Ya Bezzer!

We give pelters to refs generally but I have to say the one on Saturday was a big improvement over any of the haddies we had in Europe. Also if you don't know the referees name that is generally a good thing because when a ref makes a name for himself its usually for all the wrong reasons!

Any truth in the rumor that Jim Leighton was seen buying a Motherwell scarf at the club shop this morning?

This is a good analysis of our accounts that explains everything so people like me (us) can understand it. http://www.football-finances.org.uk/motherwell/index.htm

I actually think Chris Maguire is a pretty good player and could take his chance this season under McGhee.

Ruddy - I was never Graeme Smiths biggest fan and I think Ruddy has come in and strengthened the goalkeeping position but to what extent I'm not sure. We'll just have to wait and see if Steaua or St.Johnstone was more typical of his average performance. Humphrey - Still to be convinced but so far he has not shown he can be anything more than a fast runner off the bench. Coke - Has done well but some of the praise is a tad excessive. He looks a player who does the basic things to a decent standard but I honestly can't see him turning many games. He'll just work hard in that midfield role and do his job, and to be fair, from some players that's all you are looking for. Jennings - Looks off the pace right now and its unfair to judge him right now but if there are two places in the midfield up for grabs you can't see him displacing Forbes or Coke. Hateley - Only seen him once, did OK, but wasn't really given an examination by Killie but looks a safer bet at right back than O'Brien was until we bring in a 'real' one. Overall Coke and Ruddy look the pick of the bunch but its been the young players that have really excited me rather than the signings - Forbes, Slane and Hutchinson. Jim O'Brien has also kicked on from last season and looks a different player.

I'm assuming most Motherwell fans live reasonable close to the stadium. Can't you just hold it in till you get home? I've never been to the toilets at Fir Park in my entire 23 years of being a supporter. But then I don't drink 8 pints before the match....

The toilets at old Tynecastle (shudder). Accies didn't have toilets, they just had two brick walls behind the terrace, about four feet apart and you went between them and pished up the one in front of you.

He's the new Van der Gaag. The central defender who races up front to bang in the goals. Incidentally, last year the big problem we had was only the strikers scored goals and no one else was chipping in. Well already this season Shaun Hutchinson had scored more goals (3 goals) than our entire first choice defence from last season (Quinn, Craigan, Reynolds, Hammell - 1 goal) and Ross Forbes has scored more goals (5 goals) than our entire first choice midfield from last season (Lasley, Hughes, Klimpl, O'Brien - 4 goals).

Penalty turned the game. We started off strong but I felt we fell out of it after Sutton scored and Kilmarnock really dominated from then on until we got the penalty. Once we were 2-0 up we never really looked under any danger of dropping the points, thanks to a pretty good defensive display, but offensively we still played in 5 - 10 minute patches, sometimes we looked really dangerous, other times it wasn't so good. Overall though an excellent victory and a decent display - we certainly look like we have goals in us.

There were other good performances but Shaun Hutchinson was superb defensively AND scored a great goal.

Our team tactics today should be for the four biggest players in the team to take a kick at Kevin Kyle, once each in the first four minutes, one after the other. We'll take any bookings if we put him out the game.

What are we worried about? A bigger team coming in at the last minute? Cos I'm sure the players agent, who presumably knows about the interest, would be dead against something like that happening and would be doing everything in his power to make sure other clubs don't find out.

Try telling those guys that due to its wooden construction the Main stand is a non smoking area. Love the hat social hierarchy - bunnet, trilby, bowler.

Being a journalist is a very difficult job. More and more newspapers are cutting back staff drastically meaning one man has to do the job that formerly two or three or even four did. Anyone who has been in that situation knows mistakes creep in. If you think the Monday guys had one and a half days to write their reports you'd be very much mistaken. Often journalists have to write three articles a day with strict deadlines. They just don't have time to fact check and clear everything. Standards have fallen badly but like everything else a lot of the problem is because of financial cutbacks.

He's tall but skinny. Another one from the bowl of rice and water Motherwell youth system. If you look at the team picture taken at Flamurtari, Forbes is significantly taller than McGarry, Hammell and Lasley and a little shorter than Sutton and Saunder, so I'd guess he's about 5'11 - 6'0 tall.

Football doesn't exist in a vacuum, in Britain it is much more expensive to run any business. We pay more for goods and services, more in rent, more in tax, more in wages etc, etc. At the end of the day the balance sheet rules all. If prices come down, then investment in the team comes down with it. Take your pick - but would you rather pay £18 to watch Motherwell or £10 to watch Clyde?

Little bit worried about this one. Kyle has been terrific since he joined Killie and scored some tremendous goals at the weekend, he's not just a head on a tall body, he's dangerous all over the field - probably the most dangerous striker in the league right now. Kilmarnock also look strong across the midfield - Hamill, Bryson, Taouil, Pascali, Invincibile. Might be a few goals in this one - at either end.

Craigan has a tendency to launch unaimmed balls up the field from the back. I don't think that is the sort of build up play Gannon is looking for. Interesting that's he's picked Reynolds for every match and introduced Hutchinson who are both more ball players who will pass out from the back. Craigan might just be a bit too uncultured as a footballer for Gannon but as a defender he's miles ahead of Hutchinson for instance.

I'd wait until November/December before offering anyone a contract. It's still way to early to judge players. Look at Ruddy - one good game, one average game, one game looked a total bomb scare. So what one is the real Ruddy? All these guys need two or three months of SPL football before we can really get a good idea of what they are worth.

Can't blame the ref for booking Hutchinson. The law is a stupid one but it is a law. It's down to the authorities to change the law. I actually thought McDonald was lenient on Murphy. Shouldn't deliberately hand ball into the net be a sending off offense? If a defender prevented a goal by deliberate hand ball he'd be sent off without question. As for Forbes. Week 1, goal of the season. You simply will not see a better strike than that.

Reality check. Most Scottish clubs are going down the grubber. They have to charge what they do to survive. It's not like they are ripping people off and posting huge profits like BP of millions of pounds a second. At the end of the season when the accounts are done and you are very lucky, you might make a small lose or scrap into the red and a lot of clubs don't even manage that. The prices are set by necessity and expensive as it is facts are Motherwell have generally been pretty good at keeping admission prices and season tickets down in comparison to other teams in the division. It's no good comparing us to Hertha Berlin, they get 40,000+ through the gates, have much greater merchandise sales, sponsorship etc. They live in a different world. If it costs £3,000,000 to run an SPL team for a season then it has to be paid for, no matter if there are 10 or 10,000 people willing to pay. Just so happens we have 4,000 - 5,000 diehards but lets face it no one else is interested. In order to reduce admission to say £10 per game you would have to increase attendance by about 1,800 for every home match over a whole season and that's with out any of the extra money being invested in the team. Not going to happen, I'm afraid.

He's played three times from the start and had one sub appearance out of seven games under Gannon. If the above is correct I imagine he's very much still in the frame, as he should be. We had the same talk about Hammell earlier and it turned out to be nonsense.

I think I heard on the radio highlights go up on the BBC SPL page at 6pm on a Sunday. Might be wrong though, find out in 56 minutes.

A draw away from home isn't bad. And St. Johnstone will give a few teams problems this season.

Same here.