Ya Bezzer!

If you wanted to put a positive spin on things we are now undefeated in 90 minutes in three matches. I wasn't at the Ross County or Celtic games (the only games I've missed this season, maybe I should stay away altogether) but I wasn't exactly encouraged by what I saw on Wednesday. I also think there could be fatigue issues today. Would be nice to see Hammell back in today and Law out. Not sure if either will happen though.

The thing with Leitch is he isn't going to take the game by the scruff of the neck. He had some nice touches during our good spell against Accies but before and after he was nowhere. He doesn't seem to have that self confidence or character to drag himself, never mind the rest of the team, up when things aren't going well. I could see him doing well in a good team but right now we aren't a good team and I can't see him doing a lot to change that.

I'm as disappointed as anyone about the defeat but some facts. 1) Accies have now gone 390+ minutes of football against Premiership level opponents without conceding a goal at Douglas Park. If I remember the Inverness goals came pretty early in the first half of the first game of the season so it will actually be longer than that. Clearly it's not just us that struggles to score against Accies on that pitch (which is fucking shocking). 2) Our back four was weaker than Accies back four. Accies were missing Martin Canning from their standard back four and, at a pinch Garcia Tena who has come in and out. We were missing Hammell, Ramsden and had Reid playing out of position at left back. Overall they were missing Canning, Imrie, McKinnon and Antoine Curier who usually start but had decent replacements like Alex Neil coming into midfield, or putting Tony Andreu up front. You can't really count Leitch as an automatic starter for us either and we had Josh Emptyshirt on for the full game so the 'Accies played a weakened team' argument doesn't really wash.

I'm not going to come on here and say Lasley is having a great season but to me it looks like it's still him that is trying to bring the pace of the game up. And I do not understand the Leitch love in. I just don't see what other people are supposed to see in this guys play.

Not really when one is a direct replacement for another. In fact think in those circumstances a comparison is inevitable.

European, not league. You can't really compare playing Stjarnan to playing Kuban.

He wasn't 'rank rotten'. He is a diminished player from the level he was at but he is still a better player, a significantly better player than Josh Law. He was our third most creative player last season. Only Ainsworth and Vigurs had more assists. He also scored 4 league goals, meaning he was involved in 10 goals overall in the league. As it stands, Josh Law has 0 goals and 0 assists so far.

Must win. Simple as that. A win will probably put us back in the pack but a draw or a defeat aren't acceptable after the level of performance we've shown up to now this season. It's time to start delivering and no more excuses.

OK, I didn't see Josh Law play for Alfreton Town but he is still listed on Wikipedia as a right back which is where I was lead to believe he played for them. To date Josh Law has played right midfield, left midfield, centre midfield, support striker and up front for Motherwell. Is McCall even playing him in his natural position? In any case he does not look like the level of player that should be playing for us any way and why he has been selected every match and rarely gets substituted is beyond bizarre. He's obviously some kind of favoured child. There have been a lot of injury problems but they seem to be abating now, if Law starts on Saturday then you really need to start asking serious questions about McCall's selection policy.

Thought Twardzik, Kerr and Reid were our best players tonight. Would give it to Reid as he was playing out of position but we weren't exactly spoilt for choice.

Taking off Ainsworth was madness. We were on top at that point in the match. Obviously we had to shuffle things round with O'Brien getting sent off but taking off Ainsworth was not the right move. We had the momentum and with that substitution handed it right back to Accies. After that it was like we just wanted to shut the game down and had absolutely nothing going forward. If Josh Law starts on Saturday....McCall must watch the game with special Josh Law Goggles.

Another cup defeat, another failure to score, another poor performance, another bad tactical decision by Stuart McCall. Same old, same old. Hardly kicked a ball until about the 65 - 70th minute. We then had a decent spell that wasn't too bad but McCall killed the game off by taking off Ainsworth and putting on Ramsden who then proceeded to miss the penalty and if anything Accies finished the stronger. The surface at Douglas Park is terrible but still no excuse for abysmal passing, failure to carve out more than a couple of chances over 120 minutes and worst of all constantly being caught sleeping at set pieces...which contributed to O'Brien being sent off, a fair red card I though although there wasn't a lot of contact he definitely stopped the Accies player going clean through. Big question mark has to be why didn't we start playing until the second half of the second half? Got to do a lot better on Saturday.

McCall's full domestic record is thus... 2010/11 League Cup - 30/01/11 SF v Rangers L 1-2 2010/11 Scottish Cup - 09/01/11 4th Rnd v Dundee W 4-0 2010/11 Scottish Cup - 05/02/11 5th Rnd v Stranraer W 2-0 2010/11 Scottish Cup - 13/03/11 QF v Dundee Utd D 2-2 2010/11 Scottish Cup - 30/03/11 QF v Dundee Utd W 3-0 2010/11 Scottish Cup - 16/04/11 SF v St. Johnstone W 3-0 2010/11 Scottish Cup - 21/04/11 F v Celtc L 0-3 2011/12 League Cup - 24/08/11 2nd Rnd v Clyde W 4-0 2011/12 League Cup - 21/09/11 3rd Rnd v Hibernian L 2-2 AET pens 2011/12 Scottish Cup - 07/01/12 4th Rnd v Queens Park W 4-0 2011/12 Scottish Cup - 04/02/12 5th Rnd v Morton W 6-0 2011/12 Scottish Cup - 11/06/12 QF v Aberdeen L 1-2 2012/13 League Cup - 26/09/12 3rd Rnd v Rangers L 0-2 2012/13 Scottish Cup - 01/12/13 4th Rnd v Aberdeen D 1-1 2012/13 Scottish Cup - 11/12/13 4th Rnd v Aberdeen L 1-2 2013/14 League Cup - 25/09/13 3rd Rnd v Livingston W 2-1 2013/14 League Cup - 30/10/13 QF v Aberdeen L 0-2 2013/14 Scottish Cup - 30/11/13 4th Rnd v Albion Rovers L 0-1 2014/15 League Cup - 24/09/13 3rd Rnd v Hamilton D 0-0 AET pens LEAGUE CUP : P 7 W 2 D 0 L 5 SCOT'H CUP : P 13 W 7 D 2 L 4 TOTAL : P19 W9 D2 L8 Things that stick out 1) Very poor League Cup record. 2) 1 win in last 7 domestic cup matches. 3) Not beaten a top level side in a cup competition since the 3-0 semi final win v St. Johnstone.

We've not had a home match for three weeks and its a cup tie across the road against local rivals. I think we'll bring a decent crowd. I'm certainly going. As for McCall's time being up if we lose - hardly. But considering we have already been put out of European competition by a part time Icelandic team and haven't had the best of starts in the league it certain puts pressure on him from his critics. It won't decide his fate but I think this is quite a big week for McCall. A chance to get through a round of the cup tonight, a chance to get back into the pack in the league at the weekend. It's going to be...interesting to say the least.

This game is one of the biggest of the season, as any cup game is these days. We have injuries and no settled XI, Accies have had a great start to the season and have quite a formidable home record, they have three clean sheets in a row against Premiership level opponents there and have only lost 1 out of 6 at home. It's not going to be easy but this is a game McCall needs to make sure we win, in what ever way or style. Victory is everything.

I'm not panicking but the stall for the rest of the season is being laid out now and I don't want it to be at this end of the table. Especially as most teams seem to be putting points on the board. Unless we get our act together we could be detached down there with St.Mirren and Ross County and maybe Partick Thistle.

St. Mirren only 3 points behind us now. No pressure.

Our support are typical football supporters. When we pay our season ticket money, we do so to see a product that season; we aren't putting our money down to reminisce about times past.

Depends what Celtic team turns up. However we've been outplayed by every team we've played this season so given our already poor record at Celtic Park it might be a good idea to close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears.

The team is going to go through a serious rebuild next season with the backbone of our team aging, players leaving who are out of contract and not in our plans and perhaps others leaving as well. If McCall is going to be our manager he has to commit to the club for the immediate future relatively soon. IMO, we can't go into the back end of this season with McCall's contract ending and uncertainty over who the manager will be.

People will argue of course but in my opinion Terry Butcher was the next best manager we've had since Tommy McLean. Everything that has happened since has been built on Butcher's foundations, including the success of Stuart McCall. But the point I'm making is that although I held Butcher in high regard it was also obvious that his time at the club had come to an end the season before he left. Butcher, like McCall, was a limited manager but what he brought to the club worked very well for a period. However after a while, due to the limited nature of Butcher as a coach, a staleness crept in and when he left to go to Australia it was absolutely the right thing for the club. McCall has clearly done a very good job but on the evidence of what I've seen that staleness might be creeping in again. It's too early in the season to say for sure but I think by season 2015/16 it might not be the worst thing ever if McCall moved on and we brought in a new, fresh approach. His contract is up in summer 2015 so I think that is probably the most likely scenario.

Last 9 seasons out of 10 he's either played Championship or Premiership level in England. Probably still more than good enough for us. The question is he the right sort of player to bring in since money is tight? We need a left sided midfielder/winger and that's Pearson's position. However he has serious injury problems last season. At 31 he's not that old, probably has a couple more seasons in the tank and has a wealth of experience, from Champions League to international football to the tough leagues down south.

I don't think we will get thrashed but I can't see us winning and I can see us losing narrowly. Hope I'm wrong. I can't really afford to hit the bottle.

The email looks like he's been testing the mulled wine.

Ramsden didn't exactly cover himself in glory on Saturday but overall it will be good to see us getting back to something approaching a strongest XI. People keep going on about fitness and while it was a problem at the beginning of the season I think more recently we have lacked energy because there is a lack of confidence and players have their heads down. We need to dictate the play instead of being dictated to, we need a lucky break to get our confidence up again and we need stop making basic errors, our passing has been woeful across the board so far.