Andy_P

Steelboy with a coaching staff of MJC, Dewell and Shaka surely the only natural choice for McCall's replacements no?

No he won't.

From the parts I saw of the game it was a pretty sickening defeat. Any loss is never good but you can bracket some differently. Last week's loss to Aberdeen, painful though it was to lose to them, isn't likely to have a huge bearing on any direct fight for places with them since they are likely to be top half and us bottom. Defeats however to the likes of Thistle, Dundee and St Johnstone who may be embroiled in the that bottom half however are doubly deflating given that each loss allows them to put that little bit more distance between us and them. On what I saw I felt we were good for a point last night, not unlike the St Johnstone game at Fir Park where they also nicked it late in the game. At times in that first half we did actually look pretty good, arguably as comfortable as in any game this season. McCall goes on ad infinitum about the importance of getting that first goal and having got it I thought we looked composed and were spraying it about well. The two goals conceded sadly just seemed in keeping with the style of goals we've been losing for much of the season. It was of course unfortunate that having been a great save away from being 2-0 up we are level and the early pantomime display in our box at the second, but there are an increasing number of occasions where teams are going from their box to ours in a matter of seconds with the minimum of opposition. I don't think last night, and even last week at Pittodrie was a million miles away from some of performances levels that got us results last season. The team is evidently weaker I think we can safely say, having seen the first full set of fixtures come and go. The margins in many games have remained fine however but things have changed. Clearly if teams had any fear of playing us before that's no longer the case now. Against that our team is much more fragile confidence wise, and appear less robust at dealing with adversity the way we seemed to do so in previous seasons. And whilst it could never be put forward as a major reasoning certainly the kind of good fortune that saw us benefit that from things like Inverness' effort rebound off the post in injury time at Fir Park in the penultimate game, or the Sutton challenge on Langfield going unpunished has been replaced with the kind of fortune that sees us hit the post and bar within about 5 seconds of one another, and sees our cumbersome defenders falling on their arse and conceding. Really all they can do is keep trying to build on the stuffyness they should at Aberdeen, the step up in creativity at Perth and hope that sooner or later it marries itself into a performance good enough to get a win to build on.

Your thoughts and votes please...

Since the letter is directed to ALL Motherwell FC supporters and friends I doubt I'm breaking any confidences by reproducing it here. In fact it can surely only be a positive for them in spreading the word further.......

I wouldn't worry about it, it's long since that the MOTM has been conducted with any great hint of seriousness on here, that said perhaps these four chaps might want to elaborate on why Josh got their vote. . What's that? I didn't tell you I was going to make this one a public vote and everyone can see exactly who voted for who, Tsk... silly me.....

Your thoughts and votes folks...

I can't quite remember whether it was the club AGM or a Well Society meeting, and whether that was just before or just after the end of the season, but whenever it was I was certainly left with the impression that the second place finish last season meant there would be no budget cut for this season.

Wasn't making any comparison with the current season. You stated you didn't remember Motherwell being completely shite for the first dozen matches of a season or whatever. Whilst I wouldn't disagree with much of what you say about that campaign what kind of description would you give to a season that takes you 17 matches to win your first game? I'm guessing when pressed most wouldn't folk's definition of such a start wouldn't be a million miles away from being "completely shite".

I remember under Tommy McLean it took us 17 games into a 36 game season, to win our first league game of the season in 1988'89. That was McLean's 5th full season in charge.

I find naming candidates to be a daft game.........particularly when there's one already in post and no hint that he's going to be removed from the position anytime soon.

That's exactly my point. With that in mind Is there is anything further to be gained by tie-ing yourself in further knots and trying to work out the worst case scenario in the Ross County game or counting up how many points Hamilton are ahead this week?

This Tommy McLean fella that's being eased into McCall's chair. Did a bloody good job didn't he? Won promotion, kept us up (with some good fortune in league reconstruction) won the Cup got us into Europe. Top stuff! But wait..... It kind of went a bit tits up after that didn't it. Utterly miserable season in 91'92 that saw some horrible defeats in local derbies, a very low placing in the league and deflating European exit. And the following season was even worse with us being detatched at the bottom of the table and fans protesting outside the ground. What would have happened if the board hadn't held their nerve and gave McLean their backing? What would have happened if we hadn't got that break against Falkirk with their daft Cockney goalie losing the plot that helped us get that confidence building result that inspired a fightback? You probably wouldn't have seen one of the finest Motherwell teams of a generation assembled over the next two or three seasons for a start. There's a lesson in there if you choose to look hard enough.

Or everyone of those various outcomes has a potential benefit to us. Draw = St Mirren only get a point ahead after playing the team at the bottom of the table and Ross County can't overtake us St Mirren win = Ross County can't overtake us Ross County win = Ross County probably still won't overtake us and if they do, St Mirren might even end up below us and will at worst remain on the same points as us. Going by the flood of negativity that's on the go at the moment I rather get the feeling we could go to Pittodrie, win 4-0 and within half an hour of full-time I'll be reading that it means nothing as it was only game wonder and someone will have defeat predicted for our next game. Honestly this constant searching for new ways to make things appear even worse than they are is really grating.

With the folks staying only around three quarters of an hour in-land from Aberdeen this was pencilled for a wee trip north sometime ago. I foresaw the potential for a change in kick off time but never gave any thought that they would pencil it in for the Friday night slot. So I'll be heading to Aberdeen all right .....first thing on Saturday morning. There is at least the consolation of being able to see the game on TV I suppose. In terms of actual player selection that remains to be seen but as regards formation we will surely line-up in much the same manner that we did on the two visits to Pittodrie last season and attempt to replicate the smash and grab tactics that proved to be successful. Clearly not to the same extent as ourselves but they've hardly hit the heights themselves this season and it's obviously irked their support that they haven't pushed on the way they expected to, so had things been different there may well have been some merit going for the jugular early on and attempting to add to that pressure. At the moment though we just don't appear to have the ability or belief to be able to do that, and even if we did, would we have the necessary within us to see out a winning position from early on? So I can only really see more of the same from our last visits. Take the same outcomes ofcourse

Reid's not been anywhere near the worst of our defenders this season. I'm comfortable enough with him in the squad. He's not the greatest player in the world but you will get 100% from him every time, he doesn't hide and you can get a decent shift out him in front of the defence as well as full-back.

In much the same way as our team forgot about defending, I forgot to post this earlier. Do your bidding.....

Direction of the club that's worth a whole thread in itself but going by what Derek Weir said in the past backed up by comments from the Well Society about a November deadline for reaching the next stage of funding, some time in the next month or so would appear to be the period where we begin to have some welcome clarity. Youth development? When did we restructure and go down the "Motherwell Academy" route at Braidhurst. I must confess I'm not so clued up as to the timeline of events and what the starting point was before that, but perhaps the groundwork there has already been put in place? Perhaps we are still some years away from it bearing fruit. I don't know. As for the bare bones of the question. For me the time isn't yet upon us for a club driven change of manager. Sometimes its harder to leave things as they are but sometimes that's for the best. His critics will quite rightly say that he wasn't able to remedy a similar slide at Bradford. My hope when he joined, and it would appear to have been borne out, until this season at least, was that he had learned from and been a better manager as a consequence of those experiences at Bradford. His critics will say with more than a little justification he has shown little evidence of learning from things that haven't gone his way at Motherwell - the hugely disspriting cup defeats for example - but again my hope would be that he learns from these current painful experiences and that somehow both club and manager come out of it stronger in the longer term as a result. We have players tied up on two year deals ofcourse but get through this and there remains a fair bit of scope for re-shaping the squad come the summer. At the moment though I don't think he's lost the dressing room. The quality has been utter shite on plenty of occasions, no question, but we haven't been chucking it in games. We were still chasing things when a couple of goals down against Accies, at Firhill and again today. Whilst they are still battling away, however grimly, and we aren't detached, there's a bit of life and hope there yet for me.

Sadly another case of shooting ourselves in the foot. It's getting to the stage that we are about as dangerous to ourselves than any of our opponents are. Don't get me wrong Dundee defended when they had to, got themselves ahead through a positive energetic start and were clinical when the opportunities came their way, but we didn't half make it easy for them. I don't imagine Clarkson would have needed any additional motivational but he fairly rammed that "not exactly what we are looking for" summary of his trial right down McCall's throat today. When said striker is able to score, get an assist and bring others into play as he did today you do wonder what exactly it is we are looking for in a striker. I thought it was fair response in all honesty to Clarkson's fine goal but as has often been the case when we've gone behind this season we've failed to take advantage of any territorial edge we've had, most certainly haven't been clinical enough and sooner or later our ever generous defence has made our task all the more difficult. It was much the same in the second half where we must have dominated possession, were camped in their half for long spells and then go and blow it with the third. Again fair play to them for sticking at it, at 3-0 down but the finishing and the quality that could have really seen us test Dundee's mettle towards the end just isn't there at the moment. As much as it was the case at the beginning of the season where teams identified we were suspect at shots from distance, so too they know that - since McCall regularly comments upon the importance of it - that if we don't get that first goal and have something to hold, there is a very good chance they'll be able to exploit our weaknesses when we have to chase the game. You could see it in the intensity that Dundee started with. I pray that the mystical spell we have over them at Pittodrie can continue next week, but with an Aberdeen team intent on settling scores from last season and the Accies result to redress I do have my concerns.

1-0 Motherwell John Sutton.

I thought I'd save this and give you all something enjoyable to do on your Sunday morning.....

Overall pretty disappointing stuff but yesterday illustrated again both the very fine margins between success and failure and the fragility of our confidence currently. Not much in it between the sides early on and if Ojamaa's effort goes in then you've a completely different complexion on the game and as a team who haven't been startling themselves then suddenly it's Thistle under pressure in front of a disgruntled home support and we get the lift. I expected the usual 15 minutes of pressure from us after half-time, before we generally get to that point where if we haven't scored if run out of ideas but I don't think we even got that yesterday before we were cut open for their second. It was out of the blue when we got back into it with Ainsworth's screamer and for the next 10 - 15 minutes we actually looked good bit like ourselves. We were dominating, had them hemmed in and it did actually seem like it was only a matter of time before we equalised. But inexplicably we then we shot ourselves in the foot with some utterly awful decision making and defending that left with a one-on-one from from almost the half way line. I see what McCall sees in some respects. Now of course it doesn't take away from the fact that he's the guy who has built the squad, picks the team and coaches them but he can do nothing about individual errors of judgement several of which have cost dearly of late. There is much work to be done, but I do still have faith we can turn the current situation around to an extent that we won't be sitting in the bottom two come the end of the season.

Ha ha I've been fine. Felt more sick in the aftermath of the last two games rather than that one at Parkhead truth be told!

Some of the chat on the Well Society is a little off the mark. Regardless of whether the eventual target sum is ever reached it has already proved itself of immense assistance to the club by virtue of a share purchase and an interest free loan. Even if it didn't raise another penny the importance of those funds being there ready, to assist the club when cashflow issues arise, cannot be understated. To call it a joke is pretty poor form really.

You've erased the memory of Albion Rovers already Personally I don't actually feel any worse because it was Hamilton dishing that out today than I would if it was Dundee Utd or Hibs. For their fans oh aye given they way they view us, obviously it's Christmas, birthday and finding your big brother's scuddy mag collection all in one go, but other than being a bit annoyed that it'll give them something to harp on about for the next 30 years it'll quickly get filed away in the memory bank and not thought of much again. What it does illustrate quite well though is that in my lifetime at least, despite being far and away the dominant side in the county in terms of size and achievement our derby results in general don't reflect that superiority. Even when we've played cup ties where we've been a division or two above the opposition we invariably find ourselves dragged down to their level, or they raise their game, however you want to view it. More hassle than they're worth!