Andy_P

True, but what percentage of attacks went down the left hand side after he came on? About one in ten at best. And after Sammon and Bowman came on virtually ball launched forward was to their heads, down the right. Another assist though.

Your thoughts and votes please...

First league goal.....check First league point.....check First league win........

Your thoughts and votes please...

Presumably the comments attributed to Hartley would have come from the club's press-conference and a variety of loaded questions will undoubtedly have been asked about last season from journalists, many of whom would only be interested in getting a line rather than the club's best interests. I would like to think our captain would have been smart enough not to give them that line and to end up where we are with some of the quotes attributed to him doing nothing much at all to paint us in a positive light. I can see there being an opportunity to highlight some of incidents we were on the receiving end of in the Semi Final if it came up. I can see it being an opportunity to ask the media where their interest in Ryan Bowman has been in the last month when's he's been injured after an onfield assault that was arguably more severe and damaging than the bloody nose Cardoso got. I can't see any good coming from making statements about enjoying seeing fellow players weep after an injury though.

A first domestic defeat for Steven Gerrard you say? Don't mind if I do...

Call me stupid and all but I'm just hoping he has another couple of goals to his name by the time we play Hearts. Sent from my Wileyfox Swift using Tapatalk

From the Motherwell Twitter account...

I very much suspect you're right there for more than one reason. Aside from the fact Robinson generally goes with those he trusts it would be quite bold to go with them both from the start against Rangers given the oft said "win the right to play" mantra. But on the basis of yesterday it's now presented itself a viable option when we do need some variance whether chasing a game or against a side more of our ilk.

An open and entertaining Cup tie that happily we managed get through with a few positives along the way. It was fairly encouraging stuff, first half at least. I'm a little surprised to some remarks about the balance not being right. Not perfect but to me it actually appeared as balanced a line up as we've had in a while. The defence appeared fairly well tuned with Hartley in particular looking a bit more like his old self with that old mixture of appropriately timed aggression and positional sense being more evident than it has been thus far. And even after he went off the longer the game went on it was pleasing how less and less Livingston were able to trouble Carson. Whether by accident or design having two "footballers" in the middle of the park in Bigi and Alex made such a positive difference. That additional player in the middle that is primarily there to create rather than nulify to me gave us a much better balanced side. They aren't going to be making defence splitting passes every five minutes but just that ability to show a little composure on the ball, recycling it along the deck to a team-mate to retain possession and build again rather than a panicky long ball makes such a fundamental difference in how we play. It could be argued of course that Robinson already views Cadden as one of those two creative types but it remains up for debate how effective he is in that role. And up front it was not only great to see Johnson get on the scoresheet but that Main was involved in the build up was equally encouraging. Things did drop off a fair bit in the second half though and the longer the game went on the more we seemed to revert to type but I think on the back on what's gone before this season I've a good deal more optimism than I had beforehand.

Your thoughts and votes please...

Absolutely. When you've just sold McFadden and Pearson for example there is a raised expectation level that those who immediately follow will be both equally as good and generate similar financial returns. Of course that is unlikely to happen but you're spot on that there is much to be said for the "middle-of-road" player who comes through the ranks and gives you a few years service and fifty/seventy-five/ a hundred plus appearances before someone better comes along or they move on. Home grown players of a decent standard don't just bring a financial benefit.

I would be surprised if they went £24 for the Cup game. I would guess between them they'll come up with something around the £15-£20 mark.

I think this has been a good debate also. I think there are people who made their minds up about Robinson within days of his appointment, perhaps even beforehand and no matter what he presides over it is never going to be enough. We will never have a perfect squad balance because it will always too little or many few of this or that position. Why are we signing English players when there are Scots around? Why are we signing overpriced Scots when there are bargains elsewhere? Why are we playing too many or not enough youths because the results aren't what I demand? The recent attempts to play down the runs to both Cup Finals because we happened to benefit from an own goal or a penalty along the way is typical of of such cringe worthy stuff for example. Jesus, this is the kind of stuff you expect opposition fans to be hitting you with not your own! In short he's never going to win with some, whatever he does will be always be wrong and comments from such posters should be viewed in that context. But the debate about style of play and the results is definitely worthy of the scrutiny it's currently getting. And the more edgy people get the more focus it's going to receive. I was delighted with last season and the outcomes. An improvement on league position and two Cup Finals is not to be sniffed at even if the performances were less than silky more often than not. Go on to any forum in the country and you'll see supporters make claims about forgiving results and performances if they see a committed team giving 100% for the cause. Well we got that, many of us quietly enjoyed the fact we were no longer viewed as pushovers, and some and we had some very good days along the way to boot. But as with any "new" style or identity that a team adopts in Scotland (I think back to Billy Davies for example and his swashbuckling four attacking front men lining up with the likes of Twaddle-Spencer-Goodman-Townsley) and they get sussed all too quickly. Robinsons' side is no different. The nature of the small league with repetitive nature of the fixtures means you can't keep a style a secret for long and variations verging on evolution in style, not to mention alternatives, are required before you become overly predictable. There is also the fact that if the bulk of the squad are hearing the same message over and over again and again it is only natural the group will switch off and the message will lose its impact over time. It's still early days in the season but I think there is a danger that it could be happening now. I had hoped that the summer would have seen a gradual shift to something more easy on the eye. It hasn't emerged as yet but I retain a hope, perhaps an increasingly foolhardy hope admittedly, that an evolution in our style of play does remain possible. We do have players that enable us to play a more possession based game. I don't want to pitch a 19 or 20 year old as the saviour of season but it's difficult to think back to David Turnbull at Firhill and against Hamilton and not think that the way his plays the game would not be of benefit to us currently. Even if Robinson continued with his (and I still say not unreasonable) desire of putting balls into the box from wide, the presence of Turnbull in distributing the ball around the pitch in his tidy and efficient manner would surely help those in the wide positions get more deliveries of a type that will cause problems rather than the increasingly visionless hit and hope balls into the box. Add in Tanner who was as good as he had been in his Motherwell career before his injury struck, Bigi on his day and Rodriguez-Gorrin when he gets up to speed and there is some hope of more creative blend. Quite what position we'll be in when Tanner returns I don't know but whether we persist with the current set up or begin to deviate from Plan A a bit more over the following games I hope things change for the better quickly, or perhaps there genuinely will be a question for those on the board to consider a lot sooner than they might have believed possible.

Your thoughts and votes please...

PATG available I believe. Sent from my Wileyfox Swift using Tapatalk

This is also true!

Not fussed how. Not fussed by how many. Just get it won!

Your thoughts and votes please...

I think the key word in there is continually. Your aspirations don't seem unreasonable at all but put in the context of a club that still owes money to two former owners then until we have them paid off and become debt free, or at least its at a level that's easily manageable, then think I think the existing model remains. Once we reach that point perhaps we may see the model change slightly and see some loosening of the purse strings to attract more "complete" players.

If the club were to come out with big bold public statements about what they were going to do and then it didn't happen there would be folk queuing up to slaughter them. Okay for some that wouldn't be much different to what they do when things were going well but better to keep your targets in house and give the safe answer when asked in public. I'd wager in many cases they aren't the same but both Burrows and Robinson are quite correct, no matter how dull it might appear, first and foremost our primary aim should be to ensure a place in the top flight for the following season.

I tend to think there's been definite improvement in how we've handled transfers of our players. It's not so very long we were in the position of being desperate to sell a player in the January window to help us through to the end of the season. We've come a good way since then and they generally go much closer to our terms these days. It matters not a jot how rich English clubs. It matters what they are prepared to pay for our players. From many of the reports it seems that there's a sensible balance between gaining a decent fee with clauses built in to generate additional returns further down the line. The commitment to players like Kipre, Moult, Heneghan and Johnson that you come to Motherwell, progress and get a step up has been honoured and the process begins again hopefully with whoever next comes in. It's unfortunate timing but the transfer model has worked perfectly.

Also have to refresh on occasion. Oddly I don't see the player images when on Firefox either. I wondered what one of the club tweets was on about when mentioning life size photos of the players in the player profiles. I have to refresh to see them on Firefox otherwise I just have a curious big white space.

Along similar lines some talk when Elliott signed was that there were only two churches on the mainland of the church to which he belonged. Oddly enough one in Motherwell and one in Hull.

And so it begins... Perhaps too soon? Lots of negatives about readiness, fitness and suspensions. On the positive Hibs will be taking us on fresh from charging about in 35 degree heat or so in Greece the Thursday before.