Ya Bezzer!

He was one of the better players in the first half but he faded out of things in the second.

No one is going to be able to touch the Big Five but there nations out there that have the potential growth to form a second tier of leagues that are significantly more developed than the others. Poland, with a population of 40 million, has the potential to be one of those and become a major European force in football along with places like Ukraine, Russia and Turkey. They are ahead of us as it is but with the amount of investment they will be able to generate and the potential support that's there they will only get further ahead of us. Ten years from now I doubt there will be any comparison between our league and the Polish one.

The two wide midfielders just didn't work hard enough. Maybe we can get away with it against poorer sides than Aberdeen but not today. Aberdeen bossed the midfield for most of the match and Lasley was left to do all the donkey work again. Not really on when it's the 34 year old guy that's running his legs off and much younger guys aren't putting in the same level of graft. Didn't think Carswell had his best game today but at least you can't mark him down on effort.

Thought Hutchy was superb today, was a bit worried when he got booked early but he coped very well. However I have to give the award to Keith Lasley. Magnificent player, you'd think he was a teenager today the amount of running he did.

Nothing about Willo Flood flattening Lasley then? Didn't even get booked for it.

Disappointed with the final few minutes obviously but I thought it was a good old fashioned match with lots of tackles going in on a heavy pitch. Probably Aberdeen were the better team and I felt they over powered us in midfield for most of the match but the team played well, worked really hard and had done well to be take the lead twice. Just a shame we didn't hang on at the end. Thought Lasley was magnificent today he must have run miles and miles and Hutchy had a good match today as well. Obviously Nielsen had a couple of bad mistakes today but Aberdeen should have scored on a few more occasions so I don't think anyone can complain too much about the result. Having seen Aberdeen three times now this season I think they are noticeably ahead of us as a team, they just have a bit more quality across the team than us, so to be sitting right now with the chance to go ahead of them if we win out game in hand is a good achievement by the team.

The abuse players and fans got at that time was completely out of order. In fact it was disgraceful. Mark Reynolds was an excellent player for us, better than many people are prepared to acknowledge, who spent a long time at Motherwell and was one of the guys that was responsible for turning us into a solid Top 6 side which hadn't previously been the case and who was more or less shown the door by the club for a cheque from down south. Sure if he goes in late or scores a goal you can boo him all you want but I think turning players into hate figures, especially great servants for the club which I think Reynolds was, is completely wrong. During the 90 minutes he's an opposition player and I'm not saying for a minute he should be treated any different from Considine or Langfield, but that's kind of the point. No one will be shouting abuse at either of those players unless they do something worthy of it. There will be players who leave a club under a cloud, but most don't and Mark Reynolds certainly didn't so what's the problem? Most former players deserve respect from fans and Mark Reynolds deserves respect more than most.

Made one of the best saves I've seen this season against Partick. Hollis didn't do any wrong during his spell and while I don't think he's going to develop into one of our great goalkeepers I'd be happy for him to hang around. A manager should always be looking for better players than we already have so if McCall can find a better keeper than Hollis good, if not, I think Hollis is decent enough but probably not in the top half best keepers in the league. Nielsen doesn't have my full confidence. He's actually made some very good saves but he's also made some clangers and just generally he doesn't seem to command his box or instill confidence in his defenders. Twardzik came in did brilliant and despite his short stature I never had any fears about having him between the sticks. I'd like to see him back so we can see more of him.

Nearly, Ruddy had 14, Randolph had 15. We kept 15 clean sheets in both seasons but Fraser got 1 in 2009/10 along with the 14 Ruddy kept. Overall Randolph had 32 league match clean sheets - 7; 15; 10. He kept 40 clean sheets in all matches. The longest run of consecutive clean sheets in this period was by John Ruddy - 5 matches from Jan 16th 2010 to Feb 10th until Kris Boyd scored a late equalizer for Rangers in a 1-1 draw. This season we've actually kept 9 clean sheets so the 15 match record could conceivably be beaten but those clean sheets have been shared by three goalkeepers so far so an individual record is unlikely.

The wage bill is being cut because we have to gradually reduce our costs season on season to make the club financially self sufficient. That's a good thing and shouldn't be seen as a negative. It means we should have a team to support well into the future and not every supporter in the country can say that. And if consistently out performing clubs with much larger resources than us isn't a 'great leap forward' I'm not sure what is. I remember when the idea that we could do so was pie in the sky stuff. Today, it's almost taken for granted that we are up there or better than Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen, Dundee Utd etc. The first decade of Premier League football I saw Motherwell play we never finished higher than 6th place and it was hard to believe we could ever break the city club hegemony at the top of the league. The top five clubs were almost always the same teams. Average attendance as it stands at the moment is 5,145 which is perhaps a little down as I'd expect it to be around 5,500 but there is no Rangers in the league anymore and the city clubs have been fairly dismal over recent years meaning far fewer away supporters coming to Fir Park. I'd like our attendances to be higher but we've not seen a disintegration of our support as similar sized clubs like St. Johnstone, Kilmarnock and Dunfermline (look where they are now) have. Maybe there isn't much excitement to be had in prudence but overall I think we shouldn't be too negative even if our priorities should be surviving rather than expanding.

That we can all agree on.

Maybe it wasn't a penalty then but I seem to remember O'Reilly doing us a favour against Celtic at some point. I don't think I'm making this up!

I'm pretty sure O'Reilly gave us a penalty in a win v Celtic so he can't be the worst! The two worst in my opinion were Waddell and Rowbotham. JPR was before my time but I'm sure he was later outed as being corrupt.

Apparently Inverness gave them a real thumping yesterday, much more than the scoreline would suggest. They have been churning out wins recently a bit like we were earlier in the season but if we can score we've got a chance. They rely heavily on not conceding and their last 6 matches have been decided by one goal, 5 times in their favour. I'd expect it to be a tight match and to be honest I'd also be looking for a little bit of luck since one or two major decisions have gone against us in the two previous defeats.

I've always disliked Rangers more than Celtic. My first season full season coming to Fir Park was the season Graeme Sounness came to Rangers and the start of the 9-in-a-row period which is perhaps why. I also have a bit of a grudge against Hearts having gone through that long period when we were basically Hearts bitches and John Robertson was guaranteed to score every time.

Paying £26 to have a kick at a plastic seat? Not very good at finances are they? No wonder they went bust.

Goodwillie scored 6 goals in 11 starts for Dundee Utd during his loan spell. He wasn't worth the money they were forking out because of the players on much lower wages that they had brought through their youth system but Goodwillie would still be a good player for most teams on ability.

I wouldn't say we've never had a better chance but Celtic have 9 wins on the trot and they have played well in probably 4 of them and scrapped victories in the rest of them. They have not been that convincing at home in particular. Their dominance on paper is greater than it has been out on the field and their 5-0 win at Fir Park wasn't typical of them this season. You suspect their run, which has been on shaky ground for a while now, has to come to an end soon so why shouldn't it be us that does it? Any kind of result would be a great result but we shouldn't go their quaking in our boots because despite what the results and league table says this is a poorer Celtic side than last seasons.

There is a time and a place for every thing but shepherding in itself is no bad thing. If anything I'd rather a defender stayed on his feet that way he doesn't get taken out of the game. Shaun Hutchinson could learn about shepherding instead of making the tackle every time because he often misses and end up 15 yards behind the play. Mark Reynolds was overall a very good player for us although towards the end you felt he was stagnating a little and needed a move away. In a way he was hoist on his own petard by coming into the team as a rookie and being absolutely magnificent. His first season was probably his best season and fans therefore didn't see enough development and perhaps even detected his performances going back slightly but that didn't mean he wasn't good. Central defence is one of the hardest positions to play and depends on match experience more than other areas of the park. Right now Mark Reynolds is only 26 years old and has maybe another 7 or 8 years at the top level in front of him. With additional experience I'd expect him to get better and better. He should be one of the first names down in the Scotland squad, especially since we are not over abundant in central defenders. I don't see him every week now but he has been excellent when we've played Aberdeen and Willie Miller, a genuinely world class defender in his day, absolutely raves about him every week on the radio. No doubt that won't dissuade his critics but I don't see any many other Scottish central defenders at Reynolds level.

Ramsden has been a very good signing. A real steady eddie in a couple of positions. Carswell has been up and down but he's certainly a trier. I got into trouble for my opinion on Steve Jennings a while back but I think Carswell is similar in that he's not a creative player and isn't likely to excite too many scouts or journalists with his technique or vision so he's never going to get the same attention as a Gauld or Mackay-Steven. However ever team needs a player like that in midfield so I don't mean to denigrate him in anyway when I say that. As a regular at the top end of the SPFL I think Carswell should have been called up by the U21's especially when players are in that squad that aren't even close to first team football but at the end of the day it's up to Billy Stark to pick what he thinks is the best team.

My offical worst XI. GK Graeme Smith - So dire he got dropped on multiple occasions for Colin Meldrum. DF Alan Sneddon - Quality mouser, shit player. Came to us very much at the end of his career. DF Karl Ready - A player I don't mind calling a complete scumbag and wage thief. Did I mention he was a scumbag? DF Ange Oueifio - One of those occasions when a park level player somehow finds himself playing professional football. DF Gary Bollan - He's fat, he's round, he's....just fat and round. MF Andy Dow - One of those players I'm actually glad had their contracts ripped up when we went into administration. MF Paul Keegan - As Lady Catherine Lamb almost said "Sad, bad and dangerous to watch." MF Kevin McBride - His nickname should have been Kevin 'White Feather' McBride. Biggest shitebag I've ever seen. Could probably make him faint but bursting a crisp packet. FW Andy Roddie - So bad he actually transcended abuse and became a sort of funny likable clown in a Motherwell shirt. Oh Andy! LOL Another miss from half a yard, whit ye like! FW Khaled Kemas - They called him Hammerfoot after a terrific volleyed goal. Unfortunately before and after they mostly called him Shitefoot. FW Trevor Molloy - The Malpas season in a nutshell. If that nutshell was a really crap Irish footballer with the word footballer in inverted commas. Subs. Colin Meldrum - So bad he kept letting Graeme Smith get back into the team to fuck things up. Eddie Forrest - Airdrie bawbag and crime on the eyes. Gunni Jonsson - Gave away a goal with a slack pass back, scored an OG, gave away a penalty and then got sent off in one match. His 2nd and last match. Joni Lehtonen - Or as he should have been known Joni Who-let-him-on. Mario Doerner - As far as most people are concerned the 2nd worst Austrian of all time.

I remember when even a team like Falkirk would bring a big support. I agree that away supporters are probably the area we could do most to try and attract. If 4,000 Motherwell fans go to a home match and less than a 1,000 go to an away match, that's 3,000 fans that, if they could afford to, would probably want to go to the game and the same could be said for other clubs supporters. It's hard to do though without charging less for away fans than home fans in which case home fans are likely to complain. Otherwise there has to be some kind of initiative between all the clubs where you could buy a sort of season ticket for away games or use a home season ticket to get discounted entry into away grounds. Can't see how any kind of consensus could be reached by the different clubs. Say I could buy a book of five or ten tickets that gained me entry to 5 or 10 away matches of my choice across the season. Depending on price of course, but that would be an attraction to someone who very rarely goes to away games now (usually only cup games).

I've said this over and over but it's basically down to us, the fans, to finance the club because there isn't much sponsorship or TV money out there. If you don't want to pay for a top division side then we'll soon find our level because the club just won't be able to afford the squad to keep us at our current level. I think Motherwell FC have always been pretty fair in terms of pricing admission and season tickets when compared to other sides. During the good times when other teams were ripping off supporters we generally had the lowest or one of the lowest admission and season ticket prices and that's more or less continued up until the present day. There is a balancing act between pricing die hard supporters like myself out of the game and keeping enough turnover to put out a competitive side and I think Motherwell have done that pretty well. Unfortunately reducing prices has been tried and failed to attract enough supporters to make up the financial short fall on a long term basis. I don't earn a lot and would like cheaper prices if it was possible but sadly I don't think it is. I'm paying close to the maximum I can really pay for football now but as I think it's necessary for people like me to put the money into the club to maintain a competitive side I do so without much complaint. Rather than thinking about increasing attendances and revenue I think we actually really need to think about maintaining our current level. My fear is that the time will come when our attendances drop further and we simply cannot raise the revenue required pay for a professional football team. Looking at clubs like Inverness and St. Johnstone I'm amazed they can actually do it on attendances that are often in the 2,000s. In the longer term the financial viability of these clubs has to be questioned.

Kevin McDonald was one of those ones where you 'heard' he was a tremendous player in the reserves and then when he played in the first team he just didn't have it. There are players that when they step up and start playing in front of a crowd they just go into their shell and he was apparently one of those. Stevie Nicholas was a good player that it just didn't work out for at Motherwell. He had injuries and there was a high turn over of different managers at that time which didn't help him. He was in the classic mold of the technically gifted player that struggles for consistency but he wasn't one of the worst ever. He scored a few goals for a start.

You should get some kind of award for remembering that guy. If you asked me to remember every Motherwell player I'd ever seen I'd have never have plucked him out the old memory.