Ya Bezzer!

Ross County chairman was on the radio the other day and the way he was talking it was unlikely in the near term that anything other than very small groups of supporters will attend games and he basically dismissed any chance of away supporters attending this season. Personally I don't think we will get back to anywhere near normality until there is an available vaccine and that is still some time off, that's looking like Feb/Mar 21 at the earliest. For me I'm considering this season as a complete write off in terms of actually attending matches.

Gallagher would have had a better claim if he'd been in last seasons form this season but I agree that he's not been anywhere near good enough this term. As for McTominay, like a number of other players, he's trading off his club sides reputation rather than his form in a Scotland shirt.

Seems like a decent draw until you remember they just posted a result against Maribor which if we had done, would have been our greatest ever European result.

I think there is a kind of middle ground here. It is a new season so the end of last season's poor form doesn't directly effect what we do this season but at the same time it does indicate long standing issues under Robinson. Issues around creating and scoring have been around since James Scott left the club so you have to put your hand up and say that Robinson has failed to deal with these in the second half of last season, during the break and so far this season. We've scored 15 goals in our last 20 league matches, obviously averaging less than 1 goal per game. We've failed to score 10 times in that time, 50% of matches, and only scored more than 1 goal 3 times from 20. When you take out the clear anomaly of scoring 4 against Ross County it takes it to 11 goals in 19 matches which is very poor. And of course using only this seasons stats show the problem has got worse. Goal scoring is the reason we are currently bottom of the league so I do think casting an eye back is warranted if you want to really analyse our form but at the same time I do think last seasons defeats don't have the same currency in 20-21. They have some currency (ask Barraclough) but not the same currency. If we are going into October without a win then critics won't have to cite last season any more because I think failure to win in our next three will constitute a real serious issue, especially if some of the other strugglers pick up points.

Well this summer told us you can be relegated after any amount of games! I hope we improve but it's a bold claim to say we won't be 'anywhere near it' with our current numbers. The thing that really concerns me is goalscoring. Failing to score in 5 out of 6 is pretty bad but it goes beyond that. We've failed to score in 10 of our last 20 league matches and we've only scored more than 1 goal twice in that time. Teams that don't score always struggle.

We didn't do too badly all things considered today although I think Robinson has changed the system too early in the match. We were looking fine and then within minutes of going to four at the back we go 2-0. Felt he should have just kept it as it was until the last 10 minutes or so. Overall though 6 matches, 2 goals, 1 clean sheet and 2 points isn't good enough. Need to see a big improvement in the second half of this quarter.

His last match for us was at Rugby Park against Kilmarnock when we stole the points with an early Tommy Coyne goal and then got pummelled but somehow survived. Remember the away fans singing 'Please Don't Go'. The Dortmund game was a couple of weeks later. [EDIT - Just checked it out, Kilmarnock was his last league match, he played in the midweek match against Airdrie in the League Cup which was his final appearance, 31st Aug 1994. Dortmund match was 13th Sep]

The theory works if we actually pick up points. Our next four matches are Celtic, St Johnstone, Aberdeen and Rangers. We'll also have a Euro game in there. My position is that we shouldn't over react at this stage of the season but honestly I'm not especially confident about getting a haul of points out these matches. We've had easier fixtures than the ones coming up.

Nice one. Tottenham beware!

We aren't out the woods yet.

I had low expectations but this is fucking ridiculous! Glentoran have had the 4 best chances in the match.

Mark O'Hara thinks free kicks are ten pin bowling.

We aren't even making the best chances.

Grimshaw single handed destroying the 10,000 hours theory.

I live minutes from Fir Park and the street was literally under a couple of inches of water during that really heavy rain. It does drain off quite quickly once it stops raining so hopefully that will be the case at Fir Park. If it stays off I think we'll be alright. The sky seems a bit lighter than it has been most of the day.

If we play three centre backs against Glentoran at home that would be a...ahem...talking point if we don't actually get through this tie. For me 3 at the back is a no no. 4-3-3? I agree that our wingers are gash but tonight might be one of the times this season where they are playing at a level that they can actually do something. 4-4-2? Means we will probably out numbered in midfield. Personally I think loading the midfield isn't as effective as some people tend to think, I think good midfields beat bad midfields regardless of numbers most of the time and although I am taking nothing for granted and it's not a stretch of the imagination to see us blowing this I do think we still believe we have better players? Right? 4-1-4-1 might work but once you get into 4-2-3-1s or 4-3-2-1s I don't think we have attacking midfielders that can play through the middle especially with Turnbull away and like 3 at the back I think its too negative playing two holding midfielders against tonight's opponents.

Good luck to David. I hope he is successful and flourishes away from Motherwell. I've always found it strange that often fans are bitter towards guys that did us a turn and moved on rather than the guff that no one else wanted. We'll miss him but he is a major talent and his move to a bigger stage was always going to a matter of when not if. Also, now our entire squad has 1 goal this season.

He started off well and then fell out of things going from the first eleven to the bench to nowhere. He got 4 starts and 5 sub appearances in the second half of the season then left in the close season for CSKA.

Kilmarnock said that last year.

I hope we win. I think we'll win. It wouldn't surprise one bit if we lose.

In the last five seasons previous to this one.... Tony Watt 122 matches 16 goals (1 every 8 games) Chris Long 126 matches 23 goals (1 every 5 games) Jordan White 199 matches 49 goals (1 every 4 games, although at Scottish Championship or English National League level) Jordan White scored 10 in a season for Livingston in the Championship five years ago and that's the only time any of them got into double figures for league goals. I don't think anyone should be surprised we haven't got a goal out a striker, they don't have a track record. I also thought the circumstances around the signing of Watt and Long were odd, given the circumstances, ie, Watt having flopped at Hearts and St Johnstone in quick succession, and the whole Long summer saga as well as underwhelming performances last season and the fact that it's obvious he's not the type of player for our system.

Oliver Burke was hung at Leith docks for stealing cadavers from Edinburgh graveyards. Lyndon Dykes was the first person to cross the Sahara in a T Model Ford in 1913. Lawrence Shankland runs a successful Edinburgh based solicitors firm. Oli McBurnie is a cheeky schoolboy pantomime character that is shoe horned into every Christmas production at the Kings theatre and is played by Gary Hollywood.

Celtic's core is getting older. Forrest, Brown, McGregor etc and as good as foreign players like Edouard are they are never going to stick around for long. They are simply doing the sensible thing and snapping up the best young Scottish talent of his generation. Will be interesting to see if Turnbull lines up on Thursday but I think we should be bracing ourselves for LWT. Life without Turnbull.

First of all the whole idea that because a player didn't make it at a certain level at a certain time in his career means he couldn't make it at a different level at a different time in his career is completely invalid. It makes no sense whatsoever, has been proved wrong literally a myriad of times and yet is trotted out time and time again. Secondly it used to be that players were developed in the first team and grew as players over a period of time. These days youth players only really get a chance if they prove themselves immediately as substantially better than first teamers. You don't see players being brought through like a Jamie Murphy or Paul Quinn or an even an Ally Maxwell or Dougie Arnott where perhaps they didn't have a huge influence on the team immediately but were given 2 or 3 seasons exposure to eventually become the players they were. Youth players are judged immediately and don't really get developed any longer at first team level.

There is some truth to what you are saying but Maguire is basically wasting his career at Motherwell through lack of opportunity, Scott and Turnbull should have been playing far earlier than they did and Hastie kicked around for something like three years between his debut and getting another minute on the park. As for Semple, it's over a year since he last made an appearance. And Livingstone, Devine, Cornelius and McLean? You could add up their minutes on a very small postage stamp. Given that virtually everything in the Robinson era that was any good came from our youth development system and that it's clear that we can produce much better quality players, for the most part, than we can bring in to the club then the youth system should be absolutely central to our mission as a club. Yet despite the emergence of guys like Turnbull, Scott etc, I don't think it is. And not all youth players have to be as good as Turnbull and Scott. They just need to be at as good, if not a little better, than the dross we import into the club from English lower and non league level.