Kmcalpin

Agreed, this is the case in most of our home games. Celtic deserved to win... just. they put in that little bit more effort, showed a little bit more aggression and were a bit more confident. They also showed a bit more solidity and reliability. Celtic's second goal was typical of the goals we lose to the OF. To beat the OF they have to be at their poorest, we have to be at our best and the ref has to be 100% fair. None of those 3 conditions were met today. A bit surpised that Shaun Hutchinson was benched and we missed his height badly both in defence and at set pieces. SM was perhaps 10 -15 minutes slow to take off a completely exhausted Jamie Murphy. Jamie again turned in a confusing undisciplined performance popping up in almost all of the outfield positions at some point. Too often our attack at home is toothless and Michael Higdon really does need another striker alongside him. We were just a bit short of the standard required to earn a point today. Still we set out in the main to nullify Celtic and succeeded in limiting them to 2 goals. The result is what it is and we avoided a confidence sapping hammering.

Exactly. Bookies don't calculate odds to treat the punters fairly. They calculate them on the basis of probability and the desire to relieve customers of their cash and as much of it as possible. We can beat Celtic and have done so before but on paper they're a far superior team and any rational neutral would expect them to beat us on Sunday.

It goes on all the time, I'm sorry to say. The loophole is that negotiations are conducted through an intermediary ie an agent (they are also known by other less flattering names).

Agreed. I don't want to see us give any Celtic player a free long range shot. We do this time and again against the OF. We withdraw into our box like a tortoise retreating into its shell. Inevitably a player like Ki or Edu runs at us, we back off, and they and unleash a great shot from the edge of the box that gives Randolph no chance and our fans say there was nothing we could have done about it as it was a great finish. We should show a bit of fight, stick our jaw out and go out to close them down and ensure if they do get a shot off that its a rushed, hurried effort. I wish I'd a pound for every goal we've lost like that.

Yes, so am I. On the plus side Celtic will tend to play more open football than say Kilmarnock or Aberdeen did and that should suit us. On the debit side, we'll play with only one striker and the "Rabbit in headlights" syndrome may kick in. As we've said often in the past we have to get right in their faces and prevent a goal similar to Keith Lasley's on Saturday (backing off to allow the opponent a great shot on goal). If Darren Randolph has one long range shot to contend with I'll be disappointed. If all that isn't difficult enough then we have to hope for a fair referee. Despite Celtic playing poorly, its a huge ask to take a point. Still we have done it in the past.

Pretty much my view.

Agree Weeyin. I still can't feel sorry for Inverness though. Certainly Hogg should not have been red carded, although it was a professional foul. Would Hogg's presence have prevented the goal? In any event Meekings should have been shown a straight red for that horror tackle on Steve Hammell. It wasn't an accident and it wasn't clumsy it was a brutal tackle. Without having seen the 90 minutes I'd say that the ref was kind to ICT. There should be no cause for complaint from big Terry.

Just the kind of goal we've lost time and again and in big games last season. A great shot to finish but very poor defending. .

Yes we might have been poor but Inverness got exactly what they deserved....nothing. They (Chris Hogg) sought to prevent Jamie Murphy from running in on goal by cynically fouling him in other words cheating. I've no sympathy for them. Very satisfying that Tom Hately buried the resultant free kick.

I can only second that. What else could you buy for a fiver a month?

BBC commentary was dire. About the only credit they gave us was Jamie Murphy's seemingly outrageous yellow card. I too switched over to MFC TV - far superior. A great result today in a difficult match. We suffered a few setbacks in the game but came through successfully. Whatever else the team has character and its games like that, that boost confidence levels.

Enforced or not this selection will give us a bit more height in the side. No bad thing against Inverness.

The chances are that it may be difficult to tell if its a success or not. If we play the game on a Saturday what would the expected crowd be? Last year we racked up 4,213 against St Mirren on Saturday 20 November and 3,324 against Hearts on Wednesday 14 December. Against Hibs on 22 January we attracted 4,202. Our cup tie against Hibs a few weeks ago attracted 3,909. Going by that yardstick I'd say that anything less than 4,000 would be a failure; between 4,000 and 4,400 inconclusive and anything over 4,400 a success. The experiment has to be tried at different times of the season and involve different teams. However the trial should have been announced months ago before folk began making Christmas bash arrangements. SPL at its best. MFC will almost certainly lose out on hospitality that had been arranged for the Saturday.

Its not rocket science is it? Lack of a real goal threat is indeed our problem. We're creating chances aplenty but not making opposing goalies work hard enough.

Sorry I don't follow your argument. Are you saying that if games kicked off at 3 pm on Saturdays in the lead up to Christmas that folk would have more spare money then? I'm against Friday evening football but for different reasons. Yes, many folk are tempted or forced to go Christmas shopping on the Saturdays before Christmas and so I can understand the timing of the trial from that angle BUT many folk will have festive nights out booked and can't attend football. It doesn't matter a whit what we think though, the proof of the pudding and all that. We'll see what the attendance on the night actually is.

Why doesn't that surprise me? Would they have found a different result if they had polled home fans who didn't go to the first Friday evening game?

I don't know that Scots supporters are suddenly converting to armchair football, David, more of a gradual drift away. Certainly youngsters have been getting brainwashed for a number of years now and they may be a lost generation. The stereotypical picture of a young man in his 20s/30s knocking back pints of beer in a pub whilst watching Chelsea V Man Utd on a large screen TV is one which frightens most Scots clubs including our own. I also think that the OF are becoming less attractive to young fans who want to see "their" team win European trophies. Who wants to support a team that isn't successful? Like you though Barca and Real Madrid or Liverpool and Arsenal hold no attraction personally. Its all a big borefest now with overexposure on the box.

Good post FC. Football is far too expensive and thats a basic fact, but far too many youngsters are weaned on the EPL. Its time our media, the so called Scottish media that is, began to carry more coverage of our own clubs rather than pages about Manchester United, Aston Villa and so on. Its interesting that in the Other Football pages on this site much of the discusion is about the EPL or European football rather than about other Scottish clubs. That tells a story.

All these 4-5-1 formations or variants of them with Stephen Hughes in the midfield are all very well but who would put the ball into the net? They would simply perpetuate our current deficiency up front. IF there is any spare cash going we need to invest in a striker. The last thing we need is another midfielder. Maybe he is just training with us.

No problem with your view mate. I too am a season ticket holder and am happy to fork out an extra £4.50 a month. If it helps the club then fine. Everyone is entitled to spend their income as they see fit.

I don't know what Kilmarnock or Motherwell pay in wages. However, it seems to me that Kilmarnock have alarger squad than we do and that will impact on the total wage bill. In very crude weekly terms it could be a case of : 14 X £1,600 = £224,000 V 19 X £1,300 = £247,000 However it does appear that Killie are picking up very good players.

Its now becoming increasingly obvious that we have problems scoring goals at home. In the 12 league games so far we've scored 5 at home and 9 away from home. At home we've fired blanks on 3 occasions out of 6 but only twice away. Some of us expressed concern at the start of the season that we were very short in the striking department and that appears to be costing us. The 4-5-1 formation is more suited to counterattacking and we have problems in breaking down doughty defences at home. Michael Higdon is ploughing a lone furrow. The problem is not so much mounting attacks but getting bodies into the opposition box and into the danger area. Time and again we throw men forward and they're queuing up to sling balls into the box for only one man - Michael Higdon. Aerial bombardment at set pieces is not an option either. All too often we can put teams under pressure but don't make opposition keepers work hard enough. Yes, we're temporarily sitting 2nd but won't finish there and yes, a 6th place finish will be tremendous for us, but surely we can do something to rectify this rather obvious weakness?

I don't know about that Tweed. Yes, he did get in the road 4/5 times in the game. He missed an awful lot of niggly fouls from Killie and that set the tone of the game unfortunately. Jamie Murphy booked for his first foul and yet the Kilmarnock guy who halved Keith Lasley got off scot free??? The crowd around us remarked that it took all of 82 minutes to yellow card a Killie player. Can't recall who it was but a Killie player took a blatant dive, Thomson acknowledged it but took no action. Fourth offcial's timekeeping also seemd a bit awry given the substitutions.

I mentioned that today as well. We also need someone powering forward through central midfield to support our lone striker but that isn't happening either. From the write up before he signed I assumed Nicky Law was being brought in to play in that role (a fast attacking central midfielder). The team is playing well enough away from home but at Fir Park we need to change our tactics. Is there scope too to bring in Shaun Hutchinson and move Tim Clancy to right back? If all else fails, as it did today, it would at least give us more threat at set pieces.

Post of the week Ally. It happens week in week out. One of the main reasons we are not scoring nearly as many goals as we should be. Jamie Murphy seems to be playing anywhere except alongide Michael Higdon. Given our current squad I'd say Bob McHugh has to play off his shoulder.