Ya Bezzer!

Yeah it was "baffling". Truly baffling. We've not had a left sided midfielder since Johnson left. Ross MacLean was injured as far as I know and Frear just signed yesterday and has hardly played since November. He could put Ainsworth on this wrong foot or put McMillan who's been playing on the left all season. That was his options. Still baffled?

The problem with these kinds of posts is they just automatically assume that the course of action not taken was better than the course of action taken. In the imagination perhaps Ainsworth comes on, runs their defence ragged and sets up a goal. But equally likely, if not more so, he comes on, looks completely disinterested and leaves a huge channel down the wing for the Rangers full back to romp down. We'll never know what a different course of action would have made but having seen the match I'd suggest Rangers were just much better than us today and it's a bit churlish to suggest some tactical tinkering would have changed that, especially after far and away our best player has been sent off.

Well, I called this a while ago. Lasley is better, even now. That's part of the problem. We have a generation of very good players who are coming to the end of their careers - McManus, Lasley, McDonald, Hammell - and the types of players we are replacing them with are way, way below that level. But like I keep saying, that's the economics of it. If you are shopping at a level where 90% of the players are poor to mediocre, even with good scouting and contacts the likelihood is you're going to end up with poor to mediocrity most of the time. And there isn't a lot of point in screaming at players for not playing at a level of football they literally aren't capable of playing at. We are a bottom 6 level club right now and without our best players we are perhaps even below that. That's just the reality of it. Blaming the manager smacks of desperation to accept reality. If we stay up, McGhee should be getting huge praise, not 'out' chants.

That'll be why they haven't lost to a provincial club this season and the only team to beat them in a home league match in two years has been Celtic. Without McDonald we are struggling against other strugglers, never mind Rangers.

I'm guessing tonight that Ainsworth will be elevated to superstar status.

McGhee has three seasons at the club and our lowest finish is 7th. He's got a decent track record, a lot of experience and has done well in terms of bringing youth players through. Getting rid of the manager does nothing to change the fact that we are running a professional football club on a small budget, that we will only be able to afford mostly mediocre players, that about half the clubs in the league are operating on a completely different financial scale and a bunch of other factors that put us where we are. I don't think a lot of our fans really appreciate what a tremendously difficult job Mark McGhee is doing right now. Maybe when he does leave it will suddenly sink in and we get some new Barraclough type. Remember St. Mirren fans hounding Danny Lennon out because the football wasn't good enough and they ought to be Top 6? They will be playing in a league where the average attendance is a 300 or so next season. Be careful what you wish for.

Key decision was the McDonald red card. Up till then we looked like we had a goal in us and were in the game. I didn't think it was a red but I'll be the first to admit it was on the far side and I didn't get a good look at it so I might be wrong. After that we weren't ever likely to score a goal. McDonald is not only our best player but also is absolutely essential to bringing Moult, our second best player, into the game. So in essence we lost our two best players in one stroke. After that Rangers were utter dominant and deserved their win. The people who think they are 'shite' need to simmer down. They are miles ahead of us and so are most of the city clubs. I keep saying it but a lot of our support needs a big, big reality check. The standard of the league has gone up while the standard of our team has gone down. We are a bottom 6 club these days and screaming at the players or manager doesn't do anything to change that the clubs economics.

When you see goalkeepers at the very highest level punching and parrying then I think you can rest assured that we aren't going to see any Sieb Dykstra's any time soon, It's the goalkeeping convention now.

If they were average they would be in the pack. The game at Ibrox clearly showed they pass the ball far better than we do and have a lot more pace all over the field. Two huge advantages in football. They are beatable though due to their vulnerabilities at the back. They have scored in every game bar two but have only scored 3 once so if we can score we'll at least be in the game and if you are in the game you've always got a chance.

You don't have to come - but if you don't you should at least accept the consequences of not coming. Don't make out like you are doing anyone a favour, even yourself, cos one day you might not have a club to come back to, or at least a much reduced one. What you are doing is cutting off your nose to spite your face. Look at another fan owned club St. Mirren - attendances almost halved in 5 years and now heading to League 1 and with rumours of having to go part time to survive. If that's what you want fine, but don't blame the manager, or even the players, because we have to operate at a lower budget due to a good 20% of our fan base being in a huff. Fan revenue is absolutely crucial now. Like I've said - we are in a new era. You get what you put in. If you don't put in, we are only going one way. So back to the game. It was tremendously disappointing to lose in the last minute to Rangers. But if you were there, or even listening on the radio or watching on TV just think about how it felt when Louis Moult scored that goal? Where else in life do you getting a feeling like that? That's what Motherwell FC is, and that's what's at stake.

First of all it's not about 'entertainment' but even if it was didn't you get anything out of beating Accies 4-2 or Ross County 4-1 or getting an equalizer at Accies in the last minute or taking the lead against Celtic (even if we didn't hold on)? But you know what - when you come through the gates you don't know what you are going to get, it might be garbage, it might be great, it might be mediocre, it's the same world over, whatever the set up is. If you want entertainment go read the review section of the newspaper cos you fundamentally don't understand football or even it's basic appeal. Secondly, good luck changing the entire economic and political structure of Scottish football when we can hardly break 3,000 at home matches. Stay away fans only weaken the club, financially and politically. The club seem to be putting but a fight against Project Bravo but good luck with that if we are in the Championship next season. Facts are it's stand up and be counted time. You don't come, the budget falls and we struggle even more but some of our 'fans' want it all on a plate, like they are owed a successful club. I'm absolutely tired of the general negativity of our fan base. People these days have completely unrealistic expectations and a tenuous grip on reality....but then look at the world we are living in, a bunch of adult babies constantly crying because the whole world isn't personally customised for their needs. Here's the deal - you have no divine right to fantastic football, away wins, home wins, good players, a Scottish football system that you personally agree with, Premiership status or having a club to support. If you can't deal with that then there are some big shocks coming your way.

If fans don't support the club through the season it will be club over. Is that they want? Our support seriously fucks me off. Bunch of non effort, self flagellating fucking miseries. You should get a bottle of prozac and a kick in the arsehole when you go through the turnstiles at our place.

Depends on how you look at it but in the last 10 matches Coulibaly had only scored 2 goals. But then in the last 10 matches Kilmarnock have only scored 2 goals outwith Coulibaly so that's 50% of an already low scoring rate.

The poster asked why McGhee couldn't put a youngster on for the last ten minutes. I'm just stating the facts - he did and then we lost. I'm not blaming McMillan for the defeat but ideally you want experience coming on in those situations.

It's basically a penalty situation so he has to guess and go one way or the other. It's on Miller's right foot so he goes left. Samson made several very good saves and a really tremendous one. Caught all the high balls as well. He was one of our better players yesterday. McHugh on the other hand has an obvious and easy pass to Clay up field and he passes it back and puts McManus in trouble. McManus should still do a lot better there but McHugh has to take a share of the blame as well.

Did we put up the barricades or did we lose our out ball (Cadden) in the 81st minute at 0-1 up? We had no attacking wide players on the park due to Cadden going off and Chalmers being subbed. Personally I would have put on Ainsworth but I totally understand why McGhee didn't. Without out wide players its harder to get the ball high up the pitch but overall we've probably had more chances in the last 10 minutes than the rest of the match put together. So I don't think we did put up the barricades the attacking intent was there but sometimes you just get forced back and can't get the ball into positions you'd want it. As for going at them, we couldn't do that as they would have murdered us with their pace. Really the only times Rangers looked dangerous was on the counter attack. When we sat behind the ball our goal was more or less untroubled. It was only really after McDonald came on that the game opened up a bit. It helped us offensively but hindered us defensively, no doubt that's why the next substitute was a defensive one.

He put on McMillan for 9 minutes and we lost 2 goals.

Same as Rangers then. Miller, Mckay who else stood out for you? We were one boot of the ball away from getting a 1-1. That's nothing to do with Rangers, that's on us, and in particular on McManus. Overall Rangers are a better team than us but there is no great gulf and they have been lucky, especially in the last two.

Neighbours greenhouse is fucked.

Moult for the goal. He's put the cross in but I think Cadden has been well off the pace for 5 or 6 weeks of football now. Obviously struggling with that injury.

Pretty much. First half we've basically defended the whole half but that's fine if you do it well enough. Rangers had a lot of ball but did nothing with it. The sum of their possession was a deflected shot and a header that's hit the top of the bar and wasn't really a danger. Second half, especially after McDonald comes on, we show some threat and score the goal. Don't think we have defended the first goal great but fair enough and Rangers should have had a penalty in the first half so that's fine. But the winning goal is just a blunder by an individual that fucks up everything. You can't blame the manager for that or even the other players. It's on McManus' head and that's that. I'm sure he'd agree and will be feeling pretty rotten tonight the same as we are. Rangers have spawned it against us for the third time in a row but we just have to put it behind us and make sure we don't make the same mistakes next week. On today's showing getting a result against Rangers is very possible.

Not much going forward but we've restricted Rangers to very few chances. Bit worried about Barrie Mckay, everything dangerous that Rangers do is coming from him but otherwise I don't they have troubled us too much. Missing McDonald though big time.

If you are traveling by train you might like to know the trains are all fucked due to a light frost. Will be fuming if I miss the start of the match because of this.

What a bunch of bullshit that I'm leaving the house at 10am to go to a football match. Seriously, I was sooo cosy in bed this morning. Don't think I've ever seen us beat Rangers in a cup game so today would be a good day to sort that one out.

Let's have a long hard look at reality. Here's all the new site/new stadiums built by clubs in the top two divisions. New Douglas Park - Hamilton McDiarmid Park - St. Johnstone Cheaper Insurance Direct Stadium - Dumbarton The Falkirk Stadium - Falkirk St. Mirren Park - St. Mirren Does anyone honestly think that those stadiums are improvements on what they replaced? Does anyone think any of them generate atmosphere or have a sense of uniqueness about them? If you look at Aberdeen's plans for their new move it looks to me to be very bland and unambitious. Does anyone honestly think we would break the mold? It's all a fantasy. Like when you look through the paper and look at the £1 million houses. It's fun to imagine but it's not going to happen.