weeyin

I read somewhere that Bohemians might not be able to play their quarter final until early 2019, so even if we win ours, Turnbull could establish himself as a first team regular before the next tie.

Robinson doesn't like us playing passes.

Exactly. And to be fair, it's pretty standard for most clubs. The number of youngsters who play well in the youth teams but fail to make the grade at senior level s very high. For example, we have the team captain from Manchester Utd's academy sitting on the bench most weeks.

Main has been rank rotten all season. He hides for portions of the games, his timing of jumps is miles off (just watch him), and he hits the easiest of chances into the crowd. He doesn't need a partner - he needs a run in the Reserves to get his confidence back. Johnson looks much more of a natural goal scorer than Main, and more likely to score at the moment - or at least more likely to score when we actually create chances. It's telling that Robinson has stopped quoting his favourite "crosses into the box" stat recently, because we are creating next to nothing.

Dunne is fine at left back if we decide to go that way.

I said at the time we shouldn't have signed Aldred. Great back up for Hartley, but didn't seem to be a good partner for the reasons you mentioned. I had hoped w'ed either give Maguire (or Mbulu) a run or at least bring in someone with a bit of pace to replace Kipre. We have given away far too many soft goals this season and don't look like scoring many - especially when Main is playing. Defending and scoring - two fundamental parts of the game.

Don't want to keep banging on about a particular player, but Main needs to be benched for a while. He hasn't looked confident since the League Cup groups and any chance he does get puts the fans in danger.

Be careful what you wish for. Dundee just tried that and their "new manager bounce" saw them hammered at Livi.

We're still useless in front of goal, unfortunately. 1 shot on target is never going to get it done.

Who saw that one coming?

Main misses again - Johnson would have scored that one (or at least have hit the target).

Not much. Stoppage for a bloody nose. St Johnstone parking the bus and relying on Watt for the counter.

Main contributed nothing against Livi. He hid for 90 minutes, so we didn't have an out ball and his timing of jumps was so poor he'd be back on the ground as the ball passed over him. So apart from doing nothing off the ball and nothing on the ball, aye - let's keep him in.

Is that a back 4? Or is ATS playing in midfield? Dunne, Hartley, Aldred, ATS might be OK. Wouldn't have Main near a starting position right now - he's miles off the pace.

I think a couple of factors were in play. First, we ended up with decent players, but that took a number of years to happen. There did seem to be quite a gap in quality between the SPL and the First Division in those days, and the team that won us promotion was a fair bit short of SPL standards. So you are probably correct that the league was also stronger in general. Secondly, the cup final win defintely helped erase a lot of the bad memories from earlier in McLean's Motherwell career. The first few years were definitely pretty poor. I remember those in particular as I was a student during the first half of McLean's tenure and bought a season ticket for the East Terrace with the proceeds from a summer job. The second half of McLean's tenure, I had moved down south for work, so didn't get to enjoy the improvements as much first hand - although I did, of course, make it home for the Cup Final.

Hope he didn't show his face at the Cup Final.

Aye, I meant his first season in charge at the SPFL. The "devalue" argument doesn't hold water for me. No relegation meant no pressure to win games, but we were just awful that season reagrdless. McLean's SPL record was: 9th from 10 (bottom 2 relegated - saved by reconstruction) 8th from 12 8th from 12 9th from 10 (only 1 relegated that season) 6th from 10 6th from 10 10th from 12 9th from 12 3rd from 12 Great last season, great Cup win obviously, but plenty of bottom half league finishes and a few relegation dogfights. First 4 years in particular were spectacularly unspectacular. But certainly not an unusual run of league form for us.

Donnelly and Cadden are the young guns.

Agree with the points above. When Robinson took over he had a big task on his hands. We needed to shore up a leaky defence, avoid relegation and rebuild an entire team in the summer. He achieved all of those and gave us (and himself) the platform to build from. We are now firmly in phase two, and for me, that should involve tweaking key positions in the team to add a little bit of quality and variation. To some extent it parallels what Tommy McLean had to do the season he took over. Having said that, the only reason McLean was successful was because when we finished bottom of the table, the league's reconstruction saved us from relegation. It took him a number of years to build the team that won the Cup and he was able to sign guys like Bobby Russell and Davie Cooper along the way - but you could see he had a plan. Well, some of us could see that - others were demanding his sacking early on in his tenure. I doubt Robinson wil be given the same amount of time or money wee Tommy had, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to see incremental improvements here and there. Like ONeils40yarder, I'm not delighted we are near the bottom of the table, but it's a situation I have experienced much more often than sitting in the top 3 or 4. What I would like to see is a little more football. I have been a critic of the "having to earn the right to play football" approach since day 1. I understand the need to impose yourself on a game, and the fact that games open up in the 2md half. However, for me that doesn't preclude imposing yourself by passing the opposition of the park and sitting in their half of the park. I'm not sure we have the players to do that right now, but we surely have the players to play more attractive football than we did against Livi. It wasn't until Bigi came on that we actually had a player who managed to make passes to his team mates.

If we're not capable of competing with Dundee, Accies and St. Mirren - regardless of who is managing them - we deserve to be relegated.

I'd rather be where we are than where Ross County are.

When teams hit a poor run of form, there are always rumblings - usually from players trying to abdicate responsibility for not playing well. Suddenly they are all world beaters who'd be winning league titles if they were just given the chance. (And, of course, managers have players - and types of players - they prefer. That's why different teams play different formations and tactics).

Likewise. He's said himself it was a big leap to try and adapt to a wing back role, but he's still one of the few players we have that offer an out ball, and can hit the byline for a cross.

You have to be good at something when your parents call you "Broque" - seems to have been doing well recently.

I'd assumed it was because Robinson had reverted to grinders in the midfield as he tries to "restablish our identity as a club", but that's just a guess on my part.