Ya Bezzer!

Absolutely magnificent servant of the club, third best left back in my time and scorer of header on opening day of the season against Inverness.

I said elsewhere that Stevie Hammell belongs to a different era of youth development in our clubs history. You couldn't really defend our current policy towards youth by bringing Hammell into it when he made his debut in the 1990s. Also when I made the comparisons between our squad and Hamilton's it was a snap shot. I didn't include quite a few other Hamilton players who didn't feature on Saturday who have also come through their ranks. For instance Michael Devlin who is a long term injury is 24 years old and has 147 appearances. If I'd done so it would have only gone to contrast further the difference between the clubs. You raise Cadden and Hall. That for me was the best period in Motherwell's recent history. We won five games on the trot giving youth a chance and I wish we'd continued down that route. As for bringing up poor players from the past, fine, I did that myself. On the flip side of that we've had some very good players in our team recently. Louis Moult for me developed into one of the best strikers we've had in my 30+ years of watching the team. Currently Carson is the best goalkeeper we've had since Darren Randolph. But overall the quality of the squads over an extended period of, say four or so seasons, has been very poor. We aren't really discussing individuals, it's the overall quality that is lacking. My main criticism over the season is that we can't get by on 4 or 5 guys doing all the work. You mentioned McLeish and Kampman. I agree. I described that period as the nadir of my time as a supporter. Whether that was the worst team or this one is is down to opinion but for me it feels a lot like that period with a huge roster of non entities coming and going, constant managerial changes and the club distinctly lacking in any direction or leadership. It took near extinction to charge the club back up again and give us some direction, I'd hope we don't need to go that far towards the edge before we can rediscover that impetus.

Where did I say "they would all make the grade" or we would be playing "silky soccer at all times" or anything else. Sometimes when the 'post administration team' is brought up fans look at it through rosy lens. There was some terrible stuff played. One of the worst ever performances I can remember from a Motherwell team was away to Partick that season. But you know what, in the long run it was building to something and the club benefited. Maybe Willie Kinniburgh, Shaun Fagan and Dougie Ramsay weren't exactly Motherwell greats but we produced very good players that went on to put up hundreds of appearances for the club and others who were sold for transfer fees we'd take now, close to 20 years later. And there was an actual sense of progress through the Butcher years and beyond, clawing our way up the league, becoming a mid table team and then going beyond that, just the same way as there was when we came up from Division One under MacLean. There were tough, tough seasons then but there was a sense that we were actually going somewhere. Adding quality players, Bobby Russell, Davie Cooper, year on year and getting better albeit with bumps along the way. I just don't get that feeling now. We are going round and round in circles. Even at the nadir of my time as a supporter which was the period between the McLeish dismantlement and administration there was at least a plan, even if it was the hopelessly misguided Lanarkshire United vision of John Boyle with all it's attendant investment and hoopla. I've never been all about results, either good or bad. The Motherwell team of my youth hardly ever won and I went home happy if Stevie Cowan scored a goal. But there has to be something underpinning the whole thing. I'm happy to take a step backwards to ultimately go forward but when we lose now it's like a game of snakes and ladders where we just end up back at the beginning again with absolutely no progress and before you know it a whole season has past, another managers gone, another whole new squad is being assembled and we hear all the same chat. Those seasons are beginning to mount up now.

Excellent signing for Rangers. But when they go bust again we can say one of our lads helped out.

Most of the players in our team cannot pass a ball. What annoys me more than anything else is how some fans defend the level of football played. I've watched some struggling Motherwell teams and sure you can pick out individuals from the past but as a whole they were playing far better opposition and the general standard of player was higher than it is now. They had basic skills at the very least. We have a lot of players who don't. Nothing will change until higher standards are demanded and I don't see how anyone can say our standards are adequate when it's clear that standards have dropped HUGELY.

We've had 7 league wins this season and I'd say 2 of them were comprehensive wins - home to Partick and away to Aberdeen. Ross County and Kilmarnock could both easily have been a couple of goals up at half time yet we won them with a second half goal and a late penalty in each case. Hearts match I think was one of our better performances this season but it was a hard fought match, away to Hamilton was truly awful even though we won, wasn't at the midweek match at Dundee but Dundee had a goal disallowed which was soft in my opinion. Draws against Hibs, Celtic and Dundee you can put down to 1) the genius of Moult, 2) an OG and 3) a penalty. Even in the cup semi final we were poor until a second string goalkeeper dropped a cross. We've had injuries but I'm not sure he's been flat out unlucky.

Just look at the home grown players in the Accies squad that beat us last time out. Scott McMann, 21 years old, 56 appearances Greg Docherty, 21 years old, 108 appearances Darren Lyon, 22 years old, 51 appearances Ali Crawford, 26 years old, 268 appearances Grant Gillespie, 26 years old, 236 apperances Ross Cunningham, 19 years old, 9 appearances Shaun Want, 20 years old, 3 appearances And our team Ross MacLean, 20 years old, 15 appearances Allan Campbell, 19 years old, 25 appearances Adam Livingston, 19 years old, 2 apperances In the last 4 seasons, Accies have finished - 7th, 10th, 11th and are currently 9th. We have finished - 11th, 5th, 9th and are currently 8th. It's not as if our policy of completely ignoring youth development in favour of 'finding the English lower league gem' has us playing at some stellar level way beyond Accies. We are essentially playing at the same level with very little between the teams (4 points last season, this season currently 1 point) with one play off appearance each in the last four seasons and 7 out of 8 bottom six finishes combined. What our club policy has done is overload the club with an awful standard of pro footballer, on higher wages than U20s kids would get, for absolutely no gain. Sure you can argue that we have sold Johnson, Heneghan, Moult but what cost? Terrible season after terrible season? For every player sold, we've been landed with 5 or 6 awful players who, over the course of a season drag the actually football we all watch down to an unacceptable level. I used the phrase yesterday but it sums us up to a tee, Motherwell FC has become a revolving door of utter dross since the appointment of Barraclough. It's almost as if Motherwell football club has forgotten what it is supposed to be. To hell with football, up with human commodity dealing. Finish 10th, play poor football with the worst standard of footballer we've ever had and make £500,000 in transfers. Job done. That's our mentality these days. It stinks. Now whether academy players should come through the ranks and then be exposed to Robinson's dinosaur football is another question.....anyway in the meantime, managers last a year and every season is a Great Rebuild season.

We are physical through an absence of style and ability but I don't think we are out and out dirty as has been portrayed. Basically we are plodders rather than thugs.

More than anyone he's let his manager down. Robinson is under some real pressure to get out of this run and Hartley will likely be suspended for the upcoming matches against Hamilton, Ross County and perhaps beyond. It was entirely avoidable and if I was Robinson I'd be fuming. Maybe these situations occur when a player feels the manager is powerless to act against him.....certainly there was a break down in discipline and you get the impression the manager is losing control.

Getting a striker in on loan would surely be better than a signing at this stage. Got to be guys out there that are down the pecking order at a higher level who would want an opportunity to score goals and give their manager a wee reminder. We sign someone and it's probably going to be a lower level player. We need quality in, not another one through the revolving door of dross.

Don't know much about Halkett but one of our big problems this season is we have no pace through the middle of the team. When teams get behind us in the 50 - 30 yards out area we have a lot of trouble. I'd be looking for a centre back that was relatively quick - someone in the Mark Reynolds mould.

What's selective about total league matches managed? I did Robinson a favour by not including the play off matches because if I did Barraclough actually has a better win ratio.

Think you are missing the point about the home matches. BTW Kilmarnock were missing Power, Dicker and Kiltie at the start of the season. Three first choice players. Not full strength then. The midfield trio of Power, Dicker and Mulumbu have been a big part of the Kilmarnock revivial. Like I've said to other detractors - where is your line? Do you let this go to 5 points from 45? Do you let us slide into the play off position before you take action? Do you give a guy who has not done that well in the transfer market cash in this window, only to fire him two or three games down the line if we lose them? The whole transfer window angle on this puts us in a tricky position. It would be easier if we just had a bunch of fixtures to play in the coming weeks but I think the window undoubtedly means we have a decision to make now. Personally, from a purely footballing point of view, I think Robinson should get a few more games to turn this round but if he fails, both in the upcoming matches and in the transfer market, we are in serious trouble and I think everyone needs to recognise that and that there are decisions to be made and risks to be calculated.

Robinson almost has the same league record as manager as Ian Barraclough Barraclough P32 W10 D5 L17 Robinson P33 W11 D5 L17

Kipre was more to blame for the second goal than Hammell was at the third.

Love this calendar angle. It's 92 days since we won a home match but that doesn't matter a jot how many days it was. Leagues are decided on points. 5 points isn't massive if you can actually win games but we can't. As it stands it might as well be a 100 points. We've played 11 league matches, since the 28th October, and won 1, drawn 2 and lost 8. That's close to a third of the season's matches. Oh, and two of those draws were secured with an OG and a penalty in matches we could have played all night and not scored from open play. If we fail to beat Ross County in the next league match our next two league matches are away to Hibs and Hearts so it could easily be 13 or 14 league matches with 1 win. If you think that's fine, great, good on you, but as far as I'm concerned Robinson has to win the next two matches or his position is open to serious question. Plenty managers have been fired for less, including three in this division, this season, because we are currently on the worst run of any team in the division.

Some months you play 2, 3 or 4 matches. This month we've played 7, lost 6 and were lucky not to lose the other one. Where's the line? 1 win in 10, 1 win in 15, 1 win in 20? Or does Robinson have to have 5 bad months in a season before your calendar based system kicks in?

True but if you are looking to plan for the future, form has to play a part in the projection. And it's not as if we are roughly equivalent to other teams at the bottom of the form table, we are miles behind. Partick Thistle have picked up twice as many points as us over the last 10 games and they are third bottom. Our form is frankly catastrophic. Motherwell now are on the worst run of any team in the division this season. We probably need about 17 points to achieve safety in the league, on current form we would require more than 30 matches to get those points. It's bad. Oh, and we've lost to Ross County, Kilmarnock, Partick Thistle, Hamilton and scrapped a draw at home to Dundee thanks to a penalty. If you're not concerned I salute your indefatigability.

Losing Moult is a huge blow but Robinson has brought in Fisher as cover and it's just not worked at all. Plan B doesn't seem to figure with Robinson at all. Cadden for me has been poor under Robinson and if you ask me, all of Cadden's really good play for Motherwell was in McGhee teams. His initial 10 -15 games in the side and then the beginning of last season up until his injury. I'm not saying Cadden is the worst player in the team or anything like that but in my opinion he's not really done it in Robinson teams and certainly hasn't matched his personal best. Secondly, Robinson got the job done last season but to say he 'saved' us is a bit much. When he took over we were 10th and with three matches to play we were 11th. If Hamilton Accies hadn't gone into free fall in the bottom six matches (lost 4, won 1), we would probably have been in the play offs. He won 4 out of his 12 matches and lost 3 out 5 in the bottom 6. He got the job done, fair enough, but it wasn't great.

I thought he was just being honest. First of all he at least recognised that Allan Campbell is the guy that brings the team together and gives us shape and a bit of drive. I wish he'd recognised that for the Final and I wish he'd recognised that over this terrible run when he's had Campbell in and out of the team but at least he's seen it today. As for misfiring forwards and not winning second balls what is he supposed to say? It's apparent to everyone and he'd said anything else you'd be having a go at him for being delusional. I think the word 'perceived' was important in the other point. They are perceived ball players, ie, are supposed to be but aren't and that's been there for everyone to see over the last few weeks. So we are stuck with Robinson's retrogressive style. Robinson is right to say the success came with 'his' style of football but I think the reasons are deeper than just a style. Louis Moult was a huge part of it, and as I've said elsewhere we were a bit lucky in some matches (particular the two home wins against Ross County and Kilmarnock) and had a run of winnable home matches so I don't think even with players coming back from injury and him being able to play the side he really wants to will actually be the answer. It's an interview where he's basically spelt out what hes all about and you can run with it or not.

When one of your better players is doing stuff like this it don't look good. You can forgive in game mistakes but that reaction is ridiculous. He's let the team down big time.

I'm told that it's normal practice for football manager contracts to have a clause that they can be cancelled by paying out 6 months or 8 months pay. We probably wouldn't have to pay out 4 years, unless we fucked the contract up as well.

A manager who got us to a Scottish Cup Final and guided us to multiple 2nd and 3rd league finishes in the league was forced out after a run that was only 1 point worse than the current run over 11 matches. If Robinson was fired tomorrow I don't think he could have much to complain about. Should he be fired? There's a decision to be made and sometimes you have to be ruthless. Personally I'd give it a couple more games but if we lost the next two I don't think he'd have a leg to stand on. The problem with that is the January transfer window coming before those matches complicates the whole decision.

Agenda? We are bottom of the form table and the team in 10th has TWICE as many points as us. We haven't won at Fir Park since September. We've lost 6 consecutive away league matches. We have 1 clean sheet in our last 11 matches. I'm afraid there's a problem and it's a fact that we are on one of our worst runs this decade.

First half I thought we were alright and we were maybe a little bit unfortunate with the penalty decision, didn't get a good view of it so I couldn't say either way so I'll wait till I've seen highlights. For me though the turning point in the match came a few minutes later - Allan Campbell going off. From the point on we were absolutely gash. There was no shape and no impetus to our play at all. The midfield structure went to pieces. We basically became a complete and utter shambles in the 2nd half, everything smacked of desperation and when Accies goal went in from a terrible mistake from Hartley (also through Carsons legs) you could see every head go down. You would have bet your house on a 3-1 win to Accies at that point. Our substitutes contributed absolutely nothing again and yet again you are looking at a couple of players carrying the rest. 5 points from 33 is just not good enough and no excuse covers it. Big questions over this team and their manager now. Accies in the cup is a must win. Ross County in the league is a must win. This CANNOT go on.