Ya Bezzer!

I thought Shields and Roberts were fine on Saturday but they needed someone between them. Tonight they had a striker between them but they were both poor. Given the general inconstancy of our players it's going to take more than two matches to find out what our best line up is post Watt. I think we do need to bring someone in though because without van Veen we don't really have anyone you'd be comfortable with through the middle.

Yep for some reason I 'remembered' a win at Easter Road. Was that last season then? Anyway the games against Hibs have been pretty tight. If anyone deserved to win tonight it was us but the Donnelly red card pretty much put an end to that. I'm not a big fan of the midwinter break in general, the Covid situation probably justified it this season, but you can see we are off the pace and Hibs were even worse. I thought we were better than against Morton in terms of tempo but it's going to take probably four or five matches to get back to December levels.

The minute I stepped out the door and almost got blown across the road I had an inkling this one might be a 0-0 draw. Obviously terrible conditions and a terrible game. We were slightly better than a very poor Hibs team but going down to 10 men meant despite the booing from the crowd we had to make a tactical change. Unfortunate for Tierney but I can understand the manager's thought process. Donnelly has no excuse two bookable challenges and to make the second one when he knew he was already booked was frankly. well, dumb as fuck. Overall a point from the match and 4 points from 9 against Hibs is a reasonable result. But it won't be remembered for any silky soccer. One too consign to 'Forget ASAP'.

Shame Falkirk are an absolute disaster these days or it could have 'been in the stars'.

After the Celtic game (I think).

Alfredo Agyeman also played.

I was thinking 'What age must Adam Cummins be now? Must be getting on a bit!' He's still in his 20s! Although only just.

No one really stood out.....in a good way. A few stood out in a bad way! For me some players put in a shift and that was about it. Van Veen made an impact coming off the bench. Shields, Roberts worked tirelessly. I'll go Van Veen.

I'd agree with that overall. I thought we were often doing the right things in the game, just 1, 2, 3 seconds later than we should be. Players taking far too many touches before releasing the ball and of course our delivery into the box was shite. I said before the game that I was a bit worried about our lack of a out and out striker and I think today justified my concerns. I thought Shields and Roberts did well enough but they need someone between them that can put the ball into the net. For me, we absolutely have to bring a striker in because we only really have Van Veen. Full backs were terrible today and are a weak area of the team in a more general sense. And nothing changed my mind about the Donnelly/Maguire situation. Donnelly got the winning goal but overall I'd still pick Maguire and bring Slattery back in.

Guessing Carroll is at centre half. No out and out striker is always a bit of a red flag. For me, you play Maguire or Donnelly not both. I'd play Maguire.

There has been a marked upswing in Morton's results since their managerial change a few weeks back. A couple of weeks ago I think this would have been an easy win. Now, we should still be too strong for them but they have a wee bit of confidence and renewed belief so we can't afford to take them lightly. Need a good, professional performance tomorrow, that should be enough. Otherwise we might have another 'Airdrie' on our hands.

Well the rules have changed multiple times just in the last few years which is why there is so much confusion and debate around penalties. Currently it's basically down to the referee to decide if a hand ball in the box is a 'worthy' of a penalty.

Oh I meant to say - weren't there players in the box before the penalty was taken?

Thoughts. Johansen is a bit unfortunate but that's the sort of error you have to make sure you don't make. Great goal by Roberts. McGinley is actually shocking for the 2nd goal. I mean what is he even TRYING to do? Again Mugabi is a bit unfortunate for the penalty but I think it was one. Not much he can do other than keep his arm tucked in which is hard when you are trying to defend but the amount of penalties we give away this season and the last few is something we really need to improve on. It's off the scale compared to most other teams, especially season after season. Disappointing to lose 3-1 to a team with 10 men but the goals we lost, 2 were kinda freakish and the other was just a bad individual error. Ross County are a far better team than their league position suggests and they actually score a lot of goals. Overall since they pumped us at Fir Park and still managed to lose somehow I think you just have to say it's honours even after two. We are in the strange position though of having only dominated the ball twice all season and both times we got pumped by teams from the lower reaches of the league. I think that only confirms why Alexander plays a certain way.

Still remember the carnage on here when we signed Tim Clancy!

I don't know a whole lot about Zak Rudden but he's averaged about 1 goal every 2 games over a couple of seasons in the lower leagues, is 21 and has a good youth pedigree. You'd HOPE he was on our radar.

I hardly think erring on the side of caution is shitting the bed. England has a government that couldn't care less about people while here we have one that puts the safety of people first during a pandemic, whether they recognise that or not. Give that Scotland has much worse general health statistics than the UK as a whole we've actually done a better job than down south in restricting Covid related deaths. The Scottish Governments approach has saved lives. Sorry you missed a couple of weeks of football.

Took the goal well but the game had some terrible defending and I think the worst wall at a freekick that I've ever seen.

Absolutely a Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen type signing. Hearts really need a striker in particular. He's been a bit up and down at the top level but, seriously, look at the strikers in this league across all the teams and he probably plays for anyone outside the top two.

I like stats (obviously) but I prefer them to either be form based or actions that have a real world effect on a match (key passes, aerial duels, tackles etc.) Even so I think stats only give you clues here and there to how you are performing. I still prefer to actually watch the game. I think it's also worth pointing out that there is a great plethora of football stats sites out there on the web but very few of them have reliable data for things like appearances and goals never mind headers won in the box from crosses from the right wing against opponents with blonde hair. In fact there is a major website out there that puts out vast amounts of Scottish football stats.....yet they got the the appearances and goals wrong for literally half the players in the league last season...

I predict we'll never score 1.06 goals in a game.

Yes, he's back at Hearts. For the mean time at any rate.

My view? I only care about Motherwell's results. If we loan in players who make our squad or first team better for the next 18 league matches I'm all for it. I'd certainly rather bring in a loan deal than a guy who never plays cos he was an unfit free agent or who isn't up to the standard we play at. We've had plenty of both of those come in at this window. The only thing I find curious about it is that as far as I know Shaw is a kind of Nir Bitton type player and I don't think we need another centre back, we just gave Maguire a new deal and I don't see Goss or Slattery dropping out. Could be that people will be moving on in the next few weeks.

P38 W17 D6 L13 Not too shoddy Mr. Alexander.

We'd 8th/9th depending on goal difference which I can't be bothered working out. His goals have 'won' us 11 points this season although that's assuming goalkeepers and defenders did nothing and the player that would have played instead of him was similarly inactive. Only learning about this and have to say I'm quite disappointed but he's only scored 2 in his last 8 and given basically the start of this season was the only time he's scored regularly over pretty much a career I'd be looking to make a deal with Dundee Utd in the window and get some money for him. I have absolutely no problem with players making some cash. It's their job. Will be sad to see him go though.