Ya Bezzer!

Had to force myself to go along today but I'm coming home happy. Not only did we win it was an entertaining game for the most part. First half I thought we played quite well and it was against the run of play when Ross County took the lead. Absolute rocket from Rocco Quinn, Hollis had no chance, no keeper would have got close to it. To our credit I didn't think it effected the match too much, we keep our heads up and equalized, good cross from Hateley, although I didn't think he had the best games overall. Second half we scored early, far too easily from Ross County's point of view. Law just ran right through the County defence without a challenge and just passed it in. After that you could see a look of terror on most of our guys faces and it was obvious we were shitting it about losing a lead again and guess what we sat back, lost all our composure and Ross County dominated. The equalizer had been coming for a while. After that we picked ourselves up again and the game went from end to end. Hollis made a few good saves in the last few minutes to keep the three points. No real stand out players but most of the team did quite well.

Dreich day, shit home form, away team parking the bus, probably poor attendance....hard to get too excited about this one. Maybe it won't be as bad as everyone thinks it will and we actually get a good game.

You suspect Hateley will be one of the players moving on next summer. Letting Saunders go seems like it would be a bad decision.

It's kind of an obvious point that a Premier League team is mostly knocked out the cup by other Premier League teams. I'm sure the same applies to every other Premier League team.

Aberdeen hadn't lost a home match this season until their last two. Is that just a blip (one was against Celtic) or a decline in form? Hard to say but Aberdeen draw a lot at home and it wouldn't surprise me if that's what happened on Saturday. Hopefully we get some kind of result. It's going to be a massive downer on our season if we are out of both cups before the new year has turned. I think its an absolutely rotten decision to have these ties played at this time of year. The League Cup should be played and concluded in the first half of the season and the Scottish Cup in the second. Of course this being Scotland...

There aren't multiple camera views at all games though. It's not as problematic to over rule a referees decision based on multiple camera views than a single camera view. In theory I'd be happy for tapes of all games to be gone through with players being retroactively punished for bad fouls (ie, reds that weren't awarded at the time) and especially diving and cheating but realistically it would cause more problems than it would solve. Fans already complain bitterly about referees, what happens when a compliance officer goes through a months worth tapes and awards suspensions and penalties to one club and none to another? Fans would simply bitch and moan and come up with lists of things the compliance officer didn't address. It would just open up a whole can of worms as this thread shows. This case was televised live across the country and was fairly clear cut. So they punish Randolph, fair enough, but generally speaking I don't think the authorities generally want to go down this route unless they feel they have no choice. And in this case they felt they couldn't really let Randolph off. Take it in the chin and move on I say.

I said immediately after the match that I thought that Randolph had got away with a nasty one and the only thing that has changed is that it looks like he's not going to get away with it now. I don't really understand some peoples complaint about players only being punished if they are on television. It's a bit like saying that criminals that are caught on CCTV shouldn't be punished because other people commit crime and get away with it because there is no evidence. You can only prosecute people where you have sufficient evidence and obviously televised matches provide that evidence. Randolph did something that was unnecessary and potential dangerous and now he's going to miss crucial games in our season because of his own stupidity. People trying to make out that the authorities are at fault here and not the player are, I'm afraid, taking their partisan support for the club a bit too far. If it had happened at the other end of the field I'm sure the very people moaning about this would be welcoming the decision to take action against Craig Samson for nearly taking the head off Murphy or whoever.

It was a rotten game in a run of rotten games. If it was a one off it wouldn't be so bad. Four out of the six matches I've been to this season have been dire. I think something like 8 out of 12 teams in the SPL have seen an increase in attendances this season and we are one of the odd ones out who's crowds have decreased quite a bit. You don't have to be a genius to work out why.

Celtic and Hibs losing today. The extra 2 points could have put us right up there, if the results stay the same.

Shaun Hutchinson by miles.

There is no bigger fan of Randolph than me but I thought he got away with a nasty one today.

Instead of kicking on from last weeks result our home form got even worse! The first half was probably the worst Motherwell performance I've seen since the Malpas days. Players literally couldn't pass the ball to one another. I'd like to see what the pass completion stats were because I suspect that there would be players out there down at 30 or 40%! We didn't even manage a single shot on goal unless I'm forgetting some tame effort. The one single threat we had was a Higdon header that, to be fair, the keeper did well to save. The second half was much the same apart from a little bit more urgency for the last 15 minutes when we created a couple of chances. Why McCall waited until the 88th minute to make a substitution and then when he did, replace a left back with a left back is anyones guess. Not even close to good enough. McCall, it's your job to come up with a team and tactical set up that can win home matches as well as away matches and if things aren't working out then figure out on the touch line where its going wrong and then CHANGE IT. Honestly that today was just tripe. Can you image what the attendance is going to be against Ross County? Sub 4,000 probably. Actually going Christmas shopping would probably be more entertaining than going to Fir Park these days.

I think we are at the stage now where it's worth more to us to keep both Randolph and Murphy and let them go for nothing than it is to sell them on for some nominal sum like we did with Reynolds. The league table is very tight and without both those players I suspect we are going down the table rather than maintaining our current position or even rising up it. Perhaps the Aberdeen game will determine our strategy. If there is no cup run money it may force us to accept a bid that would otherwise be unacceptable.

In response to that I'd say it's different when it's your home ground. I think it must effect confidence when players come out to their home ground and there is only a smattering of fans around the stands. Our recent away wins have been at grounds that struggle to attract a home crowd, in that case its been to our advantage. Of course, there is no one reason for anything, your opinion on the counter attack is also valid, partly down to the kind of players we have,partly down the the kind of manager we have. But I do think low attendances don't help on a whole number of levels.

Maybe the big win against Inverness will help us break out of our home rut but I think one of the things affecting us this season has been the dismal attendances at Fir Park. Can't see too many coming out due to the recent weather, kick off time, poor home form and television coverage. Cue flat atmosphere in a virtually empty stadium, it can hardly be inspiring for the players when our numbers are so low. Hearts away form has been poor for quite a long time and they very rarely win on the road but I think this one has a draw written all over it. Hopefully we get a good performance but if we don't I can see some negative reaction from the support because it's getting to the point now where the home supporters need to see improvement. Even if you exclude Celtic, Panathinaikos and Levante it would still only be 1 win in 5 and that's £100 worth of football.

In the very recent past most of our neighbouring countries (and by that I mean Ireland and Scandinavia) had part time or mostly part time leagues that were essentially feeder leagues to the English, German or Italian leagues. As far as I can see the SPL is now just a feeder league for the English league and although Scottish players have always gone south it's only a recent phenomenon that almost every English League club can out bid almost every Scottish club for a player. The Scottish game is now completely subservient to the English game. As far as I can see we are trying to maintain a feeder league as if it was a 'buying' league. The boom years aren't coming back and the logical conclusion is that clubs will have to reduce player wages. Currently they are trying to do that by reducing squad sizes but I think eventually they will have to actually substantially reduce 'the going rate' of the average professional. We aren't at a point quite yet where I can foresee the top tier of our game having to go part time but I can see a time, in the not too distant future, when clubs reduce the number of professionals to a bare minimum (perhaps only 14 or 15 pros)with the rest either low paid youngsters or part time players. In actual fact this used to be the model for most of the clubs outside the top division and occasionally top tier clubs (didn't Hamilton Accies, Clydebank and possibly Dumbarton play in the top division with mixed squads?). The lower leagues back in those days used to produce some excellent players many of whom went on to international level so I don't think its necessarily the worst thing that could happen. Incidentally the Norwegian Tippeligaen, which only became professional in 1992, has a TV deal worth £45 million a year in contrast to the SPL deal which is worth only about £16 million a year. Financially, we are miles behind right now.

Obviously forgotten about Khaled Kemas.

Currently playing in Cyprus for Aris Limassol. Swapping Motherwell/Dundee for Cyprus is probably quite a good idea to be fair.

Randolph Corrigan Craigan Reynolds Hammell O'Brien O'Donnell Lasley McCormack Clarkson McDonald For me the back four and goalkeeper more or less picks itself. In midfield I'd have O'Brien on the right wing and pick McCormack narrowly over Pearson. Both had excellent ability although both were inconsistent. Still I think McCormack at the top of his game with his pace and goal threat betters Pearson. In the middle Lasley and O'Donnell. Although the donkey work is important in midfield I think both those players could do that but still provide a bit more football than Jennings was capable of. Upfront I've picked Clarkson ahead of Jutkiewicz on the basis that Jutkiewicz, excellent as he was, was only with us for one season while Clarkson was probably our best player in the last couple of seasons he was at the club (IMO anyway). At that stage he was also scoring as many if not more goals than Jutkiewicz got. McDonald was far and away the best striker we've had since the Coyne/Arnott/Coyle days.

Another vote for Ojamaa. I've set my thoughts out on him in the game thread.

First half we were dire. If we played like that every week we'd be relegated without a shadow of a doubt. Not organised, no confidence, no touch, no invention, nothing. It was ironic that Higdon scored as I thought he was the worst player on the pitch and I'm not one of the Higdon haters. He improved a bit in the second half and that 'honour' was passed to Hateley/Humphrey who were abysmal and hardly put a good ball in all match. There was one moment in the first half when Humphrey took a first touch and then had to sprint 10 yards to retrieve the ball. It was school football stuff. No big surprise then that the one good ball came in from the left but where I was sitting it was impossible to see if it was offside or not. Dundee were the worst side I've seen this season and yet we were a bit lucky to get a point since Randolph had to bail us out at the other end on a couple of occasions with some excellent saves although I have to also point out that Randolph's distribution yesterday was terrible. There just seems to be an attitude of half heartedness, laziness around the whole team right now, with the exception of Ojamaa who I think is being played in the wrong position and isn't as effective as he could be despite his industry. He's at his best coming inside from a wider position and works best when he's along side Law on that flank. Of course both of those players are currently playing through the middle. Ojamaa is a player for a 4-3-3 not a 4-4-1-1. That's not a criticism of Ojamaa of course, it's a criticism of those that set the team up.

I don't think we need a new centre forward just another centre forward. It was pretty obvious early on last night that Higdon wasn't going to do something. He needed someone to pick up flick on and knock ons and that's why I thought McHugh should have come on much earlier to partner him. Higdon's goal scoring record overall is good but there are a number of games, not just one or two, when he is completely nullified as an attacking threat. I'm sure if he'd had some help from another 18 yard box striker he would have had more joy. Even if the other striker doesn't touch the ball it still completely alters the dynamic of the match. The whole way the match went last night we were screaming out for a second striker. Dundee United were quite happy to sit back and counter attack so it's not like there was a midfield battle to win.

Went for Jamie Murphy. Hammell and Law did OK as well and Randolph made a couple of decent saves.

No one has mentioned that it looked like Dundee Utd had a decent goal shout chopped off. Looked over the line from where I was but it's hard to tell what with the 'whole of the ball' rule. My initial reaction was that it was over though.

Our centre back partnership tonight was as poor as I've seen in a long time. Although we had most of the possession and chances I thought Dundee Utd were always likely to get a goal which meant we had to get one just to get a point. I thought we played reasonably well middle to front but I blame McCall's tactical inflexibility for the defeat. We were absolutely crying out for a 4-4-2 tonight. Ojamaa is not a striker and Bob McHugh should have be on much earlier to give us a chance. Playing with just Higdon upfront made us predictable and made it a lot easier for Dundee Utd to defend. Having said that we created enough chances to score tonight but if we'd had two out and out strikers on I strongly suspect we would have hit the back of the net. I think if we play at the level we did tonight we should win against Dundee as I don't think they will be as defensively disciplined as Utd were tonight and they don't have a striker of the quality of Johnny Russell. Disappointing but disappointment that can be tempered at the weekend.