Ya Bezzer!

To be fair to Vigurs when he got the ball there was nothing on for him so he didn't really have any options. I agree about Carswell who was our best midfielder but I thought Sutton was poor due to being isolated for most of the match.

The first one was a deflected cross. Hit off Reid and then Lasley's arm. A bit unlucky but Lasley seemed to move his arm towards the ball so it was a penalty as far as I'm concerned. Second one I didn't get a good view of because of the sun. They hit the post there was a stramash in the box and the referee pointed to the spot. I didn't see anything myself that made it a penalty but I was down the other end and had the sun in my eyes so I can't say it wasn't a penalty either.

Well that was a little bit deflating. We started really well, it was 2-0 going on 4 or 5 and it looked like it was going to be an easy night. Maybe that was the problem. What ever it was we just took our foot off the gas and let them back into the game. I don't know if it was fitness or just unprofessionalism but even then Stjarnan didn't look much of a threat until a deflected cross hit Lasley arm and they got the penalty. At 2-1 we shat it. There is no other way of saying it. We shat it. Second half we had nothing going on at all, the players were dead on their feet and Stjarnan created all the best chances and they constantly caught us on the break, they had already missed an absolute sitter, had a long ranger wizz narrowly by and hit the post before they got the penalty. It was quite a hot evening and that probably didn't help us but to only have half an hour of legs is not really good enough, although probably not that surprising having seen the Fulham where we hardly got into a canter. It's going to be tricky to get through this tie now with those two away goals against us but it's not impossible. We will have to improve a lot though if we do. I'll end on one positive note, we have a pretty good record away to Scandinavian teams - Bredablik, Aalesund, HB, Mypa, we won at all those grounds.

4-2-3-1 turns into 4-3-3 because the two wingers bomb forward and the other attacking midfielder plays off and behiind the centre forward, so it could be a 4-3-3 but perhaps it's more like a 4-2-1-3. It can just as easily become a 4-2-4 or a 4-4-2 depending on the individual actions of individual players. Really the only formation that really matters is the one of you start with, the base formation that everything else stems from.

I noticed Flamurtari are 21/1 to win away to Ploesti tonight!

On Bet365 you can watch... Buducnost Podgorica v Omonia Nicosia CSKA Sofia v Zumbru Chisinau HNK Rijeka v Ferencvaros FK Cukaricki v SV Grodig but no Motherwell I'm afraid.

Got my season ticket yesterday. Another season for this increasingly veteran supporter!

I don't have a problem with Pearson but I think a midfielder is not a priority position for bringing in someone. We need a forward and a central defender.

Don't think inflation is at 15%!

Would be surprised if we don't start with exactly the same personnel as we did against Fulham.

Honestly who other than diehards are going to pay £25 to see a probably sluggish and off the pace Motherwell play a part time team from Iceland? The answer is probably not even all the diehards.

Can see this match going the same way as the Celtic match. We'll need to get off to a good start or it could get uncomfortable.

Llanelli 4,307 Flamurtari 4,641 Steaua 4,975 Only the die hards will pay £25 to see a side from Iceland play a Motherwell team with no new signings of any note.

I'm guessing Stjarnan will be a similar standard to say a bottom half of the Championship club, a Cowdenbeath or Alloa. We should win this game and this tie but we need to be professional about it and the fact that we've not had any competitive football before the match does worry me a wee bit and we might not be up to pace in the first match but barring a disaster I thinkit's still very possible we could get a result at their place. Our energy level was reasonable against Kuban and Panathinaikos, but this game is coming two weeks earlier than those matches. We'll just have to see what happens.

Perhaps 'walk' in local parlance has negative connotations!

It doesn't really matter if they came directly from Bradford or not. He uses his connections in the game to recruit players he knows will do a good job for him. Same as Leann Dempster has done with Porteous. Maybe you'd prefer we conduct our business by drawing up a list of clubs or professionals we can't approach on the moral grounds that it would be unfair or unsporting to use personnel connections within the game. Perhaps when we next appoint a new manager or any other member of staff for the matter, we tell them that using connections within the football sphere is strictly prohibited and won't be tolerated at Motherwell FC. No, didn't think so.

If a Motherwell player gets a better offer he moves on. Staff are no different. Playing hard ball in the end is self defeating, especially in a small industry where everyone knows everyone else like Scottish football. They come and go and the club goes on. McCall has mined the Bradford connection pretty hard since he came to us, you can't stop other people doing the same thing.

Most likely Stjarnan will be looking to hit on the counter attack and nick an away goal. I don't think we should be playing defensively but at the same time we need to try and neutralize their game plan. We just need to go out there and take it one step at a time, try and get the first goal and then build on it. However I think fitness rather than tactics are going to decide the match. I'm guessing Stjarnan will be semi-professional at most but obviously they are in mid season which is something of an advantage. Anyone thinking back to the Llanelli will remember just how poor we were and then think how much better we were in the away leg. That's the difference between not having a competitive game and having only one competitive match behind you. I would liked to have seen us show a bit more intensity against Fulham to try and shake off those cobwebs but it didn't work out like that.

There is a Line Ups thread on Pie and Bovril at the moment and in it I wrote that I expected us to play Ainsworth behind Sutton and have Fraser Kerr at right midfield. However today we went with Ainsworth at right midfield and McHugh and Sutton up front in the first half. You have to assume our starting line up today is how it will be on Thursday.

He got 45 minutes in a very low intensity friendly. He was no better or no worse than most of the players who never got further than 2nd gear.

This was a cotton wool friendly if ever I saw one. Today's performance will have absolutely no bearing on the Stjarnan match whatsoever.

Erwin is surely Sutton's substitute. He's a big unit and seems to have bulked up a bit since that last time I saw him.

Maybe some of the Alan Hansen's will be more forgiving of a young kid in his debut season than a 26 year old at his 11th club.

Do you do a coupon? If you do, you'll know plenty of teams that should beat plenty of other teams don't every weekend!

As far as cup competitions are concerned I'd rather the manager and players just shut up about them. It's like the more were are promised cup success the worst the humiliation. What's next? Going out to Civil Service Strollers followed by another promise to do better? We all want to win one. It doesn't need to be a paper piece and all this cup chat is rapidly becoming is an albatross round our neck. I'll settle for better performances over paper chat any time.