Ya Bezzer!

McManus and Carswell were our best performers. Giving it to McManus.

Gave the ball away and was caught out of position from start to finish.

One of his worst ever matches today. On that performance he's got a lot to learn before he gets a big move.

The main thing today was that we won and we did that. It wasn't a classic win, performance but I think it was really important to put midweek to bed and we've made a step toward that. First half was as I expected it would be like. Two teams, lacking confidence, both looking fragile. Hibs probably started the better team but I felt it was mistakes by us rather than Hibs showing good play. McManus took his goal well and afterwards we looked to show some of the confidence we'd been lacking before hand and created perhaps three good chances to finish the match as I didn't think Hibs would come back from 2-0 down. The second half was poor, we seemed to just want to hang on to our lead, we created next to nothing and our wide players were very poor again. We hung on, mostly down to poor finishing from Hibs. Dire refereeing, I don't know what we've done to referees to deserve the standard of refereeing that we've seen at Fir Park. Sutton was literally fouled every time he went for a high ball today and the referee did nothing. Will take the 3 points and hopefully we can move on from the disappointments of earlier this week but it wasn't pretty.

It's kind of a no win situation for the team on Sunday. If we put in a performance people will say "why didn't you do that on Wednesday?" and if we don't well all the criticisms will be repeated and fortified.

I think tomorrow will be dire. Sunday morning kick off. Two pissed off supports who will give this one a wide berth and watch on telly, if at all. Two teams that have suffered hammerblows and have a severe lack of confidence. And it will probably be freezing and pissing down. Will still be there though.

I broadly agree with your post as regards league football but the other night was a completely different situation. We've been one of the best teams in Scotland for 4 seasons now, yet when it comes to cup football we choke, while lesser teams go on to pick up silver wear. It's all the more galling that we've consistently made the same mistakes in preparation for these matches. If fans feel hurt and disappointed it's because it seems we want success more than the management and the players do. Cup matches aren't about overall qualities, it's about desire and will to win over 90 or 120 minutes. We have consistently failed to show that, over and over again. If there is bad feeling among the support it's not just about Wednesday night it's about a long string of cup failures. I'll be there on Sunday as always but I genuinely feel pretty down right now and I guess a lot of supporters will feel the same.

Probably not the best time to have two home games on the trot, especially against teams we have struggled against at Fir Park. I suspect there won't be a great deal of patience from the stands for these games. Hopefully Hollis is back and I think some of the younger players like ZFA and Carswell could be doing with a wee break, they have gone noticeable downhill over the past few matches and we need more experienced players to come in and step up to the mark. I agree we need to get Vigurs going but I wouldn't drop Lasley for Lawson. I don't think we can take too many risks, we don't want to try something novel that fails, so I'd keep it 4-4-2 at least at the beginning. 4 points is a minimium otherwise I fear a poor spell at an important stage in the season, so I'd be happy to grind the results out.

For a winger to receive the ball from the right back and then pump a ball into the box from just over the half way line when he had space to run into is inexcusable to me. He did this, or close to it, on multiple occasions. Also there were a number of ocassions when Ramsden brought the ball out was looking for the forward pass to Ainsworth down the right and Ainsworth wasn't even there forcing Ramsden to go 10 - 15 yards into the opposition box and then pump another of those useless high balls into the box. That's not good enough for a winger in a match were we had very little chance of playing down the middle. A winger sticks to the line, makes him self available for out balls and gets down to the corners. He didn't do that 80% of his match time.

Ainsworth, brought in from the lower leagues in England didn't need nullified last night because he was so bad. Our most effective player this season has been Sutton who was 'hoovered up from a team that finished below us last year'. Don't think your argument stands up.

A difficult choice for all the wrong reasons. Nielsen - had a nightmare, never looked comfortable (4) Ramsden - pumped too many balls into the box, partly due to not being willing to attack, partly due to Ainsworth poor positional play. (5) Hutchinson - Had hardly anything to do, got ripped for the second goal, would like to see the first goal as well as I didn't see who Considine beat in the air. (?) McManus - See above. (?) Hammell - lacked mobility and passing was poor. (5) Lawson - thought he started well but unraveled pretty quickly. (4) Lasley - not his best game as there was no midfield battle to win and the game was all in front of him (5) Francis Angol - going through a bad spell, still better than Ainsworth though (5) Carswell - another young player who's form has dropped off, maybe needs a rest (4) Anier - didn't get into the box often enough, ineffective (5) Sutton - frustrating match, well marshalled by Dons defence (5) Ainsworth - dire performance (4) McHugh - very little impact (2) No one really deserves it. I'm not voting until I see the highlights, particularly the first goal in better detail.

As did I. But based on the notion that McFadden would be fitter this season than last season. Not on the fact that he'd play, literally, at walking pace.

If we want to get better this season we need Vigurs and McFadden to perform. Simple. These two guys are the ones with something extra in the locker. McCall brought Vigurs in but doesn't seem to want to actually make the necessary tactical adjustments to his team to actually use him effectively. The player needs to give himself a shake but McCall also needs to ask himself what he's actually doing to utilize the players strengths. McFadden has obviously been injured since pre-season. As far as I know, and I may be wrong, he was not seriously linked with any other club. I suspect I know why now. There are two possible outcomes with McFadden, he gets over his injuries and returns to something like the form he showed last season which I thought was excellent. Or he doesn't get any better in which case he'll probably retire from football at the end of the season. Either way he's with us until then so we can only be patient with him, however if he's not fit, he shouldn't play and I think that's what has happened earlier this season.

What about 'Why was Faddy signed if he isn't fit enough to play?' He hasn't been fit enough to play, regardless of time spent on the field, since day 1 of the season.

It wasn't our main problem, I agree. But we don't have a single player across the middle of the field that can score from 18, 20, 25 yards out. Our shooting from that distance was dire. When an opportunity fell to Carswell from that distance he took a fresh air swipe and fell on his arse. Think about how often someone like Rocco Quinn or Liam Craig bangs one in against us. Our goal tally from midfield is woeful and it costs us points. This season we have 2 goals from 13 by defenders and midfielders and one of them was a header from a set piece.

Funnily enough tonight was the night Vigurs would have been handy. He can actually strike a ball from 20 - 25 yards. Carswell, Lasley, Lawson, Francis-Angol, not so much.

An absolutely disastrous result for Motherwell FC. Leaving the ground all I heard was anger and disillusionment. This is the sort of result and turns fans away from supporting the club. It will be interesting to see what the attendance is at the weekend because I think a lot of fans, fairly or unfairly were sickened by what happened tonight. I'm going to make three main points. 1) Aberdeen are just better than us this season and I think before we go any further we have to accept that. They attack better than us, they defend better than us, they have a better goalkeeper than us, they have more height and strength than us, they have more pace than us and they have more goal threat than us. 2) Today was the worst refereeing performance I have seen in a very long time. John Beaton should not be anywhere near refereeing top level games. He was utterly, utterly inept. Which brings me to Motherwell. 3) The sending off was probably was worst thing that could have happened to us. I thought we started well, had a goal disallowed that the linesman didn't seem to flag until about 30 seconds afterwards and generally looked like the better team. After the sending off we seemed to have no idea how to break down a team that had everyone behind the ball. I accept that when a team plays like Aberdeen did tonight it can be very difficult to break down, especially when they have a physical advantage over us but our attempt to break them down was completely wrong headed and inept. Can ANYONE tell me why on multiple occasions why the ball was played wide to a winger who then proceeded to pump an easily defend able ball from virtually the half way line into the Aberdeen box? Could we make it any easier to defend? It was bad enough that Ramsden was doing it, but for a supposed winger, why the hell was Ainsworth doing it? Why do Motherwell seem to sign wingers that have some kind of aversion to the byline!? You get to the byline, you play balls going AWAY from the goalkeeper and defender and TOWARDS our attacking players. This is school boy stuff and yet time after time we do not do it. It is simply not good enough when players who should know better behave like amateurs. I have a feeling that Nielsen will be getting some stick tonight, especially over the first goal. My thoughts are that I thought the corner from Aberdeen was a superb one that made it very difficult to defend however, putting that to one side I thought Nielsen had a stinker. Every time Aberdeen put a ball into the box you were just waiting for disaster to strike. He showed no authority or command of his area. Hollis can't come back soon enough. Finally Stuart McCall. I've often been a critic of McCall but overall I think you have to be fair and say he has mostly down a very good job. However tonight he let Motherwell FC and it's support done badly with a negligent performance as manager. He made an adjustment at half time but that was not good enough. It was clear we needed to make tactical adjustments at 60, 70, 80 minutes and what we got was Anier taken off for McHugh. There are guys on here who have it in for McHugh, I am not one of them, but that decision does not cut it as a managerial decision in possibly our biggest game of the season. Stuart McCall was hiding tonight behind status quo because he didn't know what to do. I totally understand that we have a small and limited squad but as a manager Stuart McCall has to have a Plan A, B, C, right through to Z. He showed tonight he doesn't have them, just as in the past he didn't have them. It's a huge flaw in his armour and as a result I think it is unlikely we will ever win these really big matches when it really matters. We will trundle along in the league well enough, provided our confidence doesn't nosedive after this defeat, but actually win something under McCall? Sadly I just can't see it. Tonight seemed to show there is a ceiling on Stuart McCall's managerial ability.

I don't know, you make a joke and everyone gets upset these days...

It's probably immaterial since they all have a national, rather than provincial, profile and most likely aren't available at short notice - even for something as prestigious as a golf club presentation.

Apparently it's a malleolar injury. That's ankle to you and me.

He has done the square root of hee haw this season. However if he's not any good he must be lucky because we got 4 wins and a draw with him in the team then when he wasn't there we lose 2 out of 3. I'll have a hee haw player in the team if he's lucky.

Sadly the second section from last is usually sparsely populated. Hopefully there are enough people around for this to work!

Tough luck for the guys with prior commitments but I much prefer Friday nights to Sunday or Mondays.

The fundamentals of goalkeeping are that you keep it out the net anyway you can. Nielsen did that and the ball was there to be won in the box. Sadly, our defenders were sitting on their heels, while Stevie May was alert to what was actually happening. That goal seemed to sum up the lethargy of the team yesterday. There were about 4 balls to be won in the lead up to the goal and we lost every battle. Blaming Nielsen seems pretty short sighted to me.

We have a better chance of winning a cup than normal but I think some people are getting carried away. Results this season seem to show me that we are only third or fourth favourites to win the cup. We've been beaten pretty comprehensively by Inverness, Aberdeen and St. Johnstone this season and we didn't beat Dundee Utd. The win over Hibs, while a good result, was hardly a convincing performance. The idea that 'our name is on the cup' just because Celtic are out the competition is ludicrous. We will need to put in performances and work bloody hard to even get into the next round. I hope we do it, but I dislike the idea that the cup is just waiting for us to pick up. Most years it's not the OF that put out us out the cup and this year will be no different unless we actually get our attitude right.