Ya Bezzer!

I'm sure Higdon let him know what he thought!

I wasn't at the game so I can't argue about Murphy's overall performance but watching the highlights he was involved in just about every positive moment shown. He was involved in the goal, playing the ball out wide and then drawing the defenders (both were watching Murphy while McHugh found space). He then had a run and an excellent cross from which Higdon almost won the game with his header. Then finally he won the header from the corner that ended up as the McHugh/Hutchinson scrabble right at the end. Murphy doesn't always dominate matches but in my opinion he's usually involved when something positive happens and if you take him out the side we lose a lot.

If MJC getting his hole guarentees a Motherwell win I think we should all chip in for a hooker.

Did you read the after match comments last week? Contrast what Darren Randolph said with what his manager said. There will be no 'dare to dream' while McCall is manager of Motherwell. His style, if you were being kind, is a modest pragmatism. In a general sense it has worked for him but when it comes to games like these I don't think there is much chance of us causing a shock any time soon. As for Dundee United, they are quite a bit better than us IMO and will prove so this season. If top level football is all about having a cutting edge then their front trio of Russell, Daly, and Mackay-Steven are probably the best in the league right now and that's including Celtic. I'd still expect them to go out tonight though. Also bear in mind that Panathinaikos are the premier team of Athens/Greece, the same cannot be said of Dinamo Moscow who are the least supported team in Moscow (Spartak, CSKA, Lokomotiv are all bigger clubs)and behind other Russian teams like Zenit, Anzhi, Rubin Kazan etc.

Its strange that the two players who have scored the most goals in a team that, those two apart, hardly scores any goals would get all the stick. They only scored 29 goals between them last season! Welcome to the illogical world of Steelmen Online.

Anyway, I agree with your first point, this goes beyond "Daley is pish" talk but I'm not so sure I agree with the second point. I don't really think tonights result has anything to do with 'systemic problems in Scottish football'. We simply played a much bigger team, with a bigger budget, with better players, who have more experience at this level. If we had played a Greek team of roughly the same size and income as ours, a team like Giannina or Iraklis, we might well have gone through in the tie and you mostly likely wouldn't have seen the same technical gap. At the end of the day it comes down to money and we are a small club without much to spend. I didn't see tonight's match but I was there last week and the two Panathinaikos players that looked a cut above our guys were both non Greek - Sissoko and Zeca, i.e. it was money that brought them into the Panathinaikos squad in terms of, possibly fees, but certainly wages. Those guys were the difference between the teams and if we'd had the money to outbid Panathinaikos for them they might well have been the difference then as well.

Will be at work taking sneaky looks at Flashscores when the boss is in the meeting room.

If they can identify the people responsible send them the bill! Guaranteed we'd never have anything like this happen again.

Looks like the Keith Lasley/Fraser Fyvie incident from last season!

St. Johnstone lined up like this last weekend. -------------Mannus------------ ----McCracken--------Wright---- Mackay-----------------C.Davidson --------Cregg----M.Davidson Millar------------------Craig --------Tade-----Hasselbaink Looks like a pretty solid line up that should finish Top 6, although I think there are some question marks over Steve Lomas as a manager. There squad is quite small but in my opinion a bit stronger than ours, they can bring in guys like Steven Anderson, Kevin Moon, Jamie Adams, David Robertson, Tam Scobbie etc. We don't have that sort of experience on the bench. Tade/Hasselbaink could be quite a tricky front two but I'm not sure when Tade's suspension kicks in from his sending off last Saturday. There was also talk of the red card being rescinded. If Tade is out it will probably be Stevie May who comes in, one of those guys who has scored goals at a lower level but hasn't done it at the top level. They also have a new forward called Rowan Vine but I don't know anything about him. He's been transfered twice for more than a million pounds (Birmingham, QPR) so he might be one to look out for. Also perhaps someone people don't pay much attention to but I've liked Chris Millar on the right wing when I've seen him, he was superb when they beat us at Fir Park last season and the Saints fans seem to rate him quite highly, but I think he's had problems with injuries that have held him back a bit.

Judging by the highlights they were a bit unlucky to lose to Hearts at the weekend.

I think a lot of people are doing Ross County down unfairly, they'll be a hard team to beat on their own patch. Don't know anything about the match cos I was at work but to me if you draw away and win at home that's prety good form. Now we just have to win at home!

The media thinks football can't survive without it and that it performs some life saving task by covering it. But actually the reverse is (or was) true. We get roughly the same number of punters through the gates as we did 10 or 20 years ago. The Daily Record is in steep and probably irreversible decline. If I remember correctly it's circulation figures have halved. So old Hugh probably thinks because print journalism has never been at a lower ebb than now and Scottish sports journalism is still stuck in the 1980's in terms of the kind of coverage it offers and is being roundly ignored that Scottish football is in the same boat. It isn't. If you think Scottish football needs a print media to succeed look at a newspaper from the 1970's or 1960's. There is hardly any sport in them, a couple of pages at most. Sports coverage has expanded exponentially as a crotch to hold up flagging newspaper sales, but now that isn't working any more because people get their sports coverage elsewhere. The media just thinks people aren't interested in football and that "everything is doomed" because it can't see outside it's own little media bubble. I've spent a bit of time in Italy in recent years and although Italian television is dismal the print media is very good. The football coverage, especially analysis and build up, you get in the specialist sports newspapers is miles ahead of what we get over here.

OK, but 'Night Boat to Cairo' is better anyway. Oh and they should have played 'Embarrassment' when Sissoko came back on the other night.

Mr. Rae probably is Jim Traynor and Hugh Keevins.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I don't understand how people can say that someone who scored 13 goals from left wing for Motherwell in a season is one of the poorer players. He has good and bad games just like everyone at our level but if you take last night as an example he was roasting their right back, a Greek international with 40 caps, all the first half, and was the only player in the team capable of running past players. But if that's your opinion, that's your opinion.

If Ojamaa was better at "thinking football" he'd pass the ball to team mates in better positions instead of being a greedy wee shite. Also are you suggesting Ojamaa only plays well with players he is close to in his personal life? If so that's the height of unprofessionalism. When he's on form he's a good player but I think he's got a lot to learn if he wants to go further in the game.

Can they do that effectively though with the road so close? The road seems to be the main problem to access in my opinion, it forces everyone to queue down the pavement, instead of having four separate queues going into each turnstile.

He's no better based on what? Ramsden has played more games at centre for Motherwell than Saunders has! There are, in my opinion, still big question marks over Johnny Page and he's not always convinced when given the opportunity. Cummins is a kid with 1 appearance. Seriously what exactly are you basing your opinion on? None of the guys above have played in a Champions League match, Ramsden has, so there is no basis of comparison. Ramsden did OK, considering he was playing at a high level with a defensive partner he'd never played along side before. Ramsden, may or may not be a good or bad signing but to write the guy off after one competitive match at the highest level this club has ever played at, in a game we were unlucky to lose, well that's just stupid.

Agree except I thought Zeca (No.17) looked decent as well.

Las seems to get better and better. By the time he's 38 he could be the best player in the world! MOTM by a mile.

I turned up at 6.50 and there was no queue whatsoever. People should know by now that when we have a big crowd and they all turn up with 20 - 25 minutes to go there are problems. Given that the stadium was virtually empty until about 7.25 that's obviously what happened.

I thought he had a decent game but he needs someone to play off and unfortunately I thought Ojamaa was quite poor tonight and never got into the game.

Overall a good performance and we didn't deserve to lose but the game hinged on two near identical situations. Ojamaa caught Panathinaikos on the break drew the defenders towards them and then had the choice to slip in Murphy who was through and clear. He choose to hold on to the ball and try to score himself wasting a glorious opportunity. Then Sissoko caught us on the break drew the defenders towards him and then had the choice to play in Mavrias who was through and clear. He choose to play the ball to Mavrias who scored. And that's the difference between losing and drawing, maybe even going on to win the tie. There were some excellent performances - Hutchinson, Murphy, Hateley but Lasley was absolutely immense. On tonights performance we would beat most of the teams in the SPL you suspect so it was encouraging in one way but it was also very disappointing to play like that and not get a positive result. Now the bad bit. The atmosphere was superb tonight but there was no need to throw paper balls at opposition players - most likely we will get a warning and fine from UEFA since they gave German fans one for exactly the same thing. And unfortunately there was one individual who still lives in the 1970's who was shouting racist abuse at Sissoko.

If you aren't already on the way to the game, an interesting scouting report on Motherwell from the Greek perspective. My link Highlight Hateley and Ojamaa as our most dangerous players.