Ya Bezzer!

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.

The next test, although hopefully it never comes, will be if we can cope with injuries to key players. For me those three key players are Moult, Bowman and Campbell. We have done well but we are still very reliant on Moult to score the goals. Bowman is now a key player because he's crucial to getting the best out of Moult. And Campbell has been our best player this season, he might be 18 years old, but he's running that midfield like a veteran and I don't think it's a coincidence that the two matches we've lost this season were the one's he didn't play in.

Will be interesting to see if we have the energy at the weekend that we did tonight. Players absolutely burst a gut. Might be a tough ask but we'll see what happens.

Don't think we played great football tonight but every player in the team got the sleeves rolled up and gave everything. Every player in our team wanted it more than every player on the opposition and not for a spell, it was over 90 minutes. That's what made tonight our best performance of the season by a long way. We should have won by more. They say you get out what you put in and that was epitomised by every Motherwell player on the field tonight. Take Ryan Bowman, far from the greatest player to ever pull on a Motherwell shirt, but by god did he graft his arse off. Earned every penny of that BACS payment in sweat. Allan Campbell, with 11 games under his belt, is an absolute prodigy. For me he's the best player in the team (with one near rival who I'll get on to later). Reminds me of Scott Leitch at the top of his game but at that age you'd expect him to go on and be so much better than Leitch, even though Leitch was a very good player for us. If Campbell keeps his form up, and I've yet to see him have anything less than a stellar game, he's going all the way to the top. Louis Moult. Getting closer and closer to my all time Motherwell XI. He's just a magic act. Made two goals tonight out of NOTHING. No offense to Dunne but I also think Hammell brings much more to the team as long as he can stay fit. Dunne has the height and athleticism but with the ball Hammell is a different level of player. Great atmosphere tonight as well, the fans matched the players. Hampden chips, here I come!

Got to be Louis today.

Didn't see much with my hobbits eye view of the pitch but Boyle dived and it was never a penalty. Though we got away with one earlier when Stokes went down so perhaps it evened out. First half Barker was tearing us a new one down the right and putting great balls in. He was a big danger and him and McGinn were running the game. However we were a bit unlucky to go in 0-1 down given the dubious penalty. Second got off to a bad start with losing a poor goal. Didn't quite see what was going on but it looked like it should have been cleared and was avoidable. At that stage a comeback didn't look on but as soon as we scored Hibs just fell apart. You'll rarely see a bottle crash like that. Almost from kick off Hibs were all over the place and the equalizer seemed almost inevitable. Great finish from Moult. Probably didn't deserve the win over the piece but a third was looking likely until we started dropping deep in the latter stages and let a team we were completely dominating back into the game for a slightly nervy finish - much like Kilmarnock last week. Overall a good away point, played well in parts in the second half and dominated for spells and looked dangerous. Usual suspects stood out - Kipre, Campbell, Moult. Bit disappointed in McHugh again and we always seem to get a lot better when Andy Rose gets subbed. Cadden at right wing back is a weakness too when are are up against strong wingers.

Like I said over on P&B with Hibs only having had 1 home match and us only having had 1 away match there has been no real form established by either team. Accies went there and won 3-1 but that could have been an anomaly, we don't know at this stage. The same goes with our 4-1 defeat at St. Johnstone. By all accounts Hibs out played St. Johnstone on their own patch last week so I'd expect a tougher match than we've had since our visit to Perth but a result is more than possible if we can restrict teams to one goal or less.

If he did that on here he would probably fall victim to a miserablist trope! We've got better but I think there is still a lot to learn about this team. If you look at our results so far this season we are up 4 points on the corresponding fixtures last season but lost the same number of games - 2 out of 5. (Rangers 0-2/1-2; St. Johnstone 1-1/1-4; Ross County 4-1/2-1; Kilmarnock 0-0/2-0; Hearts 1-3/2-1; Total 5/9. That's an improvement but it's mostly centered around that one match against Hearts - which was our best overall performance of the season (so far). Due to the rather odd fixture list this season (4 home/1 away) we still need to see if we can get any sort of away form going and if we can get results against teams expected to finish in the Top 6, defeats against Rangers and St. Johnstone so far suggest we've still got a bit to go in that regard. So although there has been an improvement I think we shouldn't jump the gun until at least a full round of fixtures has been played. We've been a little bit fortunate that we've had very winnable home matches (in contrast Partick have had Aberdeen and Celtic) and we've also got away with some poor 1st half showings when we might have gone in at HT with worse scorelines than we did. One other area to look at is if Robinson is willing to adapt his plans. Seems to me that Bowman and Campbell weren't part of them early on but 5 games in I think both of these players have proved they are worth a starting spot and have consistently improved overall team performance. Hammell also proved on Saturday that he is miles better than Dunne with his foot on the ball.

Often Lennon has been the personification of that Celtic brand of persecution and paranoia that is utterly infuriating, with a tendency to blame all his short comings on everyone else. However listening to his after match interviews this season he seems to be showing a humility that hasn't been present up till now. Perhaps being Hibs manager is good for him. Craig Levein though, from his big toe to the top of his head, will always be an absolute arse of a man.

This. Cathro Hearts we should be beating (or immediately Post Cathro for the pedants out there). 8 out of 10 teams in the league had beaten them in the past year and every other team in the league had taken at least a point off them - except us. Overall they had 4 wins in their previous 21 league matches. Under Levein they will probably improve so we definitely caught them at a good time.

Seems to me the two key decisions to make in terms of line up are to get Campbell starting and to play Bowman off Moult.

About 75% of the quotes I get on here are by you. Bit creepy.

We won so don't take any lessons on board? That's a great game plan for when we go away to a team who, like Rangers and St. Johnstone, will probably be Top 6 this season.

Any time there is a runner from midfield they go right past McHugh every time. Happened every game this season. Needs sorted out. It's gonna be a big problem against better teams.

Campbell, obviously.

Didn't seem to be injured. Kilmarnock weren't in the game at that stage and the defence was cruising it.

Deserved to win on the second half performance. Might have been different if Brophy hadn't missed a sitter, albeit with a good save from Carson but he still had to put it away, and then Carson again has clawed one out of the corner of the goal. Second half improved immensely after a pretty sloppy first half - Hammell and Bigi were a huge improvement on Rose and particularly Dunne who gave the ball away on virtually every occasion. Killie's heads seem to go down after we opened the scoring and we were completely dominating the match at that stage until the rather odd Hartley for Grimshaw substitution put us the other way. Suddenly we looked a bit nervy at the back, a bit tired and falling further and further back. The penalty came at a good time as it was looking like one of those nervy finishes we are all so accustomed to at Fir Park. Carson had a good day, Kipre was excellent again but I thought Allan Campbell was absolutely tremendous. Looks like he has a 150 games under his belt.

Ok the Hartley change has completely unnerved us. We were cruising.

Changes have improved us immensely. Rose was anonymous, Dunne was atrocious.

Had more of the ball but we keep giving it away. Honestly think Dunne must have about 5% pass completion in that half. Started OK but got sloppy again and lapsed into long ball stuff. Moult taking up deep and wide positions isn't helping. Cadden isn't a right back either. Kilmarnock should be at least 1-0 up based on actual good chances.