MJC

1-0, 5-0, same result. No points I’m afraid. We played okay in the first half against a well under par Celtic side but if you want to take anything from games like this then you need to make it count and we weren’t able to do so. I felt we were unlucky with some of our efforts in the first 45 and but for the bar and a great save would have been ahead. The goal we conceded was poor from our part. Slattery was naive in the extreme to give that away in that area and we left no one marking Rogic as we clearly expected Turnbull to either curl it in or shoot for goal. The second half was a bit of a non event and we never looked like doing anything whilst Celtic were mostly on autopilot. So not a hammering but still a loss nonetheless.

What was Slattery doing there? That was absolutely suicidal giving away a free kick in that area at that time. After a decent first half showing - our best in a while against them - all of that has been undone and it’s a case of how many now.

Absolute nonsensical decision to book KvV for that. Yet again it’s a case of goalkeepers getting protection and the benefit of the doubt.

Yes I totally agree with that but it’s something that is becoming more and more common in football these days. The worst one in recent years has to be Leicester sacking Ranieri just nine months after winning the English Premier League. Absolutely mental.

Jack Ross sacked.

Tommy Coyne was and still is the best forward player I’ve seen at Fir Park. A real class player who did so much more than simply score goals. For pure entertainment value McFadden in his first spell has to be up there. Even in that dismal 02/03 season whenever he got the ball you just felt that excitement around the place that he could produce something special and he very often did.

Yes but the problem is that that mindset seeps from the stands into the club itself and thus many players and managers buy into it too. It is no coincidence, in my opinion, that our record against the Old Firm has gone downhill in the last two decades at the same time as the “punching above our weight” nonsense started coming out, in both forums like these and from figures closely linked to and who are now heavily involved with the running of the club. If you’ve got managers/players coming into the club then some of them are naturally going to pick up on such a mindset and I believe that’s why the likes of McGhee and McCall to name but two, saw us as this little tinpot outfit and had no problem with publicly disrespecting us, in McGhee’s case, and our capacity to bottle it in every ‘big’ game we played under McCall despite having a very good squad at the time. I don’t for one minute expect us to compete with either of them over the course of a season, but at the same time it is hugely frustrating seeing us frequently lose heavily to both of them, which is becoming more and more a regular occurrence.

Sadly this. As a club we are scared of them both and this is something that has increased over the past twenty years and intensified since around 2010/2011. Far too often there seems to be this feeling around the club that we should just write these games off and if we escape with anything less than a three goal loss then it’s seen as some kind of moral victory. I honestly don’t believe we will see us beat either of them again for a long, long time, if ever.

25 years ago today since the famous ‘Jamie Dolan’ game v Celtic when we beat them 2-1 with Dolan in goal for most of the second half.

Pumped as usual. 5-0 home win.

Brilliant goal to win the game Not a pretty spectacle in terrible conditions A very tense second half But at the end of the day a great win Well done Motherwell

That is fucking beautiful from Watt!!! 1-0

Yeah I thought they would be, which is why I don’t see why we’re not in Claret & Amber. I suppose it’s down to some agreement between the sides seeing as they had to wear their away kit at Tannadice against us to avoid clashing with our away kit. But anyway, if we get a result tonight it will pale into insignificance.

A good line up that, quite impressed with it. On an unrelated and irrelevant note, are we wearing the black away kit tonight?

Could have been a lot worse though it’s far from a gimmie. Morton took us to penalties last season and Inverness have a habit of knocking us out of the Scottish Cup so this will be difficult.

It wouldn’t surprise me if this game is off, weather forecast for heavy rain and high winds on Tuesday so a postponement must be very likely.

Utterly dismal stuff. It seems that unless this team manages to score first then the heads go down and we end up chucking in a couple more. Let’s face reality here. We are a poor, poor side. We played well last week against Hearts in what was our best performance of the season and deserved the win, but against Aberdeen we were very, very lucky as we offered absolutely nothing for 55 minutes then found ourselves 2-0 up out of nowhere. Pressure is upped on the manager after this, no two ways about it.

Think this one is a draw, 1-1.

It was Dundee we would have played in the final that year, but your point still stands, we should have beaten Rangers in that Semi Final. We were 2-1 up and all over them and David Clarkson missed an absolute sitter to put us 3-1 up and it cost us big time. We’d certainly have fancied our chances against Dundee in the final. 2012 that’s correct, albeit in different seasons. The year later they knocked us out of the League Cup at Fir Park despite playing with ten men for about 77 minutes. That was another brilliant chance to win a Cup pissed away, as had we beaten Aberdeen we would have been into the Semis with St.Johnstone, Inverness and a Hearts side full of kids.

We went out of one of the Cups three years in a row at home against Aberdeen under McCall. Two of the three of them were at a time when Aberdeen couldn’t buy a win against us in the League yet we simply failed to turn up in the Cup games. The above mentioned game at Pittodrie when we were 1-0 up with seconds to go then conceded an equaliser resulted in a replay at FP which saw one of the most gutless, pathetic performances I’ve ever seen from us as we went down 2-1. We then played Aberdeen again two weeks later in the League on Boxing Day and absolutely pumped them 4-1 going on 8. I’ve said it a million times before and I’ll keep saying it to those who like to paint Stuart McCall as some kind of legendary Motherwell manager, for all we had a great side which did well in the league, his cup record in the same time cast a major black mark over his tenure and I look back on it as a big missed opportunity for us to win a trophy.

Correct. We on the other hand have failed to beat another top flight side in either Cup competition out with the 2017/18 season and Livingston in 2018 in the last ten years. That is a truly shocking statistic and nothing to do with luck.

I’d take us being lucky if that saw us lift a trophy. St.Johnstone ‘got lucky’ twice last season and indeed have ‘got lucky’ three times since we last did in ‘91. Kilmarnock have managed to ‘get lucky’ twice since then too, as have Dundee United, whilst St.Mirren, Ross County, ICT, Livingston and Raith Rovers have all ‘got lucky’ in the last thirty years.

I wouldn’t. Granted I’m probably in the minority on that one but I still prefer to see us playing in a competition we actually have a realistic chance of going far in than in one that is way beyond our reach. I accept that and I’m not saying we should be aiming for bottom six so that we can focus on the Cups. It’s just that I’d prefer to see us win silverware and would consider that a much better and fulfilling achievement than playing a couple of glorified friendlies in the Europa League before the schools go back. Absolutely. Looking at the run of fixtures it was difficult to see where our next point was coming from, never mind our next win. Yet we have beaten Aberdeen and Hearts and kept two clean sheets into the bargain. Kelly seems to have rediscovered his form in the last two games and looks a lot more confident.

I can count on one hand the amount of ‘European’ games we’ve played that I have actually enjoyed. If you offered me a 7th placed finish with a Scottish Cup win this season then I’d take that before finishing 3rd any day of the week. That would of course get us ‘European football’ next season but I would take much, much more satisfaction in that knowing that it was achieved by winning tangible success rather than a high placed league finish whilst we whimpered out of the cup.

4 years, 9 months and 15 days ago on Saturday 4th February 2017. Game was a lunchtime kickoff and Carl McHugh was red carded as we lost 3-0. Just seeing as you mentioned it.