Andy_P

Your thoughts and votes please...

For all my OP cynicism I'm fairly optimistic about this one. I felt we should have beaten them both at Easter Road at the start of the season and in the game back at Fir Park at the beginning of the year. I would also contend that we were much better than the 3-1 loss suggested at Easter Road not long after Jack Ross took over. What was a fairly decent display, mistake and lack of cutting edge aside, was lost in the gushing praise that came Ross' way. So all in all, they don't hold massive fears. Add in Campbell and that aforementioned allusion to making up for last Saturday and I'm confident of a point at least.

Reaction time. Again.

His statistics also show that he made more clearances and interceptions than his fellow full-back last weekend. The statistics show also said fellow full-back had double the amount of touches, made more passes (albeit McGinley's accuracry of passing was better) and O'Donnell lost possession twice as much which could be very easily interpreted that Motherwell attacked more down our right than left, and St Johnstone attacked more down their right than left confirming that McGinley, as a defender, performed his primary function - defending.

Your thoughts and votes please...

Not overly amused at that Cup exit. Nobody likes a defeat at any time but going out a Cup competition with barely a whimper tends to irk more than most. The performance wasn't there last week according to Mark O'Hara so I'd be interested to see what he made of today as it was even more poor than in Perth. And yet half an hour to go you find yourself ahead. Deserved or otherwise. Don't do anything daft, St Johnstone are hardly battering down to the door themselves. See it out. But no. It's difficult to have a great amount of sympathy when you are in winning positions two weeks in succession St Johnstone, a team of the ilk that if you are going to do anything, you need to be seeing off, and we can't hold leads in either of them. Lamie hasn't overly impressed when played at left-back so his introduction immediately raised eyebrows and his involvement unfortunately proved those held fears to be well founded. The second goal hardly covered ourselves in glory either. And after that, absolutely nothing. That you can't make much of an argument to say that St Johnstone didn't deserve the win says it all. The only consolation is that there's one less fixture to cram in next month. That's it, that's the highlight of our League Cup campaign, one game less to play. Poor stuff.

He's hardly Stevie Hammell but he's nowhere near as bad as you're attempting to make out. You decided about 8 minutes into the friendly at Ibrox he was rubbish and it's patently obvious you are trying to prove yourself the master of foresight by throwing out a disparaging comment about him whether it's deserved or not.

Your thoughts and votes please...

Even though we can't go it would have been nice for a little variation that a Falkirk, Ayr, Alloa (albeit I can remember League Cup exits to them all) and Arbroath would have offered. It's rarely a good thing either when Cup draws throw up double headers against your opponents. Still, it is what it is and I'm happier it's at home than in Perth.

That's right. He was in Italy with some of the squad on an advance party and I have recollections of him and those who travelled being introduced to what would have been either the Sampdoria or Genoa crowd and was part of the warm ups. He featured in a friendly against Egypt but was either injured in that or in training and sadly didn't make the squad. We had Michael McGlinchey with us who was part of the New Zealand squad in South Africa I think it was, but he was only loan and wouldn't technically be a Motherwell player.

There have been numerous occasions, probably more often that in fact, where we've tried to go with an approach that's more negative than today in the current horrible run against them. And I'll bet if we were to look back we'd see the mirror image of these kind of posts crying out for us to have a go, that we're most likely going to lose anyway so why not try to take them on. We lost this game and the earlier game this season to Celtic by three goals. I tend to think that there is a bit more to be taken from a game such as this afternoon where we've had fourteen efforts at goal (unfortunately only two or three on it) than the game at Parkhead where it was a case of sit back and wait for the near inevitable.

Wee bit away yet but for those of whose of you find the international breaks a bind, your St Johnstone game thread is open for business...

Your thoughts and votes please...

We certainly beat them three times in 1990'91. 2-0 on the opening day at Fir Park, 2-1 at Parkhead before the first Semi Final and then 4-2 in the Semi Final replay.

I was at the Liverpool game but my only recollection from it was where I stood with Dad. I can't remember much of the game itself. There was a book launched to mark the centenary though and an autograph signing session at Motherwell Library, which also included some various artefacts from the club's history on display. I remember more getting the booked signed and it being hastily whisked away for a Christmas present than the actual centenary match itself.

Your choices for Livingston :- 1. Tony Watt 2. Mark O'Hara 3. Declan Gallagher Which gives a total of : Allan Campbell 21pts (4 MOTM) Trevor Carson 12pts (3 MOTM) Tony Watt 12pts (3 MOTM) Bevis Mugabi 11pts (2 MOTM) David Turnbull 6pts (1 MOTM) Liam Polworth 6pts (1 MOTM) Sherwin Seedorf 5pts (1 MOTM) Stephen O'Donnell 4pts Mark O'Hara 4pts Declan Gallagher 3pts Nathan McGinley 2pts Christopher Long 2pts Ricki Lamie 2pts Liam Grimshaw 2pts Jordan White 1pt Devante Cole 1pt

Your choices for Ross County :- 1. Tony Watt 2. Liam Polworth 3. Devante Cole Which gives a total of : Allan Campbell 21pts (4 MOTM) Trevor Carson 12pts (3 MOTM) Bevis Mugabi 11pts (2 MOTM) Tony Watt 9pts (2 MOTM) David Turnbull 6pts (1 MOTM) Liam Polworth 6pts (1 MOTM) Sherwin Seedorf 5pts (1 MOTM) Stephen O'Donnell 4pts Nathan McGinley 2pts Christopher Long 2pts Mark O'Hara 2pts Declan Gallagher 2pts Ricki Lamie 2pts Liam Grimshaw 2pts Jordan White 1pt Devante Cole 1pt

Whether it impacted on the eventual scoreline or not you surely can't be suggesting there isn't an element of good fortune involved in that third goal? I haven't,or would even for a second, dispute that we had a brilliant team that year or the fact we played exceptionally well in those games. But none of the references to that season or those game dissuade me from thinking - (and I apologise to those probably bored seeing me repeat it) that as was well evidenced in those two games in 2013 - we generally need to play very well. It boosts our chances when the opposition don't play as well as they can (and that can be as much down to us preventing them from doing so). And that the likes of the aforementioned OG, a quick throw-in whilst the opposition are rolling about on the floor seemingly on the verge of paralysis or that they don't hit the choose games against us to practice the art of simulation, can also be quite useful too. I think the lack of positive results against Celtic or Rangers in the league tends to back that up.

It's by no means a justification of what is an appalling record against Rangers and one which is very much going the same way against Celtic. But I do tend to think whoever it was that coined the phrase isn't a million miles off. We do need to play well. We do need them not to be as on it as they might be and we do more often than not need stuff to go for us on the day.

When big Higdon was destroying them we got a penalty for Charlie Mulgrew tripping over his feet and banging into Ojamaa when he was chasing a ball liable to go out of play and OG from a Celtic defender hitting the post which then rebounded off the back of their keeper and into the net. No luck indeed.

Time and time again I'll have looked at these games and considered the potential variables that might help turns things ever so slightly in our favour. What form are we in? What form are they in? Are they travelling 4000 miles back from somewhere after a European Thursday nighter? Are they men down through injury or suspension? And so on. I can't remember who it was who said it, whether it was McCall, McGhee, Butcher or all of the above but ultimately much as it tended to irritate they weren't far wrong in suggesting before these games that we need to play very very well, they need to play poorly and on top of that we need a fair dollop of luck; and we'll see what that gets us. And remains pretty much the size of it now, perhaps even more so now.

It's nearly eighteen months since David Turnbull was last on the winning side in a game at Fir Park. Let's keep it that way!

On that point I think if you work on the assumption that most of our points will come outwith the Old Firm, strip away the eight goals conceded to them and you are looking at seven goals lost in nine games to fellow diddy teams and two of them were stupid penalties. Not perfect but not too bad. And that's with an unsettled back line and of recent weeks goalkeeper. Keep eradicating those daft mistakes. Keep that level of frugality in defence and that's a reasonable platform from which to build a half decent league campaign.

The (unofficial) stream I had wasn't perfect but from what I saw I'm struggling to think of a performance at Livingston that was as accomplished as yesterday since Livingston changed to an artificial surface. You might have hoped that with the last two or three performances as ropey as they were at whatever they call their ground this week, that surely a fourth display on the bounce couldn't be as equally bad but I was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable a game it was. We gave the impression from the off that we were a decent team who were confident in their ability who would do what required to be done. As similarly clinical as we were against County the week before and probably as close as we've been for a while to the utopia of wanting it more than the opposition, putting bodies on the line to block shots, deny crosses and be the generally organisationally sound defensive unit that Kmcalpin seeks on a weekly basis. That the big fella in goals remains something of an unknown quantity after something like 150 minutes, shots off target and blocked notwithstanding, says much about the defence and the longer that goes on the better. The goals were well taken with good composure from both Lang and Watt in putting their respective chances away. All in all a pretty good afternoon's work I think.

Your thoughts and votes please...