Ya Bezzer!

You all know I like a wee stat. Iain Vigurs has started 5 matches this season and we have scored 7 goals in those matches. Iain Vigurs has not started 6 matches this season and we have scored 1 goal in those matches. Coincidence? We need Vigurs back in the line up to have a chance.

If our players are so unfit how will they be able to do double sessions and then play matches? Anyone that knows anything about physical training knows you can't hit it hard all week and then expect to do well in matches. I understand the resentment when supporters are out doing 40 hour weeks or more but it's just the nature of the beast. If players are staying back it should be technique they are working on rather than fitness. I don't think fitness is the issue. We have no confidence, heads are down and everyone is feeling sorry for themselves, look at Ramsden yesterday. An experienced pro who had a complete stinker and then spent most of the rest of the game shaking his head and looking at his shoes. Players aren't going to give you energy when they have that mental mindset. The squad is small, lacking in quality and if you get the runaround for large portions of the match you will inevitably have less in the tank for the last 20 minutes. It's a common well known tactic in football, keep the ball, exhaust the opposition. Our lack of technique is shocking, players can't make simple 5 yard passes and are always chasing the game. LACK OF CONFIDENCE = POOR TECHNIQUE/INDIVIDUAL MISTAKES = LACK OF POSSESSION/ERRORS = MENTAL/PHYSICAL FATIGUE.

Whether you think it is right or wrong fans have and are being driven away by Stuart McCall's failures and brand of football. The last few years have seen the most worrying collapse in attendances that I've known in my whole time supporting the club. We were never a hugely supported team but at the same time we were never a sub 4,000 club and that is the way it is heading presently. The area that I sit in has probably lost about 50% of its punters. Just this season we have lost about 1,300 fans from the Stjarnan match up to yesterday, we are averaging about 3,500 home fans these days. We brought out yet another great away support on Wednesday and how were they rewarded? Every time we rally the troops it's simply a set up for humiliation and failure. If crowds get any lower McCall will have to go, regardless of his league record. We are teetering on the edge of financial disaster and with no cup runs and fans disappearing in their droves the whole McCall situation will come down to finance, that's assuming anyone is actually looking after our finances.

Confidence is everything especially when there isn't much of a quality gap between the sides, as there isn't in this league. It's clear the confidence in our camp is gone and it's going to be very difficult to get it back. There is only so much a manager can do, very few managers managed to drag a team back up and I suspect McCall is running out of ideas. I worked it out. I've watched almost 10 hours of football without Motherwell even scoring a goal. 10 hours. We've already said that the last two matches were huge but the next one is the same again. It speaks volumes that Partick have a 7 goal advantage over us with only 7 games played. If we lose that one we are as good as 4 points behind them and I will confidently predict a bottom 4 finish for us. We just cannot go on losing and not scoring and expect things to turn round.

Because no outfield player even hit average and they must have remembered that Ojamaa used to be good, so hey, why not?

Kerr has been one of our better players this season although that kinda tells the story of the season.

I wasn't at the Celtic or Ross County matches so I can't speak about them but the last 5 matches I have seen we have started the games with 4 different formations. That for me suggests that McCall is really struggling because we have very rarely strayed away from 1 or 2 set ups before now under McCall. For me the whole way the club is set up is wrong. We should have a football philosophy and make sure it runs through the whole club down to U16s. We should have squads set up so that any player in the first team dropping out is automatically replaced by someone moving up a level who can play the same position. Right now it's all so piecemeal, disjointed and disorganized. Have we played the same left back two weeks in a row this season? Why are we changing our set up and team every week? It just smacks of a lack of coherent purpose behind the scenes.

Unfortunately many clubs are miles ahead of us in terms of youth player development. Give that we are struggling so badly now I don't think it's the time to see lots of youth players brought in as it is not fair on the young boys to expect them to turn things around but I will say this - where is Dom Thomas? Surely someone like him could be introduced from the bench with 20 minutes to go? He'll be 19 in February and we are still waiting on even a substitution appearance by someone who by all accounts is the shining talent in our youth set up. Accies brought on an 18 and a 19 year old off the bench today, we brought on Josh Law.

Can only be Twardzik as the whole of the outfield were dreadful. Actually Twardzik had a bad kick out from which Accies really should have scored but at least he looked fairly comfortable that mistake apart and made a few decent saves as well. No outfield player would even get pass marks from me.

If anything the plastic pitch held Hamilton back rather than being a disadvantage for us. Todays result and performance can be used as evidence to support the statement. It was embarrassing how much better Hamilton were today.

I don't know anything but it certainly looks that way. The players heads have been down from the start of the season, unless they are so fragile that the Europa League defeat set us up for the season, why would that be the case? Especially since we've always had a good team spirit up till now. Add in, Dempster leaving, the controversial internal appointment, Stuart McCalls general after match demeanour, the small squad and lack of turn a round of players. My own suspicion is there are serious financial problems but I might be adding 2 + 2 to get 5.

.............Twardzik................... .......Kerr............McManus.......... Ramsden........................Angol.... ..................Lawson..................... ......Carswell........Leitch............ ..................Erwin...................... ......Ojamaa..........McHugh............ Definite diamond midfield. Did not work at all. We changed it at half time but it was too late by then.

Having just watched that performance why is this important or even being discussed. We have much bigger problems than a manager in the dugout.

But three, count them, three man of the match awards. Cringe-worthy.

Absolutely catastrophic result and performance from Motherwell today. It has to rank as one of the worst ever displays I've ever seen and this season now must rank as one of the worst in Motherwell's history going back into the 1990's. The Malpas season wasn't this bad. I've been to 7 matches this season and I've seen us score 1 goal and that was on the first day of the domestic season! I'm not going to say much about the line up picked today by McCall. Maybe there was a good reason for it with player injuries and fitness but it was clearly a very weak side. But to then put them out in a formation I can't even remember us every playing before (midfield diamond) just WHY?!!! Someone just tell me WHY you would do that? Weakened team, playing in form team, important match....just WHY?!!!! The first half was an utter embarrassment. It was literally as if we'd pulled 11 punters out the stands and put them in jerseys and people say things like that a lot and they are usually exaggerating but that's what it actually looked like today. We literally could not do any of the basics like a 5 yard pass time and time again. I would LOVE to see Simon Ramsden's pass completion stats for today because I'll bet they must rank among the worst of all time! The goals we lost were absolutely pathetic, first Francis Angol completely fucking up what looked like a routine clearance and then Lawson almost matching his esteemed colleague in the 'making a complete fucking pigs ear of it' by gifting the second. Second half Accies LITERALLY DIDN'T EVEN TRY and they still beat us 2-0 over the half, although the penalty was a scandalous decision from one of the worst refereeing performances I've ever seen. But we can hardly blame the referee when we deserved nothing better today. In second gear Accies might even have scored a few more if not for poor finishing and a few decent saves from Twardzik. This season is beginning to turn into dust for us and I'm absolutely serious about this, we look like Hibs did last season. Unless there are big changes soon that is how it is going to go for us, because there is not a team in the league that wouldn't beat us comprehensively on todays display. One last thing. To all those who have been going on all season about Lasley being finish and he needs to go - that's what happens when Lasley isn't there. He might not be having a good season but we are a ghost team without him in there, a ghost team heading out of this league.

I thought we were terribly poor to be honest for the first hour or so of the match. We came into it a bit and had a decent spell and had a few chances but that coincided with Accies being down to 10 men. When the referee evened it up by sending off O'Brien I thought Accies were the better side again. I think overall we were outperformed and didn't really deserve to win the match. O'Brien has made us a bit more solid but I think midfield to front we still don't look like a team.

If you wanted to put a positive spin on things we are now undefeated in 90 minutes in three matches. I wasn't at the Ross County or Celtic games (the only games I've missed this season, maybe I should stay away altogether) but I wasn't exactly encouraged by what I saw on Wednesday. I also think there could be fatigue issues today. Would be nice to see Hammell back in today and Law out. Not sure if either will happen though.

The thing with Leitch is he isn't going to take the game by the scruff of the neck. He had some nice touches during our good spell against Accies but before and after he was nowhere. He doesn't seem to have that self confidence or character to drag himself, never mind the rest of the team, up when things aren't going well. I could see him doing well in a good team but right now we aren't a good team and I can't see him doing a lot to change that.

I'm as disappointed as anyone about the defeat but some facts. 1) Accies have now gone 390+ minutes of football against Premiership level opponents without conceding a goal at Douglas Park. If I remember the Inverness goals came pretty early in the first half of the first game of the season so it will actually be longer than that. Clearly it's not just us that struggles to score against Accies on that pitch (which is fucking shocking). 2) Our back four was weaker than Accies back four. Accies were missing Martin Canning from their standard back four and, at a pinch Garcia Tena who has come in and out. We were missing Hammell, Ramsden and had Reid playing out of position at left back. Overall they were missing Canning, Imrie, McKinnon and Antoine Curier who usually start but had decent replacements like Alex Neil coming into midfield, or putting Tony Andreu up front. You can't really count Leitch as an automatic starter for us either and we had Josh Emptyshirt on for the full game so the 'Accies played a weakened team' argument doesn't really wash.

I'm not going to come on here and say Lasley is having a great season but to me it looks like it's still him that is trying to bring the pace of the game up. And I do not understand the Leitch love in. I just don't see what other people are supposed to see in this guys play.

Not really when one is a direct replacement for another. In fact think in those circumstances a comparison is inevitable.

European, not league. You can't really compare playing Stjarnan to playing Kuban.

He wasn't 'rank rotten'. He is a diminished player from the level he was at but he is still a better player, a significantly better player than Josh Law. He was our third most creative player last season. Only Ainsworth and Vigurs had more assists. He also scored 4 league goals, meaning he was involved in 10 goals overall in the league. As it stands, Josh Law has 0 goals and 0 assists so far.

Must win. Simple as that. A win will probably put us back in the pack but a draw or a defeat aren't acceptable after the level of performance we've shown up to now this season. It's time to start delivering and no more excuses.

OK, I didn't see Josh Law play for Alfreton Town but he is still listed on Wikipedia as a right back which is where I was lead to believe he played for them. To date Josh Law has played right midfield, left midfield, centre midfield, support striker and up front for Motherwell. Is McCall even playing him in his natural position? In any case he does not look like the level of player that should be playing for us any way and why he has been selected every match and rarely gets substituted is beyond bizarre. He's obviously some kind of favoured child. There have been a lot of injury problems but they seem to be abating now, if Law starts on Saturday then you really need to start asking serious questions about McCall's selection policy.