Andy_P

Give it until this evening then close this one, so now's the time to vote if you haven't already done so.

Sad news. RIP.

Aye did you see him turn and glare at the East Stand when he fired a ball from one wing to the other? Just as he'd launched it someone quite loudly yelled "That's fucking terrible" or along those lines only the ball to land right at the feet at the intended recipient (Hammell possibly). Not amused I think! Though it remains refreshingly Craiganesque to see him to do the occasional but traditional hoof up the park and end up slicing it sideways. As long as it doesn't end up in our own net ofcourse......

I strongly disliked Levein as a player - he was a major part of a pretty loathsome team at Tynecastle over a number of years but I have always rated him highly as a manager. Apart from his time at Leicester his record as a manager stands up really well, especially in Scottish football circles. I doubt you'll get many who'll share your view that he is failing at Dundee United. After finding his feet he's got them two successive top six finishes and they look on course to do the same this year. They were a defensive fuck up away from winning the League Cup and a missed penalty away from making another Cup Final. Okay they've fallen short of qualifying for Europe but even so its hardly what you could even get close to describing as failure. United's record pre-and during Levein's tenure. Failure? PRE-LEVEIN 99'00: 8th (below Dundee) 00'01: 11th (below Dundee) 01'02: 7th 02'03: 11th (below Dundee) 03'04: 5th 04'05: 9th (Scottish Cup Runners Up) 05'06: 9th WITH LEVEIN (From October 06) 06'07: 9th 07'08: 5th (League Cup Runners Up) 08'09: 5th (League Semi Finalists only losing 11-10 on pens) More importantly as regards ourselves I would hope to see us finish as high as we possibly can but as I said in the Falkirk thread yesterday and several others have said on this, its really very early days in what Gannon's looking to build and putting additional pressure on them with increased expectation levels isn't going to do us any favours. This season I think its a case of enjoying the ride and seeing where we end up at the close of it.

A really good three points if not a sparkling performance. We've all seen this kind of script so many times before when a team comes to Fir Park without having won or scored in goodness knows how long. We've been done loads of times by the return of the former player but we managed to see off not one but two of our traditional achilles heels. Took us quite a while to get going. We were a bit fortunate that Falkirk weren't offering much of a threat at all in the first half which allowed us to work our way into control of the game. Great delivery for the goal from Humphrey and he continues to show flashes of potential. He's shown pace and at times good crossing ability. If that comes together then he's going to be quite a threat. Pleased to see Lukas get his name on the scoresheet. It may be his true worth to us won't quite be known until we get Slane and Humphrey/O'Brien on either wing feeding him. Just now though he still looks something of a square peg trying to fit into a round hole when he's up front on his own. Second half we just dropped right out of it and had we conceded I don't think we could have complained. Rode our luck a couple of times and we can be thankful it was a goal shy Falkirk we were up against and not a side with more cutting edge. But all things considered a win, a clean sheet and sitting where we are going into the international weekend gives us a brilliant platform to build from going forward.

Your thoughts please......

A win for Yassin ahead of Stevie Hammell and Tom Hateley.

A couple of amusing reactions to this rumour. Some of it is like being back at school. You don't want to play with us? I don't care. Fine go away then and never come back again, ever....and you were rubbish to play with anyway...... Sorry but O'Brien and Slane aren't shite and if any of the two of them did happen to go in January in the short term at least they would be likely missed, with who knows what you might miss out on if they continue to develop. I don't disagree for a second that life would go without them but they don't become poorer players or not worth bothering about overnight just because there's a bit of chat about them considering their options.

Fair enough if the result hasn't been posted that's a fair point I would have expected that to be up as soon as known. But I'm sure where possible he would rather be in a position to get a report, teams and reaction from Gordon Young up than having a "more to follow" tagline for however long it takes to get the full details up.

Is that not just down to when and where they've been played at times? With the best will in the world the club's media relations guy isn't going to be watching the U19's in a half-twelve kick off on the same day the first team are playing at 3pm.

From Sporting Life...... Its fully accepted that the missile should never have been thrown but the highlighted parts of his comments are just utter bullshit for me. He knew exactly what he was doing by running as far as he did and celebrating in the manner he did - trying to wind the Motherwell support up. The supposed apology was him simply pushing his luck further after he somehow managed to get away without a booking.

You weren't so cheery about the hassles sixty odd pages back. If I remember rightly there was some serious toys oot the pram chat coming from you when things didn't go according to plan.

The undefeated record was going to go sooner rather than later, so it wasn't entirely unexpected but I'm left with a feeling that it shouldn't really have been today. Hibs were clinical in the extreme but two goals stemming from us giving the ball away and a third down to some questionable goalkeeping leaves you wondering if it could and indeed should have been a different scoreline. They carved us apart for the opening goal and with three up and them a goal up you did worry. But credit to us I thought we played our way right back into the game and went on to dominate the first half. I was impressed the way we didn't panic when we lost the goal and stuck to the game plan. The equaliser was no less than we deserved at that time. The timing of the goals lost in the second half just killed us though. As Yir Elder said on the way out, the 3rd going in so quickly knocked the stuffing out of us. Ironically their 2nd came when we appeared to building up a nice head of steam again whilst they were looking slack. We continued to press after going 3-1 down but the scrambled clearance off the line apart we never looked we were going to be able to rescue the game and if anything continued to look susceptible on the break. I'm pleased we continued to try to pass and play football throughout though even though we lost. At times its going to need some fine tuning where we sometimes hold on to the ball a bit too long but over the piece I think it'll pay off. I think as fans we need to accept though that this is how its going to be under Gannon and we need to bite our tongues on occasion. Inevitably there were several negatives. Conroy almost typically seemed to want to be as card unhappy as he could after his recent press though in the grand scheme of things it didn't do anything to change the course of the game. There were several frustrations Nish amongst others somehow managing to escape without a card and his lack of interest when Hibs attempted to prevent a quick free-kick by standing right next to the ball on almost every occasion we won a free-kick. Most worryingly though will surely be the fine and bad press that will come from the object thrown at Zemmama. He was a complete wee wanker with his celebration for which there was no need but and he desrerved a stack of abuse for it but fuck sake, you don't go chucking things at players. All those folk who are attempting to fight a good fight about hassles with the stewards, getting to stand at games - whoever launched something at the player has completely stitched those folk up.

Your thoughts and selections please.....

Ricky, since as long as I can remember MJ has started a topic before each edition of OSB is due out giving notice that its going to be available for purchase with a few paragraphs about what's being covered. I'm sure nobody would object if Chris, yourself or whoever wanted to do similar for GLF each time its out.

No I'd say that's there fair enough this time, though with Rangers being live in the last round if it had been Celtic v Elgin City I wouldn't have been overly surprised if they had shown that just to get the ratings and be seen to be fair to both halves of the Old Firm. I would still argue - as I did before the Dundee-Aberdeen game, that the game at Dens was the tie of the round and a better choice to be shown than Queens v Rangers, however Celtic - Hearts games are generally quite tasty so not a bad shout there.

What about a WE ARE MOTHERWELL if its a banner for the ground or THIS IS MOTHERWELL rather than the Welcome to Motherwell? Just a thought.

Give this one until sometime this evening before calling a halt to voting.

I'm not really seeing any blatant credit seeking or anything like that there, just a good appreciation of the player and how it was mutually beneficial for them both when he was there. It is a bit of a remarkable story that someone can go from playing in the Third Division to being a standout and key player in an SPL team in a small number of months. The fact that he's young and Scottish just adds to it. Just a nice positive piece for once about one of our players. No more, no less.

I have to admit I clicked on the link on the official and almost immediately clicked straight back out again without having with any great enthusiasm for their cause also.

The wee guy Darryl we take to games (actually he's probably a foot taller than me now ) is in his last year on a Juvi season ticket and luckily he's at college now. Its some leap in price going from a £75 Juvi ticket or whatever it is to a full price one. The student ticket at least allows a sort half way house between the two. I like the concept of cheap Juvi season books and cheap entry at the turnstiles but the danger I suppose is that if you are used to those prices and suddenly you cannot afford the adult season book you'll, start to pick and choose and may eventually drift away because of cost.

Obviously a take on the Tevez thing but yeah, I like that. Doubt the council would be interested in but not to say the club couldn't use it some similar fashion.

Just read through the full thread after posting quickly earlier. To pick up on the Richie Foran stuff I just think its amusing how polarised opinion continues to be about him and how he continues to drag folk into debate/argument about him. We seem to have a section of our support who absolutely love him. We seem to have a section of our support who absolutely cannot stick him. We seem to have a section of our support who find it amazing that everybody doesn't rate him like they do. And we seem to have a section of our support who find it amazing that everybody doesn't think he's pish like they do. Is he really worth the debate he still generates now that he's gone? He's fast approaching the ever-occuring Stevie Woods/Club Shop Opening Hours/Dindeleux territory.

First and foremost happy to get through. Expected it to be tricky and it was - though a lot more trickier than it should have been really once we got ahead. In some respects I think that will have been more beneficial for Gannon seeing that than a comprehensive thumping. It will allow him to illustrate that that we can't be too complacement because we've had some good results and some clean-sheets. Not too bad a thing either for the likes of Jutkiewicz and McHugh to get a full ninety plus for example, though on that display its a bit jaw dropping that someone paid £1m for him I must admit. Will have been good for Gannon I think to see the character tested of the team a wee bit, the opportunity to see how they played against 10 men - whether they retained their composure or panicked and a good experience for a few of the team who might not have experienced that almost a "next goal's the winner" type scenario that you get in extra-time. As for the performance thought it was quite a disjointed set-up for much of the first half but when we got ahead I thought we looked prettty comfortable and even though we weren't going hammer and tongs for the killer second it was still a bit of a surprise when Inverness equalised. As Gannon has said as much in his post-match words though with only a single goal lead it was always a possibility. All things considered the main priority in these games are always to get through and we've done that. Job done really.

Your choice please....