MJC_MKI

Our fitness or woeful lack of is a major, major concern for me. How in the name of God can we be so off the pace at this early stage in the season when we have had a supposed training trip to Portugal and Europa League matches to help get us prepared for the campaign??? And it's no use offering the excuse of it being early days and we're still rusty etc. because Inverness were streets ahead of us in terms of fitness today and they are at the same stage of their season as we are. I have to ask, just what is it we do in training all week on the days we actually train? For us to be so far behind an opponent like we were today in terms of fitness just three matches into the season is unacceptable.

Worryingly accurate. We look drastically unfit and have done since the beginning of last season. We got away with it in several matches last year and again last weekene but today we've not been so lucky. We need McCall to step up to the plate and find a plan B.

3-1 us. Ojamaa to make the difference.

Disappointing to lose late on like that but it's hardly a shock given our absentees and United's pace and power in attack. Hopefully we'll get back to winning ways on Saturday against Inverness.

For some reason I've got a feeling we'll get a point from this one. 2-2 with Sutton and Ainsworth scoring.

I really don't think anyone is allowing the result to cloud judgement. It was not a great performance from us, anything but, and we've got a lot of work to do in order to improve our performamce. However we won the game and that is the main thing and given the downer since the Stjarnan debacle then it was important for us to start the season with a positive result, otherwise confidence and mood would have dropped further. Regardless of how many chances St.Mirren had, it's goals that win you games and we scored, they didn't so we get the points and they get none. Hopefully we'll take confidence from this and that stands us in good stead for the season ahead.

It wasn't a great performance but after all the gloom of recent weeks we badly needed that win and I'm just delighted we got it. Yes St.Mirren had plenty of chances but they failed to take them so that's their problem not ours. I think our lads deserve credit for hanging in and getting the result.

Can't speak for something else, but I think his point was quite obviously that we should be looking to test ourselves against the best possible opposition as possible in order to prepare ourselves for the season ahead. As mentioned, various other clubs are playing against decent/top sides from down south and indeed do so on a yearly basis. Regardless of how these matches go it must be good preparation for the players to play against sides like that AND it does add a bit of glamour for the club and the supporters.

3-2 St.Mirren.

Yes I think we are a sinking ship. As the club are never done telling us, the Cup games are massive to us as they bring in much needed revenue and as a result of our recent utter failures in that department we have made significant losses. You can add our latest Euro flop to that aswell. We aren't likely to bring in any new faces for the new season whilst other sides are strengthening their squads and our threadbare squad is already ravaged with injury before the campaign has even begun! You can spin that anyway you want but that is not good. Also, who is running our club? Who's making the 'big decisions' now that Dempster has gone? And why did she bail out? There's a number of questions surrounding our club right now that aren't being answered and that is a concern.

Again this has to raise serious questions over the training and fitness within the club if we've got injury doubts over so many key players before the season has even started. We looked completely unfit and under prepared against The Icelandic mob and on several occasions last year we were running out of steam by the hour mark in games and for a full time professional club that cannot be right surely .

Well let's hear why you think differently then? Tell us why we're not right to be deeply concerned at having a squad with no re enforcements and no real chance of re enforcements due to us blowing several hundred thousand pounds by failing against a semi professional outfit in the Europa League?? Not to mention several injuries to key players before a competitive ball has been kicked??? Answers on a postcard please

Things are genuinely looking bleak for the new season. No new signings, several injuries already and the club already financially hampered by yet another failure in a tie that really mattered. We as a club are a sinking ship.

What's seeing Motherwell in the lower divisions what? 25 years ago now got to do with today's team? The fact is we have, one way or another raised the bar in the last few seasons when we've gone from not just a long time established top flight club but a top half club and in the past few years best of the rest club. We have had a lot of luck in that time but we've also had and still do to an extent have some good players at our disposal. Yet time and again we fail spectacularly in big matches/one off cup ties largely because our attitude, tactics, preparation and fitness are all wrong. I don't think the majority want a change of management, rather a change of attitude and approach to games like these and a change in results from going out with a whimper no matter how good or bad, full time or part time the opposition are to actually beating such sides and progressing in cups.

Agree with this 100%. There's nothing I'd love more than to see us win one of the domestic cups, especially the Scottish Cup, but not in return for relegation which would be crticially damaging for us as a club. Give me a 6th to 10th placed league finish this season and a Cup win and I'll be delighted.

I've given up trying to predict how we'll do in the league as we've managed to defy the odds time and again in recent years despite annual player losses and budget cuts. I really don't think we'll have enough about us this year to outperform Aberdeen and United over the course of a season and I reckon we're looking at a respectable mid table finish providing we can bring in some new faces and our confidence doesn't nose dive. Who knows though? What I can quite confidently predict without any danger of being proved wrong is that we will do absolutely nothing in either domestic Cup except whimper out at an early stage and if we draw 'The Rangers' or Aberdeen at any stage in either tournament then we'd be as well just not turning up to play the match as we all know we would lose.

Its not ridiculous whatsoever its stating fact. Inverness thumped them 3-0 at Ibrox just four weeks after we rolled over against them when they had their best and most expensive players including the aforementioned David Templeton sitting in the stand so that negates your ' they pay bigger wages' excuse straight away. And in any event if you want to go down that road, part time QoS beat them at Ibrox the week before our capitulation against them, their players earn less than ours would I would guess. The 'Rangers' result was an embarrassment for us, just like last night was and can be put in the same bracket as that and last seasons Albion debacle as three shocking results under mccall's watch.

It's as if he's trying to add insult to injury every time he opens his mouth on the back of a humiliating defeat. For him to say that this is not embarrassing because Stjarnan train every day is fucking ludicrous. They are a step up from amateurs who would be cannon fodder in the SPFL and we lead them THREE times in the tie, at one point by two goals and we will end up losing 5-4 on aggregate. I honestly don't know what goes through McCall's head when it comes to cup matches and dealing with the inevitable boot in the stones afterwards.

Jesus suffering fuck!

In a nutshell.

Just about every lower league/part time club in the country will be desperate to draw us in one of the cups as they will look at the Albion Rovers result and our capitulation against the semi professional Icelandic side and rightly fancy their chances.

I just can't get over the sheer frustration of that debacle last night and last week. As I've said before, I don't really view Europe as anything more than a two game bit of fluff at the start of a season as we're never going to make any sort of impact there but I can honestly count on one hand the number of European matches I've seen us involved in that I've actually enjoyed and we have plunged new depths with this fiasco and we're now a laughing stock. Let's face it, to enjoy us being in Europe you need to be able to fork out time and money to travel abroad for the tartan army style piss up whilst shrugging off the inevitable disappointment. For me well I just don't see the appeal and if I wanted a few jars before or after the football then I'd do what I've done for years and go to the electric bar before and after the games. You try and get excited by us playing in Europe but with the clubs poor PR in the build up and absolute embarrassments like last night then it's very hard to. If I never see us playing another European match again it won't be a day too soon.

It's been the Motherwell way over the past few seasons alright but there is going to come a time sooner or later when our constant cup failures resulting in budgets being cut and players lost is going to catch up with us. For all it was great to finish second last season we didn't half carry some luck especially in the run in. The games against St.Johnstone, Inverness, Ross County etc we were out on our feet after an hour and just managed to cling on for the win. And that managed to compensate for us doing likewise against Hibs and St.Mirren where we surrendered 2-0 leads. Our fitness is clearly an issue and yet again last night and last week we ran out of steam and paid for it, all while McCall inexplicably tried to defend a narrow lead when it is patently clear we are simply not capable of doing so.

Where do we go from here? Quite simply we as a club need to grow a set and address this pathetic losers mentality that we are riddled with from top to bottom. Debacles like last night are continually shrugged off with 'we ain't Barcelona, we're punching waaaay above our weight' all while such results, along with the cup failures are financially damaging us and serious questions should be being asked of the manager, players, preparation tactics and fitness. Anticipate the standard McCall apology in the next 24 to 48 hours along with vows to learn lessons and put it right in the cup....then we'll get Lasley and Hammell etc tweeting about their lunch at Nandos and their round of golf afterwards, cue everyone thinking 'what a great bunch of lads our boys are' ........repeat the same process after we get pumped out of the league cup at the first hurdle by East Fife or whoever. As someone said in the other thread, the players must love playing at Motherwell because they get such an easy ride of it, from both the club and the support and there is no expectation or desire to go that bit further and achieve something. I hate with a passion the 'We are all Stuart McCall' line but it's probably fairly accurate because our lack of expectation as a club suits him down to the ground. If he ever gets a move to a bigger club he will flop spectacularly because he is no tactical genius and is in fact a poor manager but he gets away with it here because our expectation levels are non existent.

That's being generous to him, I make it three if you throw in the 'The Rangers' debacle. I've said it time and again, McCall is a poor manager and does not for the life of him possess the savy and know how to win games such as this. Yes, he came up trumps against Aberdeen back in May but overall his record does not lie. In fairness to him its not just him who has the problem. We as a club are a small time outfit with a loser's mentality and a yellow streak as wide as the Clyde running through us from the boardroom to the support. We shrug off utterly inept cup performances and results like tonight with 'We're only Motherwell and we're punching way above our weight' and that is why, IMO we will never achieve anything of note in the game ever again, ie winning a trophy or making some sort of progress in Europe.