Ya Bezzer!

OK, we'll start with the score and then you can add all the sitters on you think Celtic should have scored. Go.

Yeah but both their goals were gifted by us. They hit the bar and I think it was Hassan should scored a tap in but other than that it was mostly routine stuff that was either speculative or that the goalkeeper would be expected to save. I said Celtic dominated possession and deserved to win but they didn't tear us to shreds. If it wasn't for O'Donnell's pass back it would have been 0-1 and who knows, we might even have got something out the game.

I was negative about Robinson for a period, mainly because he ignored excellent youth players and played hoofball. But, no, you are right, I was way off to advocate bringing guys like Turnbull in and actually play some football.

He might be a dud. But we are 8 games into a league season. Our average points total this decade after 8 matches is 10 points. We are 2 points behind that having played both Rangers and Celtic. BTW our best start under any manager this decade was under Stuart Kettlewell and our worst start was under Askou. So just ponder on that for a bit.

After the Dundee Utd match, which we won comfortable, all I heard on the way out of the stadium was fans moaning about certain individual players. After the Aberdeen match there was a ridiculous amount booing like we were in relegation battle. The negativity from a certain element of our support seems like it's the reason they go to the games. We are in a 4 game run with two matches against the Old Firm. People need to get some perspective. There's far too many people in the support that are more interested in heaping pressure on players and managers so that they feeling like they are affecting decisions at the club, rather than actually supporting the team.

Well that's exactly what I'd expect from you. It's not a transitional period? We've lost a manager, more or less a whole team and we've just come through a 4 game cycle again three city clubs, two of whom have 15 times our budget and historically we usually lose against.

Celtic dominated and deserved the win but for all their possession they didn't exactly tear us apart. Their goals came from poor basic defending and an individual error and it's this that's really holding us back this season. The goalkeeper and back four just aren't on the same level as last seasons personnel. O'Donnell had an Indian summer last season but he's done. Paulsen isn't the keeper Ward was and his distribution is no where near as good. Moormann and whoever he's playing along side aren't McGinn/Welsh level. Goals change the whole dynamic of the match and we are losing too many opening goals and goals at crucial stages of the match. There are also areas that, to be fair, haven't been addressed since the Kettlewell era, specifically right back and striker. That said I think our support could do more to help the team through a transitional period. Apparently it only took four games for the toxic element in our support to stick their heads up again.

SOD is so slow these days he's not viable as anything other than a hold-the-line type defender. If your tactics are to sit deep and play with 4 or 5 across the 18 yard line, fine, but I don't think that's how I'd be approaching this match. I think SOD's role these days is to come on late in the match to shore us up defensively. As an out ball, not so much, especially against Celtic who play with pacy wingers.

Just something I noticed about the Old Firm, and hopefully I don't put a curse on us by mentioning it, but between them Rangers and Celtic have spent close to £80,000,000 on transfer fees this summer alone and yet despite this 12 out of the 14 league matches they have played this season have have had 1 or less goals between them and their opponent. That's an incredible amount of money to drop in Scottish football to basically drop points or scrap past teams with a tiny fraction of their spending power.

Our record at Dundee is incredibly spotty so todays result could literally be anything. The last six is literally L, D, W, L, W, D. If you are looking for trends, Maswanhise has scored in 2 out of the last 3 against Dundee.

It's to do with people over reacting to a single defeat. It's one match that got away from us.

Seems like some people need a bit of a reminder.

I'm prepared to put that down as just one of those nights. Thought we played some good stuff in the first half an hour but we found it difficult to find space with Aberdeen basically playing 8 at the back. They score with their only shot on target and we go in at half time 1-0 down in a match we've totally controlled and dominated. I think we had something like 80% of possession at that point. Second half we give a goal away with a mistake within seconds and then the game is gone and a lot of heads went down. Might as well blown for full time then as we just weren't at the races 2nd half but that can happen when things go against you. Worth noting we have 8 points after 6 games when it took us 8 matches to achieve that last season. I think the season can still go either way but we can't afford too many more losses like that because they absolutely kill confidence.

We've averaged 59% possession over four league matches, two of which were away from home. That's pretty good.

Incredible to see individual players being slated when we've just put in a superb team performance and got a great result. It was the same at the match last night when all I heard was Vogts being criticised. Not great goals, great performance, great start to the season..... It seems like even when things are about as good as they will ever be for Motherwell fans, a lot of them still want to whine and moan. Seriously, after last night we are talking about Maswanhise's alleged taxi conduct? It'd be funny if it wasn't also grim as fuck.

This decade Ibrox is our third most productive away venue after Easter Road and St Mirren.

OK, United had 10 men for most of the match but we turned in a bit of a master class tonight and even before the red car we looked a level above them. Hit the post twice, keeper has made a couple of decent saves, could have been a 5 or 6 nil easily. Lowery was superb, Kanga looked good too. We were just a slick outfit tonight.

Well Lyall Cameron is bound to score a header against us!

Didn't we turn down a big fee for him from a Norwegian team last season?

A lot of stuff to look at and learn from but at the end of the day there are three undefeated teams in the league Celtic, St. Mirren and us.

It's one thing to say this on a forum or conversation, most people would agree with you, but in actual reality It's an absolute nightmare to legislate - which is why it's probably not going to happen.

I think it's pretty simple. If you are costing the club more money in fines than you bring in individually then the club has every right to jettison you. The club (and every Scottish club since it's far from a Motherwell specific issue) needs to clamp down on fan behaviour now. For a start any fan that goes on to the pitch should be insta-banned. Today's SFA announcement on Rangers and Celtic is a step in the right direction. Fans on the pitch. Stadium closure. Flares, stadium closure. The softly, softly approach just hasn't worked. It's well known in general society that 50% of all crime is committed by 10% of all criminals. Likewise all these supporter related problems are being committed by a very small number of people. If you nip this problem in the bud it'll soon be gone. You don't deal with it you simply embolden the small minority that are already creating issues.

Paulsen.

If not for the penalty/red card decision we could have realistically held out for a draw. That said Freiburg were better than us in every department and I was actually a little disappointed in our performance when we were on the ball. Obviously we are playing a team a lot better than most of our domestic opponents but there was still too many passes going astray and some poor decision making. Outside of the goal I don't remember doing anything of note attacking wise. I thought we defended the 18 yard box well enough and the keeper had a good game but the midfield was basically overwhelmed for most of the match and the forward going players were working off scraps. Missing Priestman is a big blow to us and without him our midfield doesn't quite have the right balance. To put it in context Freiburg have an annual turn over of £162 million and we have an annual turn over of £7.2 so that is the scale of the task we had tonight. Ultimately we were competitive but at the same time I didn't tink we were at our best tonight so it's a difficult one to judge but there are levels in football and we as a club just aren't operating at the same level as Freiburg.

No idea what we are going to get tonight, could be a thrashing or maybe even a wonderful night but all you can ask is the players give their best and there are no regrets about the performance. I thought HJK would have been favourites against us but beatable. In the end I think we showed we were actually a level up from them. Obviously this is a much better team but again we have a huge opportunity to show how good we can be. Freiburg are a barometer and we have the chance to really measure up to elite level football.