Ya Bezzer!

Who can defend that? We are by any objective standard absolutely atrocious. We are a club that's brainwashed it's self into non professional standards. Oh, and McHugh is a complete idiot. Should have been sent off last week, got away with it. He's a reckless, dangerous player who every time he puts his foot in risks a yellow or red. A clown.

Although I'd agree our close season transfer dealings have been poor and the players brought in aren't good enough I still believe all our current woes stem back to the beginning of last season. We won 6 out of our first 10 matches but people forget about many of the performances. Against Kilmarnock and Ross County the team was literally booed off the field at half time, we put in dismal first half displays, were generally given the runaround and were lucky, due to poor finishing from the visitors, to still be in the match. In the 2nd half we improved and we managed to get 1-0 leads with two late penalties, one each match to wrap up the points. The introduction of Allan Campbell from the sub bench turned the match against Ross County. It showed one thing, that Robinson's choices that he'd brought in - Bigirimana, Rose, alongside McHugh were not good enough as a midfield. And as has been proven time and time again ever since, when Allan Campbell is not present our midfield rarely if ever functions. Yet while this was evident to anyone actually analysing the matches rather than just looking at the results nothing was done about it. To this day, more than a year on and two transfer windows past, we still lack quality in midfield. A football team with no midfield will always be destined for disaster. And so it's proved. So how did we win 6 out of 10 then? Our initial success was based on a number of factors - new players, an unusual formation and 'throwback' tactics in an age when 'good' football meant playing on the ground, as well as having the best striker in the league, a good bit of luck and a favourable opening run of winnable home fixtures. However, we were easily figured out after one match, luck doesn't last forever and our striker was injured and then sold. Once teams had played us and adapted, we were easy to counter. The classic example was Aberdeen. Soundly beaten in what will probably be remembered as the best performance of the Robinson era in the league cup, Aberdeen returned the following weekend, changed their tactical approach and completely shut us down and won 1-0. More or less every team did the same after the first round of matches - a fact that saw our form go off a cliff and never really recover beyond a few wins against relegation bound Partick and an end of season kick about against Hamilton in the Bottom Six matches. Here was our second mistake - not replacing Louis Moult. While Main started brightly at the club it soon became apparent that he was no penalty box striker and while he often did good work outside the box the goal return was nowhere near the player he replaced. Yet, again, like the problem in midfield, nothing was done. Another transfer window and Connor Sammon was brought in, a player far too similar to existing players in the squad and a striker with a poor goal return. True, Danny Johnson was also brought in but here was a player with fitness issues and who clearly needed time and matches to adjust and step up a level. He wasn't ready to step right in. So last season while the midfield was not good enough at any point but we could get away with it because we were defensively sound and had a great striker. Then when Moult was sold we couldn't really get away with it a lot of the time because we were depending on not conceding to get anything out of games. If teams scored first they generally beat us. Form suffered badly, goals dried up and our form went into free fall. Finally we get to this close season. Both midfield and forward positions were not significantly strengthen, something that should have been apparent for some time and then disaster happened - the last functioning part of the team - the defence - fell apart. Dunne was injured, Hartley came back from a serious injury and didn't look the same player, Kipre was sold and our best player last season, Trevor Carson, took a major dip in form. So as it stands no area of the pitch is good enough. Carson's poor-ish form may improve but defensively we have been very bad - 14 conceded in 7 league matches and not a single clean sheet. We have exactly the same midfield as last season - a Chris Cadden going backwards at a rate of knots, Rose, Bigirimana, an out of position Tait, and of course ,Campbell, a player that, as good as he is, desperately needs help. The only 'improvement' in midfield was moving McHugh out of it into defence. So while it's tempting to blame Sammon, Donnelly and ATS for the poor start to the season I still maintain that, really, our problems stem back to last season for the above reasons.

I guess I'm saying a lot of Motherwell supporters chose not to support us today - only 500 out of our regular 4,000, never mind the 12,000 that turned out for the final. If you are fed up with us being beaten or turning in very poor performances, then I think that's a legitimate reason for staying away and the rest of us shouldn't get too judgemental about it. Me, I go to almost every match but we've been too bad, too long to really criticise people for not wanting to drop £30 - £40 quid going to a game.

Since he was talking about midfield runners not being matched and since Bigi was getting strips torn off him after the second goal I think you can safely say he'll be one of them. Not sure who's not matched the run for the third goal for Kilmarnock as you don't get the best view looking down the length of the pitch but Cadden had another poor match and really needs benched.

I'd agree that we were competing in the game and the early exchanges were fairly even but I always felt Kilmarnock were the much better footballing team and when we scored it was slightly against the run of play. When Kilmarnock scored the equalizer had been coming for 10 or 15 minutes so I don't agree we looked comfortable at that stage. As for this supposed ability to cope turn round games, we've won 1 match in our last 35 league games from being 1-0 down, that against Dundee. Kilmarnock have done it two weeks in a row. We'll agree completely about the second half. It was noticeably that there was a lot of finger pointing at the goals and with a good 15 minutes of the game left the team had more or less given up going by body language. These are not good signs.

There was 550 odd through at Kilmarnock today. Are those the only ones getting in on Saturday?

Liam Grimshaw is by far the worst player in the squad. Quite an achievement.

Pretty much. If you want to improve a squad you sign players that will displace guaranteed first team starters the previous season. What we've done is replace second string dross with second string dross. Since our actual first team is actually weaker than at the start of last season that policy seems even more bizarre. We have something like 30 first team squad players (if you included Maguire, Turnbull, Scott etc) and you'd be lucky if you could find 10 that are either good enough or tested at this level. As a result there is no competition in the squad, something only compounded by the managers aversion to promoting U20s players into the first team. Robinson has painted himself into a corner with his loyalty to a side that, cup runs aside, was pretty poor in the first place and is poorer now. We brought in Donnelly, Grimshaw and Taylor-Sinclair from the fringes today. You'd think these guys would want to impress during a rare start but alas they did absolutely nothing.

Carson for keeping the score down.

Finished 1-3 but might well have been 4, 5, 6. Carson has made a couple of smart saves and Tait cleared a certain goal off the line. In the end we were well beaten by probably the best team I've seen this season and that fact is what I'm taking away from this match. I keep seeing wee team mentality all over this board, that we can't expect much from a club our size and that the city teams are unchallengeable. Why then are our closest cousins, in terms of size of club, history, support, so far ahead of us? Kilmarnock have beaten Celtic and Aberdeen and are as good as any team in the country. At Motherwell we've let our standards fall drastically. That's a problem that is pre-Robinson but it's only been compounded during Robinson term in charge with atrocious outdated tactics, embarrassing style of football and the complete neglect of our youth system. Things have to change. Kilmarnock showed us today what could be.

Idiotic challenge for the penalty.

Football's a funny old game. We could be 2-0 up or 3-1 down based on a couple of incidents. Been critical of Main's shooting this season but it was an excellent finish. His penalty was very poor though. Feel we've battled away in the match but for me Killie are technical far superior to us and once they equalized the second goal was always going to come. Not too sure about Carson at the first goal, seemed a bit Samsonesque. Second goal Carson was tearing strips off Bigi. With only one goal in it we can still get back into the match but Killie finished strongly and you feel we might have let our initial momentum slip.

Kilmarnock have scored twice in 4 out of 6 league matches and kept clean sheets in 3. We've failed to score in 4 out of 6 and kept no clean sheets. Looks like a 2-0 win to Kilmarnock then. Going but not expecting anything out of this match. As most have said you'd take a point right now. For me the really big match is going to be in two weeks when we play Livingston. A lot of people will probably expect us to beat them and it's guaranteed 3 points. It's not. We are going to have to play well to get anything out of that game too because Livingston are a decent team. They have strengthened their team since we narrowly beat them in a pretty even match in the League Cup, have a new and better manager, and have some momentum going in the league.

We've lost twice to Accies as I remember one at home, one away. Also lost to Hibs at Fir Park. Wasn't at the Cappielow match, I had school and wasn't allowed to go, so I can't think of us actually winning one. I think I can vaguely remember a penalty shoot out in a Lanarkshire Cup final.....but can't remember who won......I might be making that up though!

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Cadden has gone backwards at a rate of knots and played all his best football under McGhee. Robinson doesn't know what to do with him and the player is being ruined. For me he is never a wide player in a million years. He doesn't have the technical ability or the ball skill to perform that role. Frear, a very average wide player, is streets ahead of him in those regards. His attributes, strength, decent pace, energy, point him towards being a box to box midfielder but while I don't think he's being utilised properly Cadden has to take on his own self development. His goal return is pathetic, his final ball has been really poor, and recently he's looked lost and disinterested. While player performance doesn't always boil down to stats Cadden has something like 0 goals and 6 assists from his last 43 league matches and that's just not good enough. At the end of the day you can't put that on the manager and it's down to the player to give himself a shake. Being played out of position is no reason to not be able to cross a ball. If Cadden comes back into the team Rose should be being dropped and Tait should be playing on the right hand side. That way you have a runner (Cadden), a ball winner (Campbell) and a ball player (Bigi) in the midfield three and that seems much more balanced that of recent times. The left hand side position is a problem but you don't sort a problem by causing bigger problems elsewhere so Robinson needs to get thinking instead of sticking with something that's not working. At least he tried something different on Saturday even if it didn't work but we have something like 50 professional players on our books so I'm sure one of them can play at left wing back.

I agree we haven't signed good strikers - even Main and Bowman, while they have their merits are not prolific goalscorers - but we've also been crying out for a genuine attacking midfielder for ages and it has never been addressed. Playing Cadden on the right and Tait on the left has not helped either because we are poor in wide areas and delivery into the box is not good enough. And I also do not believe the team is well coached in terms of attacking play. Watch a team like Hibs and see how the team attacks as a team with 4 or 5 players all running into pre-coached positions. We do not attack in a co-ordinated way. We are coached as a defensive team who scores off set pieces.

Worth noting that McGhee played 1 set of Top 6 fixtures in this 30 matches, while Barraclough played 1 set of Bottom 6 fixtures and Robinson has played 1 set of Bottom 6 fixtures.

It's not headers won in the centre circle. It's win, draws and losses. Will you be putting in a complaint to the league for using those same stats to determine league placings?

I don't think anyone would be overly concerned about a 0-1 defeat away to Aberdeen as an individual result. However you are bringing up 'perspective' when have now failed to win in 26 of our last 34 league matches. Our win ratio over that time is now below 25% and Robinson has taken fewer points over those last 34 matches than Mark McGhee did in his last 34 matches. Or is that the 'wrong' type of perspective?

Not watching the match so can't comment too much, well at all, on how we are performing but.... We've only scored in 8 out of our last 18 league matches. We've only won two matches in the last 33 where the opposition has scored, and only once over the same period when the opposition scored first.

For me Aberdeen don't have a lot of cutting edge, a bit like us in that regard. As long as we don't make any major errors like last weekend I think we can get something out of the game, after all Aberdeen have only score more than once in a match one time in eight this season. Result will likely be a 1-0, 1-1, 0-0 if form is anything to go by but as they say football's a funny old game.....

I'm much happier with McHugh at the back than in midfield but the last two games he's cost us two very poor goals. That's why he's been 'highlighted'.

We took the lead twice against Rangers. Sometimes I think coaches make such a big deal these days about the first goal being so important that it has a psychological effect on players. The way our heads went down yesterday after losing that goal you'd have thought it was 3-0.

Ditto. In fact I'd say Ikpeazu was hardly effective at all. He was reduced to going to ground every time trying to pick up fouls. It's not like he was steamrolling through our defence. If not for a terrible individual error yesterday we would have kept a clean sheet. The problems were at the other end.

Difficult one. Aldred and Tait gave their usual steady eddie performances. Gillespie came in a made a couple of decent stops. Bigi looked decent at times. I'll go for Aldred.