MJC

I hope you’re right but what are you basing that on?

If we fail to beat Livingston at home next Saturday then that should be the end of Kettlewell. It’ll also be a big indicator that we are going to be relegated this season, IMO. Another draw, another ‘heroic’ last minute equaliser will not be good enough in that one, we need to win.

It’s a sad day when that’s the only positive we can cling to. We are absolutely guff.

A bit brighter at the start of this half but we can’t just start playing once we’re 2-0 down every week. This team is an absolute shambles.

Pathetic stuff from a pathetic team. We’re lucky it’s only two so far.

Every side probably gets a dubious decision in their favour in every game. Be that a soft foul, a harsh yellow or a red. But soft or dubious can still be correct under the laws of the game. The Old Firm are more likely to get penalties because they attack more and therefore spend more time in the opponents box so it’s no surprise that they tend to get more penalties awarded or at least seem like they do. Not an “odd picture” an “OLD picture” which it clearly is. Does anyone seriously believe that in 2023 there is a referee/governing body driving conspiracy to assist Rangers? For that to be the case it would need to be because of one of two things surely. One, all referees are Rangers fans or members of “the brotherhood”, or two, the SFA who employs the officials are able to successfully run this underhand campaign AND keep it quiet and not give any leaks or key information away. Bearing in mind this is the same SFA that are notorious for being utterly incompetent and amateur like. Seriously think about this. Is that really possible? In todays world with so many people with access to information and access to social media to expose such a conspiracy, do you not think that someone somewhere along the line would be able to expose some form of illicit communications or evidence of underhand tactics?

We all hope they don’t.

Like I say, sometimes these runs happen. Rangers actually have conceded two penalties this season, both in the league cup but those seem to go unmentioned because they don’t fit the agenda, just like the fact that up until last week Celtic had actually been awarded more penalties than they had this season. How does that work out then in the minds of the conspiracy theorists? Are the officials allowed to give penalties against them in the Cup but not the league or something? This “penalty to Rangers, boo hoo it’s a conspiracy” is just silly wee boys talk and doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny whatsoever.

Is there a back story to this? For instance did this precede or follow a contentious decision that Rangers benefitted from? Or is it just a random picture being used to fuel the daft conspiracy? In any event that appears to be a very old picture. In modern times with VAR (despite its inadequacies) in operation, plus several TV angles, pundits and social media scrutinising every single penalty decision involving Rangers, does anyone seriously think that match officials and the authorities (who couldn’t run a bath, never mind a concerted campaign to aid Rangers and keep quiet about it) are actively working away to conspire to help Rangers at all costs???

Some times you get strange runs like that in football. I don’t know, maybe in their case with this they have been lucky, maybe they know how to defend without making rash challenges and decisions in the box, who knows? Oh right so I take it then that you have seen every game Rangers have played this season or at least since VAR was introduced and can list off the numerous penalties that they got that were wrongly awarded and the ones that could have/should have went against them, but didn’t? Or are you just parroting the same tired old guff that “all refs are pro-Rangers” and using the “they’ll get a penalty” as a pre-made excuse for us getting beat?

Maybe if we tried not pulling jerseys, diving in recklessly or needlessly hand balling inside the box then they won’t be able to get their ‘usual’ penalty??

He won’t be sacked if we lose to Rangers, he just won’t. If we lose to Livingston in the following game it might be a different story though. I suspect we will see yet another late equaliser to secure a draw in either the Rangers or the Livi games and that will keep him and us ticking over for yet another week. Like it or not the last minute levellers against Ross County, Celtic, Dundee and St.Johnstone plus coming from 0-2 down in Perth have bought Kettlewell a fair bit more time and grace. Whether that will be a good thing for us in the long run or they merely paper over the ever growing cracks only time will tell. Unfortunately I suspect that it’s the latter.

The standards of our comms has dropped dramatically since Alan Burrows left. When he was here, be that in his role as media officer or CEO then the communication with the support was always strong. Granted it might have gone into overkill levels at times but at least you knew that there would be regular updates on significant developments within the club.

I don’t doubt that and in my experience those types are also the ones who shout loudest about how much better they are than Old Firm glory hunters and the first to go down the “I’m a better Motherwell fan than you are” route particularly on here and social media. No doubt from the comfort of their armchair/the bowling club/the pub/the toilet etc. Our support is, quite frankly, fucking shite, bar from the small core of regular diehards who never miss a game.

For as long as I can remember our core support has always hovered around the 4k-5k mark at the very best and it’s dropped away from that in the last decade. I’ve said before our support has the potential to be bigger and better but we just have too many lazy, fair weather fans who just can’t be bothered going to Fir Park for run of the mill games. Cup finals, European games and they come out of the woodwork but otherwise they are nowhere to be seen.

Part-time football looming I reckon. It’s only a matter of time and relegation will seal the deal for it.

We beat Celtic at Fir Park in the September then didn’t win again until we trounced Hearts 6-1 at the start of December and then our next win after that was Rangers on Boxing Day.

No we don’t sadly. And unless we get Don Robertson or a ref who is as lenient as he was with Aberdeen yesterday and allows us to kick them off the park like Graeme Shinnie did then we’ll probably end up with a red card or two if we tried it.

2-I us with a last minute winner from Theo Bair to end both the winless run this season and the near 21 year winless league run against Rangers. That probably won’t happen but I’d love it if it did. The reality is that Motherwell do not beat Rangers. And just to be clear to the ‘faithers of the support’ I am well aware that we used to beat them quite regularly back when Bill Clinton was the US president and it was still legal to smoke indoors, but we haven’t won a league match against them in over two decades and with the exception of two glorious occasions in May 2015 and another in October 2017 when we got the better of a side which was Rangers in name only, our dismal record against them does not lie.

Well a decent result at a difficult venue and a clean sheet, that’s positives right there. The negatives though are that the winless run extends even further but there are signs of encouragement.

Poor stuff so far in dreadful conditions but the longer it goes 0-0 the more likely we are to sneak this imo. Here’s hoping!

It’s a sad state of affairs how far Sportscene has fallen. I used to love watching it on a Saturday night when you had Dougie Donnelly in his shirt, tie and blazer and weetabix hair or even Hazel Irvine presenting it. Nowadays you’ve got Steven Thompson with his drainpipe jeans and doofus beard and Michael Stewart - say no more.

St.Mirren really are a detestable shower of odious pricks who have always been way above their station. The only good thing about them was their old ground at Love Street and that's long gone. A win here would be delightful on so many levels.

1-1 again, no doubt with another late leveller.

Four last minute equalisers plus coming from 0-2 down in Perth to draw have certainly helped his cause. Had we lost those games then we’d be one point ahead of Livingston with them having two games on hand over us. And that’s before you take into account the last minute winner against Kilmarnock back in August. Teams scoring last minute game changing goals will always be viewed as being lucky and in our case this season I think that’s a fair accusation. But at the same time the game lasts as long as it does until the final whistle blows and we have now managed to salvage potential dropped points in the dying minutes/seconds on no fewer than five occasions this season. A total of six points snatched in the 90th + minute. That’s quite impressive and points to a good, ‘fight to the death’ mentality within the team. We also scored a last minute leveller against Celtic at Fir Park in September only to concede a winner just seconds later so there definitely is some kind of ‘never say die’ mood in this team. Our biggest problem though is that we just lack basic ability throughout the squad.