weeyin

I think you're right. I'm normally in favour of the white shorts, but this year's top has so much going on it looks better with the amber.

3 for Killie. The rest for Oldco.

From Twitter, seems like we were good going forward, but gave away soft goals.

Get in there.

McCall said it's "horses for courses" this season, so it could be tactical.

Looks a good player. (Celtic fans must be worried about how he will be out to prove a point next time they meet).

With all the fear about Lawless, maybe we should have signed a couple of Partick Thistle rejects to guarantee ourselves a win.

McCall said in his latest MFC TV interview that a few of his targets haven't worked out for various reasons but the budget is there and he is definitely going to bring in a winger.

When you aren't playing well, not getting beat is where you need to start.

I don't disagree, but good teams are built from the back. The goals we gave away to ICT and Aberdeen were pretty soft (not to mention our European efforts). Of course, the lack of cutting edge means we are more reliant on good defending, but if we are only going to score one (or none) then the defence needs to step up until we get our attacking sorted out.

Historically, always a bit of a bogey team, but their style should give us a chance to play some football. If we can cut out the stupid mistakes we should be able to get a win here.

Of course we don't want to go down that path, but given the turnover in personnel it was likely we'd be looking around mid-table this season. I'm hoping we can bring in the one player McCall (and the fans) are crying out for, plus maybe add a little in the next window, but there wasn't much chance of us replicating last season right out of the traps.

Exactly. I'm not sure what some fans were expecting this season, but having just ripped the core out one of the best Motherwell teams in memory (a team that took 3 managers, 4 years to build), anything better than mid-table this season will be an achievement. Last year, if we gave away a goal, we had the confidence and the fire power to score a couple in response. Right now, we don't have that, so our mistakes are costing us dearly. It's early days though and the only way to find the best formation and get the players used to it is to grind it out on a match day. It took McCall a number of games to get the best out of Higgy, Murphy, Ojamaa etc. and it won't be any different this time around. This season, however, is more likely to look like the Gannon/Brown season than hit the heights of the last one. Rebuilding doesn't happen over night.

Fair enough. A bit more settled than I thought. Still think we will sneak this one though.

I'm not quite up to speed with all their transfer dealings, but I thought they brought in about 11 new players? EDIT: in fact here's the list - - Norwegian forward Torbjorn Agdestein on a free transfer from Brighton; - English defender Carl Tremarco on a free transfer from Macclesfield; - English goalkeeper Nick Draper on a free transfer from Lincoln City; - English goalkeeper Dean Brill on loan from Luton Town; -Irish midfielder Adam Evans on a free transfer from Burnley; - English midfielder Ben Greenhalgh on a free transfer from Maidstone United; - North Ireland forward Curtis Allen on a free transfer from Coleraine; - English forward Danny Williams from Kendal Town; - English defender Harry Hooman on a free transfer from Cheltenham; - English midfielder James Vincent on a free transfer from Kidderminster; - Irish defender Joe Gorman on a free transfer from Crewe; - English midfielder Marley Watkins on a free transfer from Hereford.

The Board had anticipated the shortfall so presumably budget accordingly to approximately break even again.

You call it a knock forward to beat the offside trap, I call it a sweet reverse pass to the supporting striker. For me, the long ball game is big punts into the box for a tall striker. I know we have drifted into that (especially when the players get tired and look for a lazy option), but if that had been Faddy rather than Sutton that hit that assist, there would have been people on here creaming themselves about his spark and talent to unlock defences.

Did you see our goal against Aberdeen? McCall has shown he likes to keep it on the deck and play a bit of football, so I think that will come in time. Regardless though, I think we match up OK against ICT and will pull a win out of the bag.

We're one point ahead of where we were this time last season and we're going to win this game to keep us ahead of last season's start.

Didn't we beat Killie away last week?

Total agreement with this. Even by our standards, the impatience and panic shown by some is pretty amazing 2 games into the league season. Last year's team was a team that took 4 years (and 3 managers) to build and peak. It started after the last major exodus of players requiring Gannon to rebuild. We finished 5th during that first season of rebuilding and to repeat that season would be a decent return. Any team at any level would take time for so many new players to gel, and even if the management had an idea of the best formation when he signed the new recruits, it's not until they all get on the park that he can see what does and doesn't work. What we have now is not close to a finished product - it's the starting point for a new one. It looks like there will be one more addition before the window closes, but no doubt there will be some tweaking during the next window too. Plus, we should be looking to blood some of the younger players as circumstances permit. Anyone that had expectations of us starting the season as favourites or contenders for 2nd spot this season must be new to the game. If we can get into the top 6 this time around that will have been a decent a achievement given our constraints. We may be lucky enough to hit the heights of last season some time in the future, but it's not going to happen the year after we lose 7 of our first team squad. This is a transition season. So a wee bit of perspective will go a long way. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

We managed to finish in 2nd place without his contributions so it's difficult to argue against the decision - particularly when we have Erwin and Moore waiting in the wings. Would you have ditched either of those in preference to keeping Lawless? I have no doubt he's a decent player, but he had to drop down a division to get a game when he left us. Likewise for Wee Higgy - would you prefer we signed him up for a couple of years or spent the money on a pacey replacement for Humphrey? Again, a decent player, but not what we are looking for in the current squad.

From the BBC: "City manager Phil Parkinson said Kozluk would provide useful cover in the absence of regular right-back Simon Ramsden, out with a broken toe."

Using the "Hollis Error Equation" does that mean McManus should be dropped because of his O.G.?

That's true. I remember being scunnered in the First Division when baldy Dave Smith and his Berwick Rangers team used to park the bus at Fir Park and we couldn't beat them.