Ya Bezzer!

Dunne's first half performance against Accies was absolutely dire and yet Robinson kept him on. That, to me, says that Dunne starts next week. It's a big park at Hampden, lots of space, and I can definitely see the manager choosing Dunne's pace and athleticism over Hammell's undoubtedly better technique. The only way Hammell will come in is if we change a fairly settled formation and go 4 at the back. That's not impossible, we played it in the win against Aberdeen, but Hammell has hardly had any football this term, 1 sub appearance in the league and a couple of league cup matches so I think it's unlikely. There is also absolutely no chance of Frear or Tanner coming in. Rangers biggest threat is the central midfield to forward area. Morelos has 6 goals from 8 starts, Dorrans 5 from 9 and Pena 3 from 3. It's absolutely essential that we win the battle in the centre of midfield and stop Pena and Dorrans making runs to support Morelos. If we don't, we lose. Simple as that. Tanner and Frear just aren't those types of players.

Went for Bowman, Hartley narrowly misses out again!

It's pretty simply - because we are playing a 3-5-2. He obviously wants tall, athletic players in the back line, which is fine if they can also play football. Bringing in Hammell in a 4 at the back would be, you'd have to reckon, a pretty straight forward decision but I get why you might be more reluctant in the system we are currently playing. That said, our best performance of the season was with Hammell in the side. Even if doubts are creeping into Robinson's head I can't see him not starting Dunne on the huge pitch at Hampden. He'll be wanting a level of mobility that Hammell can't provide at this stage in his career.

You can only take 3 points from a league match and we did that. We were the better team but in truth it was a scrappy, ugly, low quality match of football, perhaps that's why they were so slow to get the flood lights on. We started brightly and had numerous chances but when Accies scored against the run of play it badly effected us and it wasn't looking too good for us. Our goal was similar to Accies, poor defending followed by an excellent finish. We created more chances but the truth was we didn't look especially convincing defensively, especially on the left with Dunne having fresh air swipes, falling over, giving away fouls, giving the ball away and so forth. It's glaringly obvious he's the weak link in the team right now and opposition managers will surely be fashioning game plans with that in mind. At the other end of the scale Hartley is probably the biggest threat we've had from a centre back since the Mitchell van der Gaag days when he bagged, off the top of my head, 7, in a season. Would be a huge coup if we could keep him at Fir Park longer and the difference between him and Heneghan is night and day. Most of the rest of the half we were dominant without really being that inspiring and a period of Accies pressure in the last ten minutes or so was actually welcome as it brought some edge back to the game. Bowman was excellent today, but he should have made it 3-1 late in the game at a time when the game was not yet safe, luckily it didn't matter in the end. Overall we did well to win the match, especially coming back from 1-0 down but it was a poor match played in near silence much of the time. There were mitigating circumstances - the worst surface in the league and perhaps a few, both on the pitch and in the stands, with eyes on next week, however we will need to make a big improvement in performance next week if we want to get to a final. Stand outs were Carson, Hartley, Campbell and Bowman.

I'm at the game commenting on the action as it happens, just like I did when we scored. You are the guy "whining" about me, presumably after the match when the win is confirmed. What a clown.

Bowman - miss of the season!

Finally the flood lights come on.

Carson has done well, caught most if not all crosses. Dunne is just trouble waiting to happen. Ought to be hooked. Once again central midfield is weak, Rose scored a good goal but him and McHugh really aren't doing much and once again Campbell IS the midfield. Very little coming down our left, Tait has not got forward often but then he has Dunne behind him....Moult and Bowman need better service, too many high balls. Its all a bit park football so far.

Dunne is putting in one of the worst displays I've ever seen. Atrocious.

Excellent finish.

Flat as a pancake right now. No atmosphere, no energy, no football.

Dunne having a nightmare. Rose and McHugh posted missing.

Accies have big holes in the defence. They've conceded 2 goals or more in 6 out of 8 matches and 10 goals in their last 3 home matches. On the other hand we have scored 2 or more in 5 out of 8 and only Aberdeen have kept a clean sheet against us. They have a lot of injuries including first choice keeper, Ali Crawford and about 4 other first team starters. This is a banker for the coupon. But every week there's always that one freak result that ruins the coupon....

I'm sure one was cleared off the line and McGregor made an unbelievable save all in the last few seconds. Very unlucky that day.

As I've said previously we've been fortunate with our fixture list. Take Hearts for example, they are 4 points behind us but they've had 7 away matches and 1 home, while we've had 6 home and 2 away. We've had Ross County, Kilmarnock, a low point Hearts and Partick at home. Partick on the other hand have had 4 home games - Celtic, Aberdeen, Rangers and Levein managed Hearts. Most teams have played Celtic, we've managed to avoid them completely in this round of matches. The second round of fixtures is going to be like going round the curve in an athletics race, everything evens out and everyone will have played each other twice. We've started well and have points in the bag but going round the curve to be a tougher for us as we will be on the road more than most and the pack might well close up on us. We'll probably have two matches against Celtic coming up, we'll be away to Rangers, Hearts and Aberdeen. And we will play most of the none city clubs on their own grounds. At this point it's unknown how our away form is going to pan out as well as other factors like Ross County and Kilmarnock bringing in new managers. I wouldn't rule out a top 6 place but we still have a lot to prove - and we need to improve our results against the Top 5 teams.

You might say the atmosphere was down to us not kicking a ball from the 1st minute to the 90th minute in the Final but that would be wrong. We didn't kick a ball from winning the semi final. Our previous fixture was a 4-0 scudding off Celtic to go along with other recent scuddings off Dundee Utd (0-4) and Rangers (0-5). The fact is our form going into the Final meant most people who came along weren't really expecting to win and our performance in the match didn't give them any reason to change their mind. We had 1 shot at goal and 38% possession. The Final performance was really just an extension of a very poor end to the season which was completely mismanaged by Stuart McCall. Instead of complaining about fans who came out and bought tickets all the complains should be directed towards the manager and the team who let a lot of good work go to waste. It was the definition of a damp squib and no fans create an atmosphere in those circumstances.

I kinda want to give it to Hartley because he's been my number two pick for about the last two or three games but I have to give it to Campbell again. The boy is class. I'd be amazed if he's still here next season. Clubs should be throwing money at us for this kid.

Finally the universal equilibrium of May for Kirk + McGrillen plus £100,000 has been restored by Heneghan plus £400,000 for Hartley. As for where we are Assuming Celtic beat us we'll have taken 1 point from 15 from the Top 5, while beating all the other Bottom 6 regulars. That's exactly where we are right now - between two poles. We've also been lucky to have 6 out of 8 at home with most of those against winnable opponents. The next round of matches is going to be tougher but we can be happy for now that we have points in the bag.

Weren't at our best today but still good value for the victory. Partick were poor today but they were coming on to their best spell in the match when we scored the second after which they basically threw in the towel, so it was good timing and killed the game. Allan Campbell continued to impress but felt Louis Moult was too wide too often today. Even if we did score three today we need our best finisher in the box, not crossing from wide.

We've been the better team and still look more likely to score but its been a bit disjointed and sloppy for the last 20 minutes or so.

If you want to throw Hibs into the mix that's 1 point from 12. Hearts were not a Top 6 level team when we played them.

Wondered about out energy after Thursdays match and as it turned out it was a very lethargic display. We've improved since last season but today highlighted some problems that I've already mentioned this season. In midfield Allan Campbell has continually bailed us out. All our other midfielders just haven't performed well enough or consistently enough. The worst of these has been McHugh who has been flat out poor this season. We need to see big improvement in this area of the park. Secondly there is our almost total reliance on Louis Moult to score goals. Aberdeen neutralized him today and as a result we never really looked like scoring. Fisher came on today and was a total waste of time again. He has contributed nothing so far. I also felt we missed Hammell today. As I've said before we desperately miss his delivery and Dunne, while not bad at winning headers, is nowhere near Hammell in terms of quality of ball. We had a lot of corners today and I don't think any of them were any good. That's us played Rangers, St. Johnstone and Aberdeen in the league and lost them all. Perhaps this result will give us all a bit more perspective. We've improved over last season but there is still a long way to go if we even want to think about Top 6 finishes.

As you might expect given the circumstances it's been a bit sleepy so far. Finished the half the stronger team so if we can built on that we should have the upper hand but right now it looks like a goal is probably going to be enough to win the match.

Getting a second win against Aberdeen would put down a serious marker. However Aberdeen surely won't be as poor twice in a row. Team selection will be interesting. For me, the team we put out last night is the strongest XI we have. We've been nowhere near as good with different systems and players and I'm wondering if there will be any tinkering or squad rotation and what the effects will be.

Excellent team performance. Bowman worked so hard. Hammell came in and did really well. Campbell was absolutely tremendous yet again. However goals win games and Moult took two situations tonight that weren't even half chances and conjured goals out of them. That's the mark of a genius right there. Moult for me.