Ya Bezzer!

Living a bit of a charmed life at the moment. Two off our post and Collum has another ridiculous decision for his scrap book cos he's denied Hearts a stonewall penalty. We are still on the game, we've not been blown away, it's just Hearts have much better movement off the ball and the likelihood is they will get the goal. We've not been bad but it's just all a bit laboured when we are on the ball. There is really no creativity beyond 'lump it up to the strikers'.

Almost certainly Hearts *something* Motherwell *nil*. Just looking forward to a choo choo ride that doesn't go through Cambuslang.

If we are ever going to win a league match again surely it has to be this one? Ross County have an even poor record than we do over the the last 12 matches, albeit by 1 point. They don't have a striker of any note and have 1 clean sheet in 11 matches. No excuses tonight. 3 points have to be taken or serious questions have to be asked.

4th time in the last 5 that I've given it to Tanner.

A wins a win and we're in the next round but it wasn't exactly a brave new dawn. We deserved to win the match, Accies were rotten, but the standard of fare wasn't great, we've failed to score in open play against poor opposition and Carson has had to pull off some good saves, including a really great one right after our second goal. Lots of scope for improvement. Our best player by a mile was Craig Tanner for about the fifth match in a row. New players, can't really say much about Aldred as he went off injured, Main looked like your bog standard lower English league target man, Ciftci had some nice touches, including the one that more or less won the penalty but he looks pretty far off the pace in terms of fitness. Next match is huge, unfortunately it's a midweek. Annoying to miss such a crucial match.

I'm not playing stats. I'm making a direct comparison between goals and assists against comparable opposition over a season because some people on here think Greg Docherty couldn't dislodge Andy Rose or Liam Grimshaw from our midfield. That fact that you are producing stats that relate to career overviews against different standards of opponent, since these stats are not league stats, has nothing to do with my argument. They have no relevance to the point I was making. You know this because you aren't stupid and yet you feel compelled to make this quite stupid comparison. Why?

Joe Chalmers scores a 20 yarder! Described as a 'trundler' though....

Would walk into our midfield as most of the rest of the Accies midfielders would. Accies are 1 point behind us in the league. Now imagine where we'd be if we didn't have the best striker in the league outside Celtic for most of the season and the difference that makes. Facts are Accies are as good if not stronger in lots of areas and if you are seriously telling me you wouldn't take Docherty at Motherwell over our season long no show midfielders then fine but we'll agree to disagree. BTW. Carl McHugh - 0 goals, 0 assists Gael Bigirimana - 0 goals, 2 assists Andy Rose - 2 goals, 0 assists Liam Grimshaw - 0 goals, 0 assists Chris Cadden - 0 goals, 3 assists Elliott Frear - 1 goal, 1 assist Allan Campbell - 0 goals, 0 assists Total - 3 goals, 5 assists (from 7,189 minutes of league football this season) Greg Docherty - 3 goals, 6 assists (from 1,867 minutes of league football this season)

Bringing Heneghan back would take a lot of the sheen off of getting rid of him in the first place. Better to take a chance on another player than bring in someone that wasn't good enough in the first place. We need a defender but Heneghan is not the answer.

Obviously doesn't know any Airdrie fans. Makes this place look like Happy Magic Unicorn Land.

Well Ciftci is certainly quality, down to Robinson to manage him now. It's kinda interesting that we've had a couple of 'old' targets come in during the last couple of windows. These guys clearly pre-date Robinson in term of interest from the club. Would like to know the process of identifying and signing players because while Robinson, I'd hope, has the final say, it's clearly not the manager that is identifying targets.

The best chance we have of out competing Accies in midfield is if Docherty goes to Rangers (or Cardiff).

Ciftci is a huge risk. He plays when he feels like it and that's not really the kind of guy you want in our current position. On the other hand he's undoubtedly a big upgrade in ability on anyone else we have in the squad. Pretty much a throw of the dice. Could be two 6's, could be two 1's.

We are grown adults watching men in shorts kicking a ball around.

Mark Reynolds is exactly the kind of player we need. A central defender with a bit of pace. I seem to remember that he just signed a new contract at Aberdeen thought that suggests both parties see his future there. Having said that Tansey just moved to Ross County....

Shouldn't be allowed to retire until he scores a 5th league goal.

In ginger bottles.

The fact that Boyd is a cock I think has seen his reputation diminish among our support. He was an absolutely superb player for us though. Probably a lot of younger fans, if they even remember him, think of his Celtic days when he was an older and different kind of player.

Coyne is a lock. Second striker is probably the second most difficult choice to make. Used to go for Arnott because he had an very good partnership with Coyne. But now I tend to go towards Scott McDonald who was a similar player but a better goalscorer in his prime. I shoehorn McFadden in at right wing. We'll score more than we concede!

Good question cos when I am picking my Motherwell XI it's the toughest choice I have to make.

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.