Ya Bezzer!

People keep saying this Rangers team is 'crap' but they are undefeated in 11 league matches (more if you include cup games) have won 9 of them and drawn 2 and have only conceded only 6 goals but scored 34. Not a bad run of form. However I think the pitch will act as a great equalizer. I think we have a decent chance of getting something out of the match.

Did you see the pitch? As you mentioned Forbes best attribute is he tries passes that no other player in the squad would see or attempt but you need to give him a decent surface to do it on. Under the current conditions it wouldn't surprise me if Forbes plays in more away matches where there is the possibility of a decent surface than at Fir Park. Even though his performances have tailed off a little lately I still think we miss him a little because he gives us something different from the other midfielders who are all of a type (Jennings, Lasley, Coke even Hateley). Forbes gives us an offensive dimension from midfield that we lack when he's not there - he's got 9 goals this season (OK, I think 4 were penalties but still), Jennings, Lasley, Coke and Hateley have 1 between them.

To me that is the major problem. Footballers should be able to play in muddy conditions or bare pitches during the winter. It's something entirely different when the pitch has hundreds of churned up piles of turf and soil all over it. Even a short pass is taking three or four bobbles before it gets to its man.

You must have missed the bit when Las did keepie uppie around the entire Hamilton Team with the back of his heel and then did a scissors kick that beat Cerny but caught in a divot in the pitch and was then scrambled away by a terrified Accies defender. It wasn't a great game but sometimes you have to give players credit for digging out a result. That's why I gave Lasley 8. Accies were playing 3-4-2-1 yesterday so they usually had one or two more men in the midfield so our guys were outnumbered there. There have been many times when we've seen our four in the middle completely nullified by those sort of tactics to the extent we barely have a midfield. Yesterday we got the better of them against the odds. I thought our midfield worked really, really hard yesterday. Sure there was no great build up play or killer passes or anything like that but they got their ratings on workrate and determination to the cause.

Lasley

Not a great game but panned out exactly like I would have expected it to. Accies dominated the early stages without really threatening. Coke looked a little uncomfortable out left and Accies had an extra man in midfield. After about 20 minutes Coke came on to more of a game and we were (just about) the better team for most of the rest of the match. Accies only really threatened in the final few minutes. Very scrappy, lots of fouls and the pitch looked like it had taken an artillery barrage which didn't make it easy to play flowing football. You couldn't fault the players for effort but there wasn't a lot of quality. Still most of the players showed they were prepared to battle and dig out three points. Ruddy [7] Not much to do but looked very commanding and confident when called on. Hateley [7] Fitted in well again at right back Craigan [7] Solid Reynolds [7] Looked comfortable Hammell [7] Excellent shift from Hammell O'Brien [7] The poor surface didn't help him much but showed excellent energy and determination to chase things Jennings [6] Battled away unspectacularly but effectively. Lasley [8] Sorry if it sounds like fawning but he really was our best player. Coke [7] Took 20 minutes to settled down but did well overall Jutkiewicz [7] Scored the winning goal and showed some good touches on a terrible pitch. Sutton [5] Never really happened for Sutton today. Humphrey [2] Occasionally ran fast. Fitzpatrick [1] Injured within minutes of coming on. Saunders [2] Defensively a little slack.

Accies support wasn't bad by today's standards - maybe 500.

If McLaughlin is out that will be good news.

He's been in and out but I bet he gets an appearance on Saturday.

Ya Bezzer is an accepted ethnic variant. It's also the skillful wordsmith melding of the late eighties/very early nineties sporting and cultural zeitgeist with nods to Stevie Kirk and The Happy Mondays.

Forget Imrie, I'm worried about Stuart Elliott coming back to his old haunt! It will be a tight match, don't see lots of goals as Accies rarely concede more than one, in fact excluding the thrashing at Hibs you have to go way back to November to find Accies conceding twice in a league match. They have been struggling to score recently though, so with our defence in decent form you'd hope for perhaps a 1-0 win. Certainly we need to win these types of matches if we are going to be Top Six. You wonder what influence the pitch will have though, especially this being the second match on it in a week.

Bravo. Agree with every word.

Sigh. Don't you get it? McDonald only had one of the best scoring records of any Motherwell striker in modern times, scored season after season after season consistently with no real lean period, was capped at international level while with the club, literally saved Motherwell FC from relegation with his last couple of goals, provided us with one of the iconic moments of being a Motherwell fan on Helicopter Sunday and left for one of the biggest fees the club has ever taken in when we got him for nothing. He then went on to a hugely successful Celtic side where he was the main striker and goalscorer and bagged goals in the Champions League against the likes of AC Milan and Manchester United. Obviously he was crap and over rated!

Just said on the radio Aberdeen will not make a bid for O'Brien.

We definitely need the white shorts back but I'd like to see a return to black socks as well. Would be something different (never had them in my time). I think it would look pretty good if you kept to a traditional design.

Jim Leighton gives his MotM to Stephen Craigan.

BBC Scotland "Motherwell MILES ahead today"

Get Broon signed up till he's 80!

COME ON YEEEEEE WELLLLLLLLL!!!!!

Hard to say what's going to happen at the weekend. Aberdeen have won 4 out of 5 this year but perhaps they are a better team away from home; they have lost 3 on the road and 4 at home. Our recent record up there is pretty good, unless I missed one you have to go all the way back to November 2006 for the last time we came back from Pittodrie with nothing. A defeat isn't the end of the world, I would be happy with a point, a win would be excellent.

You can't have the entire stadium in lock down you have to put some trust in these prisoners. These guys were given a chance to prove they were reformed and they fucked it up. Back to prison, enjoy the food and sodomy. Give another couple of guys a chance in their place but only if there is a realistic chance they will play it straight - we're not here to give scumbags a day out.

Yeah, great analysis. Maybe Lasley got better because since he started the last three league matches we've won two and drawn the other after a long dismal run; he's also been one of the best players on the park during that period (not my opinion, check the MotM polls). I've nothing particularly against Jennings but he's fourth choice right now for a reason - he's not played as well or done as much Coke, Hateley or Lasley. When he got a 4 match run we lost every game, perhaps not entirely his fault but its doesn't great reading if you are trying to force your way into a team. He'll probably get a chance again now that Coke is out, it's up to him to grab it. If he doesn't well that's football, when you get a chance you've got to take it.

Both good players but if you want to win games you need to score goals and I'd rather have an average goalkeeper and a good forward than a good goalkeeper and an average forward. Out of the two I'd take Jutkiewicz. Aside from that reckoning goal scorers have better sell on value. How much money have we brought in from goalkeepers? And how much from forward players?

Would have taken a point after Coke got sent off so a reasonable result, we don't have a very good record over with 11 men never mind 10. Also another clean sheet.

I knew someone who put a bet on John Philliben to score every week. You could usually depend on Philliben to score 1 or 2 a season but his odds for any particular match would be quite high 20-1 or 25-1. Not sure if it worked out over a season but at least a couple of weeks per season he'd make a nice wee earner off a small stake.