Ya Bezzer!

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.

I tend to agree with you. The Government is on record as saying it predicts a February peak for Omicron so I don't see anyway for football to be opening up in 3 weeks time. Perhaps there will be better understanding of the virus and better data that will mean restrictions could be lifted in stages but at this stage we don't really know what's going to happen. The Government can't play poker with people's lives.

Members of my family have been in intensive care with Covid. It's no joke. Personally my booster appointment isn't until after Christmas and the extreme infection rate of this variant is probably going to be a big problem. I thought hard about going to the last game. It was most likely games were going to be cancelled anyway from player infections like they have down south (which is a bit ahead of us in terms of infection spread). It's football. We can park it for a while. I wish everything was like it was pre-virus but it isn't and we have to make sacrifices for the greater good. Stay safe everyone.

In 19 matches this season Livingston have only scored more than one goal twice. So if we score we should at least get a point. Ref might also be busy. Livingston and ourselves are the worst offenders in the league for fouls. Livingston have been, surprisingly perhaps, good at the back this season. 6 clean sheets in the last 15, only conceded more than 1 goal four times this season.

Will also clash with Arbroath next season!

I dunno why Callum Hendry is such a pariah at McDiarmid. Better than anyone else they have up front but they either bench him or fire him out on loan. There was a similar situation at St Mirren last season when they couldn't score for toffee and consistently left our their best goalscorer Obika. Manager's make it hard for themselves sometimes.

Watt was excellent first half but faded in the second half. Going to go for Mugabi.

Not our best performance, game was pretty scrappy and basically died after we got our second but a welcome and deserved 3 points. Nicely taken goal by Cornelius and some nice skill by VV for his goal. Also worth noting Liam Kelly making an absolutely terrific save 2nd half to give us another clean sheet and a more comfortable closing stages. St Johnstone look in big trouble, probably created more chances than us, at least first half, but never really looked like scoring. If you exclude the two OGs they have scored 7 goals in 18 matches and only twice in the last 10.

We'll see how Donnelly does but disappointed that Maguire is not playing, he's not in the squad so you have to assume he's not been dropped and there is another reason. Otherwise much as expected.

I don't like reversed colours for strips. I don't think they are different enough. Look at Celtic this season. Bring out two white and green change kits and then they have to wear last seasons black away kit against Hibs because their home kit and two change strips all clash with Hibs. Maybe you can do it with goalkeeper kits but in terms of away kits I think we need different colours.

More or less live next to Fir Park. It was a peasouper this morning but it has burned off and it's actually the nicest day for ages now. I'd wrap up though.