MJC

Well to be fair, Declan Gallagher was accepted despite his past ‘shenanigans’ and it was only when he decided that he was too good for us that any of our support turned on him. Personally I would be okay with us taking a gamble on Leigh Griffiths, inspite of his issues. He is a natural goalscorer and clearly wants to get back to playing football. It would be a gamble, yes, but so was Tony Watt, albeit for different reasons, and that worked out okay in the end. It’s immaterial though as it looks like he is training with Livingston, a former club of his, so it’s more likely he would join them.

Sligo aren’t up to much as a side, quality wise. I think they themselves will be unsure how to approach the game next week. Do they sit in or try and kill the tie off leaving them open at the back? I watched their second leg against Bala and they were lucky not to lose at least 3-0 in 90 minutes, so they are no great shakes and they will be wary of a repeat of that against us. From our point of view the objective is simple. We need to score at least once to level the tie so we know what we need to do. I know we are also more than capable of shooting ourselves right in the foot but despite the size of the task for us, I actually think that the players might actually feel that there is less pressure on them to perform than there was last night with a big, expectant home crowd behind them. We rarely, if ever, deliver in that scenario. I would be starting Tierney and dropping either Shields or Morris for this one and even though I’m not a fan of him I’d be bringing O’Donnell in for McGinn as this type of game may be more suited to him.

Agree with that, any shite like that should be being called out by the club. Any religious or political related chanting or banners should have no place at Fir Park. There is, or should not be, any kind of ideology when following Motherwell FC.

In the long run that might not be a bad thing for us… However, us exiting at this stage to a league of Ireland side would be absolutely embarrassing and up there with Stjarnan as one of our worst ever results so we simply HAVE to turn this around next week. No two ways about it. It’ll be a different game next Thursday and I think us playing away from home might actually benefit us. 2-0 to us after extra time. (Fingers crossed)

I’ve got to be honest and this might not be popular, but I don’t like the ‘Well Bois’. Sure, they create a good atmosphere at games and I know that some of them have done some good work in the community with regards to helping with foodbanks and that is of course very commendable. However whenever I have encountered them at matches I find a lot of them (thought not all) to be absolutely obnoxious and seem more interested in getting absolutely pished or coked out their heads than supporting the team. Then you add in the regular cat and mouse with the stewards and police, setting off flares, jumping on the park and clashing with other supports and they just let themselves and the club down. I know there are some good decent lads in that group but as the saying goes, “you are judged by the company you keep”.

If he could just improve his concentration a bit he would be a much better defender imo.

Hear! Hear! We are most definitely worse than we were this time twelve months ago. We have no Watt to get us the goals from August to December that basically kept us out of relegation trouble last season and haven’t, as far as I can see, brought in anyone so far that is going to improve the team. I have huge concerns about the season ahead.

Yes, really. At least with the League Cup you know that there is a chance, albeit a slim one, that we could go further or even all the way in that tournament. Fair play to the fans who took part in the march to the stadium before the game, but ultimately I’m more interested in what happens ON the park. And last night what happened on the park simply wasn’t good enough, just like it hasn’t been for far too long. That is why, in my opinion, some started turning on the team/manager because they are sick fed up watching the same laboured, directionless guff and the manager trying to tell them afterwards that it was a good performance. If you or anyone else take the positives from the atmosphere/occasion last night then that is fair enough, likewise to those who will be travelling to the away leg next week. If that’s what the club and the football is about for you then great. From my point of view I just want to see us put a team on the park that can be the best we possibly can be and be competitive in matches in competitions that match the level we are at.

How often has that happened that we get a good crowd in only to be completely let down? European games more often than not see that happen. Think Nancy, Odense, PAO, Levante, Kuban Krasnador, Stjarnan and now last night. All of those games got big crowds in, there was a sense of excitement and anticipation and all of them ended in a damp squib. Seven games with a grand total of TWO goals scored and not a single win among them. Europe for us is nothing but a bit of fluff at the start of a season. Glorified friendlies that attract big crowds and end in embarrassment. Give me the League Cup group stages any day of the week.

A bit of a side issue, but why is Burrows always on the trackside during matches? I get that he can go where he wants but it just seems abnormal for a Chief Exec to be down there. Perhaps he will appoint himself as next manager when GA leaves, let’s face it he couldn’t do any worse.

Agree, but unfortunately he has bought himself a lot more time than he otherwise had have got had we not sneaked into the top six/ Europe last season. That papered over huge cracks.

If Robinson had overseen that performance and result you would have been (rightly) slaughtering him for it.

Sadly accurate.

What’s your point? As you yourself acknowledge we were humiliated by our own mistake. And that happened with about 70% of the game still to go yet we barely looked like getting back into it. I don’t see how tonight can be dressed up as anything other than a disaster.

Add that to the long list of absolute guff performances in Europe for us at Fir Park. I hate, HATE European football for us, especially at home. It is a constant anti-climax and an occasional humiliation, as tonight certainly was. Fair play to Sligo, they more than deserved their win on the night. From our point of view a season of misery looms.

I thought we’d make a pigs ear of this tonight and I still think we’ll turn this around but alarm bells are ringing loud and clear after that first half debacle. We are an awful team with nothing about us and this coming season is going to be an absolute clusterfuck.

Jesus Christ. If you didn’t laugh you’d cry!

Great news! Happy enough with that lineup, we should have enough to get the job done tonight.

Or alcohol. As with any addiction, yes something does need done to help with it but ultimately the person who has the addiction needs to be able to control it. And that is the most difficult part because that takes an enormous amount of strength to first of all recognise the problem, seek help and then begin to deal with it. With regards to gambling, online betting apps have got to be one of the worst things out there because of the ease in which someone can basically squander money by just going onto their phone.

Yeah football management is the type of job where you can fail badly yet still find yourself back in a job at a different club sooner or later. All it takes is a good spell at a particular club and/or good relations with the media and/or people within football. Mark McGhee being the classic example. A dreadful return right enough but as I was saying, if a manager has a good spell in a particular job then his stock shoots back up again. Robinson bought himself a huge amount of credit by getting to two cup finals in the same season with us in 2017/18, something he dined out on for the remainder of his time with us. He also managed to get us a 3rd place ‘finish’ in 2019/2020. On paper at least that is a pretty impressive return at a club of our stature so it’s natural that he was linked with bigger jobs. Of course that doesn’t tell the whole story as anyone who watched us in that time could probably tell you. Our league form in 17/18 was pretty dismal and the following season we were even worse to watch for the most part. 19/20 saw more dire displays yet we managed to scrape wins together at the same time as Aberdeen, Hibs etc cut their own throats before the season was effectively abandoned in mid-March and we ‘finished 3rd’ by default.

He was odds on to get the Hearts job whilst still with us in late 2019 and then the Northern Ireland job in summer 2020. His stock has fallen drastically since then.

I see Robinson and his Motherwell old boys lost 2-0 at Airdrie last night in the League Cup and were roundly booed off the park by their travelling fans for it.

I think we’ll win as well. Both tomorrow night and next week and progress to the next round. However it won’t be plain sailing and it certainly won’t be easy on the eye. 2-1 tomorrow with Sligo scoring first.

They were options for us, which we’ve not got anymore. Meanwhile we haven’t really strengthened the squad. I’m sorry but to me that suggests that we are weaker.

We’ve lost Woolery and Roberts. Neither of whom were regular starters, I know, but were options for us. We’ve also lost O’Hara who falls into the same category although McGinn may give us another option. We needed to strengthen our squad from what we ended last season with and that hasn’t happened. Indeed we have lost two attacking options and replaced them with Josh Morris (who is unknown and deserves every chance to prove himself) and may yet lose van Veen as well. I’m not saying that the squad has been substantially weakened, but it has been weakened to an extent and considering how poor we were last season, that can’t be a good thing.