Ya Bezzer!

I'm a bit worried we've had too much good news today!

I think the kind of players that get signed at this time of year are guys that don't have clubs or are not wanted at the club they are at, basically guys in the footballing wilderness. Most of them will just be happy to get a games, a wage and a club. I'd also be surprised if we bring in anyone on more than a 6 month contract unless we can find a 'golden oldie' with a year or two left in the legs. So I don't really think your point will come into play at this stage; in the next transfer window when we do or main wheeling and dealing we will need managerial stability but right now I don't think it's going to be a big factor.

You've obviously never bent a bank card in your jeans pocket!

The Inverness pitch is next to a body of water at sea level. Motherwell is inland and 250 feet above sea level. Under the same conditions that can mean a difference of 1 or 2 degrees. More than likely our pitch was subject to worse weather than the one at Inverness. In fact I think I'm right in saying Fir Park is the second highest stadium in Scotland after Broadwood.

Sounds like Falkirk are taking a humping right now from Dundee Utd. Has to be good for us as Falkirk looked like they were turning the corner.

The problem is with crowds of 3,000 even these modest aims will be difficult.

Even without TV coverage crowds go down during a recession. Look at the crowds in the early eighties. It was even worse than now. We had a 3,300 against Kilmarnock last season and a 2,800 against Inverness, so this was by no means the lowest league attendence at Fir Park in recent times.

Difficult to pick between Murphy and Lasley but I went for Lasley since he played the full match.

Not the prettiest match but we were well on top from start to finish and actually we could have actually won even more convincingly with some better finishing. Murphy, Lasley and Hammell all had very good matches.

So my 1-0 win prediction is a prophecy of doom? Actually I'm changing my prediction because a part time supporter friend of mine is coming today and we ALWAYS lose when he is there. I'm thinking about engineering some kind of 'accident' so he doesn't make it through the turnstiles.

You might look at the stats and say "St. Mirren haven't scored more than once in a league match since October so if we score we won't lose" but of course that last time St. Mirren scored more than once was against us! Another stat though is that the Buddies have lost their last five away matches in the league, in fact their away record is pretty dire they have only won twice away from home against the two bottom sides (Falkirk and Kilmarnock) and lost the rest. So no excuses on Saturday its a game we should be winning, so I'll go for a 1-0 win. Last five at Fir Park doesn't make great reading though. Lost 0-2 Won 2-1 Draw 1-1 Lost 2-3 Draw 0-0

Forget about the telly curse, its more than a year since we won two league games on the trot! Last time was 07/01/09 - 18/01/09 with wins over Hearts (1-0) and Dundee Utd (4-0).

Yeah but we played on Saturday and Inverness didn't. So we've played 2 games in 3 matches and Inverness have played 1. So obviously Inverness we going to have more in the tank than we would. It was a poor result but given the circumstances I'll let it ride, fitness won't be an excuse on Saturday because the players will have had 5 days to prepare.

Disappointing result. I think professional footballers should be able to play twice a week but twice in three days is really a big ask especially as Inverness were fresh from not having played for a couple of weeks. At least it gives the players a couple more days to prepare for the Saturday match which is going to be an important one.

1. Predicting the weather is a difficult business, are these the boffins who thought it unlikely we'd get a month of lying snow? As for summer weather here are some facts rather than predicitions. a) There has been MAJOR flooding two summers in a row. b) Rainfall in Scotland increases each month from May until December. October, November and December are the wettest months of the year and according to the winter shut down timetable we'd still be playing in these months. 2. Placing surfaces would not be immune to the elements, as pointed out the wettest weather is October, November and December. Admittedly pitches tend to get worse at present around February/March but it that because they've had three quarters of a season played on them? In any case all most all pitches are much better now (excluding ours a couple of seasons ago!) than they were 10, 15, 20, 25 years ago. Also summer pitches, assuming we actually have warm weather might have grass on them but they dry out and get bumpy which is just as bad as bald muddy pitches for good football. 3. Improved player technique has NOTHING to do with summer football. It has to do with the amount of practice kids get with a ball at an early age. Player technique has decreased since the virtual abolishment of schools football, since kids weren't allowed to play for more than one organisation and with the rise of the computer game and the sale of just about every football pitch by councils for housing. At the professional level Scottish supporters are not interested in watching highly technical football. Think of the booing that goes up when someone plays a sideways pass. Scottish footballer supporters want to see a high paced, exciting matches. 4. and 5. TV in the summer. Scottish football would be up against all the major golf competitions, major events like the Olympics, European Championships, Wimbledon, rugby world cups, cricket etc etc. It would be a great idea to REDUCE the amount of coverage that Scottish football gets. Outside of Old Firm matches there is no real television audience for SPL matches - that will not change by switching to summer football. Ask any television executive when the lowest television audiences are and they will say "the summer".

Could be interesting - the team that's played twice in three days versus the team that's not played for three weeks! It will be a difficult match, Butcher always gets teams up for cup runs.

Butcher as well had a period when he didn't fancy Lasley much even though he was probably playing the best football of his career that point, he even scored goals back then!

I've been said it before put him in charge until the end of the season now. If he's successful and he wants to continue we can always draw up a longer term contract. It looks like it is going to be a grueling season with not much between most of the teams, his experience will be very important and he has a track record of managing young players and that could be crucial over the season. We need someone who knows the SPL inside out to get us through this transitional stage of being dependent on a very young squad and you are unlikely to find anyone better than Brown at doing that.

I noticed that as well, he also said we played better against Hearts and lost, Broon is a sly old fox and he knows the game inside out. Our season is still balancing on a razor blade and could go either way but things seem to be on the up with two good performances and this win. Now if we can win this cup match...

Yep first appearance of the season. 3-0. I've seen it all as a 'Well fan but I think we can safely it's points in the bag now! Winning feels good doesn't it?! All hail Craigie Broon!

Great stuff! Glad to see its 2-0, cos it was reported on the radio as 2-1! I thought Killie had sneaked a goal when I hadn't been paying attention. According to the half time report we'd been playing well.

I'm not too bothered about Boyle's absence because he's obviously been keeping tabs on things while he's been away and as you've pointed out the manager has been given permission to sign players. However I think he should announce that Brown/Knox will be in charge until the end of the season and that would ease a lot of the uncertainties.

I think a draw from this match would be OK, I think I'd put out a team designed more to not lose than go on the attack, of course if we won all the better, but I think we have to be careful not to take too many risks as another defeat would be disastrous. Some kind of balance is required because we don't want to sit back and invite them on to us either. Hateley would be wasted at right back, put Saunders over to full back. I think we have a bit of a problem on the left side of midfield in that we don't have a 'solid' midfielder who is comfortable in that position and that with Saunders at right back you aren't going to get many good runs/crosses from fullback position, so I think I'd play a sort of 4-1-2-2-1 formation. Let Hateley play just behind the two central midfielders Jennings and Forbes in a covering role, let Murphy play in his best position just behind the main striker and give O'Brien a 'switching' role to give us width on either side. From that basic formation it can easily switch to a 4-5-1, a 4-4-2 or a 4-4-1-1 without too many problems. Ruddy Saunders - Craigan, Reynolds - Hammell Hateley Jennings, Forbes Murphy, O'Brien Jutkiewicz

I'm not sure if this is economically viable but I agree in principle. I no longer go to away games simply because of the expense but if I could afford to I would follow the team every week. I remember the days when we would regularly take 3,000 fans to Celtic Park and its a while now since a relatively small team like Falkirk would bring 1,500 to our place for an ordinary league match. It's obvious that the atmosphere at matches has suffered terribly from reduced numbers of away fans which makes for an overall poorer match experience. I would even accept lower gate prices for away fans than for home fans if it was carried out across the whole SPL but likely that wouldn't be popular with most home fans and it would probably never go into operation due to the risk of home fans going into the away end. However I think something should be done to encourage fans to travel.

How wrong can you be? Any success we had this season was down to the players rather than the coach. Gannon sabotaged about 10 points from us in 6 weeks with absolutely ridiculous decisions when the players 'who can't even do the basics' were dominating matches, taking leads and actually doing reasonably well. If Gannon was a "poor bastard that carried the can" then he only had himself to blame, not that he ever had the guts to admit it, since EVERYTHING was someone else's fault.. And I'd like to see you tolerating the way Gannon treated some of those players. The guy was a clown comparing him to Shankly, Busby, Stein, Ferguson is ridiculous, those guys commanded respect through their achievements, Gannon was like one of those lizards that puffs itself up to make it look bigger than it is - at the end of the day he got found out. The fact that it was one of the English players he brought in that sprayed him with water tells you he had very little respect from the squad in general, not just the players he victimized.