Ya Bezzer!

In a way I think this is quite a good fixture for us because there is no hiding and there is will be no sneaking a win or a draw and papering over the cracks. It's perform or die. The key in this match is pretty obvious, we have to keep their full backs pinned back in the full back positions. If we do that Rangers lose a large percentage of their potency. Unfortunately we will need to keep possession of the ball a lot better than we have been doing in order to keep them there, have our wingers in advanced positions and have Tavernier and Wallace thinking twice about playing high up the pitch. We also need a bit of interchanging between wide players and forwards because Rangers are chronic at centre half and are also pretty slow. If we can get say McDonald going wide and Johnson cutting inside that's got to be a good thing. I'm not keen on our current shape or team balance but its difficult to see how to rectify them with Moult out and Pearson gone and not adequately replaced. I think we need to play Lasley here for his experience and someone else along side him. I think Cadden can play more centrally and give us a bit more mobility there as well as being able to compete physically. Ainsworth and Johnson wide and as high up the pitch as possible and give McDonald some support by playing another striker, we've not seen much of Blyth and I'm not sure if he's the right type of player for this match, so I'd even consider giving Mackin a run until Moult is available again. On the other hand Blyth could come in handy at set pieces as Rangers are very poor there. We can get away with our current set up against weaker teams but against Top 6 level teams I think we are going to struggle so I'd go 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1, whatever you want to call it.

My comparison between Clay and Carswell was because I have now seen Clay 4 times and each time I've seen him he's had absolutely no influence on the game whatsoever. Central midfield was non existent against Kilmarnock and again yesterday. You can point fingers at Lasley if you want, he was also poor yesterday, but he's had a stop start season because of his suspension and he didn't play in the first league match. McHugh didn't play yesterday. Clay has had a run of games now so he's the consistant factor there. I said in the build up to the match that St. Johnstone wouldn't let us get away with an absent midfield like Kilmarnock did and I was proved right. We desperately need to improve in this area of the pitch or my season ticket will have paid for 11, 12, 13 x yesterday and that would be a very poor investment from my point of view. Is it too early to judge Clay's worth as a signing - yes. But it's not too early to point out that contributed nothing of note so far. I sincerely hope he does improve for the sake of the team but having seen what I've seen I'm worried, about the signing of Clay and the midfield in general as neither Clay or McHugh (or Lasley) have impressed me. I also do not understand why Clay was signed in the first place when we already had McHugh and Lasley in the squad. We are crying out for a direct, running attacking midfield to replace Pearson. Pearson scored more goals last season than Clay has in his entire career. So far we've got by this season with a little bit of individual pace, a little bit of individual skill, usually against weaker opposition, that won't see us through a full season. I'd expect us to improve in the forward areas when Moult returns but I'm still wondering where the central midfield improvement comes from. If you don't compete in central midfield you'll lose 8 or 9 out of 10 and there's the problem right there. Players old and new will have to step up but I'm telling you right now so far we have been very, very poor in the centre of the park.

Craig Clay is Stuart Carswell all over again on the evidence provided so far.

Heneghan for me. Looked comfortable which as much praise as you can lay on any of our team today.

Well that was a tough, tough watch. Dire performance in front of a small crowd and a flat atmosphere. First half performance was absolutely abject. Second half we improved but only in small spells here and there. Often we were just as bad as the first half. Chalmers failed to convince again, Samson made a howler to cost us the points, Clay remained as anonymous as ever, Johnson was so poor, there was no midfield, no energy, no second balls won, our passing and distribution was uniformly awful, players looked like they didn't want to be out there. We really didn't deserve to take the lead and when St. Johnstone equalized there was only going to be one winner. Will need to buck up significantly from that performance today but it seems fairly plain that outside the first XI we are really struggling. Don't know why Cadden was taken off today, if anything he should have gone into the middle, Ainsworth out right and Clay hooked.

Unlike Kilmarnock last week St. Johnstone have a strong midfield so we are going to have to do better in that area of the pitch. Though we played quite well but central midfield was fairly anonymous. Saints won't let us get away with that like Kilmarnock did. 4 points after 2 matches wouldn't be a disaster.

With all due respect there seems to be a lot of obfuscation there. It's a simple question really, who was our best player on the night? I've voted many players MotM that I didn't especially rate down the years, including Graeme Smith, because on a particular 90 minutes they were the best we had. You are on dangerous ground when you start to ignore reality. As for Samson, Annan Athletic's goal doesn't spring immediately to mind but I wouldn't blame Samson for any other goal conceded this season.

I like that Samson was clearly the MotM last night but some won't give it to him because they just don't like him. What a support.

How many wins did Baraclough get at Celtic Park? Baraclough got a drubbing there, finished bottom six and therefore avoided playing them again. McGhee has a win, a narrow defeat (in his first week in the job) and two drubbings. Nothing to suggest Baraclough would have been any better. McGhee knows the team we have and he knows the budget we have. He's been trying to play down expectations from the very beginning of the season for exactly that reason. At a time when Celtic are putting more investment into their team, we are taking investment out of ours. There was already a huge gap there and now it's harder than ever for us to compete with Celtic in particular. I'm not happy with the result or the performance and there are couple of factors that make it worse, 1) that it was a cup match and 2) that was the second time in a row we've just capitulated at Celtic Park. I hope the players get a rocket up their arse and some questions are asked of their professionalism but at the end of the day if a good team is on form and a very average team is off form these things are liable to happen. We just have to suck it up, I'm afraid and make sure it doesn't demoralise us too much. We have a very tough match coming up against St. Johnstone on Saturday and we just need to forget about this now and not let it put a downer on the start of the season which will so a long way to determining what kind of campaign we are going to have.

I'm not a huge fan of Cummings but he scores goals and Magennis doesn't and there is the difference in valuation. It's also the difference in valuation with Johnson. Cummings has 50 goals in 112 matches and that's what the game is all about.

I also though he got lucky with the penalty claim.

This reminds me that Kilmarnock yesterday had a huge banner in the opposite stand informing adults not to give their kids alcohol.

McHugh went off in something like the 56th minute. We were in control of the match for a lot longer than that. Game didn't turn until about 10 - 15 minutes max from the end. Killies goal came from a move where we didn't lay a glove on them from front to back, maybe McHugh would have put a foot in, that's hypothetical, but that's every players responsibility. Probably just a little bit of tiredness and complacency creeping in.

Outline McFadden's contribution to the team in his first 4 starting appearances? McFadden is probably my favourite ever Motherwell player but he didn't descend to Earth with a golden halo. Marvin Johnson has been given a season and a half of starts to become half way consistent so why then is Dom Thomas getting 4 starts and then a kicking? Dom Thomas has talent and we need to develop it. There will be ups and downs but it really ticks me off when supposed supporters are writing off the career of a player with 4 senior starts, especially when he's been regularly the best player in the U20s for a couple of seasons. What chance do we have of every bringing through any young players with this sort of attitude?

Quite a few contenders yesterday. Tait was excellent again, the two centre backs, Johnson and Cadden. Went for Cadden, as he provided the wee bit of magic that ultimately won us the points.

We got him 3 times last season and we lost all 3 so things are at least improving on that score...

All I am going to say about this is that is a very simplistic comparison between two completely different football cultures. Oh....and good luck growing oranges in your garden this year.

Head clash, a few stitches and a couple of aspirins and he'll be fine.

First half was a bit cagey but I thought we looked more dangerous and as it turned out we got the goal. Ainsworth! Scored the hard chance and missed a sitter! Second half we did really well. Cadden did superb to create the goal and then we were well on top until we conceded a poor goal when we switched off, may we felt a bit too comfortable. Lots of good performances through the team, overall a positive start to the league season

Kilmarnock will be dangerous if we allow them to get balls into forward areas - they can put out a front three of Magennis, Coulibaly and Kiltie. Magennis has physical presence, Coulibaly looks like a goalscorer and Kiltie has pace, quite a good combination if you used them correctly. Otherwise they look quite inexperienced in midfield and defence - something we should be looking to exploit. If we can get the first goal, I'd expect the atmosphere (if there is any!) to turn against them.

You've hit upon the very reason I don't like it. We've taken one of the three major honours in this country and turned it into "pre season". As for the Irn Bru Cup, what is good for the U20s isn't necessarily good for the senior clubs. Any senior competition is devalued by bringing in 'colt' teams and bringing in teams from Wales and Northern Ireland smacks of novelty for the sake of it and is potentially disastrous for the competition. What if the final is Celtic U20s vs Afan Lido? The core concept of the cup is "a chance for lower league clubs to win a cup". That's what it should be about not U20s (who have their own cup) and Welsh and Irish teams. Celtic U20s are better funded than almost every team in the bottom 2 divisions and perhaps even some in the Championship, Dumbarton for instance.

I remember Jimmy Boyle scoring in the 120th minute to put us out the League Cup at Fir Park in about 93/94ish. Definitely felt like we'd lost a derby in the last minute of injury time! And if I remember correctly Airdries last ever top tier match was a beating off Motherwell when Ally Graham scored what I think where his only goals for Motherwell.

Clyde put out a supporters XI by the looks of it. David Marsh and Jamie Watson are about the only names I recognize.

Celtic U20s gonna win the cup, romping it against Annan. Motherwell, Aberdeen, Dundee and St. Johnstone U20's all beating senior teams at the moment.

Kilmarnock seem to be in disarray. Rumours about Clark leaving, apparently some senior players frozen out, Josh Magennis looking like heading for the exit, dismal performances in the League Cup (Morton absolutely bossed them at Rugby Park and their performance against Albion Rovers was described as "pathetic".) Clark clearly doesn't even know what his best team is and a lot of the guys he's brought in have virtually no first team experience. We should be going down there to pump this mob at the weekend. Simple as that. Having said that I'd still take a Moult-steals-it-in-the-86th-minute repeat of last season!