Well Well

I know we are a selling club and its good business but selling two of our best players within a very short space of time is going to hurt us badly. it will take time for any replacements to be found and get fit (no one we have brought in so far has been fitter than the pilsbury doughboy) then get used to our style of play. could be months (Hartley). All the time we are playing competitive games. Wish the sales could be confined to preseason before any competitive games. At least come January we have an idea where we are in the league and if there is a need to sell or bring in anyone. Robinson must be frustrated as hell trying to build a team, getting outbid for players he has been targetting for months and losing his best players. Who would be a manager...not me.

you pissed or your spell checker on the blink...or more probably your brain cell

I think people on here have the right to bitch. We have some quality ball playing midfielders who when they do get a game show everyone that they can do it but get benched continually for the likes of Rose and Grimshaw. We need a ball winning midfielder in the team but not a whole midfield of them. Hibs pace totally negated the whole defensive midfield setup we had and they just passed the ball around them. When Frear and Bigi came on the difference was clear to everyone with half a brain cell. We were much more positive and actually took the game to hibs a lot more with Johnson's chances the result. Its bloody frustrating when the world can see these type of players improve the balance and creativity of the midfield but we chose not to play them for this god awful punt up the park style of play. I understand sometimes we need to park the bus against teams but when the approach is clearly not working it needs to change quickly not when the game is basically over 3-0 down.

I agree, Johnson didnt struggle at all today (other than finishing) with the chances he had (4+ clear shots on goal iirc) that none of the other two so called strikers we had on the field had all day. Bigi came on and showed some patience and composure on the ball and we started creating those chances for Johnson. If we can see it I just cant understand why the Motherwell management can't. Is it just a play ugly and survive in the league attitude we seem to have developed?

This completely

I have seen him twice and he certainly gave me some hope we signed a decent passing midfielder who can open defences with intelligent balls. I would play Campbell, Gorrin and Bigi along with Cadden but then again he was anonymous today.

I often say it but again we were a team of two halfs, We have got to stop this not turning up for one half of a game its getting ridiculous. Thats every single game so far I have seen this. Its very early in the season and can be sorted. Fingers x. I can see a potentially decent defender in Donnelly as well, who I think is a decent capture. Johnson can shield a ball well and do something positive when he does and its just disappointing that Main or Sammon couldnt do what he done between them. As for Robinson comment about the first half, mystifying. I suppose he was trying to stop the guys heads from going down. Hibs tore us to shreds and they never needed to get out of first gear.

I was going to write a huge rant which was going through my head on the way back from Edinburgh but after reading this it sums up what I was thinking better. A blind man can see bigi brings much needed composure to that midfield and if Johnson doesn't play against Accies it will be a travesty. My half time pie crust falling onto the park had more movement and caused the Hibs defence more issues than Sammon and Main combined. I watched them closely and not once did they talk to each other, no sign of any sort of understanding between them. If I could read body language I would say they just didn't look interested today at all. Drop Rose and Grimshaw for Bigi and Gorrin as a corpse would have been better than those two in midfield today.

woohoo prediction came true...first time for everything

Livingston please

With all these injuries wonder if we will be looking to promote someone from the under 21/20s

Kipre was night and day 2nd half. Much more like the Kipre of last season with some crucial tackles and some good runs and link up play

Don't want to keep repeating myself but once again we show we only play in one half of each game. That needs to be worked on. Well done Motherwell for digging that result out but by god do we make it hard for ourselves.

Well at least those who haven't been to the games can now see what I mean about our play. We normally have a shit half so hopefully that will have been it and it will be the team that can play will come out in the 2nd half. Not one game yet we have played the full 90 minutes. I know its only 4 games in to the season but my god we have been truly awful in at least one half of every game.

Think the main point is that it is too bloody predictable and teams are reading it too easily now. We don't seem to have a plan B. Results preseason is fine but I am sure that if we continue to play this way then we may struggle as premiership teams are a bit more savvy to our style now. As for not going just because you don't like the style of football, deary me.

We play hoof ball and you need to open your eyes

Didnt make the game tonight however one thing seems to come back again from all 3 games and that's the 2nd half performance. We seem to fall away at half time. Although from accounts on here it was a better performance tonight I still worry about how we are going to deal with the 2nd half of games. I don't want to be negative and hope that it will all be sorted out for our opening league game.

I saw bigi in the main stand he did travel with the squad. So must be Robinson choice not to play him. 12 hours on and I am still concerned enough about that midfield. Our playstyle just totally ignores them as almost every outball was a diagonal from the defence. I wish I had counted them now as it was so predictable it was comical at times. i noted quite a lot of comments about that from the fans who travelled during and after the game. The game plan seems to be to use the midfield to break down any attacking play from the opposition and use our defence to play diagonal all over the place as our preferred attacking response. Well thats how it looked yesterday as a lot of the game was over the heads of the midfield. In retrospect I wonder how much of the game plan was thrown out when Dunne got injured and McHugh was moved into central defence. Also subbing McHugh when he seemed to be the only settled central defensive player we had was a strange move especially when they were running rings round Hartley and Kipre shortly thereafter and they had their best attacking spells of the game when he went off. Hopefully tuesday sees a much more professional response from a Premier league team against lower division opposition and we control this game. Not just in the first half Mr Robinson lets actually have a plan for the 2nd half of a game as well.

He was sitting in the main stand watching that. Two and a half hours driving down to Stranraer to get a rid neck. My god that was an embarrassing 2nd half. Hartley was being turned inside out by that centre forward and Kipre fared no better against him. What is it with us and only turning up in the first half of games?. The thing that worried me most was our guys getting out muscled all over the midfield by much much smaller players. If Main could concentrate on trying to score goals rather than embarrassingly trying to win fouls by constantly falling over would be a start. Anyway, its preseason and the quicker I forget about this game the better. Edit: as for the hoofball today (again). Its getting too easily read now by every team and we need to play football on the deck. If I could read every single diagonal ball played from defence from the stands, the footballers on the park did so and mopped it up very easily

McHugh strolled through this game. Not one pass went astray and he was fairly lobbing them about the pitch. He looked very relaxed and won every tackle and header. What a difference. Apart from that we took our goals well and sat back really in the 2nd half. Gorrin looks comfortable on the ball, with some nice touches and passes and was always looking for the ball.

As much sell on value as an England World Cup Winners T-Shirt

Carl McHugh steps down as Captain which Hartley has now taken up.

God I hope not, how much more of preseason has he already lost, all the fitness and stamina stuff for a start. He was already massively unfit when he joined and missing the start of preseason isn't making him an attractive proposition. If he had any chance of signing he should have done it ages ago

that home player walking back from last goal looked about 14..!!