Ya Bezzer!

It's his fault anyway so having a go at the players would be take some nerve. Learn and move on. LEARN and move on.

We have a youth system but we more or less ignore it. It costs the club a fortune by the way for virtually no return. The whole "how many have gone on to better things" argument is hokum. You know very well that a player that does well at one club doesn't do well at the next club, or a player that is rejected by one club can easily fall out the game or have his confidence as a footballer shattered. There is no consistent value to a players worth or performance and it depends entirely on a huge range of different circumstances that is virtually impossible to determine. If we had never signed Dougie Arnott, and Arnott kicked around the club for 3 or 4 years without doing much remember, he may well have trundled around in footballing obscurity all his career. Instead he became a hero and a cup winner but it may well have turned out differently. Players have a potential and unless you give them that chance to show that potential you'll never get it out of them. By the way Lee Erwin is a highly rated 20 year old footballer at our club and last week was the first time some of our support had even seen him.

Most of the problems at Motherwell go way beyond individual player performances so to that end I think it is wrong to criticize Dan Twardzik or question a 2 year contract for Keith Lasley. Motherwell are failing at a strategic level. The signs are there but time and again we do nothing to change it, that is partly down to Stuart McCall but also others in charge at Fir Park. I certainly wouldn't say Stuart McCall is a "poor manager" but in certain regards he has made mistakes and what is infuriating is that he makes the same ones over and over again. We do not seem to be able to learn or adapt. We've had some short term success but what have we actually gained from it as a club except huge debts?

The last two really good footballers our club produced were Jamie Murphy and Shaun Hutchinson. Both those players made their debuts under Mark McGhee. That is simply not good enough. Both those players contributed to a fairly successful time in the clubs history but at the end of it I think we got something like £150,000 for Murphy and nothing for Hutchinson. Again, that is simply not good enough either. We do not produced enough good footballers and when we do they go for nothing. If we do not remedy that I doubt the club has a viable future on diminishing attendances. The financial situation at the club has to be sorted out. We cannot continue to lose 6 six sums every season, that way lies extinction. But more short term, it means we are going into seasons with thread bare 20 man squads, players on short term deals and we are releasing releasing youth players right, left and centre that may have done a job for us because if they haven't made the first team by 19 we can't afford to keep them any longer. But what really concerns me more than most is this; if the level of disillusionment at the club is this high now, what happens if we drop down the league to a 7th or 8th level team or worse? We finished 2nd last season and the crowds went down. It doesn't bare thinking about. Unless me maintain a level of success that is unparalleled in the clubs history and almost certainly unrealistic to expect you fear some kind of death spiral. We have serious individual problems as a club. But we are also part of the morass that is Scottish football and that is out of our control as a single club. It's not anyone at Motherwell's fault that the league doesn't have a sponsor or that the TV deal is derisory or that Scottish football in general is the poor man's version of just about any comparable league in Europe.

We've lost out on a big whack of cash after losing last night but overall I don't buy this idea that our financial situation is down to losing cup games, as disappointing as that is. We've had some big crowds against the likes of Rangers and Aberdeen and we make a lot more money off them than we would winning any number of matches against Forfar or Dumbarton or even a St. Johnstone. Scottish Cup prize money is not enormous and you probably have to get to a semi final to make any money from it, unless you drawn big teams capable of producing a 5 figure attendance. The reason we are skint goes way deeper than just cup performances but certainly last night didn't help in that regard.

I don't think you need to be exclusively critical of one or the other. I think most people are bothered with both. But the fact is, as bad as it was to give away three penalties, especially from one player, we were winning the tie when Kerr came on so it's actually quite an important part of the match, especially since everyone except Stuart McCall knows it does not work.

I'm pretty pissed off tonight as is probably already apparent but I think Twardzik has to be left out of this. Over the tie he conceded 5 goals and 3 were penalties and 1 was a wonder strike. The tie wasn't decided by ineptitude on his part. Our defensive set up is shocking and has been for some time. How many goals did we concede with Hutchinson in the team last season? Without him it could be catastrophic next season which is why I've said over and over again we need to replace Hutchinson with an experienced defender. But no. We haven't even be linked with anyone. It was obvious we had no real intention of bringing anyone in, looking instead to a pay day that will never come now to pay for a replacement. The preparation for the game was shocking, Aberdeen started the season two weeks earlier and have come through two rounds, while we have been blowing out our arses against semi pros. Not good enough and that is down to the manager and no one else. You can point fingers at the players but we played one proper friendly in our pre season. It's also the managers fault for not sorting out our defensive situation and for making the same terrible substitutions time after time. Did anyone honestly think there was anything other than a defeat coming from this when Kerr replaced Ainsworth. I also feel sorry for the guy. Again blame the manager not the player. And we played exactly the same line up and presumably the same formation tonight as we did in the first leg, when it wasn't exactly a huge success first time round. We are so predictable and have no Plan B, we make it easy for the opposition. One thing I will disagree with you about. There is no chance we'd have beaten Groningen. I didn't see the matches but I'm guessing they were more than 50% fit.

"Stuart, how disappointed are you to lose to a part time Icelandic team over two leagues?" Answer "We're gutted. Felt the boys worked really hard tonight, OK we were a little slack at times but overall I was really pleased with the work rate and when we got that early goal BLAH BLAH FUCKING BLAH!".

Whoever is in charge of Motherwell's media these days has to ask the following question. "Stuart, why are you so shite in cups?". Otherwise it's just some shitty Pravda style affair that I've never going to pay any attention to ever again.

They were lazy and half arsed at that as well.

We needed to win and we didn't even draw.

I wonder if this is some kind of world record for a professional top level club to fail to beat non professional opponents three times in a row?

We drew and lost to non professionals. I think we can skip the travelers tales before coming to a judgment.

If it was a choice between a jolly in Portugal or bringing in a decent level player and getting through this tie I think we all know where the money was going to be spent.

Didn't you know, the boys tried really hard!

OPEN LETTER TO MOTHERWELL PLAYERS/STAFF If I hear one more fucking interview about trying really hard to do well in cups I'm handing my season ticket back in. So just shut your mouths from now on and try to get up to the standard expected of fucking professionals. Signed, Ya Bezzer!

Shocking result. Not once but twice. To lose the lead three times is amateur. To give away three penalties is amateur. To not be able to win even a match never mind the tie over two legs is amateur. This whole European 'campaign' is amateur. Another shocking black mark on McCall's cup football record that reads like an absolute fucking catastrophe.

We are wide open to the counter attack. However you have to also remember than Stjarnan didn't score against us in open play, it was two poorly conceded penalties. I don't think we should be playing this in a gung-ho fashion. We need to just play and hope our 'quality' wins the match we score 1 more goal than them and we win the tie. They might be defensively tight and sit in but they are semi pro, inexperienced at this level and seem to be a naturally attacking side. We need to be sensible about how we approach the match, if we let them I suspect they would come out. Constantly pressing them might not be the ideal way to approach this game. It's counter intuitive but I reckon to win this game we need to let them get on the ball.

I don't think we have a terrible European record but I'm not sure if it's "exactly the European record we're meant to". We've beaten the minnows and lost to the big teams but what about the intermediate sides? MyPa we should have beaten, no doubts about that. GKS Katowice, not bad side but a team we could have beaten. Odense, again a decent side but not an impossible task. The only team in the intermediate section that we have beaten is Aalesund. So in overview we have beaten the minnows, lost to the big sides and then lost 3 out of 4 against teams where we probably had about a 50/50 chance of getting through. That's edging towards poor more than it is where we should be and if we lose tonight over two legs against a part time team then our European record takes a further turn for the worse. Like I said, it's not a terrible record but I think we should have done a bit better overall. Hopefully tonight is something on the plus side rather than the negative side.

Sadly burned into an adolescent memory.

I seem to remember he got a new contract at County. With Songo'o and McLean gone he might be further up the pecking order this season.

I bet on them in the first leg!

We are definitely falling behind our rivals in terms of bringing in new players. You need to keep the squad fresh and bring in new players and perhaps it wasn't a coincidence that one of the few players that really shone against Stjarnan was Josh Law. I think you still have to ask why when our turn over is probably higher than ever we are, not only not making any money, but generating large losses. I will say again though that Dundee Utd have brought in another 3 young players from the lower divisions - Callum Morris, Blair Spittal and Charlie Telfer to complement guys they have already brought in through that route like Gary Mackay-Steven, Andrew Robertson. Looking ahead you wouldn't be surprised if Dundee Utd made millions of pounds off these players (Robertson alone is likely to fetch that sort of price) and yet we don't seem to look at this market at all.

I suspect not much of that 100K actually goes into the clubs coffers after taxes and match day expenses. The Europa League prize money pays out in round progressions/participation rather than individual results and is as follows... First qualifying round: €120,000 Second qualifying round: €130,000 Third qualifying round: €140,000 Play-off round elimination: €150,000 Base fee for group stage: €1,300,000 Group match victory: €200,000 Group match draw: €100,000 Group winners: €400,000 Group runners-up: €200,000 Round of 32: €200,000 Round of 16: €350,000 Quarter-finals: €450,000 Semi-finals: €1,000,000 Losing finalist: €2,500,000 Winners: €5,000,000

That'll explain why James and Hart have been England's number 1s over the last decade or so? The fact that the two English goalkeepers that have come up here and done a job, Forster and Ruddy, are 2 of England's top 4 goalkeepers now suggests that the goalkeepers in England aren't exactly pulling up any trees. Randolph, remember, is also a current international. Twardzik deserves more time before being judged. He conceded two penalties for god sake.