steelboy

you're getting mixed up. if diggle keeps talking us down til may and i keep talking us up til may we're certs for europe and a cup win. it's a team effort.

that's fair enough. what i don't think is fair is the amount of games you've given the team to produce this attacking football. we've only had three home league games of which i'd write off the celtic game due to us being dead on our feet. the consenus after the hibs game was that we played very well but didn't get a fair crack from the ref and after the aberdeen game that we were poor but aberdeen came to stifle. i don't think that those 3 games are enough to make a judgement on our home form yet. i'll wait until we've played st mirren, dundee united and accies and see what kinds of results we get and fitba we play before drawing any conclusions. last week the gripe was 'boring football' and that we were rubbish to watch which was well and truly blown out the water on saturday. this week i'm quite confident that saturday will see our first home win and that murphy, humphrey and blackman will send the fans home happy

you're going to have your work cut out finding something to moan about if we pump st mirren on saturday.

i think if you were to go the club and ask them for a standing area the topic of smoke bombs would be raised pretty quickly. i would also guess that the celtic and st mirren ultras would have to agree to a few terms and conditions before they were granted their areas and if they break them they lose it.

a standing area would be a good idea but i doubt if any of the boys that do the majority of the singing approached the club right now about a standing area you'd get a very positive response. i don't give a fuck about smoke bombs but the polis don't like anyone getting one over them and the more smoke bombs that go off the more likely it is that we as a support and that group in general will be cracked down on.

humphrey for me. that's the kind of performance we've all been looking for. everyone was very good today but a special mention for hateley who struggled a bit in the 1st half but had a cracking 2nd. he won the ball and started the move for blackman's goal and after that won a few cracking challenges.

the algerian at rangers is the winger. looks like they're just trying to keep bougherra happy.

tremendous performance today. we weren't at our best in the first half and had problems playing the ball out form the back due to our full back situation but we were superb in the 2nd half and when the game opened up a bit there was only one team in it. hearts had a decent penalty shout in the 1st half but they didn't deserve anything out the game. i think it's time our defence got a bit of credit, loads of stick was flying their way after the hibs game but since then they've been outstanding. if we can keep craigan, reynolds, lasley and jennings fit we'll be far too solid for most teams we come up against. big randy actually looks better than ruddy, a quality goalkeeper with a bit of a swagger as well, his dribble today was immense. going forward we scored two good goals, hit the post twice and missed an open goal. if murphy's shot that hit the post in the first half had went in it would have one of the goals of the season. the front four all did very well big sutty put in his usual shift, humphrey put in his best performance yet, blackman improved again and looks like he'll get us a good few goals and murphy was nearly unplayable for the (admitedly shite) hearts defence. they couldn't get the ball off him at all and when he starts being a bit more direct he'll be putting teams away on his own. all in all very good, we've had decent starts to the season the past two years which have went a bit pear shaped in the 2nd cycle of games but hopefully this year we'll push on a bit. we just need a home win and a decent performance next week to get everyone right behind the team.

all i was pointing out that he's not exactly being setting the heather alight for the past few years so i don't think we need to tug forelocks and apologise for not being good enough. al b's post makes it sound we've brought in someone from barca with false promises of free flowing football when the reality is markedly different. if the guy isn't delighted to be: (a) playing (b) playing for a team that isn't getting pumped every week © playing for a team not managed by john hughes then he's a clown. i'm not making any judgement on gow as a player, just the idea that's he taking a step down.

in the the three years before he came to us he won 10 games that he started in. 07/08: played 2 games for the h**s all season. both against 3rd division teams in the cups. 08/09: plays in 17 games for blackpool winning 3. then goes to norwich where he gets relegated. 08/09: 6 months at plymouth (later to be relegated) where he racks up two wins. he then moves to hibs (this is the best bit) who as soon as they sign him go from potentially spliting the old firm to the biggest joke in the country, their terrible run that keeps getting brought up started exactly when they signed gowser. not exaclty ronaldinho.

the one advantage of the double header is we've got 180 minutes minimum to get david goodwillie sent off. he's an absolute spunkrag of a boy and will surely rise to the bait if he gets the sustained broadfoot treatment.

cannae wait for tomorrow having missed the last two games. hopefully after resting a few players during the week we'll be quick out the blocks and putting them on the back foot. hearts fans on P&B seem to think they've got serious defensive problems with no first choice fullbacks and shite centrehalfs. zaliukas and wallace are definitely out and i think the better thompson is suspended after getting a straight red for violent conduct on tuesday. it looks like their defence will be j.thompson/barr/bouzid/jonnson. humphrey will never have a better day to shine if he's up against jonnson or palezous as they're both chronically slow. that justin thompson is gantin' as well and jamie will have him on the ropes all game. if we can deal with kyle and elliot as well as we have done recently i can't see them causing us many problems. i'd feel more comfortable if hammell is up against the spic winger but even with page at left back i think we should be ok. ----------------randy hateley craigan reynolds hammell/page ----------jennings lasley humphrey--- sutton------ murphy ---------------blackman

this guy reffed one of my dad's amatuer team's game a few years ago. what happened to him was horrible and it's nice to see him being remembered this way and us contributing.

straight off a night shift into a train day to inverness

how many players did we actually have available to start last night though? i make it we had 12 outfield players available for 10 places considering the players we wanted to rest, were injured and are mystery cypriots.

do you honestly think that's a strong team? page, saunders, forbes, humphrey and blackman are all young guys who are trying to establish themselves as regular starters at the club. hateley has to prove he can cut it in centre mid outside of gannon's 5 man midfield. gow was starting his first game in 6 months. you could argue we had 4 or 5 players out of position, not what i would describe as strong.

when i've seen our first XI properly prepared for a game - aalesunds at home, odense xs 2, hibs and st johnstone - i think they've been quite impressive and we made our fair share of chances in those games and played the ball on the deck. i wasn't at the aberdeen or brechin games but the poor performaces against celtic and killie were completely understandable imo due to the circumstances. it's fair enough to say we should play some decent football at brechin but with our squad being so thin beggars can't be choosers.

it's obviously not all about stats but we've got a solid base to build on and have done better than most would have expected. it's early days (still at least 35 games to play) and you'd expect a team as young as ours to improve as the season goes on.

i missed the last two games but surely it isn't that bad? the celtic and kilmarnock games were poor fare but when we've had all our main players and proper prepartion there's been some decent stuff played. wee brown hasn't let us down so far, hopefully this will mimic what happened in march when we played a weakened team during the week and were poor then came out and battered hearts on the saturday. after a nervous summer i'd say things have turned out as well as we could have hoped. played 12, won 6, lost 4, drawn 2. scored 14, conceded 9 with 6 clean sheets. we're in the next round of the cup and have had as good a start in the league as any of our rivals. that's pretty decent without even going into any hard luck stories, we should probably be creating and scoring more but murphy, blackman and humphrey are all improving and i think that'll come. if we stay lucky with injuries i think we'll have a right good season.

you could always go and watch jim gannon's new team play their silky fitba in their own half

i wasn't able to make the game last night (or saturday) but looking at the team we put out last night any kind of two nil win isn't to be sniffed at. we had a defence out that had played about 40 mins together, a midfield that had never played together and a striker making his starting debut. i'm not really suprised we didn't have much cohesion.

first home game at 3pm on a saturday for 169 days and i'm missing it hopefully we'll pump the sheep and push mcghee further in the abyss. the same team as saturday should do it, if we get the win we'll be third outright.

i'm not that bothered about smoke bombs but last season after the accies game the club had to introduce searches on the way in which i wasn't happy about at all. after smoke bombs going off at the previous home and away games i wouldn't be suprised if the club have to do that at the next game which will be a pain in the arse for everyone.

murphy is a h*n.

how many motherwell players have scored in two semi finals?