Tweed

We were right on the line of Ojamaa's offside in the East Stand and sadly the assistant was bang on as he had strayed just off before the ball was played. It was one of these days where in front of goal every little deflection didn't seem to help us and we really had to work for the two goals we got and that is why it is frustrating that we flushed two points down the toilet with such poor defending and concentration for their goals. Any time our player tried to have a shot like the one Connor Newton had he was closed down by a St Mirren defender encroaching on him like a fly to the nearest turd. Yet when the roles are reversed he gets all the time he needs to have a rattle. Granted it was an absolute peach of a finish. Craig Samson must be one of the most improved players in Scottish football over the last five years some outstanding saves again yesterday. Faddy's throw - the less said.

I'm off for leg 2 of option 1 and leg 1 of option 2. I've confused even myself.

Because they predict the top six based on 19 home 19 away over both pre and post split, whether you are due 17+2 or 16+3 is a flip of the coin. The problem comes if 4 16+3 or 4 17+2 teams appear in the same half when one team in one half foregoes a home game whilst a team in the other half gains one.

I fear this could happen. I've been confident for all the games in our good run apart from Hearts away and I have a totally irrational real bad feeling about Saturday. St Mirren have nothing to play for, are on a good run and are playing with confidence. In saying that we are also on a good run and playing with a lot of confidence and we are better than them.

No. St Mirren is our 17th home game of the season whilst Dundee was our 16th away game. We should be due 2 home games and 3 away games after the split.

Yeah, irrespective of who gets in Celtic are a problem. They are due to play the other four that are already there at home but can have a maximum of three home games. That means someone will get a third home game with them. That means some other fixtures may be flipped to accommodate that. Taking our fixtures in isolation we should be home to Killie and Ross C and away to the rest but there is no guarantee. Also I suspect there is no way we will be at home to St Johnstone as we got three home games with them last season and already have had two this time so for us to have had six league home games over two seasons while they have only had two is grossly unfair.

Higdon for me. One just about everything that came to him, a good finish - positional sense got him a couple of other chances but the poor pitch seemed to divot one over. Sprays the ball well to the side. Everything asked of him accomplished. Could easily have gone for Law or Ojamaa but I felt they took too long to get into the match for the award.

The biggest difference today was confidence, we had loads of it and they had precious little and what they did have sapped away a litte further with each goal we scored. We started off very well, Humphrey was outstanding for the first ten fifteen minutes but they tactically adjusted and doubled up on him (just as well as Easton was being made to look like an idiot every time we got it over there). Remainder of the first half, they had more of it but apart from the shot from Harkins which Baird flashed wide never really go that close. I thought we did get a wee break with Hutchinson's booking. Not sure if it was a foul or not but if it was, it surely was denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity and by association he should have walked - the yellow card looked like the bottler's decision. Second half we grew into it and without looking that dangerous we were now the better team and Lasley's little dink in for Law was exactly what we needed. A good header from Law (was that his first headed goal for us?) and the game was dead and buried. If I was a Dundee fan I'd be a little miffed by our third. Hateley was telling Law where to stand before taking the corner and not one of them reacted. To be fair from then Hateley put it on a sixspence and Law's finish was outstanding but if I can see what we are going to try there is no excuse for SPL defenders not to notice. From that point on it was comfortable and we did a professional job of seeing it out. Higdon is immense every single week. Law and Ojamaa I thought were really quiet in the first half but grew into it. Faddy was a bit in and out, sometimes maybe guilty of trying too much. Lasley was OK but nothing better. Humphrey decent with a couple of wayward thrown in. Defensively we did pretty well though Hammell's distribution could have been better at times. Another good game from Hateley - definitely come on the last few weeks. Actually think the couple of games he missed with injury has done him the world of good - I think he was perhaps a little stale.

Just from seeing the players at Q&A nights and their feeds on twitter you get the vibe that they enjoy playing here and enjoy playing under McCall. Some will inevitably go but I don't think the rebuild will be as huge as is feared. Also McCall has been my favourite Motherwell manager just about ever I think. Not necessarily the best but very successful and I generally like the cut of his jib. Happy in Tweed Towers tonight.

I think to be fair to Collum, the McPake rake tackle was on the blind side of him, he can't see through Higdon to see what he is up to so I don't really blame him for not seeing it, likewise the Claros one on McFadden. To be honest I don't think either were worthy of a red card, I would expect an SPL referee to have booked McPake and used some man management skills to defuse the Claros/McFadden incident without cards. To me the purpose of Mr Lunny is to stamp out unacceptable conduct and violent behaviour - my opinion is that this season his use has been much more appropriate and consistent than last and whilst we may have been the wronged party on this occasion I don't want to see incidents like that being pulled up retrospectively,

There is lots of good stuff in the proposal but the structure of the league is the one that concerns me. I've defended the current set up when many have criticised it for a number of years and I feel a bit sorry for the authorities on this one. Every criticism that people throw at the split this new proposal eradicates. Commentators and fans are after a 16 team league, I don't get why we want to lose the best part of a quarter of our games. To me an 18 team league is the only sensible alternative to the 12. I'd prefer the status quo but I can understand the rationale for change. I've not heard anyone who is safeguarding the future of any top flight club say that a 16 team league will help them yet in the prize money bit everyone says thats what we should be doing so I think as fans we need to trust that those on the inside are making decisions for the right reasons and whilst there may be some short term pain we need to bite the bullet with this madcap system for two or three years.

That is an amendment from when I last read the laws end to end then - I do remember there being a clear caveat about red card offences. I suspect that wording has been added in for incidents like the Hibs second goal today where if the referee had given the penalty for Bell's foul he'd have had to send him off for denying a goalscoring opportunity but because they tapped it in he didn't actually deny the goalscoring opportunity so he got booked rather than incidences of a brutal tackle.

You can't play advantage and then send someone off. No reason you can't go back and yellow card someone. Reason being the person due to be removed could then be involved in a goal if the original attack breaks down. Not that the tackle in question here was ever worthy of a red card.

It was a win built on a foundation of hard work, determination and endeavour rather than any showy performances - over the piece I think I'll give it to Cummins who was sound and also because of the marked improvement in the last week.

At the time thought it was a foul, with the benefit of the Alba replay I grudgingly concede that Mr Thomson got it right.

A fair summary of the game. Would give the referee one bit of credit in that he played an outstanding advantage that led to our first goal but from the moment it went 2-0 he seemed to go on a one man mission to make a game of it. There were lots of good things about us today. We defended excellently for the mostpart, McFadden is getting stronger, Higdon scored another beautiful goal and an outstanding save from Randolph. Disappointment was we never really competed as much in central midfield as on Wednesday and I think it maybe came a wee bit soon for Lasley's older legs.

Was a textbook yellow card in my book. I watched the game back having Sky plussed it tonight and on the TV re-run I thought Brines was superb last night, which I didn't necessarily think at the time. Not a single failure for us, think Randolph over committed at the goal but other than that did very well. The defenders were outstanding, Cummins has been a bombscare so often this season and last night he did a really mature and measured job on Stokes and then Hooper. Didn't win every head to head battle but won more than he lost. Hutchinson outstanding, though did wander of Samaras a bit at the goal. Hammell was up against their best player by miles but as long as he met him head on he matched him, the problem was when he got adventurous. Watch Izaguirre against us, he knows Humphrey will beat him for pace and he plays more negatively against us than any other SPL opponent because he knows if Humphrey gets behind him he could be in all sorts of trouble and we need our players to have that maturity (maybe not the ideal example as he was to blame for both our goals!). Law and Lasley won the midfield. I didn't think we would win that game unless we played three in there but that just proves what a good job they did. Humphrey is always a threat with his pace even when he is having a bad day. Faddy isn't at his best yet but he is ramping it up and every now and then you see the flicks and touches that show the boy is class. Up top Ojamaa is a nightmare. He makes so many bad choices you can't read him and he never gives up so you don't get a moment's piece. Higdon won every header and scored a lovely goal, would have been easy to send that ball into the Cooper.

Which was also on February 27th. Just saying like.

Ojamaa looked lively when he got the ball but they defended him well and he really had nowhere to go. Don't think Carswell or Ramsden did much wrong but certainly didn't do enough to be considered for a MoTM, of a bad lot it has to be Randolph but I do think he could have been a bit sharper at the first.

Concerning times. Losing becomes a habit and we have lost four on the spin away from home and after this we have really hard away games in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Losing five on the bounce suddenly looks a real possibility. Celtic's performance at Fir Park in September was as good as I have seen them since Samaras tore us apart before the Nancy game. And even that was assisted by us being woeful. If they play like that again we will lose no matter what level of performance Motherwell turn in. For me Humphrey is a key player in this one. We generally keep Izaguirre quiet when he is about as he is scared of his pace. I'm inclined that we play him on the right, return Law to the middle with Carswell and fire Ojamaa out left. We can then try and play Faddy just off Higdon. In doing that Faddy will probably only last a half and we can then decide how to play with it at half time depending on how the game is going. The defence is entirely dependent on the fitness of Hateley and Hammell. Hopefully Hateley makes it because Cummins just doesn't cut the mustard I'm afraid and that way Ramsden can move inwards. This isn't the game for throwin in Saunders.

I think the back pages today expressing why Rangers cannot be done for sectairian singing because they are actively taking steps to address it and the words they have used to describe the aspect of their support have been quite hard hitting and it isn't daft for us to follow a similar course of language and actions on a smaller scale because if they try to fine us and not them we can point to the quite obvious parallels. I was in the ground early on Saturday and was welcomed by stewards who were very amicable. As kick off approached it was very clear there was a nervousness about the group of lads who moved from directly behind the goal to a block to the right of that at the end of the warm up. I actually think some other Motherwell fans moving to get away from them maybe sent the message to the stewards they were worth watching but from then on the relationship between fans and stewards seemed frosty. Because I was in the ground at 1420 I didn't see any of the stuff going on outside but it does sound a bit on the harsh side in some cases.

Cummins is a nightmare but every other young defender we have brought through has had the advantage of playing alongside an experienced centre half who can help talk him through the game and because Cummins doesn't have that he is making errors - always getting caught on the wrong side and very uncomfortable on the ball. He does nothing for me at the moment. Last week we did so well because we had wee pairs all over the pitch complimenting each other and knowing what each other was going to do (Law and Carswell, Hammell and Higginbotham, Humphrey and Hateley and Higdon and Ojamaa and to a lesser extent Hutch and Ramsden) but yesterday the way we rejigged the team around not one of these partnerships was together and they didn't seem to have any sort of understanding what we were doing on the ball. Three very poor goals to lose and in a way that is less of a concern because they were mistakes, the lack of any apparent creative spark at all is a deadly concern.

From what I saw it was a group of immature wee laddies who were a bit boisterous and most of all absolutely harmless but whatever you argue about smoke bombs, they are illegal in our grounds and whilst I personally have no particular feeling whether they should be allowed or not the moment one goes off you attract the stewards' attention and every wee thing will get picked up on.

9am, breakfast at Perth just after 10am and hopefully in Dingwall about 1330.

I'm already taking someone from Dingwall to Inverness station. I could squeeze two more in but it would be a bloody tight squeeze with five of us in a Mazda 2 so would maybe see if anyone else can accommodate but I won't see you stuck.