Kmcalpin

Accies were given far too much leeway down both flanks today and that was from 3pm. As you've said switch Tait to right back and bring in a new left back. Maybe give Adam Livingstone some game time as long as he has a decent player in front of him. I'm not fussed about Frear's contract being renewed - he made little impact today. Ariyibi flattered to deceive. Teams have our wingers sussed now.

A reasonable summing up. A share of the points was the right result today. Accies provided the commitment and work rate and we provided most of the skill on show. Apart from the first 10 minutes or so we controlled the first half but rarely threatened the home keeper. Some nice but ultimately sterile football without much punch up front. Had Aldred's header gone in instead of crashing off the bar then we might have taken all 3 points. We deservedly led at half time. The second half was pretty much a non event with Accies dominating the game. Maybe a mixture of Brain Rice booting Accies up the jacksie, making changes; us thinking the game was won and going into holiday mode. It became increasingly obvious to me that Accies would get a goal but maybe not the quite the way we gift wrapped it for them - a friendly neighbourly touch and I hope they appreciate that goodwill gesture come the end of the season. After they scored it was full panic mode for us as we completely collapsed. Still we held on for the draw. As Ya Beezer wrote above, our defence and defensive midfield looked uncomfortable all afternoon and we looked especially vulnerable down our right flank as Accies noticed from the off. Campbell and Gorrin weren't quite their usual combative selves. Turnbull had some nice touches in the first half but largely disappeared after the break. Our starting wingers did nothing of note and both were rightly hauled off. That said the much vaunted Hastie did nothing to enhance his reputation when he came on either. Scott looks a bit raw yet but in fairness wasn't helped by the service and lack of protection he received. I'm surprised he still had a shirt on his back after 45 minutes with the amount of jersey pulling he suffered. Referee was poor and made 2 game changing errors. Firstly he should have red carded MacKinnon but simply bottled it. Secondly he made a bad call when he yellow carded Campbell for simulation after he was clearly barged off the ball. Accies took full advantage of the wrongly called foul to score. At the end of the game maybe Robbo and his management team benefitted as few, if any, of the out of contract players did anything to impress watching eyes or them.

After today's game I think its become clear , if it wasn't before, that we're going to need a whole new strikeforce. Sammon will leave at the end of his loan period. Danny Johnson just doesn't fit our current style of play. Main, who was unhappy today at being left out of the squad will be offski and James Scott is not ready for first team football yet - a spell out on loan in the Championship will do him a lot of good.

It seems that Robbo is now playing hardball with our out of contract players. He's stated publicly that we won't wait forever for them to put pen to paper as we will have to find suitable replacements. Quite right too. From various sources I reckon the six we've offered contracts to are: Gorrin, Tanner, Cadden, Hastie, Aldred and McHugh. Frear may not be included.

I suspect this saga has a wee bit to run yet.

Naivety maybe but I would think his agent would try to control what he says in public.

Perhaps a shift in emphasis at least in part. Other Scots clubs such as St Johnstone and Hamilton Accies have cast envious eyes over our recruitment from English lower leagues and have now turned their attention to this source of talent. Maybe hotter competition then this particular pool of players.

Yes, basically that. He didn't want to leave Fir Park and hoped to have a new deal signed with us within a fortnight (of the quote).

Pretty much sums up a lot of previous discussion on here but like yourself didn't know the details. The club's general policy on this is pretty good but there will always be one or two it gets wrong. We were caught out with Hastie but few, if any, predicted his early impact on his return from loan. We all know he's had his head turned hence his apparent U turn on what he said publicly earlier. It wasn't wise to come out and say what he did. He's been made a very good offer, by our standards and its now up to him. He's quite entitled to move on but we can't wait on him forever though.

Thats my immediate thoughts too.

Its more likely that we'll receive bids that are in line with their contract clauses and their agents' valuations rather than the club's probably higher valuations.

Definitely a plumber. A family member was quoted a minimum of £136 per hour for a call out on Saturday morning plus petrol expenses (he only lived 3 miles away). Another plumber who came termed it killing the goose who laid the golden egg (or words to that effect).

£1.75 m for Phil O'Donnell. Seems like chickfeed these days doesn't it? A plumber's annual salary!

Rumours, and they are just that as far as I'm concerned, have been circulating for weeks now that David Turnbull will be offski in the summer. IF that comes to pass it wouldn't surprise me. Another big if; if bids are received I'd be looking at a club record transfer fee for him.

Rightly or wrongly, certain types of fan behaviour have now become a political issue and I get the feeling its now very much a tick box exercise by the clubs and understandably so. Punishments now seem to be out of line with those for misdemeanours in the wider community.

Declan Gallagher confirmed. At 6-5 he'll certainly give us some aerial power. https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2019/04/11/declan-gallagher-signs-pre-contract-agreement/

Jamie Semple has just signed a new 2 year deal. Some good news.

Just to clarify "indefinite" simply means that the club has not defined the length of the ban. Its not a life ban. It could mean anything from 1 game to 60 years. Agree about anonymity.

The club has moved quickly to shut down the missile throwing incidents on Sunday and credit to it for doing so. The club used its CCTV and Sky Sports footage to investigate the incidents. Hopefully CCTV can be improved in quality although I suspect that it won't come cheap. The culprits need to be punished, although I'm not in a position to say what that should be without knowing more facts. Some kind of ban would seem to be in order. The bottom line is that we were keen to show the authorities that we had done all we can to address the problems, but have we? What about the thousands of Rangers fans in the South Stand chanting sectarian abuse. Could our CCTV and Sky footage not also be used to identify at least some of the culprits there and bans been issued and their pictures passed to the Police? Had it been racist chanting the public exposure would have been on an entirely different scale. Now I appreciate that it would be impossible to identify all the sectarian bigots but by starting a gradual process to weed them out a strong message would be sent out to the perpetrators, other clubs, including Rangers and Celtic, and last but not least the authorities. I don't condone missile throwing and sectarian bigotry in football but it seems to me that our sport is being treated as a whipping boy. These problems are far more widespread than that and Scottish society, including football, needs cleaning up.

Its not clear. He is on a one year deal but with an option clause, whatever that means.

If that wasn't justification enough some "Well fans" in the South Stand threw missiles including seats.

Apologies, I didn't make myself clear enough. I don't condone such behaviour and I'll repeat what I wrote above " To be absolutely clear no player, including Tavernier, deserves to have missiles thrown at him". Tavernier did not deserve to be the target for missiles end of. However, football is a volatile game and sometimes you have to use a bit of old fashioned common sense because not everyone thinks or behaves rationally or in a cool headed way. We all know, and I presume opposition players also know, that the south end of the John Hunter Stand is where the Bois gather and its where incidents are most likely to occur. At such a location and in such an atmosphere you apply a bit of sense and know when to stop. The referee should also have been attuned to what was developing, but clearly wasn't. By way of illustration, years ago at Tynecastle, I recall our subs warming up in the goal mouth at half time. They weren't being in any way provocative. The Hearts fans went mental at them. The Police smartly ran onto the pitch and ordered the players to go back up the tunnel, which they did. It did not matter that the subs had done nothing wrong. In short if you can avoid trouble you do.

To those who didn't see the incidents. You see players steal yards at throw ins at every game. On this occasion however, the ball went out next to the corner flag. For the throw in Tavernier began to steal yards, and then more. At that point the crowd, and not just in the John Hunter Stand began to get worked up as it reached the ridiculous stage. Tavernier continuted to steal yet more yards. By this time he may have been say 7/8 yards from where the ball went out. From memory the referee then asked him to stop (I'm a little hazy about that). He ignored that warning then took another 2/3 yards. At that point we saw something getting thrown (too far away to make out what it was). We didn't appreciate that 2 objects were thrown. To be absolutely clear no player, including Tavernier, deserves to have missiles thrown at him. The culprits need to be dealt with or own own up end of. However both Tavernier and Nick Walsh need to look at their part in the incident, as their behaviour was a contributory factor. I assume thats why the fan(s) in the picture were worked up. Hope that clarifies it.

Read my post 2 up.

Just looked at the 3 goals that we lost in the TV highlights. All three can be attributed to rank poor defending not just individual errors. Indeed the TV clips show an array of poor defending, not just at the goals. As there's ben a fair bit of discussion about the goals here's my take. 1 No one individual's fault. The Rangers defender is allowed to advance far too far unmolested and given time and space to pick his pass. Arfield is afforded far too much time and space and Aldred's touch is poor. 2 Gillespie should never have thrown the ball to Dunne as that put him under immediate pressure. He in turn put Turnbull under pressure and he dithered. Again no-one was watching Arfield. 3 Arfield and Kamara are left in acres of space. Individual errors, to an extent yes. A common theme running through all three was poor off the ball awareness and marking / not working hard enough when not in possession. A bad day at the office but not the end of the world. Plenty of thought though for future training sessions and squad rebuilding.