El Grew

It’s wonderful to get to a major cup final and as there is usually a very long interval between our appearances then all the more reason to savour them – win or lose. But surely when you get there you have to go out, have a real go and try and win. Frankly this was a really poor game for a cup final and the weather didn’t help matters. The referee failed to take account of the conditions with a number of tackles. He failed to apply the laws of the game when not sending Majstorovic off for deliberate hand ball when he’d already been booked and then failed to book Craigan for deliberate hand ball presumably in his mind in some attempt to even things up. Two wrong don’t make a right. This is a further demonstration of the incompetence of the Scottish refereeing fraternity. I’m sorry to have to say but the manager’s team selection and tactics were all wrong and as a result the game was lost before a ball was kicked. When I heard the team line-up my heart sank and I knew we were unlikely to be able to win. We were playing a team with the best defensive record in the SPL this season and he set up with only one man playing up front, clearly focused on containing Celtic rather than trying to beat them. Admittedly man for man they have much better players than us but that’s no excuse for not having a go and trying to win the game. It’s a cup final for any sake. I think it was the 88th minute and we were 0-3 down when we forced our first corner! If we are to get back to cup finals and actually win them we have to concentrate on producing synergy which means the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts. This just never happened yesterday and we looked like a team of individuals who had never played together before and they all looked totally ill at ease right from the kick-off – I believe the change in position for some and the manager’s tactics caused this. Once Celtic scored the first goal our players just did not seem to know what to do and this was not helped by the manager waiting until 70 minutes to consider a change. I thought that at half-time we needed to move to a 4-4-2 to have any chance in the game but no he stuck rigidly with his 4-5-1 which allowed the two Celtic centre-backs to play without any pressure on them at all. If we were to beat Celtic we had to get right in their faces with a 4-4-2 and have a real go and then if we’d got beat we would have held our hands up and said we gave it our best but the other lot were better than us. In all the times I’ve been to Hampden to see the ‘Well this was the first time since we lost to Airdrie in the semi-final replay in 1975 that I’ve had nothing to shout about and I really felt heart sorry for a huge support that had to sit on their hands through 90 minutes of pure purgatory.

+1

Just surfaced after the father and mother of all hangovers after well overdoing it yesterday. And to confirm it was not a dream. Another great day for the 'Well and one of the few occasions, as far as I can recall, that we have actually made it the easy way! Well done to Stuart McCall and all the players for giving us another really special memory of Hamden. Doesn't seem like its 20 years since we won the cup. Win or lose in the final lets go and enjoy ourselves again - and we may be in Europe again for the 4th year running. Up the 'Well.

Wondered if anyone out there knows how much money we will get for reaching League Cup semi, Scottish Cup semi and for finishing in the top 6.

Peeps. SUMO. Shut-Up Move on. Don't waste breath/print on auld Broon. He's just the latest in a long line of chumps that have left FP to go on to so-called bigger and better things. He has joined the ever-lengthening list of "where are they now?":lol:

Have to agree with the original poster opn this one. But then every week that goes by we seem to say/hear the same thing. I don't for a minute think our refs are bent but hells bells they are most certainly guilty of a mixture of incompetence and inconsistency. When is the SFA going to get them in a room together and explain once and for all what is expected from them with regard to applying the laws of the game in a consistent, fair, transparent and non-discriminatory fashion? Not necessarily these concurrently of course.

Gies peace. So you counted them all in and then counted them all out then!

Your last point is correct but how you can say there were far more 'Well fans there tonight than normal is beyond me. If there were 8,337 in total and 3,500 were in the away end then that makes the home section of the gate 4,837 which is about maybe 837 above normal. Yes better to have them (and more importantly their money) but is was hardly a ringing endorsement by the locals. You can see why John Boyle has chucked it as he tried everything he could to try and boost our support but to no avail.

Naw but was at the 1969 league cup semi when we lost 2-0 to St Johnstone - after having humped them 4-1 at FP only a few weeks before that. They had a right good team then under wee Willie Ormond.

Yes very good crowd. However Radio Scotland said official crowd was 8,337 and that the number of Dundee Utd fans was 3,500. By my reckoning then our home support was only about 4,500 which is about our core rump. So the only reason for a big crowd was the size of the travelling away support brought down by Dundee Utd. But this would perhaps have been much smaller had it been £20 to get in. My point is that the reduction in gate price to £10 did not seem to excite more locals to go.

If we do lose Randolph at the end of the season what about going after Czerny over at Accies? He looks a really fair 'keeper and clearly seems happy to stay in Lanarkshire and we could offer him SPL football and wages - well at least for a season!

Crap performance and not for the first time this season. We don't really deserve the top 6. We've bottled it in two vital away games against ICT and Kille our nearest contenders for the top 6 and we've conceded 6 goals in the process. The next 3 SPL games (Dundee Utd, Aberdeen , Hearts) could easily see us fall out of the top 6 and that will really hurt the club financially. Add to that that Dundee Utd will probably put us out of the Cup then that's more financial loss for the club. Also, we should be very very afraid under McCall. Look at his first two signings - Gunning and Jones! Holy rip! These two are right up there with the Malpas trio of Murphy, Keegan and Malloy. If these two are a sign of whats to come then its the First Division for us.

IMO there are only a few players in the current squad worth hanging onto - Randolph Saunders Hutchison Lasley Sutton We have about as poor a squad of players as I can remember for a long long time at FP. Having said that, I echo what others have said - where is the wonga to come from for a cull of this sort or indeed of any sort. I think the cupborad is completely bare and we hav no playing assets to realise. I think the direction of travel the club has chosen is puzzling and very dangerous. We had a relatively young inexperienced manager in Jim Gannon who despite his problems with man-management seemed to have the right idea on replacing some of the 'been here too long and not very good brigade' with younger players who could be moulded more easily. This seemed to appeal to John Boyle. Then when Gannon exits he brings in two old codgers who'd been around a fair bit in Craig Brown and Archie Knox who simply reversed that policy. Next when they exit he goes back to an inexperienced young manager in Stuart McCall and opines that this is because he thinks this will allow the club to continue to do what Gannon had done by fishing in the top leagues in England for good young players to come in on loans and in the lower leagues for older ones. I personally do not believe McCall will cut any ice as manager here but regardless I do not think that our club should continue with that policy. I think we should have appointed a manager based in Scotland (my preference was for Jimmy Calderwood) and who would search the lower leagues up here for players. Dundee Utd have succesfully managed this on a number of occasions and I believe we should do likewise. I fear that next season we could find ourselves struggling from day 1 and end up in the same seat the Accies are in just now.

Absolutely spot on mate.

Cracking good cup tie. Draw probably fair result. They have better players than us but this was more like 'Well teams of years gone past that despite being up against better players, pulled as a team and hassled, harried and chased and denied better players time and space to play knocking them off their stride. Can't really understand the complaints about the ref. I thought he handled the game really well - managed to recognise the cheats in the Utd team and dealt with them straight off. Only complaint, why did he or his linesman fail to spot the a foul against Gunning when he was clearly tripped in the build-up to their first goal?

The only surprise about yesterday's result is that anyone is surprised at it. Having supported them for more years than I can remember now I know that everytime we get into a good position to achieve something we reach for the self-destruct button. At present we have far too many small and lightweight players in the side who are simply not robust and pyhsically strong enough to play in the SPL. So when they come up against the likes of Hamilton, St Mirren, ICT etc. they struggl and are too easily knocked around. McCall needs to take a leaf out of Colin Calderwood's book at Hibs. He had a terrible run of results when he arrived at Hibs but then he realised he had too many weaklings that couldn't physically match many of their opponents. Since then he's brought in a number of bigger physical players (admittedly they can also play a bit) who are not so easily knocked about and lo and behold 5 wins and a draw.

Hammer, head, nail. Does not have the physical attributes to be an SPL centre-back so was never going to make it down south regardless of the league he went to. To be fair I believe his position when he came into the first team was actually left-back, a position that I think he could play very well in even at a higher level. At a stretch he might do a job in midfield - played there a couple times for Scotand U-19s and scored I think.

The ref got the Lasley booking spot on. It was not his first foul and he did pull the Celtic player's shirt and the referee was only about 5 yards away with an excellent view of it.

Just back home. Absolutely dumbstruck!

FFS. Wind yer neck back in! Who said anything about Dundee offering a threat? I was agreeing with another poster's remarks about an entirely different matter.

What we need is a virtual fecking pitch. On second thoughts no because our virtual groundsmen would feck that up too.

Beat Celtic!!?? If that were to happen there'd be an enquiry into irregular betting patterns around Parkhead bookies! Bottom line, as I've said before is that our players are like piss poor racehorses - unable to repeat their form. Chance to get 3 straight wins + go 4th in SPL and we lose at home to a team getting their first win of 2011. Says it all. Too many f*cking losers in the team. I think McCall will be learning now that he has inherited a number of players who he will need to ship out at the end of the season. We need to get some honest hard working players in who are prepared to battle their corner all the time and not just when it comes up their humph.

Agree with you there Lip. Also consider that Dundee are regularly pulling in in excess of 5,000 fans at home games even in the 1st Division and have the same potential to be as good as their accross street neighbours. IMO JB is getting out now while the getting out is good - this whole 'new concept' of a ten club SPL is going to finally kill Scottish football off.

I know its early days and I only saw him in the highlights but from what I did see he does appear to have that wee bit of class that all real good players have. Probably just needs games now to get himself match fit.

Waiter! Large slice of humble pie here! Judging by our bookings count it looks as though we re-discovered our constitutional fortitude tonight. Well done guys.