Ya Bezzer!

Expected us to come out in the second half with our heads down after the circumstances of the first half but we kept plugging away and in the end have dominated the second half, can't remember Rangers having a single chance of note. Absolutely deserved the point, at the very least, and Rangers tactic of going to ground every time there is a 50/50 really didn't work out well for them. Good to see Campbell and Bigirimana in midfield together and Johnson up top. They were all excellent.

Competed well in midfield and Johnson has continued his good form but I'm afraid if you concede 3 goals in 45 minutes its all for nothing. Rangers have got into the spaces behind our wing backs and we can't seem to deal with Lafferty.

I looked into that. Collum has only officiated three Motherwell vs Celtic/Rangers matches. One of those was the infamous last minute penalty match that was drawn. Collum's matches - 2 Aberdeen, 2 Celtic, 2 Hamilton, 1 Hearts, 1 Inverness, 2 Kilmarnock, 1 Rangers, 2 Ross County, 3 St. Johnstone. Doesn't look especially 'high profile' to me. Most of the matches are against non city clubs.

Recent chat got me interested in the actual facts about referees and perceived bias of certain officials. First of all I looked at win ratio against referee in charge. Over the last 4 seasons, not including this season, we played 179 domestic matches with a win ratio of 36.8%. Therefore I expected most referee's to be roughly around the 35% mark. I've excluded referees who officiated less than 5 matches. FINNIE P6 W4 D0 L2 66.6% WALSH P7 W4 D2 L1 57.10% MUIR P11 W5 D2 L4 45.4% CLANCY P14 W6 D1 L7 42.0% MADDEN P21 W8 D0 L13 38.0% ALLAN P8 W3 D1 L4 37.5% DALLAS P8 W3 D1 L4 37.5% McLEAN P17 W6 D4 L7 35.2% THOMSON P17 W6 D2 L9 35.2% ROBERTSON P12 W4 D2 L6 33.3% ANDERSON P9 W3 D1 L5 33.3% AITKEN P6 W2 D1 L3 33.3% BEATON P10 W3 D2 L5 30.0% COLLUM P16 W3 D6 L7 18.7% So as you can see most of the referees didn't fall far below our overall win ratio, with two exceptions. Beaton who was almost 7% lower and Collum who was a massive 16% off of where you'd expect. Out of interest the referees who didn't make the 5 match cut were.... COOK P4 W2 D1 L1 50.0% MURRAY P4 W2 D0 L2 50.0% CHARLESTON P2 W1 D0 L1 50.0% DUNCAN P2 W1 D0 L1 50.0% COLVIN P4 W 0 D1 L3 0.00% CRAWFORD P1 W0 D1 L0 0.00% I intend to look into cards issued against us by referees and against opposition by referees but that will have to wait for now.

I'm guessing if the roles were reversed and a Rangers player had come out in the press about enjoying watching a Motherwell player having his nose broke no one would have said a peep about it? Eh...maybe not. Anyway it motivates the opposition, puts Hartley under the spotlight from referees and puts the club in a bad light, this was a lead story on the BBC earlier in the day. It's nothing to do with going soft and everything to do with having some kind of intelligence when talking to the press. When we have a game with a referee who made at least two atrocious red card decisions against us last season why on earth would you go out and talk about some serious foul play that we got away with?

I like the rough side of the game but there are some things you can't say. Hartley has done us, and himself, a massive disservice with his comments. However he seems to have these sorts of outbursts in his locker and yet he's been made club captain. Perhaps, ultimately, it wasn't the wisest decision to put him into a role that he doesn't seem especially suited too. As I've already noted this season, away from the lenses and microphones, I've not been impressed with his captaincy on the field either. As regards the game in general, I have no idea how good Rangers really are but they have gone 10 games undefeated and have hardly conceded any goals so they will be very confident at the very least. Having seen every minute we've played this season I suspect we are going to have to see a massive performance increase to get anything out of the match. Will be especially interested to see if Johnson starts or if Robinson reverts to type.

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.