Ya Bezzer!

Remember Jordan McGhee scoring a free kick against us in the Youth Cup Final.

Having both Dundee teams in the league is a big boost to St Johnstone's attendances. They are only 146 behind us currently. This season's attendances so far after 11 or 12 home matches. 1. Celtic - 58,585 2. Rangers - 47,584 3. Hearts - 18,567 4. Aberdeen - 17,805 5. Hibernian - 16,615 6. Dundee United - 10,641 7. Dundee - 6,822 8. St. Mirren - 6,780 9. Kilmarnock - 6,440 10. Motherwell - 5,748 11. St Johnstone 5,602 12. Ross County - 4,498 Kilmarnock, the team above us in this table, generally pay about 20% more in wages than we do. The team below us, St Johnstone, are closer to us in wages but still pay more. I think that kind of gives you some kind of perspective of what we are up against.

Motherwell are 10th out of 12 in total league attendances this season. I don't have accurate up to date wage info but one of the clubs marginally below us (St Johnstone 5,602 v us 5,748) have traditionally paid higher wages than we have. I don't know how true it was but it was claimed only Livingston had a smaller budget than us last season. We are a bottom 3 club in this league and if Falkirk come up next season we'll be a bottom 2 club. If you don't believe me Falkirk got 1,500 more fans in their last home match against Queen's Park than we did against Aberdeen with a big travelling support. A lot of our fans need a long hard introductory course in reality. Our extended stay at the top level has made some of our fans think we are far bigger and better club but we've escaped relegation on technicities three times and that's not including a relegation play off. For us to be in the Top 6 is a tremendous achievement. If we finish in or around it that will be an excellent season. If you don't like the standard of modern Scottish football, I sympathise with you. But don't put that on a manager or club officials or staff. Aberdeen and Hearts played out one of the most woeful matches you will ever see at the weekend and they have facilities and a budget we could only dream of. I've seen bad, good and indifferent performances this season. Same as every other season. Like I've said over and over the standard in Scottish football is a shadow of what it was in the 80's and 90's but that shadow casts a pall over the whole league. I try and watch as many games as possible and the standard elsewhere is pretty much the same as we watch at Fir Park.

Aberdeen game was decent, Rangers game was good, Dundee Utd game was great. All recent matches. I've been going for 40 years and it's always been the case that if you went to a Motherwell match it was more likely than not we wouldn't win or wouldn't play well. Motherwell are a team you support. It's not an entertainment event. You have to have the stomach for it and you have to have realistic levels of expectation. If you don't, Rangers and Celtic are just down the road. And of course the standard of the game has regressed massively over the time I've been going but that's mostly down to economic factors that extend across the whole of Scottish football and most other nation's football. It's not dross every week but it is a lot. That's just how it is and it's not going to change. So you either have to accept that or move on. Every single person here would love it if Motherwell played better football and scored more goals and won more games but that's not the reason you go.

Decent result, if not performance. We've lost 2 in our last 8 and one of them was at Celtic Park. That's reasonable since we've played Rangers, Celtic, Aberdeen, Hearts, Kilmarnock away and Top 6 sides Dundee United and St Mirren.

He was for their last game but I don't know if it's a longer term injury.

This decade in the League it's 4 wins, 4 draws and 4 losses between Motherwell and Kilmarnock. Only once has a team scored more than twice (Kilmarnock put 4 past us in March 21) and there has only been 5 goals in the last 3 matches. Everything points to this being as tight as you can get. These matches usually go to the home team though. We've not won at Rugby Park since 2021 though where our record is 1-1-3, while at Fir Park we have a decent record of 3-3-1

Kilmarnock's home record has been pretty good....until today. 1 defeat in 8 I think it was. A win would open up a nice wee gap again between us and Kilmarnock.

I thought Balmer had a good game today. Looked assured in the second half as we saw the game out.

Going to say something I very rarely say about Motherwell. I thought we saw out a 2-0 lead in quite a professional manner. OK, it's not the same spectacle as the Dundee United match but I'm fine with that! Thought both teams started pretty jaded looking. Lot of games in a short period and it looked it. We started to get into the game about mid way through the first half and scored shortly after. The red card incident and the quick fire goal afterwards meant we were pretty comfortable for the rest of the match. Missed a sitter to make it 3-0 (didn't quite see who it was, Vale maybe?) and just saw the game out with minimum fuss in the 2nd half. Aberdeen had more possession but I felt fine about it and I also thought we looked more likely to score the next goal. Only hairy moment was when we gave one of their players a wee bit much too space and he hit the bar. Not an amazing performance but a couple of well taken goals and a fairly calm second half.

Quite a few important players missing for both teams today. Gonna be a battle of the second strings.

I once posed naked for a magazine. Last time I went to that newsagent.

He's been inconsistent. There was a spell last season when he was absolutely terrible. Still one of our best three centre backs though. As someone else said McGinn, Gordon, Casey is our best back three and we've not been able to field them.

4 of them away from home. SPFL can't even get fixtures right. And guess what? Rangers and Celtic don't play 3 away from home in a row.

If I'm being honest I'd take a draw any time we go 2-0 up against the OF cos I've seen it too many times before. Thought the start of the match was a bit of a weird one. We looked wide open down the right and if Rangers had been better on the ball we could have been in real trouble. However we took our chances to go 2-0 up and it was only then that I thought we grew into the game. From then until Rangers equalised I thought we were the better team. Conceding 4 minutes into the second half was very frustrating as you felt if we'd defended those first 10 15 minutes of the half a result was on the cards. Just defending too deep on a 2-0 lead and not for the first time this season. Overall we defended reasonable well under pressure and the midfield did a hard shift putting their foot in. Like Rangers we could have been better in possession but the guys worked hard off the ball. I'm more or less the full pitch away from the Davie Cooper end so I can't say much about the disallowed goals but the first one looked very soft. It seemed at times like the VAR officials were leaning a certain way and the Lennon Miller booking was ridiculous. Clement made some major selection boo-boos today and the Rangers team that ended the match was miles better than the one that started it but we held on fairly comfortably and at least deserved a point.

In the 10 league matches Lennon Miller missed last season, Slattery played in 9 of them and we didn't win a single one of them. In the 17 league matches Callum Slattery missed last season, Miller played in 16 of them and we won 6 of them. That's out of 10 league wins last season. I think that kind of sums up what either player brings to the table and how essential they are.

It's a balancing act, not one or the other. This might not be a prime Rangers team but they are significantly better than us in every area of the pitch. We struggle to defend against much lesser teams, leaving ourselves open at the back is simply suicide. On the other hand you have to present some threat going forward and take your chances when they come. As for Rangers being 'fragile at the back', they have played 8 European level matches this season and only conceded more than 1 goal twice. Domestically they have kept 5 clean sheets in the last 7 league matches and only conceded 3 goals, one of which was a penalty from a "whit's the goalie doin" moment. I don't think they are actually that bad at the back and as I said after the semi final I thought they were pretty decent off the ball in terms of pressing, aerial duels and all that stuff.

Just because football is weird I'm predicting a clean sheet! 😂

There is a lot of inexperienced referees at the top level right now, probably more than there ever has been before. It's not going to get better any time soon. Then you throw in VAR and the fact that the laws of the game are being re-defined almost on a bi-annual basis and it just makes things even worse.

At the end of the day it's easier to coach 'negative' tactics than it is attacking football because attacking football depends on talented footballers. If you can't afford to pay talent and you don't produce any talent then inevitably Scottish football isn't going to be a great watch. But fans are also to blame. They don't want to watch technical football ("Get it up the park!") and have absolutely no patience in terms of team building or coaching. They want instant results and if you win 1 draw 1 lose 3 you can guarentee a sizeable section of the support will want you fired. There is no medium or long term thinking at pretty much every level of the game.

I agree with the first part, McInnes has made an entire managerial career out of shitfesting it. I'm not sure I agree with the second part. He's the sort of the definition of Scottish football's tactical backwardness.

No one of any integrity could talk about that game and not say what he did.

You could name any two Motherwell players and it'd be true!

In the end the referee has done the players and managers a favour by shifting the post match conversation. We were pretty poor tonight. Thought we started well enough and were the better team in the opening stages but as soon as we scored we went completely off the boil. Second half was all Kilmarnock and the equaliser was coming. Could the goalkeeper have done better? Might be being harsh but I thought in real time that he could have got a better set of hands to it. Even without the red card incident the officials had an absolute shocker tonight. Far side lines man looked like he did five minutes revision on the offside law right before the game and the less said about the referee the better. In the end a draw was probably about right but it's disappointing when you are `1-0 up at home and you don't take advantage.

I don't have a problem with Dundee Utd being awarded a penalty for that as long as we get ours. Just basic inconsistency yet again.