Ya Bezzer!

Lamie was fine last season he was just one of those players who was badly effected by the dip in form this term. He also did fine when he came on as a sub a couple of weeks ago and it didn't effect our performance at all. First choice should be Casey and Butcher but we need to remember Butcher is 33 next season. So is McGinn. So you'd like to see the average age brought down a bit if we are playing 3 at the back.

Ross County will absolutely be in the bottom 2 so there is only really one spot teams need to avoid. It's highly unlikely Kilmarnock and Dundee Utd win most of their games and if they do they are beating Ross County and St Johnstone who are both below us anyway. They also have to play each other. We should be fielding youngsters every week.

I like this years kit. I kinda wish we'd swapped the shorts around with the home and away kits though. Big advocate for white shorts. That's our colours and there is no getting away from it. We should have a hoop most of the time but I think it's OK to have something different once in a while. Just not anything like the 'harlequin' kit......

The only stats I could find (although I was using Yahoo for some reason rather than Google) were for the English league but the Top 25 best average goals stats were all pre 1960 and 14 of the 25 were pre war. So I think it probably was easier to score. In the 1800's they were averaging almost 5 goals per game and then up to about the 1970s it was around 3 - 3.5. Now it seems to be averaging around 2.4 to 2.8. I mean I don't think the dimensions of the goals has changed but I'm sure the average height of a goalkeeper is probably about half a foot taller these days!

Without wanting to take anything away from the pre war era football it's worth nothing that in Ferguson/MacFadyen era teams lined up with 5 forwards and 2 defenders.

You Tube brought up Scotland's play off match against Serbia, a mere three years ago, and there was Leigh Griffiths knocking home a penalty in a Scotland shirt. Now he's playing for Wodonga Platypuses. Or something.

Hopefully away wins aren't like buses for Killie.

You just compared going to the football to other activities I don't do any more based on cost. I will renew but probably in August.....when I've saved up a bit. However I know quite a few who have stopped going because of increasing cost/declining standard. It's a difficult balancing act for clubs like Motherwell with relatively few fans and rising costs but we have to be very carefully not to price what few fans we have from coming along.

No team has ever finished in the bottom 2 with 40 points so 1 win will almost certainly keep us up. Also our goal difference is massively superior to all the other teams so two draws gives us a 99.9999999% of doing it. If you are still worried at that point you probably don't go outside in case you get struck by lightning.

Interesting to see all the hoopla over St Mirren making Top 6 when we scored more goals and conceded less than them. In fact we had the best defensive record in the league after Rangers and Celtic. Of course it's all about points but still kind of indicates we were a little on the unlucky side this term.

Our last 10 matches against Celtic it's P10 W0 D0 L10 F4 A30

Very frustrating game. Dundee Utd's second half performance probably shaded the game for them but we had so many chances to end the match 2-0 and didn't take any of them. Was impossible to say if our disallowed goal was good from my position in the stands, thought the first penalty probably was one although Fletcher is absolutely looking for it. Didn't play badly but we were down a level on recent performances.

Recent record vs Dundee Utd isn't great. Only 1 goal scored in the last 4 matches and no one in the current squad has scored against Dundee United. Hopefully we sort that out today.

A win more or less guarantees survival so we should go into this one with complete confidence and the bit between our teeth. Dundee Utd have scored 5 goals in the last 9 matches from open play. We've scored 14. Dundee Utd haven't kept a clean sheet in 2023. We've kept 3 from our last 6.

In this league if you only have one 'style' your success will be short lived as other teams will figure it out. Happens all the time when managers have a good run in one set of fixtures and then when they play teams a second time round they are sussed. It's one of the biggest reasons why no team, outside the OF, can really put together any kind of consistency. Also, it's possible to have a base structure and then adapt that depending on what is happening in a match. That's really the key to being a good manager. Making intelligent changes in response to the flow of the match. Not rigidly sticking to one system for 90 minutes every week. I'm not saying McKinstry should be starting matches, as has rightly been said we are in form right now, but I don't think it's literally impossible for him to play a part in this side.

I've been going to games since 1982 and the first scored free kick goal I actually remember was, I think, Eric Garcin! There was certainly a long period when we didn't score any. I remember Stevie Kirk going close a few times including an excellent Jim Leighton save at Easter Road. If any one wants to refresh my memory feel free!

Van Veen played a lot of the 2nd half out wide left. I think you can make an argument that we would have been more effective with Mandron withdrawn, Van Veen more central and McKinstry going wide. Especially at 3-0 you can surely experiment a bit. There are a few players who have been more or less patched under Kettlewell. Tierney, McKinstry, Crankshaw, Danzaki, Blaney etc. It's a results business but I think if it's purely a footballing decision McKinstry has been a little bit hard done by.

Comfortable win and some good spells of play. Bit gutted Van Veen didn't get his hat trick. We are looking decent with quite a few 'nailed on' players now all though you'd expect a few of them to move on during the summer. Kelly looks comfortable again, back 3 has been excellent (hopefully Butcher isn't badly injured), midfield is actually working now with the weak link no longer there and Van Veen has been in sensational form. Definitely something to build on there, fingers crossed we can hold on to VV and Johnston, although I wouldn't expect so.

They have been missing their two first choice centre backs. Fitzwater is back today.

That's Van Veen's 20th goal of the season in all competitions. Off the top of my head I think only two other players have managed that at the top level since I started going to matches in the early 80's. Higdon and Sutton of course.

If Kelly has genuine international aspirations he's going to have to improve massively on his distribution. Punts up the park don't cut it at higher levels in the modern game and I'm sure the Scotland team will have a big red mark against him on that. It might even be the reason he's not been capped when his general form was better.

Disappointing that the first two Rangers goals are howlers from us. Overall though I thought there was enough in the first 60 minutes to be relatively pleased with the performance. Unravelled a bit in the last half hour but we were a man down and Mugabi I'm afraid got ripped to shreds pretty much every time after he came on. If we can performance at that level against Dundee Utd we should win.

The number bods had predicted we only needed two more wins, before Saturday, as 33 points is expected to mean safety. It's not my prediction. However given we are effectively 7 points ahead now with 10 games to go Kilmarnock and Ross County would have to win 3 more matches than us when they have only won 6 all season. So maybe it won't be far from the truth.

Excellent win. The projection is 1 more win for safety but let's aim for 40 points at least.

What ever way you cut it the Max Johnston situation is a failure to protect a club asset. O'Donnell has been absolutely dismal for us and for a lot of last season we were playing Mugabi at right back. It's not like there wasn't openings in his position. I'd also say going back to Johnston's first couple of appearances in the first team in 2020-21 it was clear to most that he was a player with potential. If there is a Bologna deal going Johnston would be daft not to take it but you'd like it to be a harder decisions for him. Sadly we've not done much to make him think about it.