Ya Bezzer!

Voted for Ross Forbes tonight but Hammell would have been my second pick for MOTM.

Thought Hammell did well, O'Brien and Moutaouakil also, but man of the match was Ross Forbes.

We didn't actually play that badly but it was all a bit dozy and there wasn't a lot of urgency a lot of the time. Too many players ran out the tunnel today with the game won in their heads. Inverness keeper, I think it was Esson, made a few great saves but you could hardly say we had them under constant pressure, there were a lot of backwards and side way passes from us, too many you might say. Inverness were probably the better team until we scored and then started (very slowly) to waken up. Even then we lost two goals from set pieces because we were dreaming instead of alert. Overall, we won, we probably deserved to win but it was neither convincing nor a really bad display, just one of those matches you are happy to win and get behind you. Ruddy :6: Maybe I'm being harsh but I felt Munros header wasn't exactly a bullet and Ruddy should have done better. Otherwise nothing major to deal with. Moutaouakil :7: Got up and down well and unlucky not to score a couple of times, needs to work on a couple of aspects to his game but overall another good display. Saunders :6: Looked comfortable for most of the match but defensively the goals we lost were poor. Reynolds :5: Too many slack balls tonight. Hammell :7: Was good tonight, one of the better players, and of course 'scored' a goal! Yeah, right! Hateley :6: Like a few others tonight took a while to get up to game speed. Coke :6: Similar to Hateley, got better as the game went on but looked like he was just out his bed for the first half hour. Forbes :8: Class act. I don't know what his pass completion stats were for tonight but I'll bet you they were mighty impressive. Set play delivery was excellent and scored another great goal. MOTM. Jutkiewicz :5: You can see something there but right now its hidden under a big donkey. McHugh :6: Took his goal well but I'm not sure if he's the sort of forward that will prosper up on his own. O'Brien :7: In the early stages only him and Hammell looked up for the match. Another good display but came off after taking a few hits. McGarry :5: Came on and did OK to be fair. Murphy :4: Late sub but made an impact in the closing stages. Jennings :2: Another late sub.

I've said this before but compared to the Euro refs, the Scottish refs so far have been miles better.

15th Feb 1997 Motherwell 1 Hamilton Academicals 1. Att: 8,050. 4,285 turned up for the replay.

I'm pretty sure I heard Gannon saying he would be taking both the cup competitions very serious so I see no reason why we shouldn't field our strongest XI. The idea that we would rest players and bring in others I think is a bit of a nonsense. Hopefully if there are changes its because Gannon thinks they give us the maximum chance of winning rather than giving out of favour players 'a chance'. Inverness have only lost 1 out of 12 competitive matches this season so we shouldn't go into this thinking its going to be a cake walk.

Excellent away win but need to keep our feet on the ground and concentrate on getting a cup run going now.

I seem to remember we missed a penalty last season - who was it again? Was it Porter?

We should be beating Falkirk at home but we don't have a particularly good record in recent years. Likewise Hibs at Fir Park, and Dundee United away will be a tough fixture. 4 points wouldn't be bad at all but the more the merrier.

I thought Saunders was awful at right back and wasn't shy about saying so but he's done really well at centre half, obviously its his 'real' position. It's difficult to pick between Saunders and Hutchinson on purely defensive criteria because they have both done really well, in fact they were my last two votes for man of the match, but I think Hutchinson offers a bit more. Physically, he might not be as tall but he looks like he has a much stronger build and looks a bit more aggressive. Even though he's just a kid you can't imagine many players bullying him around. He's also probably the best defender we've had since Mitchell Van Der Gaag at getting forward and causing problems in the opposition box. Off the top of my head I think its three goals in five matches which is a tremendous return and I'm a great believer in getting goals from defenders and midfielders, if they can score semi regularly then watch the points mount up.

Surely the claret away shorts are closer to Dundee Utd's black shorts than the amber home shorts! I doubt the referee will do much though, I noticed in one of the games in the early weeks of the season a referee was wearing an all red outfit that was virtually identical to the Rangers goalkeepers strip. Then you had the Hibs/Falkirk fiasco....

When you take a penalty you should ALWAYS go top left.

Lots of good performances but the stand outs were Ruddy, O'Brien and Saunders. Would probably have given it to O'Brien if he hadn't missed the penalty but Saunders gets it instead. Difficult choice though.

Check the shots over the bar stats. I'm sure we won that!

I think my favourite was the 2-1 win at Fir Park in Tommy McLean's last season. People were talking as if Rangers just had to turn up to win even though we were having a great season and had already beaten them. That win blew the league title open again, with us actually having an outside chance of winning it! Heady days. The Ibrox win that same season was a cracker. To be fair we took a pounding for most of the match and then got two quick goals to win. Hugged a few strangers that night! Didn't Richard Gough score a very late own goal to give us a win around the same period?

Ticket match, Old Firm, even more expensive than usual. There's three reasons. I think there might be a case for treating OF matches as normal games, if there was 3,000 - 4,000 empty seats there today - why not?

I do know that we beat Rangers more during the 1990's more than any other team (including Celtic) and that ourselves and Dundee United had the best record against the Old Firm during that decade. Not so sure about this decade but maybe I'll look into it.

It was a tight match and you can't complain about a point too much but I felt we just shaded it in terms of real chances. Really good overall team performance although it has to be said we did sit deep at times but again, if you come away with a clean sheet against one of the old firm you should be fairly happy. Ruddy :7: Was doing really well but then took a bit of a mad turn but generally did very well. Yassin (as I'm calling him) :7: Good debut, fast, good defensively, looks a player. Saunders :8: I slated this guy in the first game of the season but he's found his position. Excellent performance. Reynolds :7: Keep Boyd out of the match. Hammell :7: Must have done a few kilometres today! O'Brien :8: Unlucky with the penalty, looked a great save rather than a miss to me, otherwise he was our most dangerous player, the transformation in O'Brien from this time last season has been amazing. Hateley :7: Really commanding in the first half, not so noticeable in the 2nd but another good display. Forbes :6: Seemed a little over awed today but still played the best pass of the match. Coke :7: Murphy :5: Didn't give enough today and it was no surprise when he was hooked at half time. Sutton :6: Worked really hard up front on his own but didn't have enough support. Jennings :7: Finally coming on to a game as his fitness improves. Looked good today. Lasley :6: Good to see Las back out on the field. Jutkiewicz :6: Won the penalty (looked soft to me!) but not on for long.

I should start using a calculator instead of adding up in my head! The official site isn't quite up to date (doesn't include the last game at Aberdeen) but I now have (having used a calculator) 303+5 (2) and the official site has 301+6 (2), plus the Aberdeen game would be 302+6 (2) so we still disagree about whether one of the performances in season 2005/06 was a start or a sub appearance... I'm not bored enough to look into it right now! The point is he's played more than 300 games now.

Maybe some of the other desperately sad stattos might want to put me right but I make it that if Stevie Hammell plays against Rangers it will be his 299th appearance for Motherwell, just one away from the very rare three hundred club. That's if he's not drummed out to Dundee!

Another test for Gannon. First time we'll have played a team of this quality at Fir Park under Gannon, so its another 'into the unknown'. I'm wondering if Gannon's open attacking style might back fire though. Will he tweak things especially for this match and go against his principles?

Nah chance at the best of times of filling it - which is why it was given over in the first place. Never mind that for some reason Motherwell are charging more to get into a game less 'Well fans want to come along to for various reasons (sectarian element, dodgy refs a certainty, probably get gubbed, polis and scumbags everywhere etc etc).

I don't think anyone I played with made it to professional football. A few boys got S Forms for St.Mirren and Dundee Utd, but never made it to the first team. I always thought it was a shame that we had some great players that never even made it that far, when they stopped playing U16's they went and became plumbers and stuff like that. When we played other boys teams we didn't know the first thing about them, nevermind who was in their team! Which the exception of hated local rivals - Jerviston (spit!).

Not sure you could call him a fan but Morrissey was once at Fir Park. The Celtic match when Rab McKinnon scored the only goal of the game from the penalty spot. Maybe with his Irish roots he was cheering more for Celtic....

Exactly. People in football know. But it won't stop the anti McGhee brigade from having another pop at him.