Ya Bezzer!

Ainsworth, brought in from the lower leagues in England didn't need nullified last night because he was so bad. Our most effective player this season has been Sutton who was 'hoovered up from a team that finished below us last year'. Don't think your argument stands up.

A difficult choice for all the wrong reasons. Nielsen - had a nightmare, never looked comfortable (4) Ramsden - pumped too many balls into the box, partly due to not being willing to attack, partly due to Ainsworth poor positional play. (5) Hutchinson - Had hardly anything to do, got ripped for the second goal, would like to see the first goal as well as I didn't see who Considine beat in the air. (?) McManus - See above. (?) Hammell - lacked mobility and passing was poor. (5) Lawson - thought he started well but unraveled pretty quickly. (4) Lasley - not his best game as there was no midfield battle to win and the game was all in front of him (5) Francis Angol - going through a bad spell, still better than Ainsworth though (5) Carswell - another young player who's form has dropped off, maybe needs a rest (4) Anier - didn't get into the box often enough, ineffective (5) Sutton - frustrating match, well marshalled by Dons defence (5) Ainsworth - dire performance (4) McHugh - very little impact (2) No one really deserves it. I'm not voting until I see the highlights, particularly the first goal in better detail.

As did I. But based on the notion that McFadden would be fitter this season than last season. Not on the fact that he'd play, literally, at walking pace.

If we want to get better this season we need Vigurs and McFadden to perform. Simple. These two guys are the ones with something extra in the locker. McCall brought Vigurs in but doesn't seem to want to actually make the necessary tactical adjustments to his team to actually use him effectively. The player needs to give himself a shake but McCall also needs to ask himself what he's actually doing to utilize the players strengths. McFadden has obviously been injured since pre-season. As far as I know, and I may be wrong, he was not seriously linked with any other club. I suspect I know why now. There are two possible outcomes with McFadden, he gets over his injuries and returns to something like the form he showed last season which I thought was excellent. Or he doesn't get any better in which case he'll probably retire from football at the end of the season. Either way he's with us until then so we can only be patient with him, however if he's not fit, he shouldn't play and I think that's what has happened earlier this season.

What about 'Why was Faddy signed if he isn't fit enough to play?' He hasn't been fit enough to play, regardless of time spent on the field, since day 1 of the season.

It wasn't our main problem, I agree. But we don't have a single player across the middle of the field that can score from 18, 20, 25 yards out. Our shooting from that distance was dire. When an opportunity fell to Carswell from that distance he took a fresh air swipe and fell on his arse. Think about how often someone like Rocco Quinn or Liam Craig bangs one in against us. Our goal tally from midfield is woeful and it costs us points. This season we have 2 goals from 13 by defenders and midfielders and one of them was a header from a set piece.

Funnily enough tonight was the night Vigurs would have been handy. He can actually strike a ball from 20 - 25 yards. Carswell, Lasley, Lawson, Francis-Angol, not so much.

An absolutely disastrous result for Motherwell FC. Leaving the ground all I heard was anger and disillusionment. This is the sort of result and turns fans away from supporting the club. It will be interesting to see what the attendance is at the weekend because I think a lot of fans, fairly or unfairly were sickened by what happened tonight. I'm going to make three main points. 1) Aberdeen are just better than us this season and I think before we go any further we have to accept that. They attack better than us, they defend better than us, they have a better goalkeeper than us, they have more height and strength than us, they have more pace than us and they have more goal threat than us. 2) Today was the worst refereeing performance I have seen in a very long time. John Beaton should not be anywhere near refereeing top level games. He was utterly, utterly inept. Which brings me to Motherwell. 3) The sending off was probably was worst thing that could have happened to us. I thought we started well, had a goal disallowed that the linesman didn't seem to flag until about 30 seconds afterwards and generally looked like the better team. After the sending off we seemed to have no idea how to break down a team that had everyone behind the ball. I accept that when a team plays like Aberdeen did tonight it can be very difficult to break down, especially when they have a physical advantage over us but our attempt to break them down was completely wrong headed and inept. Can ANYONE tell me why on multiple occasions why the ball was played wide to a winger who then proceeded to pump an easily defend able ball from virtually the half way line into the Aberdeen box? Could we make it any easier to defend? It was bad enough that Ramsden was doing it, but for a supposed winger, why the hell was Ainsworth doing it? Why do Motherwell seem to sign wingers that have some kind of aversion to the byline!? You get to the byline, you play balls going AWAY from the goalkeeper and defender and TOWARDS our attacking players. This is school boy stuff and yet time after time we do not do it. It is simply not good enough when players who should know better behave like amateurs. I have a feeling that Nielsen will be getting some stick tonight, especially over the first goal. My thoughts are that I thought the corner from Aberdeen was a superb one that made it very difficult to defend however, putting that to one side I thought Nielsen had a stinker. Every time Aberdeen put a ball into the box you were just waiting for disaster to strike. He showed no authority or command of his area. Hollis can't come back soon enough. Finally Stuart McCall. I've often been a critic of McCall but overall I think you have to be fair and say he has mostly down a very good job. However tonight he let Motherwell FC and it's support done badly with a negligent performance as manager. He made an adjustment at half time but that was not good enough. It was clear we needed to make tactical adjustments at 60, 70, 80 minutes and what we got was Anier taken off for McHugh. There are guys on here who have it in for McHugh, I am not one of them, but that decision does not cut it as a managerial decision in possibly our biggest game of the season. Stuart McCall was hiding tonight behind status quo because he didn't know what to do. I totally understand that we have a small and limited squad but as a manager Stuart McCall has to have a Plan A, B, C, right through to Z. He showed tonight he doesn't have them, just as in the past he didn't have them. It's a huge flaw in his armour and as a result I think it is unlikely we will ever win these really big matches when it really matters. We will trundle along in the league well enough, provided our confidence doesn't nosedive after this defeat, but actually win something under McCall? Sadly I just can't see it. Tonight seemed to show there is a ceiling on Stuart McCall's managerial ability.

I don't know, you make a joke and everyone gets upset these days...

It's probably immaterial since they all have a national, rather than provincial, profile and most likely aren't available at short notice - even for something as prestigious as a golf club presentation.

Apparently it's a malleolar injury. That's ankle to you and me.

He has done the square root of hee haw this season. However if he's not any good he must be lucky because we got 4 wins and a draw with him in the team then when he wasn't there we lose 2 out of 3. I'll have a hee haw player in the team if he's lucky.

Sadly the second section from last is usually sparsely populated. Hopefully there are enough people around for this to work!

Tough luck for the guys with prior commitments but I much prefer Friday nights to Sunday or Mondays.

The fundamentals of goalkeeping are that you keep it out the net anyway you can. Nielsen did that and the ball was there to be won in the box. Sadly, our defenders were sitting on their heels, while Stevie May was alert to what was actually happening. That goal seemed to sum up the lethargy of the team yesterday. There were about 4 balls to be won in the lead up to the goal and we lost every battle. Blaming Nielsen seems pretty short sighted to me.

We have a better chance of winning a cup than normal but I think some people are getting carried away. Results this season seem to show me that we are only third or fourth favourites to win the cup. We've been beaten pretty comprehensively by Inverness, Aberdeen and St. Johnstone this season and we didn't beat Dundee Utd. The win over Hibs, while a good result, was hardly a convincing performance. The idea that 'our name is on the cup' just because Celtic are out the competition is ludicrous. We will need to put in performances and work bloody hard to even get into the next round. I hope we do it, but I dislike the idea that the cup is just waiting for us to pick up. Most years it's not the OF that put out us out the cup and this year will be no different unless we actually get our attitude right.

I thought Aberdeen beat us pretty convincingly back in the first home game and the fact that we seem incapable of beating any of the expected Top Six teams this season I find a bit worrying. Aderdeen, Inverness, St. Johnstone, Celtic....I see a theme developing here, almost the opposite of last season when we had a very good record against the good teams and dropped a lot of points to the struggler. On the positive side our recent home record is very good, Aberdeen match aside.

Lot of truth in this. We've seen this kind of thing before. I said in the chatbox earlier that they always say in football that they will 'take each game as it comes' but we certainly don't.

Agreed. If I had to pick a MotM, and thank god I only pick them for games I actually attend, McHugh would be one of the contenders. The midfield was absolutely shocking today and so was the defence. A goalkeeping howler was inevitable today due to the conditions. Maybe if we'd put them under as much pressure it would have been their guy instead of ours.

Maybe it's because they have one of the best home records in the UK, including a comprehensive win over us last time at their place.

This could be our biggest game of the season as I'd put winning a cup higher than a runners up spot in the league. Even though they needed two penalties to beat us last time I thought they were impressive and thoroughly deserved the win. They have height, pace and experience and are the best team I've seen this season. I think this will be a tough match, especially as Aberdeen have an extra days recovery time which will probably tell in the latter stages but hopefully we get that little bit of luck that seems to have gone against us lately versus Aberdeen, especially in the cup. A penalty for absolutely nothing would be a start!

You can get a non peak time ticket that is only about £14 or something from Queen Street. The £28 one is the any time ticket. Burd used to live up there so I know all about trains to Perth.

This is the case. Anderson is a long term injury case and Wright got sent off last weekend although I'm not sure when the suspension kicks in. Gary Miller has come in for Anderson and I suspect Tam Scobbie might play at centre half if Frazer Wright is out. We have bad memories of Tam Scobbie playing centre half with Falkirk! St. Johnstone have a very good home record over the past couple of seasons so I think this will be a tough match where the key will be getting the first goal. St. Johnstone have scored 7 goals in their last two league matches and have already beaten Ross County and Inverness 4-0 on their own patch, so we will have to be defensively strong.

I can't get rid of it. It's 'stuck'. EDIT. OK, fixed it!

Ramsden was talking about the team spirit in the match programme. It's good to see and I reckon a big part of our recent success. Guys like Hammell and Lasley are gold, not just on the field but off it as well.