Ya Bezzer!

Extremely ropey? Didn't have their best games but McManus headed a 88th minute winner which is surely going to get a few votes and Hutchinson made a terrific block on the penalty spot that would surely hit the back of the net. Partick's first goal was a poor one to lose but otherwise most of the problems Partick caused us were down the two weakened flanks. Don't remember Partick winning too many headers in our box, one in the first half that was about it.

Lasley for me. Must be about three in a row now!

Thought it started off a bit scrapped but by the end it was brilliant entertainment. I suspect Higginbotham will feature heavily in the game discussion and I felt the turning point of the game was Partick's decision to take him off. He was ripping us down that side of the pitch and having a bit of a stormer. We looked a bit rusty in some areas, we didn't really work the wide areas well enough and Ainsworth in particular was very quiet in the first half. I'm a big fan of Sutton but I felt he also struggled to get into things although he did eventually get an important goal. Second half things really hotted up and it was end to end stuff. We looked open at the back especially down the right with Hammell in an unfamiliar position and Ainsworth not helping out much defensively (perhaps just as well given his tackle that gave away the penalty). 0-1, 2-1, 2-3, 4-3. Unbelievable stuff. Felt both teams could score every time they came forward. Great comeback, shame Higginbotham wasn't on the pitch though to sample defeat!

Pretty sure I saw his first ever game in Scotland. Falkirk v Gretna at Fir Park, scored a couple of goals too.

Is Ramsden back? If not him Euan Murray might be getting a first start.

They drew 1-1 the last time at Paisley earlier in the season. Aberdeen might have a wee cup come down.

Felt we were a bit lucky to take the full points last time against Thistle at Fir Park. They have only lost once in the last 6 league matches but most of them have been draws. They have also brought in a few new players during the break (Prince Buaben, Chris Erskine, Lyle Taylor etc.) so it will probably be a fairly different team that lined up last time round. I'd be disappointed to lose this one but our long lay off might be a problem as players are never as sharp after a couple of weeks off as they would have been if they had played games. I'd take a scrappy win from this one to get us back into the swing of things. Here's a disaster courting wee stat. No one has beaten us in the league outside Celtic in 4 months. Last defeat was 9th November to Dundee Utd.

That's why it won't happen. The Champions League usual suspects have two great cash cows to milk. They aren't going to get rid of one.

At least we get a third match in February. It's just unfortunate St. Johnstone and Inverness both made the semi finals which ruled out a weekend rescheduling.

Or a Steve McDonald table for relatives over from Australia who are flying straight back immediately after the wedding.

Philliben misses out again. Poor guy.

Excluding the cup win it would probably be my first win at Ibrox. '93 I think when we came back from 1-0 down with two late Dougie goals. Hugging strangers and wild scenes of celebration. I stayed over at a mates house (Aberdeen fan) who lived in Ibrox and when I told him we won 2-1 he wouldn't believe me.. It wasn't until we got a newspaper the next day that he accepted Motherwell had actually beaten Rangers at Ibrox. The other one that sticks out is the League Cup semi final against Hearts when Fitz scored in the 120th minute. One of those ones where we have blown a lead, we are taking an absolute pounding and you are just waiting for the inevitable to happen and then within seconds BOOM mad celebrations and the ultimate victory. Nothing beats football for being propelled from one extreme of emotion to the other.

Big Sieb's debut!

I'd say they have about 10 big-ish earners but most of the rest of the squad is filled with home growns - Shaughnessy, Robertson, Pawlett, Jack, Low etc. Can't imagine they are on big money. Not really in the same boat as say Hearts were when they had a first team squad of about 40 players! They also have a few guys out on loan, Magennis went to St. Mirren in the window for instance, and they released Gregg Wylde.

Not the one I was thinking off. I didn't start going to away games until I got a student grant so that was '92 at the earliest. I think it might have been the Gilles Rousset era Hearts team so that might be roughly the same period as the McLeish Catastrophe Seasons. Glad I wasn't at that one you mentioned, once was enough! EDIT. Did a wee bit investigating, think it was the 4-1 defeat on 28th December 1996. We took the lead through Tommy Coyne and then lost 4-1 with John Robertson scoring twice, and Jim Hamilton and David Weir getting the others. We also lost 4-0 around the same time but it was a midweek match and I think the match I'm thinking off was played in 'daylight' if you could call it that!

My take on it as well. The boy that scored was the difference between the teams.

Remember going to Tynecastle, standing on the open terrace in torrential rain all afternoon and getting an absolute spanking. I think it was 4-0. Utterly miserable day. I also remember going to Dundee Utd and Utd scored as we were queuing up to get into the match. We paid in were going up the stairs and there was another big cheer, 2-0 before we had even taken our seats. The leg room in the old stand at Tannadice is atrocious and being tall I had the back of wooden chairs jamming into my knees for 90 minutes. I think we lost 3-0 in the end. It wasn't cold, grey and rainy though so not as bad as the Hearts one!

Good point. I said it in the game thread but I think Aberdeen will push on now with Adam Rooney coming in. They really needed a top quality striker to complete the jigsaw and now they have one.

In a period when we have been one of the best sides in the country it doesn't make good reading that Hearts, Dundee United, Kilmarnock, St. Mirren and now Aberdeen or Inverness have or will have picked up silverware, whereas we haven't really had a sniff. In the last three seasons the best we have managed was a quarter final. We've only won 1 of our last 7 domestic cup matches.

It's only affordable if it's affordable to you. I already put probably £400 or so a year into Motherwell and if I signed up to the Well Society I'd have to cut back on other areas that I put money into the club meaning probably not buying a season ticket. I'm afraid I just don't have any more to put in that I already do and I'm sure there are lots of people in the same boat as me. On the club side of things didn't we lose £600,000 in the previous financial result? So that's close to £800,000 in two seasons. I reckon our wage bill will have come down significantly last summer but it's still not very encouraging because I don't see much scope for further cuts if we want to perform at the level we are currently. The squad is already wafer thing and full of younger players. Currently our attendances have held up fairly well (so far 5,200 this season compared to 5,362 and 5,255 in the previous two seasons) but with matches against Kilmarnock, Ross County and Inverness coming up I'd expect that average to fall but it's hard to say at this stage if it what it will stand at at the end of the season. Also our cup income will be way down this season although we did actually progress a round. The only conclusion you can really come to is that in the long run we can't compete at this level without money coming in from outside, whether that be people on the board, local businesses or other forms of 'investment'. Perhaps 'charitable donations' would be a better term!

There have been times when the other clubs have fawned or bent over backwards to the OF but I don't think this was one of them. Imagine if Motherwell had won the league, Celtic had finished second and the prize money had been distributed differently so that Motherwell got less money for finishing champions and all the clubs that didn't win the league increased their prize money? I'm sure lots of Motherwell fans would have complained about that, probably yourself being one of them highlighting the fact that Celtic got more for finishing 2nd while we got less for being champions and that the clubs were scared of the OF. I do know that the prize money for 2nd was reduced but in real terms it was a gain for us as we would not have finished 2nd if Rangers had been in the league. Every club outside Celtic got more money than they would have done. Maybe your reason is that you just don't like Celtic or the Old Firm, which is fair enough but the people that run the game can't behave like that. What happened was there was a reasonably fair compromise where Celtic didn't lose money but everyone else gained.

Even though we went out in the first round of the cups last season we must have brought in a decent amount from the games, probably even more than we would on an 'average' cup season of getting through a few rounds. We got Rangers away in the league cup and Aberdeen away with a home replay in the Scottish cup. We also had European football. That amounted to 39,990 attendees for domestic cup ties and 15,321 for European cup ties, for a total 55,251 attendees at cup games involving us last season. Obviously the domestic cup gate money is halved and I assume we keep our own money for home European ties. We could easily progress through many rounds of domestic cup without getting anything like 39,990 coming through the gate depending on the opponents. Obviously there is prize money for going through the rounds but I'd be surprised if it's a lot of money, especially in the earlier rounds. The 39,990 is equivalent to nearly 8 matches with a crowd of 5,000 for instance. This season Ross County went out of both cups in the first round with a total of 2,428 (215 v Stranraer, 2,213 v Hibs) at both games and an away trip to Stranraer, the longest trip in Scottish football. Obviously this is a financial disaster for Ross County and they would probably have lost money but it puts into perspective our figures from last season and I think shows they aren't actually that bad in terms of revenue generated from cup matches.

There was a palpable atmosphere when Hollis took the no.1 spot and you sensed the fans didn't have much confidence in him and were ready to leap on him given the opportunity. Hollis then went on, did quite well, didn't make any howling mistakes and all that hostility more or less dissipated over the course of 2 or 3 home matches. Nielsen has to do the same but the only way he can do it will be to do much better than he has. Catching a ball isn't too much to ask of a goalkeeper. If he can't catch it pushing it away from goal would be the next step. They are basic errors that he's made more than once, so it's no wonder people are getting on his case. Goalkeeping is a specialist position and it requires a certain type of person because it's not an easy job. Nielsen needs to show he has the mental toughness to get through a bad spell where people are pointing the finger at him, if he doesn't have that then he's not going to be good enough.

I think Aberdeen are a bit better than us this term. I've seen them three times and I felt they out performed us three times. That's not a fluke. Also, a glance at their squad shows they have a lot more quality and quantity than we have. They've struggled for a centre forward but I think the signing of Adam Rooney is a real coup and they will push on now. I'm not writing us off for second place but I think if we do do it this season it will have been a much bigger achievement than last season.

Do you think it was unreasonable for people to want an international goalkeeper to start the season in front of Hollis, who hadn't really impressed up till that point? I don't think anyone was saying we should play Nielsen in perpetuity no matter how he performed. Having seen both keepers over a similar number of games I think most would place Hollis ahead of Nielsen but if we hadn't seen Nielsen perform there would be no yardstick. Nielsen looks weak on crosses but how many goalkeepers these days actually deal with crosses? Goalkeeping in general is at a low ebb. Even top clubs have pure haddies between the sticks. What concerns me more about Nielsen is a lot of his poor mistakes aren't ability linked, they are decision making mistakes. Maybe this guy just isn't mentally tough enough when the pressure is on. I don't think it's helpful for anyone if fans get on players backs, especially a goalkeeper, but Nielsen has to show some improvement instead of making the same stupid mistakes over and over. Palming a shoot back into the middle of the goal is schoolboy stuff.