Ya Bezzer!

Slattery and Spittal are the two biggest disappointments for me this season. If O'Donnell comes in for McGinn we are going to be in a bit of bother. I mean that's probably the case anyway but I mean even more so.

In the three matches we've played since VAR was introduced we've seen three game changing decisions that were wrong. Penalty against Aberdeen not given, Watt sent off for nothing and Gordon not getting sent off today. We are paying a 6 figure sum annually for VAR and it's not made a blind bit of difference except to make the matches even more unwatchable with long stoppages.

VAR a worthwhile addition to the Scottish game providing correct decisions and fairness for all. How much are we paying a year for this?

Hearts should have absolutely buried us in the first half. We've lost a goal in first half injury time and against 10 men. Gordon HAS to be sent off but isn't because he's the cuddly toy of Scottish football. Come back from 0-2. Lose it to a penalty right at the end. What's it like being a Motherwell supporter, eh?

I don't care if they get the decisions wrong or right. I've lived with that for 40 years and we've already seen that VAR makes no difference on that standard. However if there are 3 or 4 minute delays for refs to make decisions for things like goals then the game is done for me as a spectator sport.

Watt challenge was never a red card and if people are saying it's the law then the law is a hinderance to the game and needs to be changed. Reminded of, I think, one of the games from the last Euros when a played was sent off and a penalty given when there was absolutely no contact. Think it was one of the Sweden games. Anyway it was deemed dangerous play with no contact but I don't think there is even any force or aggression in Watt's actions. Sure, give a foul, maybe even a booking, but a red card? We have 5 wins in 13 which is reasonable but if you look closer 4 of those wins are away from home and 3 of them are shitefest 1-0s with a wee bit of luck through in. Again it just begs the question, how does a team like Motherwell compete and entertain at the same time?

Aberdeen were terrible at the back but not bad going forward. In the first 10 minutes they made 2 big blunders at the back and we didn't even attempt to take advantage of them, we just let them recover and get away with it and that kind of set a pattern. Aberdeen are definitely there for the taking defensively but we didn't put them under enough pressure, especially first half. However one thing Aberdeen did do that we just don't is load the box. Pretty much every time Aberdeen attacked they got 4 or 5 players into the 18 yard box. Our players just don't do that.

Celtic rested a lot of their first team against St Mirren and put in their worst display of the season. Obviously not taking that in as a factor but that's hardly surprising because you don't do nuanced consideration. As for Livingston, they pretty much play the Alexander game, remember him, two results against Rangers last season, and that was deemed unacceptable by our support. As for your second point, I can throw your daft argument straight back at you. How do you know? Were you there at the interviews? My view is based on an internal appointment and barely even any press speculation on anyone else. If you can back up that there was a good, experienced manager with a track record that was serious about wanting the job let me know. The whole point of my post was if you don't want 'eye bleed' football how do we compete in this league? Because it seems, unless we get some unexpected results, we'll be sitting near the bottom of the league when the break comes. You served up no answer and preferred to yap, chihuahua-like at the poser of the question. I wasn't surprised.

It's not very good but it was better than the one he inherited. Remember back then when we were about 3 months away from the Championship?

VAR was shocking today. Aberdeen scored in 4 minutes and I think it took them longer than that to award the goal.

Don't blame Hammell, he was put in a terrible position. No one else wanted the job and that's why he's there. And forget about managers, formations, line ups. This is a squad of footballers who, for the most part, cannot pass a ball and have next to no game intelligence in terms of moving into space or releasing the ball. That's all the analysis you need. Essentially they don't have the basics skills to play 'on the carpet'. Alexander's 'eye bleed' football might not have been great to watch but it maximised what we had as points over a season. Now we are trying to play football and giving the ball away, again and again because we literally can't play the way fans want to see the game played. Yet again we had just over 4,000 home supporters at the match. We are self financing. We simply do not have the financial power to bring in quality footballers. There are 3rd or 4th tiers of football that have more money than us. That's the brutal truth. Alexander's way was deemed unacceptable by our support. So what's the realistic alternative? As I've said for some time there I think there is a real disconnect between where we are as a club and where some of our supporters think we should be. That's an enormous danger because it's delusions that bring the great downfalls.

Looking forward to seeing, fingers crossed, my first goal from open play this season. Hoping for it to be down my end of the pitch would be probably asking too much!

Aberdeen's away form in the league has been shite. W1 D1 L3 and 4-13 goals for and against. Their defence is as bad as it was last season. If we don't go into this one looking for a win we have big problems.

Let's have a red card sweepstake. Someone write 1 to 22 on a bit of paper and cut them out.

3 league goals scored at home so far this season. 1 OG, 1 penalty and 1 free kick. Literally not score in open play half way through October...

Call me a cynic but somehow I don't think we are going to operate VAR better than the English Premiership does.

Obviously not our worst performance or result against Rangers but I was pretty disappointed today by what I saw. First of all that was the poorest Rangers team we've seen at Fir Park since probably the play off match. It'll be a long, long time before we see Rangers give away as much ball as they did today. Unfortunately while we pressed and won challenges that's where the good points ended. On the ball we were absolutely atrocious. Poor ability, poor passing, poor decision making, poor control, it simply is not good enough. How many times did we win the ball and give it straight back? Or play a long ball into an area of the park with absolutely no claret and amber shirts in it? Outside of set pieces we created one real chance and that was against as poor a Rangers team as you are likely to face. Sometimes Rangers and Celtic come to our place and play at the top of their game and there isn't much you can do about it. Today Rangers were well off the boil and they have gone 2-0 up. Both goals we lost today were really poor although to be fair Rangers didn't really cause us a lot of problems overall. However, you need to be defensively switched on for the 90 minutes. Unfortunately we are going to have to play a lot better against Celtic or I suspect a pumping will be delivered.

Doesn't matter if you are Brora Rangers or Real Madrid if you get pumped 7-1 at home your confidence takes a big knock. I think we have a real opportunity here to get the result we've been waiting a long time for. However we can't allow Rangers to play themselves back into confidence. When Dundee Utd lost 7 to AZ they played Hearts next and Hearts scored in the 1st minute. We don't need to score in the first minute but we have to prevent Rangers from playing their way out of the low place they will inevitable be in. If we can do that I think we can do something.

Henri Anier scored his 20th international goal tonight.

Aye but they have conceded in every league match this season bar one. If you can score a goal in this league you've a decent chance of getting a result.

This season (league stats) Rangers and Celtic have a combined penalty to shot ratio of 1 in 239 We have a penalty to shot ratio of 1 in 28 A lot of football is just.....random.

In terms of tempo, passing, chance creation etc, etc, best performance of the season. At the end of the day though Dundee Utd, who were shocking and there for the taking, record their first league clean sheet of the season. The build up play was a lot better today but you've got to take your chances or you won't go very far. It'll be interesting to see if we can repeat that level of performance against other teams cos I thought Dundee Utd were dire.

Louis Moult is a top five striker in the 40 plus years I've been supporting us but his injury history is catastrophic and he's not really scored too many goals since he left us. Fingers crossed we get the old Louis.

Or it's on the fans for forcing Alexander out after two results of the season having, just a few weeks ago given him a standing ovation. As for our transfer market performance, it's been so poor for so long maybe you just have to say that's the level we are at these days. Other teams might have performed a bit better here and there but I don't see a great slew of higher standard players coming into the league in general and on the other side of that you might say we've produced better youth players than most other teams.

You've forgotten what he took over and what he achieved with that. I said all along that Alexander's team might not be the best to watch but he squeezed pretty much the maximum you could achieve out of a poor set of players. Now we are just left with the players. By the way, Motherwell's standard of signing has been in decline for a long time probably going back to the Brown/McCall era after which big changes had to be made with the enormous financial losses we incured. Fan owner ship has rarely if ever produced top teams. There is a new reality that Motherwell supporters need to get used to but evidently they just want to scapegoat. And when you scapegoat you don't address the actual problem because, you know, it's all HIS fault.