Ya Bezzer!

Obviously not our worst performance or result against Rangers but I was pretty disappointed today by what I saw. First of all that was the poorest Rangers team we've seen at Fir Park since probably the play off match. It'll be a long, long time before we see Rangers give away as much ball as they did today. Unfortunately while we pressed and won challenges that's where the good points ended. On the ball we were absolutely atrocious. Poor ability, poor passing, poor decision making, poor control, it simply is not good enough. How many times did we win the ball and give it straight back? Or play a long ball into an area of the park with absolutely no claret and amber shirts in it? Outside of set pieces we created one real chance and that was against as poor a Rangers team as you are likely to face. Sometimes Rangers and Celtic come to our place and play at the top of their game and there isn't much you can do about it. Today Rangers were well off the boil and they have gone 2-0 up. Both goals we lost today were really poor although to be fair Rangers didn't really cause us a lot of problems overall. However, you need to be defensively switched on for the 90 minutes. Unfortunately we are going to have to play a lot better against Celtic or I suspect a pumping will be delivered.

Doesn't matter if you are Brora Rangers or Real Madrid if you get pumped 7-1 at home your confidence takes a big knock. I think we have a real opportunity here to get the result we've been waiting a long time for. However we can't allow Rangers to play themselves back into confidence. When Dundee Utd lost 7 to AZ they played Hearts next and Hearts scored in the 1st minute. We don't need to score in the first minute but we have to prevent Rangers from playing their way out of the low place they will inevitable be in. If we can do that I think we can do something.

Henri Anier scored his 20th international goal tonight.

Aye but they have conceded in every league match this season bar one. If you can score a goal in this league you've a decent chance of getting a result.

This season (league stats) Rangers and Celtic have a combined penalty to shot ratio of 1 in 239 We have a penalty to shot ratio of 1 in 28 A lot of football is just.....random.

In terms of tempo, passing, chance creation etc, etc, best performance of the season. At the end of the day though Dundee Utd, who were shocking and there for the taking, record their first league clean sheet of the season. The build up play was a lot better today but you've got to take your chances or you won't go very far. It'll be interesting to see if we can repeat that level of performance against other teams cos I thought Dundee Utd were dire.

Louis Moult is a top five striker in the 40 plus years I've been supporting us but his injury history is catastrophic and he's not really scored too many goals since he left us. Fingers crossed we get the old Louis.

Or it's on the fans for forcing Alexander out after two results of the season having, just a few weeks ago given him a standing ovation. As for our transfer market performance, it's been so poor for so long maybe you just have to say that's the level we are at these days. Other teams might have performed a bit better here and there but I don't see a great slew of higher standard players coming into the league in general and on the other side of that you might say we've produced better youth players than most other teams.

You've forgotten what he took over and what he achieved with that. I said all along that Alexander's team might not be the best to watch but he squeezed pretty much the maximum you could achieve out of a poor set of players. Now we are just left with the players. By the way, Motherwell's standard of signing has been in decline for a long time probably going back to the Brown/McCall era after which big changes had to be made with the enormous financial losses we incured. Fan owner ship has rarely if ever produced top teams. There is a new reality that Motherwell supporters need to get used to but evidently they just want to scapegoat. And when you scapegoat you don't address the actual problem because, you know, it's all HIS fault.

I don't actually agree with this line of thought. No lover of Rangers but does ANYONE other than Willie Collum think Lundstrum should have got a red for that yesterday? It's just obvious it's not a red. I'd agree if you said you can't moan about marginal decisions but there are loads of decisions being made in Scottish football that anyone watching can see are wrong or inconsistant. I think one of the things about VAR that's going to be interesting is if it changes referee behaviour because you absolutely get the impression right now that some of them, especially Willie Collum, are out their to be the centre of attention rather than actually referee properly. Would Collum give that red with VAR watching? If the answer is no then I think you have to say that certain referee's are abusing their position and that can't be allowed just because we don't have VAR in place.

The thing that really bothers me about VAR is that basically every goal is going to be checked so for me that takes a lot of the raw emotion out of the game. There was an example yesterday down south in the Crystal Palace game, I think it was Crystal Palace anyway, where they scored, crowd went crazy, everyone celebrating and then quite a bit later it gets chopped off for the most marginal offside you'll ever see. I think it's really important we don't lose the 'feeling' of the game. I'd actually rather be cheated here and there than lose the enjoyment of watching football overall.

No real stand outs. Both teams were tepid in attack. I thought Johansen and McGinn were the best of our defenders. Tempted to go for McGinn just because of the way he took a beautiful touch to control a high ball in the first half and brought it down on his foot. That was quite classy.

Let's be honest the match was a complete snoozefest, I don't think either goalkeeper actually had a save to make out with the penalty. Still it was important we took points from the easier fixtures at the start of the season.. However, we may have changed manager, formation and style but our lack of creativity in open play is still there for all too see.

Hammell starts with my support like every other Motherwell manager but we've basically swapped out an experienced manager with a track record for an inexperienced manager with no track record and I think that highlights that no high quality candidate wanted to work with our squad, budget and toxic fan base. When you fire someone you should have a plan to bring in a replacement. I don't think we did and the club has meekly folded to the idiotic knee jerk roasters in our support. Hopefully it works out for Stevie, the club and my season ticket investment but I think he has a very, very hard job ahead of him.

Alexander has a better record than 'big Malky' in the Premiership. He won 2 out his first 15 league matches and has only won 1 out the last ten. He's spent 26 out of 40 weeks in the bottom 3 places in the league.

Goss and Johansen. Kelly didn't have a lot to do. Went for Goss. Rest not good enough.

Of course they can. I thought we were very poor yesterday but we still hit the post and should have had at least one penalty. I don't think we can have any complaints about losing but on another day we could have won 3-1. There are very small margins and as bad as we are most of the rest aren't miles ahead. Just cutting out basic defensive errors could transform things.

I felt our 'improved' second half improvement was more down to St Johnstone sitting back and defending a lead than us actually being any good. Davidson isn't exactly known for expansive tactics. The most alarming thing about yesterday was, apart from the odd snap shot here and there, we didn't actually create a goal scoring chance until about 61 minutes and didn't even look like doing so. You might even say we are looking like last season's St. Johnstone - totally unable to score unless it's gift wrapped in the form of a pen or OG. Too early to judge new players but Morris and Spittal just haven't been at the races. In the two matches I've seen Spittal has arguably the worst player on both occasions. Probably should have had at least one penalty but we couldn't defend an injury time equaliser so we deserve everything we get. Was watching Match of the Day earlier and the way top teams press off the ball is in total contrast to us. That's not a technique issue, that's an attitude issue. Our level of football has far too many guys phoning it in. That's evident from the shocking goals we give away just about every week. Our players just aren't switched on and who ever the next manager is needs to put a rocket up the arse of this squad. O'Donnell is supposed to be the captain and one of the most experienced and he's making rookie mistakes that cost us the game. He needs to be the example but the only example he is is what not to do. If you have no ability, the only guy that looked like he could put his foot on the ball was Goss, you need to work and concentrate on your game. Looking like a long hard season ahead and the managerial appointment is crucial. As much as I like Hammell we need an experienced manager with a contact book who can bring in 3 good standard first XI players ASAP. So far it's four dismal performances out of four.

He makes Kenny Dalglish seem effervescent but in terms of experience and success he's probably as good as we get. The downside is he failed at Livingston (albeit his first job I think) and is used to operating at a much higher level. Also all through his career he's tended to walk away from clubs.

I said in the very beginning despite a 7th and 5th league placing our fans had an irrational dislike of Alexander and were just waiting to get him. I said Motherwell fans should manage their expectations as we might well lose - they didn't and we did. I said that Scottish teams at our level have a negligible gap of superiority over League of Ireland and none with start of season fitness - I was right. I said none of our outfield players would be stand outs in the League of Ireland - Sligo were better in every area. I said we'd probably lose last night - again correct. Now instead of going into some demented Daily Mail reader style rant, Motherwell fans have to face reality. We are a small self financed club, we have probably our worst ever squad because we cannot pay wages and we've sold all the family silver and there is nothing left. Alexander has comfortably kept us up with a very weak squads twice. It would be utter folly and an incredible and dangerous risk to fire him now. Bringing in an unproven manager, with this squad, could be a history altering decision for the club and not in a good way. Falkirk anyone? Dunfermline anyone? We lost a Euro tie. Our Euro record is abysmal. 1 win 15. Big surprise. Alexander doesn't get any free pass. He'll be judged on his league results. Now stop this mewling red faced infant tantrum stuff and behave like thinking adults. Back in the day when I was almost a lone voice trying to protect standards at our club I was derided, dismissed even threatened in private messages. Well you know what, that time has passed, sorry Motherwell fans but we are where we are and it's time to eat the gruel YOU ordered. This ridiculous bi polar fan base standing ovations one match, utter rancour the next, sometimes even within matches (Livingston) is going to drag our club down into a very bad place.

The point eluded you didn't it?

I've made my position clear. I judge him after 11 league matches. My prediction is that our next result will be a win, loss or draw. Your prediction is that we will definitely lose. There is no comparison in positions.

I'm not going to defend Ross but Hibs didn't get any better, in fact they got worse under Maloney. The new manager has them eliminated in the group stages of the League Cup as a prelude to the new season. Be careful what you wish for.

Real world facts, ie results, show that in modern times Scottish sides often struggle against teams from Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and even Wales. No one should be surprised but if a Scottish teams draws one of them next season we'll get the same pre match bravado and similar results. Scottish fans need to wake up and smell the cheap own brand coffee. As for our start to the season I've made no prediction, I don't have the clairvoyant powers like you obviously do but I've been around long enough to know that sometimes the last result doesn't determine the next result. If Motherwell win are you prepared to break an egg on your face? Of course not.

If you think we have a decent squad then we have traced the root of your delusion. I'll judge Alexander on our league performances. If we have a poor opening round of matches he'll be under a lot of pressure. I'm not judging him on these European matches where facts show we are the minnows while our support adopts a delusion based assumption of superiority. We had exactly the same situation last season against Airdrie.