Ya Bezzer!

Fans are entitled to criticize players/managers if they don't feel like they are performing, especially consistently over a long period. However, you don't like to see people go over the top as has happened on occasion, for instance during Billy Davies time as manager when things got really poisonous for a while. However I'm quite interested in your post above because you seem to be saying you think you should be entitled to be able to have free reign to criticize players but at the same time are moaning about other supporters criticizing you at matches. Isn't there a bit of hypocrisy there? I'm basically for freedom of speech but that applies to everyone and different supporters see their role differently. Some think they pay their money and they can say what they want, others think supporters should always support, I'm kinda in the middle of those two positions but you can't really complain about being shouted at if you are dishing it out yourself.

Randolph - made about 5 great saves tonight.

Especially since the League Cup isn't even concluded. They should play the League Cup in the first half of the season (like they used to) and the Scottish Cup in the second half. But this being Scottish football straight forward common sense doesn't get a look in.

It wouldn't be that different if it was just one player. Nicky Law wasn't playing tonight and look at us! A shadow of the team on Saturday.

Started off OK, had a couple of decent efforts but sadly didn't take any of them. After that we struggled to create but we were hardly being outplayed. Second half, especially after the goal, we just fell apart. The defence that had coped OK up to that point just totally collapsed. Aberdeen started to over run us in midfield and pretty much controlled the match from then on, although Higdon missed a sitter to equalise just a few minutes after Fallon's goal. From then on it was down to Randolph to keep the score respectable. We were poor right down the spine of the team with the exception of Randolph. Hutchy needs experience beside him, not him being the experienced one! Cummins just isn't good enough to play at this level. The same could be said in midfield, Carswell was completely anonymous. And Higdon and Ojamaa were both absolutely shocking tonight. Time and time again Humphrey, who was probably our best outfield player, was the player furtherest forward and playing balls into areas with no Motherwell players present. It was as if Higdon and Ojamaa were playing a game of World Cup and weren't allowed to go into the 18 yard box! You need to get into the box and we just didn't do it tonight. We badly missed Nicky Law and our squad just isn't strong enough at the moment to deal with losing one or two important players. It really puzzles me that Kerr has been brought in when we so badly need an experienced player. And no offense to Kerr but nothing suggests that he completely outshines Johnny Page. Another year, another cup exit. I'm beginning to think I might never see a victory again.

Aberdeen's form has shaded recently, putting aside the draw with us at Pittodrie, they have lost 4 out of the last 6, including defeats at Tynecastle and Victoria Park. On the other hand we put the poor home form to bed on Saturday and are in decent form overall undefeated in 6 with 3 wins and 3 draws. We also have a pretty good record against Aberdeen and last season's cup defeat was a bit of an aberration, it was their only win against us since 2008. I think we should be going into this match pretty confident. All the pointers say home win.

Apart from the Panathinaikos game, yes. I thought we played quite well but no one really stood out. Could have given it to Hollis for his save at the end, I thought Hutchinson was solid again, Humphrey played well in patches but there was a long spell in the second half when he wasn't involved, Higdon got another goal, Lasley was back to something like the kind of form you expect of him but I'm giving it to Stevie Hammell.

That was my view at the match but McCall said on the radio they were carrying knocks.

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.