Ya Bezzer!

Just watched the highlights. Good movement from Erwin for the goal. Played the ball and moved like a real striker. No doubts about the red card for Goodwin, that can be put to bed now.

4,620 v St. Mirren, with an excellent away support. 4,877 v Stjarnan, with about 25 Stjarnan supporters. If anything it was more than 1,000 of a difference.

On the plus side we have an extra days rest and we've had more competitive football than Utd. On the negative side, despite keeping a clean sheet on Saturday, I have serious misgivings about our defence. I doubt Utd will be as wasteful in front of goal as St. Mirren were.

Yeah but there was probably 1,000 supporters that came to the Stjarnan match that didn't show up against St. Mirren.

It's the last week before the schools go back so maybe that had an effect on the crowd but really its not good enough, our core support seems to be in serious decline. If there are people not coming because they are in the huff over Albion Rovers or the European matches they need to realise they are putting the club in an even bigger financial hole than it already is.

Kerr was fine defending when he was behind his man but his positional sense was all over the place. As you said he had a very ropey first 15 minutes but we were an absolute shambles at the beginning of the second half when St. Mirren really should have scored at least 2 goals. If you ever thought that Hutchinson was prone to come rushing out from the back to make a tackle 40 yards out then Kerr was doing the same thing and getting caught time and time again by a St. Mirren forward that was one of the fattest players I've seen since we played Llanelli! Our back line if often indisciplined but yesterday it was even worse due to Angol being more or less immobile and Kerr and Reid being if anything too mobile. There was so many holes all over the place and against a better team we would have been severely punished. In fact we should have been severely punished yesterday because St. Mirren had at least 4 chances they really should have scored. We have Dundee Utd midweek and I guarantee you they would absolutely love to play against our defence from yesterday. You are right to point out the midfield issue though.

That or St. Mirren missing chance after chance and the goalie being our best player.

Twardzik for me. Good performance and a cracking save early in the second half with Callum Ball straight through on goal. If that had gone in we'd have probably got 0 points instead of 3.

Well it wasn't an especially convincing performance but a wins a wins, especially with the injury situation. St. Mirren really only have themselves to blame for not getting something out of the match because they, and Callum Bell in particular missed, half a dozen good chances. To be fair Twardzik made a couple of excellent saves that saved us on a couple occasions. For once we were clinical up front and took our chance while St. Mirren missed all of theirs. Although we got a clean sheet, Reid and Kerr in particular gave us some hairy moments by playing far too high up the field. Attacking wise we didn't create very much with Sutton and Ainsworth having very quiet afternoons. Erwin deserved his goal, he's raw but he was probably one of our better outfield players. Overall, I'll take the 3 points but we still need to improve a lot, it's going to be much tougher in the next couple of matches you suspect.

They are 4.20 right now on Willy Hill.

I think if we even get a lead you'd be thankful for small mercies. I make it that if you include Dom Thomas and Chris Cadden, we have 13 outfield players to pick from if all the players from that BBC preview are actually missing. -------------------------Twardzik------------------------------- Carswell------Kerr----------------Law----------Francis Angol ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ainsworth----Leitch--------------Lasley-------Thomas ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------Erwin--------------Sutton

According to BBC Might be a grin and bear it tomorrow!

If he's fit. He was a name on the injury list as well.

Considering our lack of options at left back that's not good news.

The latter. Even if Stjarnan were the best team in the world we blew the tie. And they aren't the best team in the world, or Europe or even Iceland.

Kilmarnock were league champions in 1964/65 so I would imagine its for the anniversary of that. Eremenko didn't exactly pull up any trees last season. Looked way off fitness wise. Don't think we'd be wanting to get rid of McFadden and then bring someone like Eremenko in.

I don't really watch much football on TV but if there is any kind of football on Radio Scotland I'll stick it on, even if it's Petrofac Cup of whatever it is these days. You can listen to it and do other stuff at the same time which is the beauty of radio. Watching TV is more or less a passive affair. One problem though is a lot of the old guard radio commentators have retired in the last few years (David Begg for instance) and the new guys aren't in the same league.

Well listening to Motherwell games is. I quite like listening to Open All Mics if I'm not actually at a match.

Will we ever get a result at New Douglas Park! Good goal from the Accies lad and a good double save from Ross Stewart. Based purely on those highlights looks like Accies U20's are much better than ours...

Hopefully I'm wrong but I think you'll see soon enough that McFadden's contribution last season was severely underrated.

He doesn't need to go because every team needs a second string. As second string players go you could do worse than Angol. He actually scored a few goals last season and he can give the team a burst of pace and running. Is he anywhere near the finished article? No. But he does offer something off the bench. If you say we have something like a 20 man squad and part of that squad are Gunnar Nielsen Adam Cummins Paul Lawson Bob McHugh Fraser Kerr Are you telling me any of those players offer more coming off the bench? If we are clearing out dead wood there are players that need to go before Angol. As for the lack of signings, world football is a bit like two teams being picked in the playground, when all the good players have been picked and the ones no one wants are left in a little group nervously waiting to be picked that's when we come in. There is still three weeks of transfer window so it might be another three to four weeks before we can bring in someone we are interested in.

There are some terminally gloomy people on here the names of which we all know but generally fans are entitled to be what I would describe as 'concerned' about on and off the field issues. Our financial position should be of grave concern to everyone who wants the club to survive. We are not skint. Skint means having no money. We are hemorrhaging money despite turnover being at record levels. Our on the field problems would be less of a concern if they weren't inextricably linked to the financial position. Saying 'it's all been fine for 25 years' is, in my opinion highly irresponsible. Motherwell have lead a charmed life. We got away with relegations and administration but we aren't going to get away with it the next time. If either of those two things even come into view we are in big trouble. We cannot afford to post more 6 figure losses, we cannot afford to fail in the domestic competitions this season and we cannot afford to have more supporters drift away from the games. Whatever way you look at it this is going to be a very important season for the club that could decide what sort of future Motherwell Football Club has. It's the next 25 years that are important not the 25 years that have past. If fans demand a certain level of performance, then that is because there is actually a bigger picture involved here.

Not looking good injuries and suspension wise. I'd have fancied us to win with a full XI but I'm not sure what kind of side we are going to put out on Saturday.

If you like I could compare him to Willie Kinniburgh, Greg Denholm and Innes Ritchie. He's not even in the top half of that lot and might well be bottom. At least all those guys stayed in the game which remains to be seen when Cummins is released next summer.