DC'd

His attitude yesterday when he came on was utterly deplorable, and had it been Daley that had "acted" in the same way i.e arms up in the air, lying on the ground, and basically plainly giving up on the ball and not tracking back - then he'd be utterly (and rightly) castigated for it. Not the first time Henrik has came on and looked totally disinterested, and could potentially have undone a lot of terrific effort from the other XI players that put in a tremendous 80-90min shift, not to mention the potential of then allowing United back in the race for 3rd. Utterly despicable, and shouldnt just be glossed over because we won and we have all but sewn up the CL spot. His attitude has to be seriously questioned, especially as he is going to be here long term. It's all very good the start he made, and he was rightly complimented for his excellent work rate and covering every blade of grass. However, since that new deal has been penned, he embarks on impossible solo runs, never picks out the simple/sensible ball, his work rate has nose-dived, and a couple of goals against St Johnstone doesnt detract from that. Rightfully on the bench at this moment in time, and he can stay there until he gets a reality check, or stops believing his own hype. Motherwell fans have never stood by and let us carry passengers, we as a team are not good enough to carry a player and wait for him to do his random piece of brilliance. Our star players of the past McCormack, McDonald, Faddy - they all put a shift in, 'cos its necessary when you play for a side like us. If its good enough for them, then its good enough for you as well, Henrik. So, when we are in the Luzhniki in July, you better have your attitude sorted.

General consensus is that Belgium are the country on the cut-off point between Seeds and Non-Seeds. So, if it is any Nation then it most likely them and probably Club Brugge.

Celtic will enter at the same stage, but in the Champions path. So, if there is any TV deal, then they'd be heading to Parkhead and not to Fir Park. The TV deal is a one off for each round prior to the Group Stages, so it would be upto BBC Scotland or Sky to agree a deal with whichever clubs to broadcast that particular round. As for the Europa, I think the Nancy home/away ties were the only ties ever to be shown on UK TV.

It wont be a Spanish side. The Spanish side who finish 4th (most likely Malaga) will enter the following round of Non Champions. We will be getting: Portugal Russia Ukraine Holland Turkey So most likely: Benfica / Braga Dynamo Moscow / CSKA Moscow Shakhtar Donetsk / Dynamo Kiev AZ / Twente / PSV / Feyenoord Besiktas / Fenerbahce And no we wont be seeded when we fall into the Europa at this stage, that is a common misconception.

And over the course of 34 games as it stands, as a TEAM Dundee United have won 14 games, we as a TEAM have won 16 games. And that is the only "stat" that requires looking at, along with the points total - which again we have more of. Doesnt matter if we accumulate all the points over x period or y period. We have played level amount of games, we have more points and more wins than them. They don't have a bigger squad as you dispute, and quality wise they are not as superior as you suggest. Granted they have gone on an unbelievable run of late, but remember Aberdeen went 13 games unbeaten in the league this season (or something similar), teams go on runs - and just because they have beaten what is arguably the worst team in the top 6 at the weekend doesnt suddenly make them favourites for clinching 3rd. They still have to beat the OF, they still have to beat a tricky Hearts team, and they still need to come to Fir Park to get 3 points on the final day. Look at last year prior to the QF against them in the Scottish Cup, they had the momentum, they had the pressure of being the holders, they had the pressure of a big away following in the South Stand, they had all the focus on them. What happened? They bottled it, we put a performance in (arguably the best of the season) and won at a canter. Come the final day the pressure is going to be on them, the media is already focusing on them being the favourites for this CL place, we have had to deal with the media saying "can we pip Rangers to 2nd" and with that our results have tailed off, this Sat is the first weekend the focus will be on Utd - let's see how they do. Gonna be a completely different ball game.

Doubtful, how many realistically of their players would you have ahead of what we have at our disposal? Mackay-Steven, Daly and Russell perhaps. But, Pernis ahead of Randy - never in a million years. Kenneth/Dillon ahead of Hutch/Clancy - no brainer. Rankin/Robertson ahead of Las/Jenno - never in a million years, experience and quality against someone who can hit the odd 20 yarder and what is a decent prospect. Dixon/Neilson or Hateley/Hammell - much of a muchness. Russell or Murphy - granted Murphy has gone off the boil for the majority of this season, but between assists and goals over the course of a season, there will be little between the two. Mackay-Steven or Ojamaa - Cant really say for certain as neither has proved themself for a long period in the SPL, this is GMS first season and Ojamaa has only been with us since Jan (and has either been exceptional or dreadful with little in between). No one can say that either is better than the other. The only area they would have any sort of advantage over us is Daly ahead of Higdon. And even then is it THAT much of a difference, given that Daly has scored numerous penalties this season (more than Higdon has anyway). As for strength in depth? They too rely on youngsters to fill in the gaps such as Watson, Dow etc - we too do similar with Saunders, McHugh, Carswell - again any degree of difference between the standard there? No chance, they are nothing special - they just happen to have the momentum right now, and seem to be hitting the right opposition at the right time i.e Rangers immediately after going into Admin, St Johnstone missing key players, Hibs having players suspended etc. Coincidentally the only game they have failed in the past few months was Aberdeen away, and even then they hit Aberdeen pre-Semi and had a few players rested and didnt take advantage. As much as United have still had to beat the opposition, they have been fortunate in the run of games they have had. There big test will be on Sat, against a Hearts team that will be reeling after the thumping by Rangers (just again hopefully Utd dont play a Hearts team with an eye on the Final). On paper Hearts have a stronger team than both us and United, so this is not a given for Utd to take 3 points on Sat. And I fully expect come 5pm on Sat we are still in 3rd place in the league, be it 1, 3 or 6 points ahead of our nearest challengers. Lets not forget we are undefeated against this "bigger and better" United this season - so the last game of the season is not a given..

From a Motherwell point of view, it is probably the ideal set of results from the Semi Finals. 1) Aberdeen and Craig Brown don't make a Scottish Cup Final, and a subsequent Europa place. 2) Celtic don't make the final, meaning the Runners-Up receive no European place. So, as it stands. Celtic + 3rd Place in the SPL will get a Champions League Qualification Entry Winner of the Scottish Cup (hopefully Hearts) receives the furthest Europa place. and then the remaining two slots of the top 6 will be in the Europa. So, basically if Hearts win the Scottish Cup, we are guaranteed European football next season in some capacity, even if the worst case scenario happens and we finish 6th. Whereas if Celtic had made the final then Hibs would have been guaranteed a Europa spot and subsequently the team who finishes 6th in the SPL would be the only team to miss out.

Name another performance this season so far that has been comparable? Certainly didnt get any decision wrong, perhaps could have booked Fallon for persistant fouling. Those who wanted Considine off, I think he got it right and he was probably still one more challenge away from meriting a 2nd yellow. He tried to let the game flow, and did so well. An easy game to officiate, but clearly clouded by the fact he is Iain Brines and has had plenty of awful showings at our expense, but today - no complaints at all.

Thought Brines actually had a stormer today, got very little wrong, best refereeing performance of the season so far imo.

Page never put a foot wrong, and grew with confidence as they game progressed. Carswell and Jennings, fantastic as well.

He got off with it. No further punishment.

Faddy was indeed capped a handful of times as a Motherwell player, including the infamous trip to Hong Kong. However, he only scored his first International goal (in the drubbing of the Faroes, at Parkhead IIRC) about a week/fortnight after signing for Everton.

9m - but via a whole host of add ons etc. Reported figure was an initial 6m

Seems the same problem for Caley, good performances on a week-to-week basis but small errors are being heavily punished and therefore dropped so many points. Feel sorry for them a little, they really dont deserve to be bottom. There are far worse teams in the SPL than ICT. Just they are being punished and its cost them dearly. Fortunately, we have been the benefactors today - and Motherwell come first. S'pose we were rather fortunate on the opening day too (albeit we did play very impressively, but ICT played their part too). What a result, and as much as the gap to Celtic is wonderful to look at - we now have a 7 point gap over 4th! That in itself is tremendous at this stage. Our away form - ooooffffttttttttttt! Goals for fun & wins! What a time to be a Motherwell fans. I adore Tom Hateley, severely under-rated.

Did we really require Gow about this same time last season, when the budget was certainly used to its maximum? We still signed him on a short-term deal, in order for him to put himself in the shop window and to boost our numbers until the Transfer Window re-opened. A similar deal could be struck here, perhaps. Calderwood/Hibs would be out of their minds to not have a look at Hughes. As the game at ER last week, it was abundantly clear they had no link in order to get the ball to O'Connor/Agogo (or Griffiths, had he have played). There was no killer ball, there was no incisiveness, there was no drive from that midfield that is sorely missing Liam Miller/Zemmama. Hibs have the budget to pay what Hughes would probably like and would be vital to there push up the table. Good job Calderwood is a complete fud, and cant recognise this. As for Aberdeen, they seem over-joyed in the past month of the performances of Arnason and Osbourne. So, probably for one wont be too interested in SH. As CB appears to have used his budget on them and on the Kiwi Messi. Its been abundantly clear that SH family would like to stay in Lanarkshire/Scotland and therefore he may again be reluctant to take up a League 1 clubs offer. All speculation anyway, but it would be a nice option to have at least.

No particular standouts in this game, as there were certainly no weaknesses in what was a very good team performance. Quite hard to single one player out. Higdon had a decent game and he may not have converted his chances, but put in a good shift and bar the width of the cross bar and a ricochet off of Stack then he could easily have had a brace, not to mention a couple of his other chances. But, I do agree with the Clancy shout - O'Connor never had a sniff, and when he did Clancy threw himself in front of it - body on the line sort of stuff that we expect from Hutch - so fair play to Clancy for filling that void and stopping what seemed a likely goal. Distribution is decent and is composed on the ball, no panic and integral to why we kept a cleansheet y'day.

More of a random shout, but one goal that I hold up higher than most for Motherwell was - McGarry vs St Mirren (McGhee 1st Game). Albeit a rather simple finish - the link up play from Quinn, Clarky, Porter and finally McGarry was sexual to watch. 3mins into the opening day of the season - it was just a glimour into what was about to come that season - and set us up beautfully for the season. Think the timing of the goal almost instantenously into the season gave the players that additional belief that they can actually play one-touch triangular football. Great goal, and was more symbolic of what was to come rather than actual signficance a la Fitzpatrick, O'Donnell, Kirk etc. So, McGarry's v St Mirren for me.

That he was fucking abysmal. He was only on loan prior to the World Cup, in order to boost his chances of representing NZ, which he never done. So, therefore went back to the A-League.

Extremely confident of a result here, think it is going to be relatively comfortable as well. Going for an optimistic 3-0 win. 2 up by half time, and a goal to round things off in the 2nd half. As been mentioned, Pars have been fortunate of playing mediocre teams, and have yet to be properly tested. And the points they have accumulated have been snatched with two late goals (Utd and equaliser vs ICT), fortunate against St Midden, and the game should have been out of sight against ICT. The St Johnstone win, is hardly anything to brag about. With Potter at the back, hopefully Higdon will know his weaknesses (in a similar way McDonald always got the better of Craigan/Reynolds). That and Potter is frankly shite! Gallagher has never been too great with crosses, so again a bit of pressure from Higdon could pay dividends.. Should be back on top of the SPL, by 5pm.

More than Kris Boyd ever got for Kilmarnock anyway..

You do make a very good point, that we'd have to probably alter our entire team and formation just to accomodate Faddy, and the end result may well be detrimental to the team itself. But, he's that good a player, we couldn't afford to leave him out. In saying that, he'd certainly be a better option from the bench that Smith/McHugh. But, he is too good to sit on our bench, but not ideal to the way we play. He'd walk in our team, just not our formation.. All hypothetical of course.

Only thing noticeable about the view from that goal, is Hammell's reaction to get it right up the St Midden fans. After getting a few pelters throughout the 2nd half from that side of the home support. First inclination was to turn to them, GIRUY!

Improved fitness = CHECK = Lasted the pace Good Passing = CHECK = rarely mis-placed a pass all day - I can only really recall an attempted switch, that cannoned off their defender, and a tired looking ball towards Higdon with 5mins to go that went straight to Samson. Physical Presence = CHECK = got stuck in, a few meaty challenges, won as many balls as our other midfielders. Closing Down = CHECK = Included at times being the furthest forward, shutting down Samson on occasion (albeit as awkward a sprint as you'll ever see) Spectacular Attempt = CHECK = nearly gave us the lead with a 20-25 yarder that Samson done well to tip over. Not that he was like Xavi, but he done everything anyone could have asked of him today, and was as good as anyone on the field.

:laugh:

It would have been on Goals For. It goes Points>Goal Difference>Goals For>H2H And Rangers scored 5 goals, to our 4.