Ya Bezzer!

Totally agree. Mods need to have a long hard look at themselves. Personally I hadn't posted in the thread for a while but the topic is still absolutely relevant to this season and what's happening. If individuals are going too far in the thread deal with them separately. The official club media outlets can act as Motherwell Pravda. We don't need it here.

If you are 13 games without a win (including cup match) and you are bottom and you then you can't win against the team in 2nd bottom who is it you are actually going to beat? We have Dundee Utd at home afterwards which I think we have a reasonable chance in (depending on result on Wednesday) but after that we have four away games, including Celtic and Hibs, and our only home match is against Hamilton who seem to find it pretty easy to get points on our ground. My fear is if we don't win on Wednesday night or on Saturday our confidence just nose dives going into a tough fixture list. By the end of Feb the dye may well have been cast. We can't go 19 games without a win and expect to stay up. Realistically you are looking at 40 points to avoid the play off. We've got 19 points from 66. We now need 21 points from 45 points. That's a big step up in performance. Time is running out rapidly. In my opinion we need to win against County. We need to win for ourselves but we also have to take 3 points off a rival.

That's an issue but not the whole story - how many chances have been missed by the strikers this season? You could probably make a 'highlight' reel out of just Watt's misses alone. And I've said it before and I'll say it again - not one of our strikers has any kind of goal scoring record throughout their careers. You need a Moult, a Sutton, a Higdon, a McDonald in the squad. At least one guy with some kind of goal scoring pedigree. We don't have any. Watt has probably been one of the better players this season but if we are depending on him for goals we're fucked.

Maguire's started 4 matches in midfield this season and we won 2 of them. In fact we haven't won since he last played there. Polworth needs to be dropped as he is a complete liability in a relegation dog fight. And no harm to Crawford but I just don't see what he adds. I actually think the back 4 and goalkeeper, on paper at least, looks like the best part of our team. 14 matches this season we've conceded 1 goal or less. We've conceded a lot less goals than Ross County or Hamilton. The big issue for me, right from the start of the season, has been the lack of a goal scorer in the squad. 19 goals in 23 matches is the major problem. Then when you consider we had two big wins, 4-0 v Ross County and 3-0 v Aberdeen and that leaves 12 goals in 21 matches. Horrific. Our shooting stats are abysmal.

Must win. We cannot continue to not win matches. And if we lose this you can see a full blown collapse in confidence that could lead to a death spiral. We've just got to dig it out somehow. Next two games are massive.

I never said they had done a bad job. I just pointed out that most of the financial windfalls that we've profited from recently have been out with the control or any planning that the board could have made...and that we shouldn't get too smug about our current financial situation. And I think there is such a thing as hubris and for some of our supporters to criticise other clubs, particularly since we've survived off loans for a lot of our recent history, is a bit hypocritical. As I said Scottish football is not exactly a money printing machine. I'm not saying it will be the case, but a year or two down the line it's possible that we might need similar assistance, especially as we have no idea how the whole covid situation is going to go and that it's looking like Turnbull might well be our last big sale for a while. With regards to finances and the whole covid situation I think too many of our supporters lack a little bit of foresight and revel too much in 'we're alright Jack' mindset not realising that if you can guarantee one thing in life it's that circumstances are in a constant state of flux and when bad things happen, usually, you didn't see them coming.

I don't think anyone is blaming Alexander for our predicament but the New Manager Bounce has amounted to 2 points from 9. We've also blown 2 leads in 3 matches. It's 13 months since we came back from losing a goal, 1 clean sheet in 12 and we've scored 19 goals in 23 matches (only 4 in the last 10). There are only so many excuses for not winning that you can come up with. An overview of the season....

I'm not saying we are definitely going down BUT we've not come back from going behind for over a year and we are averaging less than a goal per game so, you know, I think it should at least be crossing your mind as a possibility.

As far as I know Killie negotiated a small fee with St Mirren to move Brophy on early and let's face it bringing in a player for less than half a season, probably on loan, is not going to be a huge amount of money compared to overall operating costs. I also think our 'financial astuteness' is being over egged a bit. Covid actually did us a big favour getting us a 3rd place and Europe that we probably wouldn't have got otherwise and of course selling a once in a generation talent for a record fee is something that only happens.....well once in a generation. Looking ahead is difficult but I think there is still a strong chance there will be fan restrictions next season and perhaps during the winter no fans at all. Scottish football is in a perilous financial situation and a year or two down the line there is no knowing what will happen, especially with a potential relegation hanging over us. I don't think we should be getting too full of ourselves. Seems to me our current situation is more fortune than astuteness.

Worst run in 25 years and we don't have a van der Gaag to hit free kicks.

Well we are having to go and do something we haven't managed all season now....

Had a look and that was over two seasons, 3 in 1987/88 and 16 in 1988/89. By the way, the team we had then! Wishart, Philliben, Paterson, McCart, Boyd, Farningham, Russell, Kirk, Arnott, Griffin, Gahagan, O'Neill, Dolan, Maxwell....

The last time we went 11 without winning it was 19 years ago and we finished bottom of the league. I don't even know if we've gone 12 without winning, probably going back to 1991/92 or the mid 80s. [Edit - 15 in 1995/96] We need to start winning not matter who we are playing or where we are playing and that latter point is relevant as we have 6 away matches in the next 8 matches. A good result would be huge, a defeat would be.....worrying.

Clearly stated it was since Louis Moult joined the club. Obviously not clearly enough though.

Decided to go back and have a look at our strikers since the mighty King Louie arrived at Fir Park. 24 in total. 10 never scored a league goal: - Jordan White, George Newell, Connor Sammon, Ross McCormack, Alex Fisher, Jacob Blyth, Craig Moore, Dylan Mackin, David Clarkson and Theo Robinson. 3 managed to score 1 league goal:- Ross McIver, Christy Mazinga, Wes Fletcher The rest as follows; LESS THAN 20 STARTS James McFadden - 2+6 (2) starts per goal 1.00 Danny Johnson - 12+10 (6) starts per goal 2.00 Nadir Ciftci - 8+3 (3) starts per goal 2.66 Tony Watt - 19+5 (4) starts per goal 4.75 MORE THAN 20 STARTS Louis Moult - 77+7 (38) starts per goal 2.02 Devante Cole - 20+10 (7) starts per goal 2.85 Scott McDonald - 68+4 (19) starts per goal 3.57* Chris Long - 29+10 (8) starts per goal 3.62 Ryan Bowman - 41+31 (10) starts per goal 4.10 James Scott - 21+15 (4) starts per goal 5.25* Curtis Main - 44+3 (8) starts per goal 5.50 * not always played as a forward.

Well I just did 45 minutes of anxiety based house work but credit to the team for hanging on.

Need a wee 'tactical foul' on Barisic IMO. Let's see if he can cover the yards with stud marks in him.

Good start but you can see us dropping further and further back. You know, the usual! Got to keep a positive approach going and neutralise their crossing.

No point bringing in players that are no better or perhaps worse than what we have Taking a punt on players that have poor goal scoring records but *might* get better is the reason our striking options are so poor.

He's failed to score in 11 out of 13 league starts this season. Doubt he's going to fire us up the table. Also Macclesfield fan on YT video says 'Harry Smith is a great aerial threat and a very passionate player however he lacks a good first touch and finishing at times can be poor. '

Not much chance of getting a 1 in 2 level striker at the best of times never mind sitting bottom of the league in January. We need someone that's going to come in and score 5 or 6 goals in the remaining 16 games. Anything more than that would be a real coup.

Hylton was definitely a player who had to be moved on. He showed some promise when he first arrived but he wasn't doing anything for us latterly. I've pointed out that most of our players go downhill badly after showing some initial promise and Hylton falls into the category. That whole trend needs to be looked into but when he left for County he was already deep in a rut. Oli Shaw is a decent player and it's noticeable that Ross County are doing a lot better now that he's getting game time under Hughes but he's only one of probably hundreds of better options we could have gone for.

Perhaps you ought to look around the whole of Europe and across all sports and ask yourself the same question.

Rangers haven't actually been that good over the last 4 matches. They have ground matches out for the most part (1-0, 2-0, 1-0, 2-1) and had more than a little luck. If we are going to beat Rangers I'd suggest there is a possible chance here as frankly they have looked lethargic and uninspired. Of course given our record you can't really predict anything but a pumping but I still think there is an opportunity there if we really bothered ourselves.

He probably does have final say. But that's a whole different thing than a manager bringing in his own players. I'm fine with Lawless being brought in but I'd be surprised if Alexander knows much about him. It seems to me others are identifying players and doing the deals to bring them in and given that our recent transfers have been pretty poor I think it needs a light shone on what exactly is happening.