Ya Bezzer!

We've competed very well tonight, I won't say anything about the penalty until I see a replay, but 3 wins in 19 against the Top 6 isn't good. Off the top of my head I think we won 7 last season and we didn't even make the Top 6 so that was in less matches. We've been on the end of some very poor refereeing decisions recently but at the end of the day you still have to find a way to win. Also on a 1 win in 9 run right now. Feeling pretty scunnered, this is a season that promised a lot but it's ended poorly. Really need to get the result we need at the weekend.

Thanks for spoiling my (half) week!

I thought the referee got all the big decisions correct so fair play to him. Shankland pushes Welsh for the Hearts goal, Maswanhise stands on Kyziridis foot but football is a physical game, I don't see either as fouls. Teams are appealing for every marginal decision these days hoping to get a soft decision on review. We did it, Hearts did it. It's just another negative aspect of VAR.

Celtic have kept 1 clean sheet in their last 12 league matches and that was against St Mirren who can't score against anyone. So there should be at least 1 goal there for us. Celtic's last 5 away matches they have a draw, a loss and three jammy 2-1 wins. Clearly this game is doing to be down to how we defend. If we can keep Celtic to 1 or 0 we are probably getting something out the game. We have some defensive issues but only Falkirk have scored more than once against us at Fir Park since August so I still think we should be going into this match with confidence. And lets remember we are playing for guaranteed European football so it's not like are just playing to spoil someone else's party. Although that would be nice too...

Hearts play Falkirk the same night so this could be one for the ages.

Liam Gordon has had less than 10 minutes of league football since Christmas and I though he came in and did an excellent job.

Worth a point. Game of few chances, bit sloppy at times, looked a bit weary, hopefully we have one more home performance in us this season.

15 matches against Top 6 and we have 2 wins. That's not referees. Especially when we have been ahead or level in so many of those matches.

We blew it again versus a better quality team. You can complain about referees all day but it's happened too many times. Held leads against Hearts twice Falkirk Celtic twice and Hibs at Easter Road. No wins out of any of those matches.

Well Kettlewell wasn't playing against a Livingston team that literally can't win and 3 of Askou's victories have been against them. There is never going to be a completely direct comparison outside of the actual results.

That's what we were due so we can't have any complaints. We might not have any title winning games at Fir Park but we could still end it for all three. Well, two but you know what I mean!

Now let me just state I think JBA has done a good job. But here are some dispassionate facts. Here are JBA and Stuart Kettlewell's league records after 32 matches. SK-32-12-10-10 JA-32-14-12-6 The difference is 2 wins and 2 draws over 32 matches. Also given the fact that we have tough matches coming up and and aren't in particularly good form and Kettlewell got 9 points from his next 7 matches means it might be even closer on the first day of next season, although, of course, I don't know what our next 6 results are going to be. Given the closeness of the two records I just find it interesting that the average fan probably has widely diverging views on both managers. JBA has done well but he's no where near a legend. Finishing 4th or 5th is hardly unprecedented for Motherwell managers. Terry Butcher got us Top 6 numerous times when the club was on it's uppers and not spending, as it is now, six figure sums on multiple players. People tend to go to extremes, best ever, worst ever, when it's the vast majority of the time it's not.

I've had this feeling for a while now that it will be us that wrecks Hearts title challenge. Whether it's next week or post split remains open to conjecture.

Deservedly pumped. The goals we conceded today were all absolutely pathetic. Falkirk just looked faster and sharper than us. Not at the races these days and if you exclude the win away to St. Mirren we really haven't been since the Scottish Cup defeat. Given our remaining fixtures, not been good away from home or against Top 6, you'd have to worry about getting that European place which even a couple of weeks ago I'd have been extremely confident about. It'd be a shame if we ended the season on a damp squib but that's how it's looking. Up to the manager and players to rally but they've lost the confidence they had and there is no x factor there right now.

Deliberately feigning injury to get a player sent off should be a red card offence. Referees might be incompetent and VAR might be a shambles but I doubt they are actively cheating like Slattery was. Trying to twist the incident so that the SFA is at fault is ridiculous. Our player cheated, got caught and is now being rightly punished. Let it be a lesson to others, Motherwell players or otherwise that that kind of blatant cheating is totally unacceptable. And BTW the sort of pathetic paranoia that 'it wouldn't happen to this team or that team ' is exactly the same justification the Old Firm use all the time. Take some ownership.

Falkirk have drawn 1 out of the last 16 league matches. They tend to either win or lose.

Sparrow just doesn't convince me and O'Donnell slotting in for Longelo is filling a position and nothing more. With no Longelo, Just playing up front and Said not selected there was no one running with the ball from midfield and the whole team was far too static. Askou tried something different today but it didn't work and hopefully goes in the bin after today. We've been getting 40-50 touches in the box this season and today it was 14. Pretty much sums it up.

Cos it was our game in hand which if we'd won would put us right in the mix for a title challenge, the media had actually started taking us seriously, and we instantly lost to a Dundee team, that while improving, hadn't won in their last 3 home matches, including Livingston.

Maybe now we can start looking at the fact that O'Donnell will be 34 next season, McGinn will be 36 and Welsh will be somewhere else earning much more money.

First of all Celtic were absolutely abysmal at the weekend. Probably worse than any Nancy performance. Secondly, Celtic have only won one match against a Top 5 team at Celtic Park this season and that was against us with an injury time goal. If we go into this match with the same old loser mentality the rest of this season has been a waste of time.

Was just looking and unless I've made a mistake Hearts are due 4 away games and Hibs are due 4 home games post split which obviously won't happen. Which means there is going to have to be some 'unfairness' in the post split fixtures. I'm guessing the most obvious way to fix it would be to have Hearts play Hibs at Tynecastle 3 times.

Form - Last 10 league matches Motherwell 7-2-1 23pts Hearts 7-1-2 22pts Rangers 6-4-0 22pts Falkirk 6-0-4 18pts Hibernian 5-3-2 18pts Celtic 5-2-3 17pts Dundee 4-3-3 15pts Dundee Utd 2-3-5 9pts Kilmarnock 2-2-6 8pts St Mirren 1-3-6 6pts Livingston 0-5-5 5pts Aberdeen 1-1-8 4pts Potential points total Hearts 90 Celtic 85 Rangers 84 Motherwell 83

Since we will be in different groups after the split, Dundee United didn't score a goal against us this season.

I've been looking around, as far as I can see only two other teams in a major European league have a better defensive record - Union St Gilloise (15) and Roma (16). We've also scored the same number of goals in the same number of games as Liverpool.

Celtic have two games in hand, while we have a game in hand over Rangers, so I think the worst result would be for Celtic to win. A draw would be best though.