Ya Bezzer!

Seems everyone agrees tonight! Kerr and Randolph deserve a mention but Higdon wins MotM from me.

Thought Inverness started the better and Randolph had to make an excellent save to keep it 0-0. Inverness were certainly passing it around better than us and we got the goals against the run of play. Didn't quite see what happened but it looked like the goalkeeper had a howler and bundled into his own net. A minute or two later we were two nil up after Humphrey got to the byline and found Higdon. Inverness then scored what looked like a preventable goal but considering the inexperience of our back line today they did reasonably well overall. The first half was nothing special despite the goals but it livened up a bit in the second half as the game got stretched a bit. The standard of goal Inverness gave away was awful and you can imagine Big Tel going absolutely ballistic after the match and they did it again when a slack back pass from Raven (I think it was him anyway) went straight to Higdon who easily tucked it away. The last goal was the best of the bunch, Ojamaa skinned his man and sent a good ball in for Higdon who fired it into the top corner. We didn't have it all our own way, Randolph made three excellent saves in open play and of course saved a penalty. Kerr was excellent again today at right back, the back line did quite well considering they are all basically inexperienced teenagers, Law showed some class, Humphrey was raping their left back but his delivery was a mixed bag, still he set up the second goal. The two guys at either end though were immense - Randolph and Higdon.

Inverness are actually the top scorers in the league at the moment with 7 goals (joint with Dundee Utd) so we can't afford to take them lightly and we'll probably have to score at least a couple of goals to get a win. They have also got 2 away draws this season and their away win in the cup against Arbroath so they have traveled reasonably well so far. For me this is the type of game you have to win if you are going to have a decent season so I'm hoping for a win but I don't think it will be easy.

What happens if the deadline passes and we then play on Sunday and lose to Inverness and drop down to 9 or 10th in the league? Not impossible since they beat us at Fir Park last season! I'd say there would be uproar in the support about allowing the deadline to pass without bringing experience in. I think we could see a unknown loan deal or two coming in but I'm not sure about contracted players. We definitely need to improve the squad and I don't think it's good for young players development when they are thrown in when there is no back up.

Its the oldest trick in the book. He wants to go back to Hearts, this agent contacts Hearts secretly and Hearts offer a package. He gets his agent to have talks with another club and makes sure it is publicized. The agent then contacts Hearts and says "my guy is close to signing to this other club, better up your offer". Hearts then increase the pacakge on offer for the player. 1) The player gets the move he wants and a better deal 2) The agent gets a better percentage 3) The club get the player they were after. The only loser is the 'other club'. Happens all the time, just happens it's us who are the loser this time.

I thought he was really maturing the season before his bad injury. I've said it before but he reminded a lot of Paul Quinn, a young player that came in at an early age, made mistakes, was a bit rash but grew and matured into a very good pro. Potentially a very good player for us and hopefully we see him back soon.

So did I!

If we got £200 for Humphrey and used half of that to get Jim O'Brien back at Fir Park that would be a great deal.

Would imagine Broadfoot would get a club down in England that can pay a lot more than anyone in the SPL. Riordan, a big risk - could pay off big time or be a total waste of money. His performances for St. Johnstone last season were very poor, got to say I think I'd avoid which says a lot when you consider the undoubted talent he has. Not really a big fan of Sheridan either. I agree that we really need a midfielder. Would love someone like Andrew Shinnie, we are crying out for a player like that.

I wouldn't abandon this tactic although there are obviously things to work on. At the end of the day we got a draw against what I think will be a hard team to beat this season and pretty much our entire midfield didn't perform. Our failings weren't entirely tactical yesterday it was just that the entire midfield failed to perform on the day, that happens some times, it doesn't write off an entire tactical approach. We've had much worse results and performances in a 4-4-2. For me one of McCall's biggest failings is his reluctance to try new things so I'm certainly not going to criticize him for the set up yesterday.

Went for Cummins. Looks very composed much like Reynolds when he first came into the team. Maybe Hutchy can learn something from him rather than the other way around!

We started like this today. ----------------------------Randolph--------------------------- --------------Hutchinson-----------------Cummins--------------- Kerr--------------------------------------------------Hammell-- --------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------Hetherington----------------------- --------------Lasley------------------------Law---------------- --------------------------------------------------------------- ------------Ojamaa-------------------------------Murphy-------- ----------------------------Higdon----------------------------- Without a wide midfielder/winger and Ojamaa/Murphy tucked infield we looked exposed down our flanks, especially the right hand side where Carey was getting a lot of good crosses into the box. Hard to really say if the tactical set up was a success or not as Lasley/Law/Murphy/Ojamaa were all sub par today which left a decent back four performance and an isolated Higdon up front.

I was quite excited when I saw our formation at the beginning of the match as it looked like Murphy and Ojamaa would be playing relatively narrow and infield and Nicky Law was on the left of midfield where I think he usually performs best. It certainly seemed to work early on as we scored in the first couple of minutes. Can't say too much about it as I didn't see the build up and only saw Higdon tucking it away. You'd have thought we would build on that but it was as positive as it got for us in the match. St. Mirren passed the ball around well and by about the 20th minute they were dominating and pretty much held the ascendancy for the rest of the match. The problem, in my opinion, was central midfield. With Ojamaa and Murphy just behind Higdon that meant St. Mirren had 4 midfielders on our 3 and Law and Lasley looked fatigued, never really getting into the game. As a result we never really got a grip on the game and if you compare the number of saves made by Darren Randolph with the number made by Craig Samson they it pretty much tells you who was on top. The Hutchinson sending off will probably be identified as the turning point in the match. Admittedly I was down the other end of the East Stand and others will have got a better view of it but to me it looked a foul and what really annoyed me about it is that virtually every match you can bet that Hutchinson will give away a foul in the exact position. Whether he got the ball or not he should not be putting himself in that position and he does it week after week after week. When is it going to sink in Hutchy? It's such a shame because he was probably our best player in the match but I'm afraid he's blotted his copy book with me and it's probably cost of the game. It was almost inevitable that he was going to get sent off after the Thompson incident and he didn't 'disappoint'. The only real positives were the performances of some of the younger players. Cummins was excellent and looks like an excellent prospect. Hetherington made mistakes but he certainly gave a lot of effort and I have a feeling once he has a bit more experience he will be a decent squad member. Kerr did well considering I though he was often left quite exposed. Francis-Angol didn't get much opportunity but once again I have to ask what exactly does Carswell do? I must have seen him come on 9 or 10 times now and I don't think I've seen a single thing of note from him. Was it a coincidence that St. Mirren pressed us even harder after Nicky Law was replace by Carswell - perhaps but perhaps not. Overall it was not a good performance but we are still undefeated having played some tough midweeks between weekend matches, we have a decent points tally with scope for improvement but on todays evidence St. Mirren looked more like a Top Six side than we did.

Finally get to see the team again, only seen the Panathinaikos game this season. I think it will be a tough match. St.Mirren are a different animal under Danny Lennon have quite a few decent attacking players in the team, I think they will definitely pose a danger especially in midfield with guys like Imrie, McGowan, Carey, McLean etc. I've not seen much of the team but I've been a bit depressed reading some of the after match comments and we seem to be struggling to create chances. Hopefully we can turn that around but I wouldn't be surprised if we lack a little energy after the midweek match. Perhaps McCall can give some of the younger players a run out in this one, I'm looking forward to seeing Francis-Angol and Hetherington for the first time if they get the chance.

I have the proud record of having seen all our home European ties but I won't make it to this one unfortunately as it was too short notice for me to get the evening off work. It will be another colossal task, the gap in finances is huge, but I just hope that we give a good account of our selves, if we do that there is always an outside chance we could get a result.

I'm sure Higdon let him know what he thought!

I wasn't at the game so I can't argue about Murphy's overall performance but watching the highlights he was involved in just about every positive moment shown. He was involved in the goal, playing the ball out wide and then drawing the defenders (both were watching Murphy while McHugh found space). He then had a run and an excellent cross from which Higdon almost won the game with his header. Then finally he won the header from the corner that ended up as the McHugh/Hutchinson scrabble right at the end. Murphy doesn't always dominate matches but in my opinion he's usually involved when something positive happens and if you take him out the side we lose a lot.

If MJC getting his hole guarentees a Motherwell win I think we should all chip in for a hooker.

Did you read the after match comments last week? Contrast what Darren Randolph said with what his manager said. There will be no 'dare to dream' while McCall is manager of Motherwell. His style, if you were being kind, is a modest pragmatism. In a general sense it has worked for him but when it comes to games like these I don't think there is much chance of us causing a shock any time soon. As for Dundee United, they are quite a bit better than us IMO and will prove so this season. If top level football is all about having a cutting edge then their front trio of Russell, Daly, and Mackay-Steven are probably the best in the league right now and that's including Celtic. I'd still expect them to go out tonight though. Also bear in mind that Panathinaikos are the premier team of Athens/Greece, the same cannot be said of Dinamo Moscow who are the least supported team in Moscow (Spartak, CSKA, Lokomotiv are all bigger clubs)and behind other Russian teams like Zenit, Anzhi, Rubin Kazan etc.

Its strange that the two players who have scored the most goals in a team that, those two apart, hardly scores any goals would get all the stick. They only scored 29 goals between them last season! Welcome to the illogical world of Steelmen Online.

Anyway, I agree with your first point, this goes beyond "Daley is pish" talk but I'm not so sure I agree with the second point. I don't really think tonights result has anything to do with 'systemic problems in Scottish football'. We simply played a much bigger team, with a bigger budget, with better players, who have more experience at this level. If we had played a Greek team of roughly the same size and income as ours, a team like Giannina or Iraklis, we might well have gone through in the tie and you mostly likely wouldn't have seen the same technical gap. At the end of the day it comes down to money and we are a small club without much to spend. I didn't see tonight's match but I was there last week and the two Panathinaikos players that looked a cut above our guys were both non Greek - Sissoko and Zeca, i.e. it was money that brought them into the Panathinaikos squad in terms of, possibly fees, but certainly wages. Those guys were the difference between the teams and if we'd had the money to outbid Panathinaikos for them they might well have been the difference then as well.

Will be at work taking sneaky looks at Flashscores when the boss is in the meeting room.

If they can identify the people responsible send them the bill! Guaranteed we'd never have anything like this happen again.

Looks like the Keith Lasley/Fraser Fyvie incident from last season!

St. Johnstone lined up like this last weekend. -------------Mannus------------ ----McCracken--------Wright---- Mackay-----------------C.Davidson --------Cregg----M.Davidson Millar------------------Craig --------Tade-----Hasselbaink Looks like a pretty solid line up that should finish Top 6, although I think there are some question marks over Steve Lomas as a manager. There squad is quite small but in my opinion a bit stronger than ours, they can bring in guys like Steven Anderson, Kevin Moon, Jamie Adams, David Robertson, Tam Scobbie etc. We don't have that sort of experience on the bench. Tade/Hasselbaink could be quite a tricky front two but I'm not sure when Tade's suspension kicks in from his sending off last Saturday. There was also talk of the red card being rescinded. If Tade is out it will probably be Stevie May who comes in, one of those guys who has scored goals at a lower level but hasn't done it at the top level. They also have a new forward called Rowan Vine but I don't know anything about him. He's been transfered twice for more than a million pounds (Birmingham, QPR) so he might be one to look out for. Also perhaps someone people don't pay much attention to but I've liked Chris Millar on the right wing when I've seen him, he was superb when they beat us at Fir Park last season and the Saints fans seem to rate him quite highly, but I think he's had problems with injuries that have held him back a bit.