Ya Bezzer!

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.

A wee while back a Kilmarnock fan on P&B asked me to research Kilmarnock's record since they installed the plastic pitch excluding Steve Clarke's time at the club. Between 14th Aug 2014 and 11th Dec 2021 (excluding Clarke's reign) they won 31 out of 105 matches so their record was pretty poor and certainly no excessive home advantage. If anything it went the other way with a 29% win ratio. Their record at home this season isn't too bad but yesterdays results meant it was 4 home matches without a win.

One of those games where a defeat is a really poor result and a draw is a great result.

Two words - "Jim". "Gannon".

Not convince Kettlewell is a long term answer but in the specific situation we in right now it seems like the sensible option, especially with the upcoming fixtures. Not the time for a new broom to come in. And I think our bump is more to do with the players own shame in how they had performed previously than anything Kettlewell did. Sometimes it takes something drastic to happen to get the collective to see and adjust. I think that's what has happened here.

Yeah but we have two new centre backs who have been miles better than who was there before. O'Donnell and Slattery who have both been imposters are rightly warming the bench. And we are actually playing two up top. All those things make a massive difference. Especially on our defensive performance which was really the thing that was holding us back all season. The truth is there isn't much between 12th and 3rd in this league. Just having players who are confident is probably the difference between Top 6 and being in a relegation spot.