Ya Bezzer!

The standard of player brought in by Baraclough is dreadful. Blame senior pros all you want but you need 11 players in a team. Taylor would be bad enough but there was another 3 or 4 Baraclough signings last night that were absolutely howling. Marvin Johnson looked like an alien from a different planet who was being introduced to football for the first time. And barring Kieran Kennedy that team last night was full of utter shite bags that won't take a bruise for the team.

Just the bit in bold makes him 100% better than anyone that played last night. Especially Robinson who looks like he feels sorry for himself that once he graced the English Championship and is now 'playing' at Cappielow on a Tuesday night. When Morton scored their first goal, his body just sort of flopped and he did a little prayer with his hands. What was he praying for? A move in January to Shrewsbury? An equaliser? A new manager? The suffering to end?

I think everyone ought to know Lasley is our best available midfielder, McDonald is best available forward, Ainsworth is our best available winger. Those three weren't in the team and should have been. If McDonald and Ainsworth hadn't come on it wouldn't even have got to ET although maybe that wouldn't have been a bad thing.

He specifically said it was an aim to do well in the cup this season, so what the fuck was that line up all about? We should have all our best players out there. We all know who they are. Rumours of several fall outs behind the scenes - did that influence the team line up?

By tomorrow, Hutchinson. Baraclough out!

Home. Truly dismal performance. In the first half we were outrageously bad. I mean it wasn't even juniors level football we were playing it was literally pub team stuff. No movement, no running, no touch, no passing, no pace. And what was even more worrying, a look of total disinterest in even making any effort to win the match. It was a cup game! Baraclough is finished not because of the fans, but because he picked a team tonight, a team that should never have been picked, but a team none the less, and not one of those players tried a leg for him. Every one of them wanted to be somewhere else. Absolutely shocking performances from the likes of Robinson, Johnson, Chalmers and Taylor. What's the common link there? All brought in by Baraclough and all dreadful. Ross Forbes made Grimshaw, Taylor and Leitch look 3rd rate. I was never a vociferous critic of Forbes like some people here but he can pass a ball unlike any of our guys. And anyone that thinks we can do without Hammell, Lasley etc got a rude awaking tonight. I left at 90 minutes due to having to get trains home and therefore missed ET but even if we had turned it round Baraclough would still have had to go. We are dire. Worse than last year.

Had to leave at FT but that was an absolutely dismal performance. Morton should have been 4-0 up at half time. Hope Morton win. Spent a days wages to watch that shit.

I'm not saying they weren't good results, especially under the circumstances of the play off. What I'm saying is that in people's minds we beat the old Rangers 3-1 and 3-0. Not an utterly useless mob that was failing to beat bottom of the table Livingston multiple times, had been put out of cup competitions by Raith Rovers and Alloa and was generally dysfunctional. Beating Rangers boosted Baraclough's reputation more than it would have been done if we'd beaten, say, Dumbarton or Raith Rovers, but the reputation Rangers carried into the game was total poppycock, and as a football side they were at best a middling Championship team by the time we played them and at worst no better than teams at the very bottom of that league. Really people ought to be making the connection between players that day giving their best performances for the club, while totally failing week after week at a higher level. It's because Rangers were just a bad team and their results against other teams confirm that.

From November Rangers won 9 out of 23 matches at Championship level. They were closer to being a 3rd tier side than being a 1st tier side. I said from the very beginning I wanted them in the play off final because they were the only team we were going to beat. Too many people think those results were better than they were and didn't stop to think why we were in the play offs in the first place. As far as I am concerned what is holding the Baraclough reign up is the scaffold of those results but if you actually look at those results they weren't that good. Queen of the South had beaten Rangers 3-0 a few weeks before and Livingston and Alloa Athletic both got results against Rangers twice each. Baraclough should be judged on his Premiership level league record and I'm afraid it's pretty dismal.

Was the stand even half full? Contrast with Baraclough's first match at NDP when we filled the stand and the gazebo. Says everything about his time in charge. Said it before and I'll say it again - fans don't call for your head any more, they just stop going to matches.

They don't make much of a difference to a good team but they can make a hell of a difference to average or poor teams.

Also have only scored more than 1 goal in a league match once in the last 14 matches.

What games does Baraclough go to because I want to watch those matches instead.

Away league record under Baraclough P15 W3 D0 L12. 12 out of 15!

Well wasn't exactly enthused about the prospect of this game and wasn't going to go but in the end I did - but I saw exactly what I thought I would. I wonder how many hours of football we could have played today without scoring? Accies well worth their win and they had what looked like to me a perfectly good goal chopped off in the first half. Also hit the bar and forced saves out of our keeper. Us? I think we made maybe two chances in the game. When Accies scored there was only going to be one winner. Football should be a simple game but we sure make it complicated sometimes. Pass and move. We haven't mastered doing both and in some cases can't even do one or the other. Turgid, weary, hopeless performance from players that don't believe in themselves, the team or their manager. The huge gaps in the away end told you what the supporters think. Although no one gave a vintage performance today I thought our three best players were Lasley, Robinson and Ainsworth. All three were subbed by Baraclough so I have no idea who I'm going to give my MotM award to. For me it's a big week for Baraclough - fail to win against either Morton or Partick and his time is up. We are staring another dismal season in the face right now, with relegation a distinct possibility.

As for being 'on budget' this season it's obviously a speculate to accumulate type cash injection. This seasons budget is not actually sustainable over a longer period and has risks attached. Like Fergus McCann, Hutchinson will walk away with all his money and more at the end of the day. Whether the club is better off remains to be seen but we are going to have to improve a hell of a lot on the pitch for that to become any kind of possible reality.

Damn. Was hoping there wouldn't be. That's me wasting my afternoon then!

I've said it before but this idea that we can take players from the lower English leagues and sell them back I just don't believe in. We couldn't sell Darren Randolph, what chance do we have of selling Marvin Johnson, who's not even worth a starting XI this season? If we sell anyone in this squad it will be Dom Thomas. Clubs will buy potential but they aren't going to spend money on players that are in their early 20s, are so so bottom half of the English leagues quality and can be picked up at the end of a contract for nothing. Experience shows that our best bet of selling players on is through our youth development, then it's from buying international players from smaller nations and then selling them on, bringing up players from England has been a total failure as a money making venture. Out of all the players we've brought up from England over the last 10 years or so is Chris Porter the only one we sold back?

The Tommy McLean era was completely different from now. The city clubs dominated the league and provincial clubs hardly got a look in. It was an achievment to keep Motherwell in the Premier League at that time and remember we had been a yo-yo club up until then. Now we are an established Premier level club, playing in a larger league, where the many of the city clubs aren't even in the top league or have lost their dominance. As for now Baraclough has signed or re-signed the vast majority of our squad. He's getting close to a year in the job, had a pre season and a couple of transfer windows and we should be seeing something more than he have been. I'm not even looking for a Top Six position I just want to see something on a Saturday that points to us going in the right direction. I'm not seeing it.

McCall, to be fair to him, had to work in very limited circumstances. Baraclough has been given everything he could possibly want and ultimately the costs of all that will be passed on to you and me. This season is not last season and should not be compared. There has to be a different set of standards and right now those aren't being met.

Away to Dundee and.....

Luke Watt is clearly out the picture. Has had less game time this season than any player that hasn't been loaned out. Not a single minute of league football and only came on as a sub in extra time in the league cup. And Josh Law is the competition for right back. Yeah, don't hold your breath waiting for Luke Watt coming into the team.

I'm absolutely serious about this - he couldn't be any worse than Jake Taylor in midfield.

Samson is potentially the best goalkeeper at the club but it's also true he had a poor season last season and Kilmarnock fans were glad to see him move on and they have a better goalkeeper now (MacDonald) who was free during the summer and surely someone we could have brought to Fir Park if we'd been interested. As for the 'wisdom' of bringing in a third senior goalkeeper, unless there is something we don't know about, I don't see how it can be justified. I suspect Baraclough just doesn't see Twardzik as competition to Ripley, as he's said he wants competition in every area.

Problems are far greater than switching a few players around. Yesterday was a rival for any of the mind numbingly bad football we were producing in the latter days of McCall. How much money spent since then? How many players come and gone? How many staff brought in? All for what we saw yesterday? It used to be in the old days the fans bayed for the managers head both from the terraces and on occasion in front of the main stand. Nowadays they just stop coming to the matches, so the attendance yesterday kinda neatly sums up where we are.