Ya Bezzer!

Ha ha. Some people have taken against me and kick out at virtually anything I say, even when if you isolated what exactly I said, they would actually agree with me. But hey, that's the fun of the forums.

Yeah but as good as their home form was their away form was terrible.

They also only lost two home matches all last season. Once to Rangers, once to Celtic.

Very, very tough tie. Hearts home record in recent times has been superb.

The pitch!

For me Johnson was the difference between the teams.

Poorer 2nd half but at least Campbell came on and looked like his old self. Hit the post as well but apart from that don't remember either keeper having a serious save to make. Livingston played nice enough football but have a serious lack of cutting edge. For us Johnson was taken off and Frear fell out of the game. Overall a fairly even match with Danny Johnson the difference between the teams.

Better. Actually created chances what with having a winger and a proper striker on the pitch. Livingston looked dangerous in the first 20 minutes or so and Carson had to make a smart save and they had one off the bar. Since the goal though we have mainly been able to nullify them as an attacking team. Probably 1-0 is about right. Important we get the next goal though.

I'm positive when we play well. Would be hilarious if you're giving me more stick for our form than the manager or players.

The surface is absolutely atrocious. Looks like an old green grocers display.

Celtic's goal is to reach the Champions League group stages. They failed because they didn't take heed of the fact that they had been in obvious decline over most of last season and allowed the 'double treble' to skew their analysis of the teams actual performances. If we do the same, and allow the reaching of two finals to skew our analysis of our teams actual performance, our goal, to stay in the Scottish Premiership, will also fail. As has been noted so many times before, we have been pretty wretched since November 2017. That's a long run of rotten form so when and how is it permissible to criticise the manager? Surely 30 matches, 6 wins and 23 goals scored speaks for itself, never mind the actual standard of play that we watch every week.

They were a tight, high tempo team that had a better balance between going long and playing on the floor than we do but they have a different manager and a few different players since last season when I saw them. I liked Pittman and Jacobs in midfield but Jacobs seems to have dropped to the bench this season. Pittman made good runs from midfield into the box but I suspect they will play more defensively this season against Premiership teams. Have a few players Motherwell fans will know - Jack McMillan, Steven Saunders, Steven Lawless. Will probably match up with us with a 3-5-2.

I'd agree with that. I'm Allan Campbell's biggest fan but he wasn't at the races yesterday and unless he plays our midfield is down by about 75% effectiveness. Maybe he's carrying a knock or maybe there is a general malaise that is effecting even our better players, whatever the reason we need him back on his game.

I'm sure it's no secret that I'm not Robinson's biggest fan. I think his footballing philosophy is well below the level that should be aimed at a Premiership team. I mean it's to all extents and purposes English non league anti-football. It belongs to a different age and level of football. Absolute basics like ball retention and off the ball movement seem to have been virtually abandoned. However calling for the managers head after two league matches is a bit reactionary especially when our last match last season was the Scottish Cup Final. That said I've always felt that Robinson was a bit lucky to achieve what he did last term. There was the odd excellent performance - notably the Aberdeen match in the League Cup - but they were few and far between - even during our cup runs. We will play Aberdeen 50 or 100 times before they are as bad as they were in that semi final. And wasn't our top goal scorer during the Scottish cup run Own Goal? Our run of form after the League Cup final, where let's remember Robinson dropped our best midfielder and not for the first time, was not only deplorable but absolutely soul sapping to watch. Despite attending 34 matches last season I went literally six months without seeing us win a league game. Now I missed two midweek fixtures that were both won but still I think it says something when a regular attendee has to go from November to April to see a league match won. For most of the second half of the season we were bottom two in terms of form and we became almost entirely dependent for set pieces to score goals. Our goal ratio over a sustained period is now less than a goal a game. Unfortunately Robinson has not addressed long standing problems, doesn't seem to give a damn about youth development, and has shown no inkling of changing this prehistoric tactical approach. So while I think he should be given more time this season I'm not confident at all that he'll use it to his advantage. We desperately need fresh ideas and frankly I don't think Robinson has them but that remains to be seen and I genuinely hope he surprises me. But honestly, I don't think a minor improvement in form, which may happen, is enough. When the club is asking more and more from fans in term of financial support we should at least be able to come to Fir Park and not be subjected to eye rape for months on end. If it's a choice between watching a better style of football and finishing 10th or watching the tripe we've endured most of last season and the beginning of this season and finishing 9th or 8th I know what I'd pick, that's assuming the tripe does better than 10th.... Basically Robinson has to adapt and rebrand his football.

Bigi. But even then I thought he looked lost second half.

I'm not saying sack the manger but if you think its about two league games you are way off. We are talking about 10 months of utter guff. Anyone paying any attention shouldn't be surprised by the start we've made.

The thing is far and away our best performance over that whole period was when the first team was rested for the cup final and other players - including Maguire, Turnbull and Maclean were brought in. Our youth team plays football that's miles ahead of our senior side.

Our last 30 league matches.

First half was almost like a training exercise. We completely dominated but instead of using that possession to create goal chances we used it to get a series of head tennis matches going some of which seemed to go on forever. Honestly, someone needs to take a stopwatch to the matches to see how much time the ball spends on the ground because it can't be long. Accies were as poor a team as you'll ever play at this level and yet we had one real chance in the 45 minutes when Bigi got a header on target. Makes you wonder why the smallest player on the park is the only one that can get a header on target but anyway. Early second half we created a few chances and everything went high, wide and handsome with Curtis Main being the main culprit. As all these chances went begging we looked increasingly panicky and desperate. Delivery into the box was so poor, there was no composure and, you guessed it, balls were pumped into no mans land or straight on to Accies defenders. Then the inevitable happened, all Accies, this desperately poor Accies side, had to do was to get a bit of movement going and our defence was all over the place. In fact although Accies hardly attacked in the match, they had all the clear cut chances and should have actually won about 3-0, I mean, they literally missed an open goal. Anyway, Miller was through on goal was he was taken down and the free kick that lead to the goal was scored. After that we just fell apart. On the odd occasions that Accies got forward they went through us so easily it was scary and at the other end we didn't look like scoring in a month of Sundays. Once again a negative line up, atrocious long ball tactics, a complete lack of composure and a total absence of any footballing skill was served up for a grand total of no goals and no points.

As I can keep telling people, people who possibly only turn up for the cup games, we've been atrocious for ages.

Accies have shown nothing and we have almost completely dominated the match but for all the sound and fury we've had one meaningful attempt on goal. Given the amount of possession we've had I'd expect us to eventually get a goal but there is a distinct lack of creativity and far too many lumped balls. Bigi has been at the centre of most of the good bits.

First of all you don't need £200 million to pass a ball so that's a non argument. It's quite possible to do so on our budget, in fact you only have to go back as far as our last league fixture to see that it is when we had ball playing youth players and a striker who's not a heid-the-ball up front. Secondly the managers preferred style of football has gleaned a whooping 6 wins from the last 26 league matches. Therefore it's open to question whether it's actually successful - especially this term when we have lost some of our stand out players (Moult, Kipre). Also the element of surprise is an important factor in this. Robinson won 6 out of the first 10 matches last season and then 7 wins from the subsequent 28. That's a win ratio drop off of 60% to 25%. Does that tell you? That maybe other teams have us figured out now, know what to expect and can counter it fairly easily?

The Accies team we beat 3-0 will be similar to the one we face at the weekend - ie, it was minus all the better players that Accies have had over the past couple of seasons. The December side still had a core of good players all of which are now gone.

I said last week the luckiest break we will get all season is having Accies in the second week of the season. With Rangers, Hearts, Aberdeen and Kilmarnock all coming up it's essential we win this one and get some points on the board. This seasons Accies are as poor a side as you are ever going to play at this level, since last term they have lost Skondras, Devlin, Gillespie, Crawford, Brophy, Templeton, Lewis Ferguson and others, the core of a decent side, and replaced them with nobody of any note. They scored 1 goal in three league cup matches against Annan, Airdrieonians and Livingston and got pumped off Hearts last week. No excuses, I'm afraid.

Aldred did well last season but I agree that, outwith Aldred's own merits as a player, this is a signing with problems - the defensive balance, bringing Maguire through, an apparent commitment to playing McHugh in midfield, where it leaves Donnelly. For me Robinson is really backing himself into a corner here with his signings. Right now it looks the squad is not versatile enough and we don't have the personnel to play anything other than Robinson's favoured style - the merits and effectiveness of which remain open to question.