Kmcalpin

I sincerely hope the out of contract players show honesty and a little openness with our fans. If they are looking to move on or have a deal arranged then please don't tell us they would like to stay/the club won't speak to them etc etc. In the past quite a few or their agents have deceived sections of the support into turning on MFC but in fairness a few others have behaved impeccably.

Well said Iain. This has been needing saying for quite some time now. We have to ask why so few of our 3,000 members now post. I've lost count of the number of members, who no longer post, who have said exactly this.

Fair comment. I though we were outstanding today especially in the second half and our attacking football was a joy to behold. Best entertainment I've had in along while at Fir Park. If we are going to debate red cards why wasn't Clark Robertson not sent off for his challenge on Henrik? Henrik had beaten him all ends up and was about to turn in on goal with only Langfield to beat - clearly denied a goalscoring opportunity.

Yes, ZFA is due a chance. Ever since his debut Stevie has been very good on the ball but has never defended particularly well. Unfortunately at the moment our right back gets drawn out of position up the field and our left back gets drawn out of position into the middle. Certainly at Pittodrie and Fir Park in the cup Faither Broon targetted our left hand side as have several opposing managers.

I might not agree with your precise choice of words but you are 100% right. Saints had the freedom of the park with both goals which once again came from the left hand side (not Tom Hately's fault btw). Why oh why do we allow opposing players to rain crosses into our box? Yes, our centre midfield is poor - we've gone over this time and again. Nicky Law is not and never will be a defensive player. At 32/33 Keith Lasley's best days are behind him and we can't expect him to run back and forth across the park shielding our central defenders. In fairness to Ramsden and Hutchinson I wouldn't want to be playing behind our central midfield right now. Now the defence - both full backs are having right poor seasons and have had a hand in many of our opponents' goals. Shaun Hutchinson can be rash but has promise and needs an experienced central defensive mentor beside him. There you have it. No need to go into panic mode over a defeat to a lowly SPL side but questions do need to be asked. I for one am relaxed about losing a wheen of players (with a few exceptions like Darren Randolph) at the season's end. We have some quite highly paid players for a club of our size and not all of them consistently earn their corn. If they move on it will allow us to trim the budget and strengthen the squad.

2-1 full time and it sounds as though it could have been worse. Questions have to be asked of the central midfield and full backs if we allowed to Saints to come at us and rain cross after cross into the box. We certainly seem to shipping goals at the moment against every level of opposition.

I'd go along with that, although ZFA is still a bit raw. Stevie has suffered from lack of competition for some years now and has looked weak defensively all season. To be fair though Jamie Murphy in front of him is not the best defender in the world and has not provided the cover Stevie badly needs. Maybe time to show faith in youth!

I'll be very surprised if the Dons bring 5,000 fans to Fir Park, very surprised indeed.

Most clubs suffer cashflow problems during the January - March period. Season ticket monies have been used up and prize monies won't be paid out for some months yet. Probably the Society is not quite in a position yet to plug the gap.

Or someone at the buying club/agent.

You have to balance his monetary value against what the clubs thinks he could contribute to a high place league placing. One place equates to about £75,000. Our projected shortfall this season is about £300k. On that basis I wouldn't accept anything less than about £250k. However the club will know best. Its all very well both clubs agreeing a fee but would Jamie want to move to Yorkshire or Hampshire?

Great result and comeback! Up to 2nd place now with other results going our way.

He's due his chance, nothing more nothing less. He's very quick, good on the attack and in my view can potentially defend better than Steve Hammell. Probably Stevie is the better set piece taker. Stevie has never been particularly strong defensively and a bit of competition would be no bad thing. In left midfield he's a better bet defensively than Jamie Murphy. What has ZFA done? Well so far he hasn't had much game time but he did set up one goal against Ross County when he came on as a sub. By no means the finished article. Perhaps his major disadvantage, like Stevie, is lack of height.

My thoughts exactly. My only concern is the loss of Darren Randolph who we'll find very hard to replace. Of the others there are some I'd rather not not lose but none are irreplaceable. If we lose 3/4 high earners that'll allow us to strengthen the squad overall. Although the squad is small there's a bit of deadwood there too.

All of this was discussed last week and the Trust Board know full well the task that lies ahead of them. This is why they are devoting time and effort to fund raising and membership drives.

I'm perfectly serious and stand by what I wrote earlier. When he was signed Stuart McCall called him a left side attacking midfielder, which is what he is. Last season Nicky Law was played wide left in an offensive role and he revelled in that. He's quick and has guile as you rightly point out. This season he has been playing far deeper in central midfield and has, not unsurprisingly, been unable to get forward as much. He has been asked to fill Steve Jennings' vacancy, which he has been unable to do as he is physically and character wise unsuited to such a position. Now that is not his fault - you wouldn't expect Steve Hammell to play centre defence would you? He hasn't been putting in crunching tackles, breaking up attacks or shielding two inexperienced centre backs. In his current role, he has not performed, and I wouldn't expect him to. That said, he has produced flashes of his attacking form such as he did last Saturday. Move him to wide left midfield and you'll see the player he was last season. In my view you either play him in his favoured position or you don't play him at all. However as some other posters have said Stuart McCall has a tendency to pick his 11 best players irrespective of what position they play.

Under the circumstances, a reasonable if not great crowd and pretty much what I expected. How do we generate funds if not through the Well Society? Probably two options: 1 Wait for a sugar daddy to come along 2 Do nothing/cut back even further Neither option particularly appeals to me and I would be disappointed if the club Board was to promote either one as being the way forward.

We played some neat football in the first half without causing Aberdeen much of a threat. Second half was very poor and all our long standing weaknesses were exposed. I didn't think we missed Nicky Law - he's been playing out of position all season and has largely been ineffective, with a few notable exceptions. Both full backs again let us down. To be honest we lost the game before 7.45 with the wrong team selection and tactics. Jamie Murphy should not have started, it just wasn't his type of game. By all means bring him on if we go a goal up but he's simply not suited to attacking packed defences. To be honest I can't get worked up about the result - it was never going to be our year with the squad we've got. Better to go out to Aberdeen than a poorer team I suppose. I'm quite relaxed about some players leaving at the end of the season as we badly need some fresh blood and character. Time now to concentrate on a top 6 league finish and blooding some youngsters like ZFA. Surely he's due a start at left midfield or left back? Onwards and upwards!!

Couldn't agree more with you Iain and other posters. Its been a fault of ours for a few years now and cost us more than few goals. I've no problem with opponents scoring with great shots if they're put under pressure and hassled by our midfield but more often than not they aren't - they are allowed free shots on goal from the 20/25 m range. It might be a freak shot, it might be a deflection, it might be a goalie's error but why give them a chance in the first place? Crosses - we are notoriously bad at defending crosses. We don't have a big defence and when Lee Hollis is in goal we have a small keeper who doesn't like to venture off his line, for obvious reasons. So why do we allow opponents to pepper our goal with crosses? Earlier in the season it was an education watching Levante at Fir Park. They did not allow us to reach nearer than about 25m from goal ie within shooting distance and did not permit us to whip in crosses. If we had beee able to they a big enough defence to gobble them up anyway.

A positive meeting last night, with good open discussion. A recurring theme throughout the evening was that the Society Board want members to be involved, in different ways. There were many issues raised and we were left in no doubt that if we don't like aspects of the rules we can, within reason, change them. Members shouldn't sit back and wait to be spoon fed and then complain when matters don't go their way. The Board will be open to comments and suggestions so make them. Communication is a two way process. Someone also made the important point from the body of the kirk about communication with members living away from Fir Park. They have to be involved. A lot of good points made and I'm hopeful the Board will listen and communicate with everyone. We have some clued up folk on the Board and thats half the battle. What came across to me was how complex a process the setting up of the organisation has been and how much time has been taken up with that, through necessity. No doubt the Society will evolve and rules and / regulations will change but thats up to the rank and file to identify issues constructively.

Keith is now 32/33 would a week or two out of the team make any difference - is he ever going to regain his form of previous seasons? A few mutterings in the stands that he's now losing his legs. I must admit I saw his role this season as being more of a supporting role, nursing a younger lad and supporting a Steve Jennings replacement. I never for a moment thought of him as being the mainstay of our engine room. Its grossly unfair of us to expect this of him. In the pre season furore over us offering him a new perhaps improved deal, these issues were lost on many fans. I agree that despite our limited options there area few simple changes we could make.

All things considered a very good result for us today. Probably the result was better than the performance but I'm not complaining. Before the game I'd have bitten your hand off for a draw. When I heard the team I feared a real beating. Neither side did enough to win and a draw was fair. For their part the Dons worked like trojans and bossed midfield for 70% of the game. They had the bulk of the pressure but didn't seem to have a cutting edge with the exception of the first 10 minutes and last 5. We have played far better and lost this season. Too many misplaced passes, unforced errors and safety first manouevres. Central midfield was posted missing and failed to protect our defence. Credit though to our young stand in centre backs - they only let us down once. I thought that they along with Humphrey and Ojamaa and perhaps Murphy deserved pass marks. Both full backs had poor games and I was disappointed that ZFA was not given another run. Keith Lasley had a game to forget and Michael Higdon had a poor one also. If Aberdeen had to score they could not have picked a better time for us. Had they scored much earlier I've no doubt they'd have gone on to win the tie. We need to show much more character and aggression especially in midfield and not resort to sitting so deep, especially late in games. Still a good day out if a cold one and a very acceptable result. A great goal by Jamie Murphy - it was always going to take something like that to beat Langfield, who had one of his best ever displays against us .

Very true indeed. Even within the same game he'll pick on one incident and miss others equally as bad if not worse. A lot seems to depend on whether the commentators seem to want to highlight an incident or not.

You're missing the point. Most folk don't object to the use of TV evidence. The issue is how it is used. Why does the Compliance Officer focus on some incidents and ignore others in the same game? Steve Jennings' red card against St Mirren is a case in point. I and several other fans have contacted the Compliance Officer at various times with details of incidents which were televised. No action was taken - why? The process has to be consistent. TV coverage of an incident is not sufficient to arrive at a decision. Sometimes it is necessary to take further evidence. According to Stuart McCall's comments it seems that the referee may have changed his mind/interpretation post match. Now, if he has done that and weight is placed on his report, why did he not highlight other incidents, which were incorrectly handled at the time? If referees are going to change their mind about incidents post match why does that not include legitimate goals being chalked off? Officials can't pick and choose which major incidents to amend post match. Another point worth considering - assuming the referee was right to change his mind post match, his error could cost Darren Randolph a game's suspension. Had Randolph been sent off at the time he would receive a one match ban. Post match the "offer" is two matches. Why? Why should a player pay for a referee's error? As I said before the process is not transparent and is fundamentally flawed and unsafe.

This is a ridiculous decision and I sincerely hope the club contests it. It may have been a bad foul, it may have been an accident, or Darren Randolph may have been trying to avoid Paterson (unsuccessfully). We simply don't know and neither does the Compliance Officer. Only Darren Randolph knows the truth. As we now know the CO only accepts evidence from TV pundits not ordinary fans. TV pundits and commentators can now act as judge and jury. They choose what to edit out, highlight and make a fuss about. If we are going to rely on their evidence alone we have to be100% sure they are completely objective. Why are their opinions worth more than those of fans? The whole system is unfair, not transparent and open to abuse. The CO has made a decision on the a basis of his interpretation and an incomplete assessment. He has not interviewed the parties involved for example. What does his decision say about the referee who was on the spot and arrived at a different conclusion?