Ya Bezzer!

I always felt a bit sorry for Eddie May because everyone was against him from the start plus he was an decent attacking midfielder but McLeish seemed to think he was a right back for some reason known only to him.

Yeah, Kaven is a name that always comes up in these things but go back and watch the video. By no means the worse goalkeeper we've ever had. Also Shaun McSkimming should be nowhere near a worst XI. A good player that McLeish over paid for, hardly McSkimmings fault. Tony Thomas was a pretty good player when he was fit, which was admittedly not very often. Andy Roddie tried hard but he was rotten. Over 50 appearances and couldn't score and would never have scored if we'd given him 500 appearances! Kevin Christie played three games where he looked like he had a pathological fear of footballs, one game were he looked competent and then one game where he was tremendous on a continual loop throughout his Motherwell career. Alan Sneddon and Eddie Forrest should be in the XI. Graeme Smith would probably be my goalkeeper. He's playing for Brechin, a bottom half Division 2 team, and that tells you everything about a goalkeeper who at 30 years old is in his prime.

I've always like Danny Baker but he's gotten better with age, doesn't go on wild rants too often these days and is generally a jolly old man(except when the BBC sack him). His non football week day show was better than the one he does now though. I remember him saying years ago his dad picked Motherwell as a second team but he didn't know why, so I'm assuming its something to do with that. I don't listen to the show until Sunday nights on my iplayer run.

Darren Randolph Luc Nijholt Brian Martin Mitchell van der Gaag Rob McKinnon James McFadden Paul Lambert Phil O'Donnell Davie Cooper Tommy Coyne Dougie Arnott Subs Sieb Dykstra Chris McCart Keith Lasley Stevie Kirk Scott McDonald Mio Krivokapic and Bobby Russell unlucky not to make the 16. Few others as well Tom Boyd, Chris McCart, I'll stop there!

It concerns me when attendances drop below 4,000 because I think has been traditional our base figure in the time that I've been going to the matches and when it goes below that alarm bells should be raised. We were getting decent enough crowds earlier in the season but they have dropped off lately. There could be various reasons for that but I think the Albion Rovers defeat was a huge blow and will lose us much more money than simply losing out on a cup run. Also December/January are expensive months for a lot of people and I know quite a lot of people who go away over the Christmas period. If you see the TV pictures of Fir Park lately though I doubt very much if the club is reporting false figures. Even the East Stand has been pretty sparse.

Jackson Irvine has been on loan from Celtic to Kilmarnock for the first half of the season. Lewis Toshney was on loan from Celtic to Dundee and Peter Pawlett was on loan at St. Johnstone from Aberdeen last season. Don't think there is any reason why we can't loan from other Scottish clubs, even other Premiership clubs.

Occasionally give us a mention by covering virtually every game we play live on radio? That putting aside the discussion before and after matches? Don't know if you noticed by one of the best known football presenters on BBC Scotland is a Motherwell fan who isn't shy about his allegiance. There are several local newspapers cover Motherwell as well.

Point being we get a lot more press coverage than far larger clubs elsewhere in the country.

Heard someone saying somewhere that Partick Thistle put in their worst performance of the season and still won 2-0. Hearts have picked up 1 point at home since August so you'd expect us to win this one. I would especially enjoy a Sutton hat trick in this one but any kind of win will do.

There's barely any interest in the team in our own town never mind in the country at large so why should the media be festooning their newspapers, radio programmes and television with Motherwell FC? Well that might be an argument if it was true but actually Motherwell get an enormous amount of press coverage for the size of the club. Try taking a club that gets 3,763 supporters to their last home match and getting any coverage at all down in England. I'm sure one thing that any player will tell you about coming up here is clubs our size get an enormous amount of media coverage compared to similar sized clubs elsewhere. It's one of the few strengths football has in this country, in that we can attract players that want to make a bit of a name for themselves before moving on. I rarely read newspapers anymore but when I do there is usually some kind of Motherwell related story in their even if it's not a two page spread, we get live matches broadcast across Scotland and the United Kingdom on a regular basis. Take the BBC website for example. Motherwell have 9 non match report stories since the 29th December. Bradford have 2 non match report stories. Coventry have 4 non match report stories. Wolves have 4 non match report stories. All those clubs are at least twice as big as us, from much bigger towns and cities and receive less coverage from the BBC. The last time I had the radio on they were absolutely raving about Motherwell for quite a while, in fact they were probably going overboard with the praise. Everything is relative of course, Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen etc are all likely to get more attention than us because there is a bigger media audience out there for them, but actually the amount of media coverage Motherwell get is a lot more than most other clubs of our stature get in any other major footballing country.

12.45pm on a Saturday morning is a stupid time to have a football match and I'm absolutely knackered so I'm not too unhappy about this cancellation.

By the way I once saw Shaun Fagan hit a stunning 30 yarder. By all accounts he's signed on loan for the rest of the season. Which is the sensible thing to do. Obviously those that run the club agree with me, they aren't going to spunk hundreds of thousands of pounds on a player because he's had a three week spell of good form and we can now assess him over a longer period with a view to offering a contract in the summer, if he's worth it. Quite why you are getting your knickers in a twist is bizarre. And other people have said the same as we without apparently getting your ire.

I thought he was excellent under Gannon playing in the deep midfield position. Post Gannon he rarely impressed in midfield but we played a different system.

Players move on and that's football. I don't have negative feelings for anyone that's left Motherwell. The club goes on. Some players go on to better things, some don't, others some fit in at certain clubs, others don't, some make the most of their talent and others squander it, it's just the nature of the game. I think Tom Hateley was put in an uncomfortable position during the summer because of his fathers Rangers connections and position in the media. It attracted more news copy and rumours than might have been the case otherwise. My feeling was that Hateley was probably the weakest player in our line up last season so I'm not surprised he's not been a success when much better players have tried and failed but I'm not going to be bitter about it. He's gone, good luck to the guy.

No, not just me. That's because he was actually garbage and anyone not stupid would have seen that. He's played well recently (I gave him my MotM on Saturday) but there are plenty of players for Motherwell that have had good spells but generally have been poor signings. Take Kevin McBride for instance, or John Spencer or Giles Coke or a list of other guys that started off strong and then faded away. It's also a well know phenomena in football that players play for a contract and then suddenly go off the boil again. If we can extend the loan we can evaluate the player over a longer period. We do not have money to throw around at players based on a four match spell of good form. If he plays well over an extended period by all means offer him a contract. Perhaps even a better contract than we can offer now. Remember if we offer Ainsworth a 2 year contract say, that is probably not far off a £200,000 investment. Also try and have the foresight to see that Ainsworth is not going to play as well as he has over the last 4 matches over for the rest of the season. Being a human being he is at best he is going to have good games and bad games.

He is on a good run of form but it wasn't that long ago most people wanted shot of him because he was garbage. I don't think we should sign any player based on 3 or 4 games. An extended loan deal would be a better chance to assess his true worth and would probably led to us being able to tempt him to Fir Park in the summer if his contract is up.

Twardzik is 3rd choice at Dundee so I don't think they would be difficult to deal with if we wanted to try and extend the loan. It would surely benefit everyone, us, Dundee and the player himself. Like most things though it will probably come down to finances and the fact that only 3,763 were at the game yesterday speaks volumes about our income.

Goalkeeper and back four were all excellent today because St. Johnstone aren't a team with nothing up front. I thought Stevie Hammell was especially good today and even won quite a few headers. In midfield Lasley was excellent, Vigurs scored but his best contribution was the great cross for Sutton's goal, Ainsworth came in and out of the match but looked good on the ball and got better as the game went on and he scored for the fourth match in a row. He actually should have scored a couple more. John Sutton was superb as well and although there is nothing exotic about him I just love the effort he puts in. I don't think it's any coincidence that when Vigurs plays we seem to do a lot better but I'm narrowly going to give the nod to Ainsworth. He was in and out in the first half, I thought actually Anier was getting in his way a bit and funnily enough Anier moved to the other side later in the half but in the second half Ainsworth really terrorized them. MotM - Ainsworth.

It's good that we are getting goals from all over the field but the midfield have also been creating more. I mentioned it earlier but Vigurs has played two world class balls for two assists in the last two games at Fir Park and Ainsworth has been a different player from the one that joined us.

Strange game today. We could have scored 10 but St. Johnstone looked dangerous coming forward for most of the match and weren't the worse side we've played this season. However our defensive back line was rock solid today whereas St. Johnstone got torn apart at the back on a regular basis. Was fuming when the 'goal' wasn't recognized in the first half but in the end it didn't matter. Amazing how many chances we've been creating recently compared to earlier in the season. Though Vigurs was terrific today, got his first goal and for the second match in a row at Fir Park put in an absolutely world class ball that resulted in a goal. Ainsworth was in and out the match but when he was in he looked like a different player from the rather wretched figure he looked like when he first appeared. Sutton, Las and the back four were great as well. The only disappointment was the poor crowd and the fact that it looks like Twardzik is going back to Dundee based on his and the other players reactions at full time. Mon' the Well in 2014!

Here's our runs for this season and the last 5 seasons 13-14 - 4 league wins in a row; 5 league matches undefeated 12-13 - 3 league wins in a row; 8 league matches undefeated 11-12 - 3 league wins in a row; 6 league matches undefeated 10-11 - 2 league wins in a row; 4 league matches undefeated 09-10 - 3 league wins in a row; 12 league matches undefeated 08-09 - 2 league wins in a row; 9 league matches undefeated [EDIT] Actually going back one further season 07-08 - 5 league wins in a row; 6 league matches undefeated. So there is the answer we managed 5 league wins on the trot in 2007/08 which was Mark McGhee's first season. The run was Inverness (a) 3-0, Kilmarnock (a) 1-0, Gretna (h) 3-0, Hearts (a) 2-1 and Aberdeen (h) 3-0.

In my experience they aren't that bad at that age as they generally do what you tell them to do and I think are a bit in awe of the whole thing. When they get a little bit older they start to get more fidgety. I still go to the East Stand and I think it's better to expose children to the best possible atmosphere if you want them to get interested in the football. I don't swear myself in front of the children but it doesn't really bother me if they hear other people. Let's face it, they should know what is acceptable to say and in a few years they'll swearing all the time anyway when their parents are out of ear shot! I don't see much point in trying to shield children from real life as long as you spell out to them what you expect from them language and behaviour wise.

Remember we humped St. Mirren at Fir Park without McFadden and gave a very good performance. Wouldn't surprise me if we reverted to that formation again since it worked so well at Fir Park. I tend to agree with the 'don't change a winning side' argument but it will depend on knocks and fitness and McCall being a conservative coach I can't see him leaving out guys like Hutchinson and Sutton who are stalwarts for us.

If he goes back to Dundee he'll probably be sitting on the bench because apparently the no.1 Kyle Letheren has been having a good season. Twardzik was third choice at Dundee which is why they let us get him in the first place. I don't think they would be difficult to deal with as regards an additional loan. At that level I can't see a club turning back the offer of a players wages being paid when he isn't going to be playing. I think the more likely sticking point with Twardzik is where we see Ross Stewart's role.

St. Johnstone are coming off a good result against Dundee United but their away form this season has been really poor so I'll be expecting a win in this match. Away from home St. Johnstone are P8 W1 D3 L4 and their only away win was at Hearts. They have also failed to score in 5 of those 8 away matches. Looking at it St. Johnstone are a different team on their own patch than they are on the road and we really need to be thinking about picking up nothing but 3 points from this one.