Kmcalpin

If there is a problem it will be in the south eastern corner of the pitch which is the lowest point. The pitch has one of the biggest slopes in Scots football.

I always expect the worse and hope for the best Colin. Fight for every ball and give 100% - that'll do me. However, if we play to recent form we should do well on Saturday. Be good if you're up to making it - hope you're getting on ok.

Many United fans and indeed folk associated with that club are living in a time warp. They are a very big club (in their eyes) and think its their right to win. On Boxing Day you'll find that their fans will moan and whinge from start to finish and I just hope it doesn't influence the referee. For our part we have a reasonable chance of taking something from this game as long we as we have an assured, but not overconfident, attitude and fight for every ball.

It'll be a very tough game and United are expecting to win it. A draw will do us just fine, although a win would be better of course.

An interesting article. Several reasons behind last season's low average. Apart from our form we only played Celtic once at home (this season we'll have had 2 home games) and that will have made a significant difference. Rangers absence from the top flight has made more of a difference to our figures than to most clubs, apart perhaps from Kilmarnock (a point raised by several pundits).

Some good points being made but its not just football that has seen prices increase dramatically. I've never smoked but it seems that a packet of 20 fags is now costing a whopping £8 or so. 2 packets will cost more than a full priced adult entry to the Cove Rangers game. Beer? 2 pints will cost more than a concession for the same game. Cost of concerts - far from cheap. Cost of food? Cost of a plumber - you need a second mortgage if you can get someone? Need I go on. In terms of money, yes some folk genuinely cannot afford to go to the football but for many its a case that expectations are far higher than they were 20 or 30 years ago. There are many alternatives, but not all are cheap.

How did Ben Hall play yesterday? Good to see Mark McGhee give young lads like Hall, Watt and Mackin some exposure to the first team. Some will make it and some won't but its looking positive. You have to wonder where the likes of Craig Moore, David Ferguson and Jack Leitch are in the pecking order though.

Didn't see this one coming at all but what a great result. Credit to the management and players and fans who ventured to Parkhead.

Quite. I very rarely ever watch English Premiership football on the box; the last time being maybe 3 years ago. World wide, impressionable fans are being brainwashed by English and Scots pundits into thinking every game is a classic - nonsense. A fair proportion of games are turgid, boring and predictable, sprinkled with the odd act of thuggery. I much prefer supporting our own and just wish more fans world wide would support their own games too.

Very strange signing as many are saying. However Mark McGhee is not one to hand out a contract, albeit a very short one, purely on the basis of sentimentality. There must be more to it than that.

Good post. I agree with your overall point about marketing and new housing - we simply haven't done enough as a club. However it might surprise everyone how new housing affects the population of an area. It very much depends on how much there has been. Firstly where have incoming households moved from - many will have moved from the Motherwell/Wishaw area. Secondly an area like Motherwell will require several thousand new houses over a number of years just to maintain population levels. Information on future new housing moving forward 10/20 years can be obtained easily from the Planning Department.

Yes, I'd agree with that. Presumably Taylor too will be returning down south. We don't want to be left too light up front as injuries and suspensions kick in. So far, Wes Fletcher has proved to be very injury prone.

Quite right Raoul. Not only that but some players have clauses in their contract allowing them the right to move if bids of a certain value are received.

Oh yes it is

An equally subjective and selective, but opposite, view might read something along the lines of "Anybody who thinks its a good idea for small clubs to get smaller and big clubs to get bigger and that clubs should bring in more foreign players at the expense of home grown talent" is delusional". However both this and your comments are deficiently, and poorly set out; and somewhat bombastic in tone. In truth I believe that the answer lies somewhere between the 2 extremes. The first thing we need to understand is that employment of footballers is unlike normal employment. Under the old system there were injustices ie clubs holding onto players on long deals and unwilling to let them move on. I quite understand and accept that. Some clubs, most famously Dundee United, abused this. So change to protect individual’s rights was quite in order. It is the way in which it was implemented that has done harm to the game. The Bosman ruling has had a number of unintended consequences and these can be summarised as below: · Small clubs become smaller/poorer and big clubs get bigger/richer – the now famous spears V nuclear warheads argument. · Big clubs can snap up good players from smaller clubs for nothing. · Players can demand higher salaries as no transfer fees are payable. · An ending of the foreign players cap to the disadvantage of home grown talent. · Salary levels for the top players have been totally unsustainable · Much needed money has been lost to the game through agents. As Wee Yin has said, some kind of expanded compensation scheme should have been implemented. If a player leaves a small club, or indeed any club, that club should be entitled to a cut of all future transfer fees. That would prevent a club like ours losing a player for say £100,000 who 2 years later moves to an English Premiership Club for £2,000,000. That would protect the game at all levels. As it is small clubs have had to cut back and that inevitably has meant a reduction in squad numbers. So, good players, especially the top ones, have really benefitted whilst their less talented colleagues have suffered.

People have a right not to agree with him and I think he himself would accept that.

I have no problem with Bosman's actions,as he was very honest and open about what he was doing. He made very clear that that he wasn't on any kind of crusade to help others or rectify wrongs. He didn't give a jot about the effect on football or clubs. He was pursuing change purely out of self interest nothing more nothing less. Now I don't agree with him but thats another matter. I just wish other folk would be as honest as he was.

I think MMcG is beginning to get the best out of the players as both he and them get to know one another. He believes in adapting his system to suit the players at his disposal. As he admitted he is only gradually changing things and there are probably quite a few things that he hasn't got round to changing yet.

Absolutely Cap'n sir. We have 3 loanees whose future needs to be ironed out (Ripley, Grimshaw and Taylor). If say 2 of those are retained then that frees up 1 wage. We then have Moore, Reid and Ferguson out on loan. So whilst money is tight there may be scope to ship someone out and bring someone in on loan. At the recent meeting Mark McGhee expressed his surprise at the number of strikers we had signed and at the lack of central defenders (he may reconsider this in the light of Ben Hall's impressive debut). Add to that, that we may wish to ship out the likes of Theo Robinson and Dan Twardzik and we may see some limited movement next month.

A good post and you're right about changing social reasons. For that reason we have to attract more women to football as Hearts have successfully shown. Fans now want better facilities and not everyone wants to stand. Working patterns are changing too as you say. Money - I'm not so sure that its as important a reason as some would have us believe. Yes ticket and travel costs are far too high and they do deter some fans from attending but for many others its a case of choice. £20 is a helluva lot for a football match but not for a few bets on the horses or a few drinks at the local or at home. Men are now spending far more on clothes than they used to do. The cost of golf club membership has rocketed. Concerts don't come cheap. All of these alternatives and more are competing with football tickets. TV football too has had a huge impact. Years ago I would have read about the likes of big English teams like Bolton, Burnley or Arsenal in football publications and occasionally watched them on the box, but that was it. In recent years wall to wall coverage of the English Premiership excited young Scots fans who then saw that standard as being the norm and anything less was rubbish. In recent times that has begun to change, as English clubs have enjoyed less success in Europe and Scots fans, both young and old, have discovered that there are bigger and better clubs like Barcelona to support. So yes, social reasons are very relevant as you point out. It shows that the club must work hard to show the local community that its not just about putting a decent team on the park. Overall our attendances are low just now but Christmas is approaching and we've not been playing well. Our core support in recent years never really varies outwith 3,100 - 4,100. By way of comparison, I think a year ago we played Ross County at Fir Park and our home crowd was about 3,100.

Any word on Louis Laing's unexplained absence?

Correct. A few of our group left from Perth and travelled down the A9, M80 and M73/74. That is the way they normally travel. We commented at the time on the entire South Stand being open and could only assume that Dundee had advised us to expect well in excess of 2,000 fans. We travellled via Kincardine Bridge yesterday and it was fine although it took us a good 30-40 minutes longer.

No cause to crow at all but Inverness and Hamilton both attracted sub 3,000 crowds yesterday, as did Killie the week before. Christmas is acoming - its that time of year for shopping, nights out on the lash and monumental hangovers.

An important win for us today and it was possibly the best performance of the season. Some good football and we're gradually looking more organised although our off the ball work rate has to improve drastically. For me Lou Moult was the MOTM although young Hall had a very impressive debut. Moult has a high work rate with not a little skill. I thought too that Keith Lasley had his best game for a while although he did go missing for a longish spell in the second half, as did Pearson and Grimshaw. The two full backs had a mixed game. Hammell and especially Law looked very good on the ball but they were all too easily caught out of position in the second half. Law in particular had a rather uncomfortable time of it when the young Liverpudlian, Calder, appeared on the scene. We played some good football, especially in the first half and it would have been no injustice to go in at the interval 3 or 4 goals up. The players are also starting to look more confident. Overall a good team performance but we did lose our way a bit in the second half, especially following the substitutions. For a lengthy spell Dundee piled on the pressure after the break and it came as no surprise when they scored. 2-0 can be an awkward lead and we looked uncomfortable whilst trying to defend and soak up pressure. Still we held out until the third goal sealed it. A bit surprising to see Ben Hall make his debut as Mark McGhee hadn't mentioned him but Dylan Mackin's late, but welcome appearance from the bench, was less of a surprise. Louis Laing's absence remains a mystery. Good to see MMcG use some youth. The most disappointing aspect of the game for me was our off the ball play. We need to work a lot harder in closing opposition players down and denying them space. Dundee were given far too much space at time in spells, but in fairness Mark McGhee knows this. If we can rectify this weakness we'll be a top 6 side. In fairness though we thoroughly deserved our 3-1 win and our weakness should be viewed in that context.

OK. The competitive season will kick off say 2 weeks earlier and I assume friendlies will be played beforehand (an assumption I know). Normally these would be played midweek although in recent years we haven't played as many as 4 league cup games in a season - so that could already be 1/2/3 more games per season. Will the season finish earlier? Although there will be a 2 week break in January the displaced games will need to be squeezed in at other times in the season. So all in all the close season would probably be shorter and the season more intense given there's a 2 week break in January. In short we'll probably be playing more games (at the moment a minimum of 1 league cup game and with the new set up a minimum of 4 league cup games). The season will simply involve more stops and more condensed periods of activity.