the team we have and if we are going to get out of this we need to pick these guys up and that starts at management level. When a team is winning every week you could put the dinner lady in charge, this is when good management and bad management shows itself and right now I don't need to say much more about what kind of management we have. The players are not absolved of blame but at the end of the day we went into a European tie with one half arsed pre season friendly were we never broke a sweat and then went up against a team in mid season. In that sense the players (and us) have been let down. The Stjarnan defeat absolutely destroyed us. We started the season on a massive downer and with all sorts of psychological baggage. It was a humiliation and we've never been the same since.

With all due respect losing you is a fan is going to be less disasterous than being relegated with a whimper. What is it you have against Jimmy Calderwood anyway? Dunfermline went down the toilet when he left, so did Aberdeen and he kept Kilmarnock and Ross County in their respective leagues in similar situations as we are now. Whatever it is you have against him it can't be his record. Can you imagine a Baraclough team getting a result against Bayern Munich?

And most of the rest of the team is out of contract and have no future here.

Dundee were in Stand By mode for most of the match. The defence was getting ripped apart until Dundee scored and spent the rest of the match in hammocks with a pina colada.

I think Brown is probably retired now and wouldn't be interest. He's come in and rescued us once before and has nothing to prove. I'd take Jimmy Calderwood. I think he is much maligned but his record is pretty good and he's sucessfully done End of Season Save Us From Relegation jobs with Kilmarnock and Ross County. For me it's a no brainer.

One of those old saying my granny used to say was "After success comes a fall". I've been thinking about it and how true it is. The season after the Scottish Cup win was one of the worst in my Motherwell supporting time and that was a team filled with quality players. We had guys like Bobby Russell and Davie Cooper, 'Well legends like Stevie Kirk and Dougie Arnott, Jamie Dolan, Chris McCart etc etc. Most of those players went on to play for a team that could, and maybe should have strangled Rangers 9 in a row aspirations and won the League Championship and was probably the best Motherwell team I've ever, and most likely, will ever see. Yet after we finished 2nd under McLeish with the same team (albeit miles off Rangers this time), the team fell apart and there was some very bleak years ahead of us. Now we've had last years 2nd place finish and the attendant collapse afterwards. It's interesting and surely not a coincidence that these three high watermarks in my Motherwell supporting career have been followed up with disasterous seasons. There must be some kind of psychological factor at play here.

And he also has a media background. I don't get the obsession some people have with what Alan Burrows is or isn't doing.

I just don't agree with this. Our back four has been shocking all season - McManus, Ramsden, Kerr, etc, etc. We've also never had a second striker all season. Erwin played wide, Ojamaa up front, rarely two real strikers up front, meaning Sutton has been totally isolated. We rarely hit the byline and have no width. Central midfield has been poor but it's just part of a general malaise and not a specific problem, in my opinion.

Appointing a manager is always a risk, sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. No one could tell at the interview stage that Baraclough would sign an Anthony Straker, put out weird formations and selections or play the sort of football that was put out of its misery 30 years ago. The board does not have a crystal ball and I think some of the criticism of them for appointing Baraclough is a bit unfair. I will say this though, when we've had a poor manager the club has generally dealt with it pretty quickly. Malpas didn't last a year and Gannon was shown the door within a couple of months. Hopefully the club has the courage and strength to make a similar decision. If not, then the criticism of the board goes from being unfair to completely valid.

If Kenny Black was still in at the club I'd show Baraclough the door and put him in charge again. A lot of people don't have time for him here but the facts remain our only satisfactory performance all season was when he was in charge and he took, I think, 4 points in 4 matches. With Black gone and Robinson brought in it complicates matters a bit. If Baraclough is sacked we basically have to head hunt someone and have them ready to come in immediately. We can't have another interview process so soon after the last one.