Kmcalpin

Apologies I was referring to Callum Slattery.

I would think that the chances of him re-signing are neglible.

Agree 100%. Its not always obvious at games but look at pictures post match and the amount of shirt pulling that goes on. Its either a foul or it isn't. If it is clamp down on it. Same with foul throws. If they aren't going to be given then make them legal.

Just in case anyone was wondering, and they're probably not, Willie McCallum and Bobby McCallum weren't related.

As long as they're not the Hibs psychos. 🤣

The dangers of AI. Was it not Willie McCallum? Bobby was a LB. Don't know what happened to him. He seemed to have a short career which came to a sudden end.

Jumbo Muir? Bobby Watson? Brian Heron?

Thats a fair point and we won't know the answer about mentality until the dust has settled on this season. The proof of the pudding and all that. I was speaking to a Hearts fan during the week and after complimenting us for our refreshing style of football he said that he thought his team would falter as their character and mentaility were not what it takes to be winners. For all of the top 6 teams there are hard games coming up and there will be no hiding places. A good start for us will be to beat Hibs next Saturday. If we are to be ruthless, I'd like to do so in a manner that impacts negatively on their confidence. Just read Joe's post on P & B and I agree that we need to mix things up a wee bit. Maybe we've become a bit stale and predictable in recent weeks?

100% agree Joe. It was a clear penalty and possible red card - I don't know the exact rules about the card in such circumstances. Longelo appeared to elbow his opponent in a bout of wrestling - was that what it was for? If so why wasn't Sevelj red carded at Fir Park for a similar elbowing incident at Fir Park a few weeks ago? Its always hard to tell from carefully edited BBC highlights but on the limited evidence I saw, our defence was pretty poor on several occasions and Ward seemed to have an off day.

My target this season was 7th spot. So, we've more than achieved that. Bottom line its been a great season results wise. Performance wise even better. As the season progressed and we settled in 4th spot I became increasingly optimistic that we could finish there. I never thought, at any stage, that a title challenge was even a remote possibility. Ambition wise, that left a top 3 finish, and I always felt that was extremely remote and is now well outwith our grasp. My disappointment at Dens was our chance to win our game in hand and pretty much seal a 4th place finish and we failed. To put things in perspective, this is JBA's first season in charge and he's introduced a completely alien way of playing. I've been surprised at just how well the squad adapted. Our possession stats rocketed and just look at the number of clean sheets we achieved - unheard of in my time. Its the best football I've seen from us since I was a young lad i.e. the latter days of the Ancell era. Is it the best Motherwell team I've seen? No. The team of the mid 70s, which won nothing, was a better all round team. Why am I questioning our mentality in big games? Rangers in 2 home games; Hearts at Tynecastle where we blew a 3 goal lead; 2 losses at Parkhead; League Cup Semi Final defeat to St Mirren; Aberdeen loss in the Scottish Cup; and Dundee at Dens. Now I'm not saying that all of that was down to our mentaility because it wasn't. JBA settling in tactics wise; poor refereeing/VAR; and sheer bad luck have all played a part, but lack of that hard mentality has been a theme running through these games. As I'm finishing this post, I've just read Thewellfan's post. To crib from him/her our away form has been fair at best. Our possession stats haven't always translated into hard goals and results. We are where we are and I'm more than happy with that. I'm confident these weaknesses will be rectiifed in time for next season. Apologies for the rant and straying off topic.

The 2 home games against Hibs and Falkirk are absolutely critical to finishing 4th. I can't see us winning both games. From that lot I can see us picking up maybe 6 or 7 points. Thats not to say, of course, that we still won't finish 4th. Hibs may well pip us at the post, but they're not perfect either as their failure to beat Livingston yesterday shows.

Not for us though. They'll be sweating in Paisley tonight!

Like you, I don't agree with this narrative. However, I get the reasoning behind it. Arguably, we're the best footballing team in Scotland. However, we failed to reach 2 cup finals and will finish 4th or 5th. There's a disconnect straight away. The bottom line is that too often we fail to turn quality possession into goals. To put that in context, we are very much work in progress and everyone knows that we need to improve for next season. We, the fans, just need to reduce the hype and expectations for now and stay grounded.

I would also include the Aberdeen cup game and the recent loss at Dens Park in my assessment. However, both of those clubs also have bigger budgets than us.

It is.

It will certainly be a huge test of character. In my book there's a questionmark over our team in big games.

A crunch game in the tussle for 4th place and an automatic Euro place. 4th place is ours to lose but have the wheels come off? Stephen Welsh will be back and thats good news for a faltering defence. However Longelo will be sidelined. With no natural cover I'd go for SODS at left back and Jordan McGhee at right back.

Yes.

I think we've been overhyped and that has maybe got to us. Folk need to remain grounded. Yes, we are probably the best footballing team in the league, but that alone doesn't win you games. There are 3 possibly 4 better teams than us in the league and we shouldn't forget that. However we'll finish in 5th at worst and thats a tremendous achievement. We've built a good foundation from which to strengthen the squad for next season and turn it into a team capable of winning a cup.

Good post which mirrors my own view. We have weaknesses in the team which are now costing us, but in fairness, we are very much work in progress and way ahead of where many of us thought we'd be. Have the wheels come off? Maybe, but we'll know for sure next Saturday evening. Are we good enough to retain 4th spot? We do seem to have an issue with players have off days in big games. Thats now 3 recent defeats losing 7 goals in the process and scoring 2. Looking on the bright side, its been a good day results wise as Falkirk and Hibs only managed to claw back one point on us. I didn't expect that. Their results were always going to be more important to us than our own. What did disappoint me was the red card. That was something I was hoping to avoid like the plague today, but I was being a tad optimistic. I haven't seen the penalty incident so can't comment on the specifics. With no back up left back, it'll cause us issues next week No more Tom Sparrow at full back though..please. I never expected to take anything from today, so in that respect the defeat is neither here nor there.

Great video Stephen, thanks for sharing. Its very thought provoking and it would seem the future design of stadia holds both challenges and opportunities. At our level, new stadia have to cater for wider community benefits and I can quite see NLC being fully on board with any new stadium plans we have if it meant we would provide community sports and leisure facilities and pick up the maintence tab. That would allow it to close its own facilities and invest that precious cash into other more important budgets. I suppose new stadia are becoming like Type 26 frigates. As soon as they're finished, they're years out of date. There are other challenges as hinted at in the video. There's perhaps scope for the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal or Barcelona to open their own mini stadia in places like Scotland either on their own, or through partners like ourselves. Premier league games could be beamed live to their own dedicated stadia in the likes of Wishaw. Such games could attract maybe 10,000 - 15,000 fans for a game - replicate that all over Europe and other continents and you have a nice little money earner. At our level I doubt if we'd be able to afford an all singing all dancing version but there's no reason why we couldn't afford a more basic but modern and functional version, that fans could relate to. The design could also connect to our local heritage to avoid any development being soulless. Not sure about Birmingham's design though! It would be a real shame, if in 20 years' time, kids asked their parents what a brick, billet, pig iron or blast furnace was. I'm already seeing and hearing that kind of reaction with my own family. The bottom line, as always, is the raising the funds.

I think thats fair comment. Even if we beat Celtic, it will be a wake up call if either, or both of Hearts and Sevco win. Lets just focus on keeping Hibs below us as that will be a difficult task on its own. If we manage to hold onto 4th spot, that will be a magnificent achievement in JBA's first, and maybe only, season.

I doubt if McGhee will start but would expect him to get maybe 30-45 mins if he's in JBA's plans? Certainly JBA praised him to the hilt when he recovered from injury and built up expectations.

My recollection was that it was Martin Peters. Martin Chivers had the potential to be one of the best centre forwards of all time, he was so talented. However, that natural instinct was coached out of him. What a night that was though. Fir Park was packed.

Id Jordan McGhee not due some game time?