Andy_P

The thought strikes me with a number of people suggesting they are now interested in joining or re-commence contributing towards the 'Well Society funds, should we - as in Steelmen Online - should consider also? If you are relatively new to the boards you may or may not be aware that the good folk of this forum donated sufficient funds for us to get a Claret Level 'Well Society membership (£1500) and if my memory serves me rightly enough for the first years renewal. We took a view thereafter that when it became clear the £150 wasn't going to top up funds but going towards benefits that, in all honesty few were remotely interested in, we would call it quits at that. Important to point out things have changed. Back then the attraction, for me at least, was that a SO enabled me to chip in at a point where I couldn't commit to the £300 up front. We can all now sign up for as little a fiver a month now. So is there an appetite for considering opening things up for donations? Or are things best left as they are and leave people to choose on whether they want to get involved with or renew personal subscriptions? Views?

I'm not so sure Aberdeen would have much of a say in it in all honesty. The application would require to be made to the SPFL and justification made as to why - presumably comprising of reports, certificates, documentation etc. from the club doctor. It would then be for whatever committee would deal with such a thing at the SPFL to consider the request and decide what course of action best toprotect the integrity of the competition [code: how confident Peter Lawell is of Celtic winning the league] Removing Motherwell from the equation its always going to be a tricky decision. When you think that games can be postponed for much smaller numbers for international call ups then you might think a request on the grounds of mass illness would be looked at favourably. But then the counter argument could easily be this is why you have a thirty or so players registered at the clubs, to cover such eventualities. The upside is that we would already appear to have the money in the bank from a big chunk of the travelling Dons but clearly the hope is we have a sufficient number recover that are able to eek out a favourable result come Saturday.

Well, if making the observation that there was disproportionate level of focus from the media on an incident that the referee saw but chose to not to take any action, whilst others of a similar or even more blatant nature went largely without reference by the same media folk; and pondering the reasons for that makes me as paranoid as your average Old Firm then that's a charge I suppose I'm just going to have to live with.

Taking the reigns as it were the onus is on the 'Well Society to now communicate as quickly and as comprehensively as they possibly can to make clear what position we are at at present, where we need to get to and how quickly in ensuring the club is in a stable position. There can be no two month period of radio silence under the guise of negotiation on this one. The state of play has to be made known as a priority.

Noticed a tweet suggesting they've sold 1500 tickets on the first day of sale for Saturday. The more the merrier. Only too happy for 3000 plus visiting fans to help swell the coffers.

One element to the "campaign" to have McDonald charged that has raised my eyebrows a little is the fact that he's a big part of the very group that are pushing for him to be punished. We all know how how the Scottish media works and once you've entered the circle as it were the level of scrutiny and manner in how you are approached can vary markedly from those on the outside. Yet this is one of their own, a guy who is regularly among them as a summariser, they are setting up for a fall. Interesting.

I remember Leitch being involved in that game at Pittodrie, a couple of years back. Not much more of a final hurdle than that! But I tend to agree with Melvin here, the positive is that with some excellent recent results we probably could afford to view the Aberdeen game as a free shot and try something different within the constraints of the existing squad without it costing us too much. There remains both personnel and tactical choices within the group even if all those players who went off, not to mention Laing, don't make it.

We would clearly want to have Lasley, Pearson, Law and McDonald all available for selection for next Saturday but depending upon how many make it, the positive is that it may present someone else with an opportunity. I found the re-shuffle McGhee made when Lasley went off very interesting. My first thought when Las was struggling that it would be Kennedy on with Law moving into central midfield. Nope! Then when Thomas surprisingly, in my eyes at least, got the nod I then thought it would be a case of Cadden in the middle along with Gomis with Johnson and Thomas on either wing. Again, nope! It was perhaps another of McGhee's tactical gambles that had it bombed I suspect we might have been reading more of today, but it worked out so it's perhaps gone under radar a bit, but whilst in retrospect McDonald going deep isn't that much of a surprise Johnson upfront was - particularly in light of how he got on at Firhill. The conclusion to that long winded point perhaps is that with the new found trust in Cadden, perhaps Thomas to a lesser extent, and with others like McFadden, Leitch and Ainsworth to be considered also, even with those injuries there are enough bodies and flexibility within those players for us to come up with a line up that could give Aberdeen a game.

Perhaps even more amazing is that we aren't actually that far away from achieving many of the objectives set pre-season. It can change dramatically between now and the end of the season of course but if when we kicked off you were told we'd significantly improve our points tally on the previous campaign, have a top half finish/be comfortably clear of the play-offs, have two or three youngsters establish themselves in the first team, have one of the new strikers (bearing in mind what they were replacing) be on the verge of 20 goals and have the youth team make significant strides; barring making a better fist of it in the Cups then most of us I imagine would have been very happy with that indeed.

A very satisfying evening indeed. It is something we can be accused of on occasion but I thought we showed tremendous character to get the win. United started as expected and were ripping us to shreds when they poured forward at pace, but had that chance from McDonald gone in that the keeper saved on the line it might have unnerved them. As it was we had to win it the hard way. Fine goal by Anier. Not prolific but he always had a goal in him in his spell here and seems to be doing similar at last with Utd. But a great time for us to level and when you score through a Marvin Johnson header, well, perhaps you know it's going to be your night. I thought the goal completely spooked Dundee Utd. They were never at the same level in the second half. We got the bit between our teeth and deservedly went ahead. By this point they had manage to destroy our central midfield inside an hour which made the getting in front and holding out as well as we did even more creditable. Sure he had to pluck the ball out of the air a couple of times but did Ripley have a save to make in that second half? Lots of good passages of play, some fine performances and great endeavour from all. The challenge is for them to continue to show the same level of intensity in the remaining three games to try to finish in the top half, and ensure we can't get dragged back into it, but there is no question players and management have done magnificently to get nine of nine from our last three games.

Your thoughts and votes please...

I noticed Flow hinting at some hoped for good news the other day on Twitter and the first thought that was that may be contract extensions for someone. And this certainly fits the bill of good news. I think Cadden had something like a dozen "appearances" under his belt for he got the opportunity after the Hearts debacle. And given the point in the game in many of those matches he came on many of them were exactly just appearances. It does illustrate that if there is something in a youngster then it is surely in our interests to give them a sustained run of games to be able to show what they can do at first team level. I've generally accepted the view that if there's something major at stake you go with experience and add the young guys where you can, but when you think if we can somehow integrate the likes of Hall and Cadden into teams when we've had a relegation/play-off place battle on the go, then you have to think we should be able to continue to give guys their chance as hopefully turn things around and begin to progress to better things again. But aye, excellent news and well deserved on Cadden's part.

I've seen another photo where the line of stewards looks even more prominent but I've always thought this was a great image of that afternoon.... In terms of our statement today, regardless of the fact it's only being pursued because of who we beat that day the club have come up with a measured and reasonable response. There are times when you just have to play politics, do and say what they want you to say to help move on and unfortunately this one of them.

Your thoughts and votes please...

Craigan was signed by Alex McLeish and made his first few appearances under him and Martin was here until Kampman's cull of the veterans so not inconceivable that he would have played with Brian Martin at some point. But Kevin Christie, aye..... from pinging pin point accurrate 40 yard cross field passes with ease one minute to being unable to find a team-mate four feet away the next.

Aye but with loads of folk running about with FHW face painted on them and shouting it aloud, your spirit and influence certainly was!

We hadn't won at Parkhead since Mark McGhee last managed the feat in his last spell and we've not won at New Douglas Park since he lead us to victory there in 2009. I've just about exhausted the list of justifiable footballing reasons over past fixtures there as to why we were going to win so fuck it one of those daft cyclical quirks that make no sense but happen from time to time in fitba will do this time.

I thought there were one or two nods to the safety first element McGhee referred to in his presser during the week, the lack of change among them. I could have seen him doing one possibly two like-for-like changes in the last 10 minutes to break things up a bit but the minute they scored that went out the window. There have obviously been the Robinson and Ainsworth changes in the last few minutes where we've went on and lost goals but there have been a couple of other occasions where the change has only served to hand the initiative to the opposition and I think he wanted to avoid that yesterday. As it was their goal from nowhere did that of its own accord. It was also noticeable, painfully so at times, that there no chances being taken in the first half especially with the ball being thrown out to the defenders to build from deep. It was very clear at times that everyone was pushing right up and the only tactic for distribution was Ripley kicking it as far up the park as he could.

I can't remember the opposition, something makes me think it might have Partick, but it was in the run to his testimonial against Ipswich and was an attempt to get a bit of publicity for that. The motorbike angle presumably came from Alan Dick who was, and might still even be, involved with Glasgow Tigers speedway. Andy Russell would have been turning in his grave at the prospect of a bike speeding round the track inches from his beloved Fir Park turf!

A welcome and deserved three points. The better team for the most part I felt and our three goals, or at least the build up to the penalty award if you're being picky, had a good bit of quality about them. I thought the game was going nowhere fast until we got in front. We'd had a decent bit of success down the right with Johnson and Cadden both wriggling along the touchline and putting in very inviting crosses that went abegging but Johnson's shot aside it was pretty turgid stuff. A fine bit of interplay involving some of the more maligned senior players of late to get to the point where Lasley was clipped. Excellent penalty from Moult against a keeper who I think has saved a couple of Motherwell penalties in his time. There was little in the way of a response from Thistle and we continued to take the game to them in the second half. The second goal again was very easy on the eye and really well worked from Cadden's quick throw in to Moult's cracking finish. The third again another fine finish. Had one of those chances gone in from the double save Cerny made who knows how it might have ended up as Thistle were offering absolutely nothing and we were totally in control. As ever Motherwell being Motherwell we had to make a little more difficult than it needed to be and the tension in the air was very evident when they got a goal back. Still we saw it out pretty comfortably and have to be very happy with our return and afternoon's work. Again it is but just three points but it puts us in a good frame of mind for going to Hamilton next weekend.

Your thoughts and votes please...

I only saw about 10 minutes of the game here and there but noticed Craigan and McDonald and the camera panning in on McGhee and Robinson. Almost as many with a Motherwell connection at the game as Accies fans! But you do hope he's fit as he's been on a pretty decent goalscoring run since the turn of the year. If he can keep that up, allied to what is hopefully a return to goalscoring form from Louis Moult, then that can only be beneficial for us.

Rarely fail to jinx it don't you UBH!

How did Fagan find out?

I'd say there was - up until Tynecastle. There were some experiments if you want to call them that against Celtic in his first game and away to Ross County for example that just didn't come off but there was an immediate progression through the structure and organisation that he'd put in place that enabled us to go to places like Pittodrie, Rugby Park and Celtic Park and put in very disciplined displays whilst still having something of an attacking threat. In matches against the likes of Dundee, St Johnstone and Cove at home we were slowly nudging towards the McGhee sides of old that had the cigars and brandy ready in the dressing room at half-time because the points were in the bag because the opposition had been taken care in the first half. But Tynecastle, and the departure of Grimshaw who it seems brought the all important balance the team needs to function at its best, has spooked us totally. Any air of belief and invincibility that had been building was completely blown away in the capital and its little surprise that we've shown such mental frailty in the aftermath of that game. That's not to say that confidence and belief cannot be rebuilt and those results of December returned to, but when obliterated in such a fashion and then added to by so many goals conceded at the death of games there is a huge task for McGhee and his coaching staff to get the team back to that point.