steelboy

randolph hits paterson who is running towards him while he is in the air with the ball and gets a two match ban despite paterson having no injury. a hearts player (stevenston?) jumps up and headbutts hammell well after the ball is gone causing hammell to get subbed off and miss the next game but no action is taken? load of pish. i'm guessing vincent lunny from motherwell isn't a motherwell fan.

i thought zaine had a cracking game, he dealt with russell really well. i thought ojaama and lasley were below par and everyone else did ok

a great win. that's the first time we've ground anything out this season and that's the most satisfying type of result. we played some good stuff in the first half and probably should have scored a few more. we looked solid at the back in the first half until hutchy had a bit of a brain fart but he made up for it in the second half with a lot of great blocks. we rode our luck in the second half but still managed to create a few chances. united just lumped it to daly for most of it and we were flapping at points and the ball was coming back all the time as the two strikers couldn't hold it up front at all but we showed a lot of character especially in the final 10 minutes. zaine was excellent despite a couple of silly errors and cummins came onto a game late on as well, united decided the two of them were the weak link in the first half and played almost exclusively down our left but they coped well with good support from murphy. humphrey deserves a fair bit of credit as well not so much for the goal as his work rate. bobby madden was rank, he obviously sees himself as scotland's answer to howard webb and seems to make it up as he goes along. skacel was diving and fouling for the 90 mins but somehow never got booked, both sides had decent penalty claims turned down and his general handling of the physical side of the game was shocking. it will be interesting to see their offside goal but it should have been our free kick anyway for one of their players headering carswell and bursting his nose.

they are putting a winter break in and had to make room for the cup games moved from january.

i thought he was no bad for the first hour then horrendous after that. lasley and higdon were brutal for the entire game and cummins was booting the ball anywhere. it's a close run thing.

hateley was knackered for the last 30 minutes, either carrying an injury or ill.

accies at new year is the worst game ever closely followed by two midweek 0-0s at st mirren one under malpas and one under brown.

mccall said in an interview before the ict game that he expected randolph to be off at the end of the season. given our financial situation it is possible that we might even need higdon and humphrey to take a pay cut in any new deal the same way that lasley and hammell had to.

because daz and law along with murphy and hateley are certs to be off down south at the end of the season. page and omar are as good as gone and ramsden should be as well. mchugh never gets a chance so he should go for his own good. if humphrey and higdon are offered new deals they should be told that they will only be on the table until the start of may so we can plan properly for the summer rather than wait about while they see if they can find a better deal anywhere else with us a fallback.

how's it a fishing trip when people are asking me for my opinion? i'm not talking about scoring against every club i'm talking about contributing. he disappeared for half a dozen games after his last scoring run.

did everyone not get excited about a few goals against ict and dundee previously before things went pear shaped? one of the boys at the back for ict today was a career non league player until the summer. wait and see if he manages any improvement on his recent showings against webster & zaliukas and gunning & dillon before getting too carried away.

we're definitely improving. look at the strongest squads berti vogts could pick and compare it to the best squad we could put out just now. we're getting closer to where we were 20 odd years ago but we're disadvantaged by the big improvement in eastern europe and not having the same benefit from immigration that most of the western nations have had.

something else worth keeping in mind. from craigan coming back from his injury when we were bottom of the league to reynolds being sold we kept cleansheets in 36 of 99 games. compare that to the current run this season of 1 in 18 games

i picked my team on the basis of what they did for us. pearson gave us two or three good months then spat the dummy. most of the time prior to 03/04 he was gash and a liability with bookings and red cards.

randolph quinn craigan reynolds hammell lasley jennings o'donnell mccormack jutkiewicz mcdonald

what players in particular are you worried aren't getting enough game time?

i doubt a fiver is going to be the deciding factor in whether or not to travel to aberdeen. hundreds of people paid their own way to dingwall in august when free transport was available.

forbes had 3 years to get himself fit enough to play in the spl and for whatever reason never managed to do it. he's no loss.

when methods of communications are established i will be. the aim of the society should be full fan ownership, not propping up the whoever the current trustees to boyle's shares are.

i was disappointed at some of derek weir's comments at the meeting the other week. no time frame on electing people to the club board, kicking the transfer of shares into the distance rather than making it a priority and putting unrealistic conditions on the society taking the controlling interest. i can't understand why we would need to raise over a million before the sfa would let the society take control, are the current club board underwriting the club personally to that extent? the society board needs to demonstrate that they are not just going to be there to rubber stamp weir/wilson/mcmahon dipping into the money raised by the fanbase. graham barnstaple being the chairman gives the impression that the society will be a lap dog rather than pushing towards full fan ownership.

is anyone else disappointed that the chairman of the well society is someone who has ( and might still be for all i know) been a club employee?

on set pieces. tonight we had one decent target (cummins) one not bad target (higdon) and murphy who has scored a few from set plays losing his marker. the rest of the team are small guys so we are unlikely to get much joy.

united scored a great goal and had forced a few other good saves from randolph. we looked good for the first hour or so then started lumping it. it's not hard to figure out why - humphrey is a passenger who does no work without the ball which means our midfield and fullbacks start tiring before the other team. we should probably have scored a few but it's no suprise we didn't. ojaama isn't ready to play at this level, higdon let another game pass him by (5 in a row) and as mentioned humphrey was so bad he only got by brian mclean at left back once. it all comes back to mccall not replacing jennings in the summer.

i can't believe people are voting for ojaama. he's the new ross forbes or the white shivute. a guy who produces one or two pieces of magic a game but is overall bad for the team.

murphy should be in the team because he scores goals for us. if anyone is dropping out it should be the guy with 6 goals in 138 appearances.