Ya Bezzer!

Dan again obviously. Pointless stat Most Ya Bezzer! MotM awards in a season. 1. David Clarkson - 6 - 2007/08 2. Stephen Craigan - 5 - 2010/11 2. Keith Lasley - 5 - 2013/14 4. DAN TWARDZIK - 4 - 2014/15 4. Keith Lasley - 4 - 2010/11 4. Stevie Hammell - 4 - 2011/12 If he gets 7 this season I'll spray paint an egg cup silver and send it to him.

Have you seen St.Mirren's home record this season? P8 W0 D1 L7 F3 A13 GD -10. PTS 1pt from possible 24

I think this will be a harder match than St. Mirren away. County haven't been doing to bad, excluding Celtic, no one had thrashed them since Aberdeen way back in September. Since then if they have lost it has generally been a tight one. They have also scored 6 goals in their last 3 matches where as for us to score 6 goals you need to go back 9 games. That's a bit of a concern for me to be honest. We just need to dig the points out of this one by hook or by crook.

Butcher built the success that every other Motherwell manager since has benefited from. For me he's the next best manager we've had after Tommy McLean. He finished bottom with the club in administration and a team full of teenagers and a team budget of fuck all. Well so would 95% of all other managers. But would 95% of managers then built a team that then did well in cups, got a couple of Top 6 positions and was never in relegation danger again? Even in the poor season where there were mitigating circumstances he still managed some great results during that time v Hearts, Livingston, Rangers and Celtic that still stand out in the minds of fans that have seen hundreds of matches. Butcher was probably the first manager to get us competing year after year for a Top Six place. It was him that turned us from being a struggling team that occasionally had a decent season to being a constantly good team. Like I said, everything since then has been built on the base Butcher left. He also got us to a League Cup Final, a Scottish Cup Semi Final where we were the better team against Rangers and should have won (and if we had, we'd almost certainly won the cup) and another semi final that we lost after a bad individual mistake in the dying minutes. Describing that as poor, along with the league finishes from the base that Butcher started from is ridiculous. Personally I'd rather have someone new in but if Butcher comes in then I won't be too unhappy. Hibs? That relegation was coming for years. How many managers have gone there and failed? Hibs were a club in terminal decline long before Butcher ever cast his shadow over the place.

You know those two facts might be related! What pisses me off a bit though is when Ojamaa gives the ball away there is silence but when Vigurs gives the ball away 150 punters are out their seat giving him absolute pelters.

Pretty much. It was an odd match because Celtic missed at least 5 sitters but putting that aside it's come down to two mistakes from us that could have drawn or won the game for us. Maybe I'm being unfair because I'm down the other side of the ground but the Celtic goal looked like absolutely shocking defending from Ramsden. Then Erwin has missed a chance that looked harder to miss than score. First half overall was very poor. Celtic build everything from the back and we were giving van Dijk and Ambrose all the room in the world. We should have had Sutton and Ojamaa 'marking' them, especially Ambrose as he always has a mistake in him. However we defended far too deep, didn't press them and when we did get the ball there was no out and it went straight back to Celtic. Second half we pushed up and pressed them further up the field and guess what...Celtic started making mistakes and giving the ball away. Much better half and in the last ten minutes or so Celtic look pretty nervy about only having a 1-0 lead. I have to say though that I was a bit pissed off with the Simon Ramsden chants when he got sent off, the guy had a nightmare which has been pretty much par for the course from him this season. On the opposite side, David Ferguson came on and did quite well having not played so well on his debut. Will be interested to see some of our penalty claims in the TV pics. Looked like a hand ball in the first half from Ambrose and his reaction makes me think it should have been a penalty. I was a long way from the two penalty shouts in the second half so I won't pass judgment on them.

Sutton has been poor this season but who else has a scoring record against Celtic like he has? I can remember 3 straight off the top of my head.

Weren't St. Johnstone fans happy to see the back of him? Not to keen.

Mowbray's name is still cropping up in connection with much bigger clubs than ours - Leeds, Birmingham etc. I don't think there's much chance of him ending up at Fir Park.

He'd probably have Vietnam style flashbacks at certain SPFL grounds. "Tony...are you alright? Tony? TONY!"

I have a soft spot for Kenny Shiels. He's mental and a good laugh who made Scottish football a more entertaining place. Would I want him at my club though? For those complaining about the youth system at Motherwell, I think you'd have to take a serious look at him and weight that up with the other factors.

I've decided I'm wearing last seasons trainers tomorrow rather than the current ones that haven't been working out too well this season. Lucky shoes = 3 points in the bag.

I don't think it's a "really disturbing" trend. Post 2008 financial collapse our figures are fairly similar (5307, 5255, 5362, 5175). You might actually say they have held up quite well considering our biggest crowd of the season was always against Rangers and they haven't be around to boost the total. This seasons total will increase significantly over the weekend but even then it can't be meaningfully put against complete seasons although you have to suspect when it is all said and done it will be our lowest for quite some time. It will be interesting to see how many come out for the crucial matches before and after Christmas.

When did we ever beat Celtic when we expected to? We've as much chance of winning this next match as any against Celtic. To win against Celtic you need to get stuck in, you need a slice of luck and Celtic to have a bad day. Well we are surely due a slice of luck some time soon and Celtic might have picked up in the league recently but they are still inherently inconsistent and defensively vulnerable. We probably won't win or even get a draw but that would be the case at any time. Like I said, we have as much chance in this match as any against Celtic, a small but definite chance if various factors come into play. We can't control the luck and we can't control Celtic players performances but we can roll up the sleeves and give it a go and if we do, then I'll be happy. Now's the time when Motherwell supporters should be actually supporting the team and they are all drifting away or going into despondency mode. Folks need to give themselves a shake, there is a fight to be fought.

He didn't defend it but Watson (six one) is probably going to beat ZFA (five eight) for a header 9 times out of 10 anyway. If we wanted to avoid conceding that goal we didn't press Townesend and stood off him so he could put the cross in.

I agree. I'm actually quite heartened by the improvement since McCall left. It's been night and day but right now you just have to accept that teams like Inverness and Dundee Utd are a long way ahead of us and that quality and confidence is going to see them through. If we put in performances like we have done in the past 3 weeks or so I'm fairly confident we can win the important upcoming matches against the other strugglers. Contrast yesterday with the performances against Hamilton or Dundee where we came out the tunnel looking like we were already 5-0 down.

It was no surprise because Motherwell FC in their infinite wisdom took it off the season ticket and asked people to pay £15 on a Saturday in the run up to Christmas.

I assume Ainsworth was amply rewarded for last seasons performances in his new contract but so far it's another wasted wage although I wouldn't blame Ainsworth for that. He didn't start two league games in a row for McCall this season and he only managed two under Black before being dropped today. 7 League starts from 14 for Ainsworth this season and he's still our top scorer.

Dan Twardzik was immense today.

Law was better today but he missed the chance that would probably have won us the game.

I can understand why he didn't want to put Ainsworth while we were still in the game because it would have left big spaces for Dundee Utd to exploit. I think he should have come on at 2-1 though.

Black is really just picking up where McCall left of. Twardzik saved us from a heavy defeat.Law getting a start is surely a piss take.

Disappointing to go out, especially having taken the lead but I was reasonably satisfied with the performance and right now, in our position, that's more what I'm looking at. First half we were probably the better team, had spells of real pressure and played very well. Lots of good performances across the park - Lasley, Vigurs, Ojamaa, Angol etc. If we'd got that second goal it would probably have changed the match and we'd probably still be in the cup. Second half Dundee Utd nullified our creative players. Ojamaa and Vigurs were taken out of the match and let's be honest, Dundee Utd are a team with pace and technique all over the park. They dominated the second half and the goals weren't a surprise, if it hadn't been for an immense performance from Twardzik it would have been more. Some times though you just have to put your hands up and say you were up against a much better team. I still think it's night and day between our performances with McCall at the helm and the two matches since so I'm reasonable positive because, although we lost today, I think we have got our belief back to a certain extent. Bring on Ross County on the 13th.

Had a nightmare couple of days, hopefully Motherwell don't add to it today as I'm hoping for some escapism!

I'm guessing you probably said something similar before the league match. We might be shite but we have a chance and nothing is "inevitable" especially when we beat the same team a couple of weeks ago. The level of negativity says more about some of the posters than the football team. It's not great right now but I can't be bothered with people throwing the towel in before a ball has even been kicked.