MJC

It doesn’t do any harm having an experienced back up goalkeeper on the books. Perhaps at age 34 Fox might have one eye on moving into coaching and maybe the club see it the same way? I do though see your point about having a youngster as back up, and indeed we do have one in PJ Morrison who will be looking to break into the first team sooner or later. I don’t know what this extension for Fox means for young Morrison.

On a side note, it’ll be twenty-five years this May since we last won a league match at Ibrox. Have we ever had such a barren run at any other away ground we’ve visited regularly? For comparison in that same period we have won four times at Celtic Park in League fixtures. That’s one of the many reasons why winning there in the playoff 1st leg was so incredible, because we won what was the biggest game there of the lot since that day in May 97.

I’m sure the link with the NI job was in summer 2020, just six months before he left. He was linked with the Hearts vacancy late Oct/early Nov 2019. But you are correct in saying that he had ran out of ideas by the end, in fact he ran out long before the end. It was obvious just a few weeks into 20/21 that we were going nowhere, home losses to Accies & Utd, a loss at Ross County and Coleraine taking us to penalties in the EL. And there was that ridiculous run of us not scoring a single equalising goal from August until the end of January last year, when Robinson had left.

He stayed with us a year, possibly two years too long imo. I liked Robinson, he was a breath of fresh air in his first season after the awful era that was McGhee’s second spell and the Cup Final season was one of the most enjoyable we’ve had in the last decade. His transfer business in the subsequent windows let him down badly though, albeit he was hamstrung by our scouting policy. Season 18/19 was eyebleedingly bad for the first part with us basically playing hoofball to a front line of Curtis Main and Conor Sammon, before he eventually brought Turnbull and Hastie into the side which ended up being the bright lights of that season. Had he moved on in summer 2019 or to Hearts when linked in the Autumn of that year it would probably have been best for both parties. I know some will point to ‘a 3rd placed’ finish in 2020 but we were poor for the majority of that season and our form from the winter shutdown to the covid abandonment was dismal and it seemed like a case of who was less likely to cut our own throats between ourselves and Aberdeen as to who would get 3rd. As it was the season was stopped hours before we were due to play Aberdeen and we ended ‘finishing 3rd’ by default. The less said about our 2020 transfer business and form until he left, the better. But all in all, Robinson is a good guy and I wish him well.

To be fair his managerial stock was never higher than it was up here with us from 2017 until about 2019. Two Cup Finals in the same season, was in charge when David Turnbull broke into first team football, was linked heavily with the managers jobs at Hearts and Northern Ireland and, regardless of the circumstances, ‘finished 3rd’ and qualified for Europe with us in the curtailed 19/20 season. He’s a good fit for the game up here and vice-versa, I can completely see why he’d be keen to come back to it.

The likelihood is that we’ll lose here, but strangely I feel more optimistic facing them at Ibrox than I would if this was at Fir Park. In our last three visits to Ibrox we have lost 2-1 & 3-1 having led both times then drew 1-1 with them in September with their goal being offside. Hopefully with them coming off of a European game on Thursday night they’ll be leg weary and if we can avoid conceding early on their crowd will get on their backs. Realistically 0-1 Optimistically 1-1

Live on BBC One Scotland too. That is sure to hamper the attendance on the day which is a pity. Still, hopefully a fine Sunday lunchtime affair with us pumping Hibs out then we can relax and enjoy the Semi Final draw the following evening.

If he’s fit we should be playing him! He’s our best forward player and we need to be playing our strongest side when we need points on the board, regardless of opposition.

Yeah I didn’t think the pitch was in bad nick atall. Especially when you take into account the two storms we’ve had over the past week and last Saturday’s deluge then it was as good a nick as we could have hoped for. Time was one day of relatively heavy rain was enough to have Fir Park waterlogged and unplayable.

Actually found that quite enjoyable even though we didn’t get the win. I hate the term “on another day” but really, on another day we would have won that at least 3-1. Hopefully van Veen’s injury isn’t too bad, he’s a key player for us and it was great to see him set up the equaliser. And how Jonny Hayes didn’t even get booked for that assault on O’Hara is ludicrous! With us away at Ibrox next Sunday you start to look towards that Ross County/Dundee home double header as two games we really need to be picking up maximum points from.

Yip slightly unlucky to behind but it’s starting to look like ‘one of those days’. We really need to be much more clinical with chances, that has been a problem all season.

0-1 Uphill struggle now.

Unchanged starting XI by the looks of it.

That was a Hammell thunderbolt if I remember correctly? We won 1-0 but were comfortable throughout. It’ll be a tough one today. Really need a result with a trip to Ibrox next Sunday so hopefully GA doesn’t field a head scratcher of a lineup and we just go for it.

He’s a player who is improving as time goes on, which is all we can realistically ask for. He looked an absolute bombscare initially but has gradually grew in composure and confidence and I think it’s a good thing that we’ve managed to tie him down. Hopefully he keeps on with his improvement.

Bevis Mugabi pens a new 2 year deal.

Jim Paterson was decent as well, especially in 07/08 before he left and Hammell returned.

I see Stevie Hammell is 40 today. One of our best servants over the last couple of decades and a bit, from making his debut at Pittodrie as an 18 year old in April 2000 he made that left back slot his own for the best part of the next seventeen years.

He steered us out of trouble and got us to fifth in 15/16 after the disaster that was Baraclough’s tenure, though given the players at his disposal any competent manager would have probably done similar. What can’t be ignored though was that in his second spell we lost 6-0, 7-0, 5-0, 7-2 & 5-1 and only two of those hammerings came against Celtic, the side you’d expect to lose by such a score line to. And as already said he continued to come out with ridiculous self indulgent nonsense which embarrassed the club. That Cup tie at Ibrox in January 2017 where we lost 2-1 and his interview afterwards where he threw the entire team under the bus and “couldn’t give a monkeys” about the players was a pathetic display of petulance and bitterness, completely unbecoming of a manager of any professional football club and it was no coincidence imo that our season nosedived spectacularly between then and his sacking five weeks later. I’ve no doubt that Mark McGhee is a good coach, but he is also an absolute weapon of a man who’s ego, self importance and divisive manner will always count against him.

Aye that was early on in the season too and even then the alarm bells were ringing about Malpas.

All players and managers talk shite now and again, some more than others but Craig Brown takes the biscuit. The way he went out of his way to explain his decision to stay with us and how he looked “Stephen Craigan in the eyes” then the very next day he left just showed him up as the slimy, slippery wee rat that he truly was. And even after he’d gone he still couldn’t help himself rambling away in his stupid, squeaky wee voice about how much money he’d spent in our club shop the previous Christmas and such like. Of course no one in the media called him out on his bullshit, they never do and so many always have seen him and still do see him as this cuddly wee old gentleman and icon of Scottish football. In reality he’d probably sell his own grandweans for another shot at managing Scotland.

You’re not far off, it was against Dunfermline at the end of the season when we lost 4-1 at East End Park to set up that awful last day at home to St.Mirren. He did make another ridiculous comment after a 4-1 loss to Inverness at home earlier that same season when he said post match “I wish I could just have walked out after 75 minutes like the fans did” or something to that effect.

His first season in his first spell was brilliant and the football we played that season, particularly in the first half of the season was absolutely sublime. After that season though he clearly thought he was too big for us and the way he spend his second season basically whoring himself out to other clubs, arguing with fans and being more or less an unofficial Celtic mouthpiece then any good will I had for him disappeared. And don’t forget he hung about for weeks longer than he should have in summer 2009 when everyone knew he was leaving and we had a rebuilding job to do, but he wanted to wait as long as possible to see if he got the Celtic job before settling for Aberdeen. I was absolutely disgusted when he was brought back here and had absolutely no doubts at the time and still don’t that that was down to some personal friendships he had with people in positions of power inside Fir Park. He continued disrespecting the club during his 2nd spell and his sermon about how missing out on promotion with Wolves twenty years earlier was the reason he “was managing Motherwell today and not Liverpool” was and still is one of the worst things I’ve ever heard a Motherwell manager coming out with.

I’d forgotten about that, that’s hilarious If Dundee appoint that self important bag of wind then hell mend them, that is very much a case of ‘jobs for the boys’ with Strachan getting his pal a gig.