Ya Bezzer!

Hearts have lost 4 on the bounce, including the last two home matches (0-3 Kilmarnock, 2-3 ICT). They've only won 1 match in the last 9, a 1-0 win at home to Dundee with a late goal. Their starting line ups recently have involved regular starts from Jamie Walker, Jason Holt, Callum Tapping, Kevin McHattie, Fraser Mullen and Billy King. Basically a youth team. Would be very disappointed not to get something out of this.

If we play to our potential we should win this one. Hearts look quite weak to me, missing a lot of experienced players and have a team full of kids. Of course you can't rule out the 'management change bounce' but we just beat Celtic so you'd hope we are going into this one confident.

I won't be outraged if they sign new contracts but for me Humphrey and Hateley are players who are stagnating a bit and it might be good for them to move on and seek a new challenge. Randolph and Law I would love to sign new contracts but anyone can see over the past couple of seasons they are players of a higher calibre than Motherwell. If either or both go, which I'd expect, they would leave big gaps to fill, especially Randolph as a quality goalkeeper can mean the difference between a great and mediocre season. I've said it before but for me he's the best keeper we've had in the nearly 30 years I've been going along to Fir Park. Hutchinson is still young and has a lot to learn and I'd be more hopeful he'd sign on for maybe another 2 years. He's a great lad but there are still raw features to his game that he'd have to iron out if he wanted to play regular football at a higher level. I'd also be hopeful that Higdon will sign on again as well. He's not entirely convinced some of our supporters despite the number of goals scored and I think higher level managers might feel the same way about him. I think he's probably viewed as not mobile enough or a hard enough grafter to play at Championship level or higher down south. Perhaps a richer club in the lower English leagues could come in but he's played in Scotland for a while now and might well be fairly settled here.

Went for Lasley. We won the midfield battle last night and that was mainly down to the sheer combativeness of wee Keith. That allowed other players to play. Probably his best game of the season.

That's what happens when you work hard. Couldn't fail a single player tonight, everyone gave 100% and some showed they are actually pretty good footballers as well. Lasley was back to his tigerish best and was my MotM. Law was excellent, McFadden played like he'd never been away, Ojamaa absolutely ran his socks off, Higdon was tremendous as well and was there at the right time yet again. We defended like demons when we had to and it was bizarre to think a guy like Cummins can play like that when he so often struggles against journey men. A very well deserved victory.

My girlfriend doesn't go to games but I know for a fact that something like this would have a severe effect on her health as she has bad asthma. A nephew of mine who comes along occasionally to Fir Park is in the same position. As said, they do a lot to improve the atmosphere, but if you ask me letting off smoke bombs is bound to end badly, either in terms of people being arrested or banned, the club being fined or worse still, someone needing medical treatment from inhalation of smoke.

If Francis-Angol is out and Hammell isn't fit who plays at left back?

We can't afford to write this one off. I'm hoping our players have looked at the way the league table has developed after three shoddy defeats and are thinking "OK, we really need to get something out of this game". We've lost the three of the last four, we haven't scored in 4 of our last 6 - we simply cannot afford these sort of poor runs at this time of the season. So I say, it doesn't matter who we are playing tomorrow night - we have to nip this in the bud right now.

Wullie did "The Higdon" when he scored his first.

If we have an indian sign over Inverness then Dundee Utd have one over us at Fir Park. Can't even remember the last time we scored against them at Fir Park, never mind won! That Randolph was our man of the man by a mile kinda tells the story, especially since his opposite number didn't have a serious save to make in the match. I thought Dundee Utd were pretty good tonight, they defended well, won the midfield tussle and Johnny Russell in particular was almost unplayable at times in the first half. Faddy came on and had a few good touches but didn't have much chance to influence the game. Still looked like he's still got legs and you could see his movement was a class above the rest.

I'd approach this from a different angle. I'd say we are jumping fairly low hurdles most weeks. When we run up to the high hurdles (cup matches, OF, Europe) we, under McCall, have mostly crashed into them and fallen on our arses. I don't really have a problem with McCall, except in one or two aspects, what I object to is his more ardent supporters making claims of him that for me ignore some crucial facts. If we finish 2nd this season that is an excellent achievement. However it will have been done in a league which is of a lower general standard than it was when, say Terry Butcher got us a Top 6 finish and one where most of the traditionally powerful city clubs have been in crisis - Rangers, Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen etc. McCall isn't responsible for any of the above, he can only compete against the sides we come up against but at the same time I don't think you can reasonable say McCall is a better manager than McLean because he could finish a place higher than wee Tam ever did when McLean got his 3rd place in a far superior quality league and was much closer to the eventual champions. In summary then, you don't judge a manager on league position unless you put the league as a whole into some context.

Went for Shaun Hutchinson. It took us a while for the midfield to get going yesterday but Hutchinson was great for the 90 minutes.

An enjoyable match were we played well in patches. Thought we scored against the run of play but our excellent start to the 2nd half killed them off. After that we were always in control. It was good to see Hateley have a good game against because he's been off form recently in my view. The spine of the team was excellent today Hutchinson - Law - Higdon.

We are playing the 2nd top team in the league with the chance to go 2nd but to be honest I'm not feeling much buzz for this one which is odd as the games between the teams have been high scoring affairs and we have a pretty good record against them. Seems to me the season is just about over already with Celtic running away with the title, no 2nd place Champions League spot and Dundee 100% guaranteed to be relegated. I tend to be cautious in my expectations but even I would be amazed if we didn't get a Europa Cup place. Where is the excitement coming from? I go to every match I can and I enjoy the matches once in the stadium but in terms of build up and getting the non die hards along to matches I think it could be bleak for the rest of the season.

I'm old fashioned and reckon you judge a striker on his goals tally at the end of the season (or loan period) BUT if you take away the St. Johnstone match and someone else took the penalty against Hibernian his record goes from 18/10 to 17/6. I think the later figures better reflected his actual quality. He was an average player who had one extraordinary match. I can't see him being good enough to play at Premiership level but of course he could have matured and added to his game since we saw him.

The thing is last seasons average attendance included two Rangers matches and two Celtic matches, while this seasons only includes one Celtic match. These games make a huge difference to our average attendance, especially as they are mostly paying away fans. We will get a second Celtic vist but we will miss out on about 20,000 from the Rangers matches, mostly comprised of paying Rangers fans, replaced with perhaps 8,000 from Dundee matches, mostly comprised of already paid Motherwell season ticket holders.

Last season our average home attendance was 5,496. This season it's 4,465. So if that's 1,000 less people on average per game at say £20 per person, i.e, £20,000 per home game. I make that £250,000 less over 12 home league matches. Of course it's not as simple as that because season ticket holders could have paid and then not come to games as well as other factors but I think the point is we are probably going to bring in less by a six figure sum in attendance money than the previous season. I suspect the fall is mainly due to no Rangers match (usually our highest attendance of the season) and falling away supports, especially the bigger clubs like Hibs, Hearts and Dundee Utd. Our home match against Dundee Utd attracted 3,941 fans. The Hearts match barely scrapped over the 4,000 mark. Our last home match against St. Johnstone was just over 3,500. If we don't attract more fans any cup success or high league placing is going to be negated by the steep decrease in league match income.

Perhaps others will remember a Scotland U21 match at Fir Park against Italy when the two best players on the park by a mile were Thomson and Mark Wilson. They were head and shoulders above anyone in the Italy team. For some reason our emerging talent doesn't kick on between that and senior level. I'd still take him 'in a heart beat' though to echo another poster.

Whether a cup game is home or away doesn't really matter much since the gate money is split. Although I suppose the home club will make a bit more money through other sales.

The problem with this is it will have an appeal to at least a chunk of the Scottish League clubs due to the fact that they will get more money and more opportunities for promotion to the top tier. It's been quite clear for a while that it's been the SPL's strategy to detach the bigger clubs in the SFL away from the minnows. With this scheme they might well get their way. Clubs like Dunfermline or Partick Thistle are in no position to vote in any other way than self interest due to the dire financial position most First Division clubs are in.

More concern to me than Houston leaving is Dundee United's away form which is much better than their woeful home form. They'll probably be looking forward to getting away from Tannadice as we have from Fir Park on occasions. In fact Dundee Utd have taken 17 points away from home this season, the same number we've taken at home. I think this will be a difficult match.

The last few matches against Dundee Utd at Fir Park have been dire performances! We've not even got so much as a goal against them in the last 3 matches. Hopefully we can do better than our recent history suggests. As others have said with the likes of Russell, Daly and Mackay-Stevens available to Dundee Utd we will probably have to score twice to get anything out the match.

Next time the whole 'Is Higdon Any Good' debate sparks off, the Nay camp can chime in with the 'Scored less goals than Colin Nish!' argument.

Would only be interested in individuals to be honest. I suspect I know why you are getting rid of them (or being forced!). Having 15 shoe boxes full of the things takes up a hell of a lot of space.

Down the spine of the team, the central defensive and central midfield areas, we are weaker in three out of the four slots. Lasley is a year older and while still a good player on the downslope. Jennings is gone. Although people were critical of him I maintain Craigan was an excellent presence in the team. We would have been much better organised at the back if he had played another season. My big complaint earlier in the season was the lack of entertainment. That's turned around recently so I don't have a huge problem with the tactics and team set up as long as we are scoring and winning. However it's clear we are, more than ever, dependent on a couple of players to keep us competitive. What happens if Lasley gets injured or someone comes in for Hutchinson during the window? With Murphy gone we are almost wholly dependent on Higdon for goals. I don't know if there is much that can be done about it in the current financial climate at the club.