Andy_P

Well your post, particularly when taken in the context of numerous previous posts about Hammell, give the impression of inferring something quite different then. Your points over an extended period about the merits of Stevie Hammell's inclusion in the team are certainly open to debate yet are often written with a frequency and tone that suggests you have something of an irrational dislike or agenda with him. And the more I see you attribute blame to him the less inclined I am take your criticism as valid and think of it as more of someone who will use any ammunition they can to justify a view. You couldn't even let the win over Dundee Utd pass during the week without a wee cloaked remark about his arrival in the 88th minute could you? So yes, when I see your name pop up my first thought rightly or wrongly is that there's a fair chance Stevie Hammell is going to be referred to at some point and you're not likely to be overly complimentary. See above.

Motherwell might be better placed but Kilmarnock has a capacity of something like 5000 in excess of Fir Park. An odd situation like we had a couple of years ago with three visits from Celtic in the one season; or even two visits that attract full houses, have the potential to really skew their average attendance when compared with their peers. There are just so many variables involved that plain figures just don't always tell the full story.

No, actually the remark was aimed at the Stevie Hammell Fan Club member above, whose eagerness in apportioning blame in Hammell's direction, deserved or otherwise, is becoming even more regular than shipping 90th minute goals.

Going back years I've always found Thistle a rather irritating lot. In fact one of the earliest fanzine articles I wrote for Waiting for the Great Leap Forward was bemoaning the easy ride they got from the likes of Radio Clyde. I've always had a fair amount of respect for their supporters as its clearly a good thing they've foregone supporting the Old Firm when they've got two large and generally successful clubs on their doorstep. But by fuck in making that choice it hasn't half given them a superiority complex. In trying to be seen as the righteous and morally just club in the city, to emphasise the difference between them and Old Firm fans, I find they can come across as rather full of their own self importance. I think they have undoubtedly benefited in the media over the years from the fact they are a "safe" Glasgow option who have offered an easy and covenient out. If they didn't happen to be in Glasgow frankly nobody would give a toss about them in the media the same way nobody in the media really gives a fuck about Motherwell, St Mirren, Killie or any of the other provincial diddy teams in the west of Scotland. That said when it comes to their pitch issues a little annoying as it is to see the inconsistency in how we were treated over postponements in comparison to theirs I gather there are some parallels of misfortune. Whereas we were apparently unlucky a few years ago in that the composition of the soil below pitch level was largely clay based which baked when the undersoil heating was used, so they've been unfortunate in that the location of their ground makes it extremely prone to waterlogging when there has been the volume rain we've experienced in recent months. Three points against them next weekend would make up for any easy ride they've got about their pitch.

Sometimes you only have to see a poster's name to know what's coming...

Your thoughts and votes please...

I think it can be difficult to quantity as much depends upon timing and circumstance. For example Dundee Utd coming to us for their first away game of the season on a Saturday with a 3pm kick-off is going to see a different volume of support to when they next come next month for a Friday night game, that's live on TV with them inching towards the First Division. Similarly although the number of Caley fans who came down for the Scottish Cup game recently at £15 a head was a good bit more than the hundred or so they brought for paying £22 or £23 for the league game in November. Just pointing out that sometimes you aren't always comparing like for like and things like that have to be taken into account when comparing crowds be that home, travelling or average crowds over a season.

Superb stuff Coolhandluc and ECOSSE1991. Many thanks!

Why? Did he applaud their goal...

Your thoughts and votes please folks...

Fullbacks you say.....

Need to get an early goal. McGhee teams of old. Go for the jugular early on. Dundee Utd fans are like weans who've have their sweets taken off them when things don't go their way. They'll doubtless spend much of today excitedly working out whether they'll win by three or four so get the early goal, sit back and enjoy their hissy fits before we seal the deal with a second. Maybe.

I didn't but he was reported to have been a candidate for the Kilmarnock job so it would have made sense for him to have been there assessing his potential new charges. I believe he was also at Dens Park during the week, again you would suspect assessing future opponents should he have got that Killie job.

I keep reading this stuff about McGhee giving Burrows a job. When did this happen exactly? When did Motherwell managers or any football managers for that matter become involved in the hiring of Press Officers or whatever the title of the day was? McGhee did no more than allow the guy some relatively close access to the team, after he had gone to Austria at his own expense, to watch their pre-season training programme and pre-season friendlies. If by virtue of the quality of the footage he sent back not to mention the other projects he did like the WTFC Forum and Motherwell database (including something like a back catalogue of around 300 player profiles with stats etc.) if he happened to bring his talents to the attention of Chief-Executive of the time fair fucking play to the guy. There is much you can beat him with but these ludicrous assumptions that A: McGhee got him a job and B: Eight years Burrows returned the favour is just absolute bullshit and should be put to bed as soon as possible.

Josh Law for me perhaps epitomises the nudging down in quality of the team in recent seasons. I believe he is one of the most honest and hard working players in our team. I also believe he gives us one of the most consistent level of performances from our players. The difficulty however is that his consistent level only rarely nudges above the very minimum level required for our current level, by that I mean lower end top flight, and when his performance level dips he looks out of his depth. There were many of that ilk in our squad. Some of them have been moved on recently, some of them remain. Some of them are hitting that same level as Law through a natural tailing off as time catches up whilst others you hope will grow and develop to surpass that level. Incredible as it seems given the sheer volume of incomings and outgoings there has been since that play-off game last season, a further large scale re-jigging of the squad is required in the summer. I only hope that when McGhee comes to do it we are rebuilding a team to re-launch a challenge on the top six and not a team to get us out of the Championship.

Don't like it? Dead easy. Don't open the thread. It's entitled Man of the Match, so you've a fair clue as to what's coming if you click on it. So don't vote. Don't comment on the thread. Just pretend it isn't there and toddle along blissfully to the next thread if you deem it to be so stupid. We do it because a number of posters like voting and like commenting on it, even if it is simply to say there is no one deserving of it. No more, no less.

Given the very audible frustration (bordering on the venomous at times) at Fir Park in the last couple of weeks, it may be no bad thing we are playing away in midweek without the "pressure" of a crowd who if not exactly ready to turn on them are increasingly lacking in patience before voicing their opinions.

Your thoughts and votes please...

I generally try to take a positive view when it comes to the team and try to take something, however small from a game, but what can you take from that? In just a few short weeks we've gone from appearing to be a competent side on an excellent run culminating in the manager getting the Manager of the Month award to a side who currently looked doomed, a manager who is increasingly alienating himself from supporters (and who knows perhaps the players too) and in recent games has given the impression he'd rather attempt to prove himself right and others wrong rather than give the team the best chance of winning. This is in danger of turning very very messy indeed. We're by no means marooned in eleventh. There is plenty of time to sort it out. But by fuck, we're teetering on the brink of the walls caving in on us. I've been happy enough, even in recent games when the results have gone against us, that we haven't been that far off. We haven't been a million miles away. We regressed considerably and worryingly today. I think back to when McGhee was supposedly sussing out the squad such as the last game at Killie. Even then despite his "experimentation" we had organisation, direction and a clear sense of purpose about us. There was none of that today. When the line up was announced it smacked to me of stubbornness. What I would say is that on paper it appeared to me that if we were going to go the same formation as last week then at least with two out-and-out wingers they might perhaps be able to feed and support McDonald. Never happened. We were fortunate to go in level at the break with Ripley having made a couple of excellent saves and several routine ones. By contrast the best we could muster was an attempted cross from Johnson and wild, loopy deflected effort. Poor. I wouldn't say that Killie scored completely against the run of play when they got their first but we had at least attempted to take the game to them and by that stage I wasn't actually that worried about the thread they were posing. Silly me. But they got a lift whereas we just went into our shell and they cut us to ribbons with their second. Lots of huffing and puffing thereafter with little or no threat bar Johnson hitting the side netting and Moult hitting the bar when it would have been irrelevant scoring at that stage anyway. Desperately disappointing and worrying stuff all things considered. Dundee Utd will be smelling blood.

*** Before a (temporarily visiting) troll tried to de-rail it last weekend Neil had opened a thread which sparked a dozen or so posts discussing McGhee. I've added them into this thread ***

I'll miss the pantomime his presence usually brings. He has occasionally been the spark that is sometimes needed to bring a crowd/game to life. And if it increases the chances of that Obedayi guy getting a game to me it's questionable whether it's such a good thing.

Aye, I can't really see the need to disclose that in all honesty. OK, if you go for someone and they sign a deal for someone and won't be on your radar any time soon then fair enough there's an argument to be had for "leaking" that you were keen. I remember McCall doing the same with, oddly enough, another Dundee Utd striker (Bilate?) ended up scoring a winner against us. It's not beyond the realms that Higgy remains unattached to the summer or might still be in McGhee's thoughts for a pre-contract. Publicly stating that you were keen and only rules held you back could either alert someone else to move in fast or encourage his agent to add an extra couple of hundred quid on to his demands. Better just keeping schtum in my view.

I've watched back the full games a few times but the footage I love most are a couple of videos of Ainsworth's goal that came from the Rangers end. I have watched these again and again delighting in the shock and utter disbelief from the cretins around the people filming the goals. "Yuv loast it Ranjurs" Indeed you have. Indeed you have!!

Probably by some one who read the post that someone posted on here two or three days ago! Two threads now? It'll in the daily's gossip section by the end of the week. EDIT: Should add the posters subsequently stated what they'd been told was "shite".

That's kind of my point. If you blame us then by extension the police are also culpable to an extent since we will have been guided by them. The difference is ofcourse we'll take the flak and the blame and they'll keep quiet and when the time is right use it as an opportunity to nudge up their budget.