Ya Bezzer!

We should secure a Top Six place before we start thinking about Europe but I don't really think Aberdeen or Hearts are significantly better than us and we have a 6 point led over both of them, although Aberdeen do have a game in hand (away to St. Johnstone). We shouldn't get to cocky though. With the upcoming fixtures Accies are a difficult team to beat despite being bottom, Hibs have pumped us twice this season and our recent record at Fir Park is dreadful against them and Kilmarnock look like they are reborn under Calderwood and won't be sitting ducks. We still have Hearts to play a third time (I assume at Fir Park).

Aye, one that WAS offside.

Did anyone hear Jack Ross on the radio the other night talking about it? He said the pitch didn't actually play that badly and a lot of the other pitches are just as bad. This coming the week after his team had lost there. The pitch is just being used an excuse by managers that drop points here. Get on with it. It's not great but deal with it.

Hateley has been brilliant. Reading will rue the day they let him go for nothing. I confidently predict Tam will go and play at a much higher level. He's that good.

We play better with Sutton up front with Jutkiewicz rather than with one up front or the three with two wider players and a striker. His goal scoring record isn't even that bad this season 23 starts 7 goals. In 51 starts he's scored 19 goals. Well within the acceptable range of a goal in every three matches. Sutton isn't going to make any all time lists but he is a good solid SPL level striker and bringing in someone better is either going to be a transfer coup or cost a pretty penny.

I said last night I wasn't so bothered about the result because I was proud of our performance. But when you see that decision on television replays you can't help but feel cheated. I'm the first to say officials have a hard job and they probably take a lot of unfair stick from supporters who only see things through partisan eyes but when a decision is as clear cut as that one was last night you really need to ask questions of the officials in charge. The linesman had a perfect view of the period of play. It was not a marginal decision and quite obvious to ANYONE that is was not offside. When it's as blatant as that you simply have to ask the question "Linesman, are you a cheat or are you completely incompetent?" It's not good enough that the linesman can hide away and not come under scrutiny for this decision. That decision could cost us a European place and deny the club hundreds of thousands of pounds. We demand answers. I'll be sending an e-mail to the SFA.

Only Motherwell supporters could all fall out after our best performance of the season. Of course fans are entitled to criticize but try to make the criticism fair. Calling Reynolds "murder" when he played very well last night and made one mistake (along with Ruddy) after we've had one of our longest run of clean sheets in recent times is just ridiculous. Just because Craigan was unfairly criticized earlier in the season doesn't make unfair criticism of Reynolds right. If Reynolds costs us points three, four matches in a row - fine, but jumping on one mistake in 9 hours of football smacks of total hysteria.

Reynolds shouldn't have left it but neither should Ruddy. Maybe TV pictures will show something different but it seemed to me to be one that Ruddy should have come out and got. Craig Brown said on the radio Ruddy himself was disappointed that he'd left it. Other than that I think both Ruddy and Reynolds played very well. In truth Boyd missed a sitter when I think Jennings misdirected a header into the box. Basically we played 90 minutes and made two mistakes in the whole game, unfortunately they both fell to the best striker of recent times.

He also made runs from midfield all night into the box and scored the goal that should have won us the match. Forbes is a young player with half a season of 3rd Division football and half a season in the SPL. There are aspects of his game he needs to work on and improve but what about accentuating the positive? If the goal had been allowed to stand, which it should have, it would have been his 9th of the season. He gives us an attacking dimension from midfield that we've not had since Stevie Kirk.

You are right for the most part and I don't go along with the Masonic conspiracy theories but I think there have been individual referees in the past and perhaps even in the present that had certain sympathies....

Almost the whole team was excellent although perhaps Lasley, Hateley, O'Brien and Jutkiewicz deserve special mention. But one man edged it for me Stephen Craigan. Outstanding captains display.

How many times did Rangers players get away with deliberate hand balls tonight? You'd think we were playing volleyball rules. It happened at least 5 times. And David Weir just has to bend over and touch his toes to get a foul when someone attempts to win a header against him.

Feels like we totally outclassed the league leaders. I don't really care about the result tonight. We KNOW that really we beat them. It might have finished a draw but REALLY we beat them. And deep down Rangers know that too and so do all their fans. Proud to be a Motherwell fan, the guys played their hearts out. They are all heroes to me tonight and they deserve a mountain of praise.

Immense tonight but once again lucky lucky Rangers stole a point. Far and away the best home performance of the season all the team did very well and four or five of them were outstanding it's just a shame that our one mistake cost us. Not seen TV pictures but I felt Ruddy should have come for it but can't complain too much since he was otherwise excellent. Didn't get a good view of the disallowed goal but by all accounts it was never offside. Overall the referee was an absolute disgrace and it's far to say I might not have much of a voice in the morning! The goal that did count was a thing of beauty. At least we keep our good record against Rangers at Fir Park intact for another season and regardless of whither it was a win or a draw the team gave us a performance to be proud of. In fact they gave us so much tonight I'm a bit worried we'll be a bit under the weather on Saturday because the players really ran themselves into the ground tonight but that's for another day. 'Mon the Well!

We did lose a league cup tie 2-1 at Fir Park but that's true of league games.

People keep saying this Rangers team is 'crap' but they are undefeated in 11 league matches (more if you include cup games) have won 9 of them and drawn 2 and have only conceded only 6 goals but scored 34. Not a bad run of form. However I think the pitch will act as a great equalizer. I think we have a decent chance of getting something out of the match.

Did you see the pitch? As you mentioned Forbes best attribute is he tries passes that no other player in the squad would see or attempt but you need to give him a decent surface to do it on. Under the current conditions it wouldn't surprise me if Forbes plays in more away matches where there is the possibility of a decent surface than at Fir Park. Even though his performances have tailed off a little lately I still think we miss him a little because he gives us something different from the other midfielders who are all of a type (Jennings, Lasley, Coke even Hateley). Forbes gives us an offensive dimension from midfield that we lack when he's not there - he's got 9 goals this season (OK, I think 4 were penalties but still), Jennings, Lasley, Coke and Hateley have 1 between them.

To me that is the major problem. Footballers should be able to play in muddy conditions or bare pitches during the winter. It's something entirely different when the pitch has hundreds of churned up piles of turf and soil all over it. Even a short pass is taking three or four bobbles before it gets to its man.

You must have missed the bit when Las did keepie uppie around the entire Hamilton Team with the back of his heel and then did a scissors kick that beat Cerny but caught in a divot in the pitch and was then scrambled away by a terrified Accies defender. It wasn't a great game but sometimes you have to give players credit for digging out a result. That's why I gave Lasley 8. Accies were playing 3-4-2-1 yesterday so they usually had one or two more men in the midfield so our guys were outnumbered there. There have been many times when we've seen our four in the middle completely nullified by those sort of tactics to the extent we barely have a midfield. Yesterday we got the better of them against the odds. I thought our midfield worked really, really hard yesterday. Sure there was no great build up play or killer passes or anything like that but they got their ratings on workrate and determination to the cause.

Lasley

Not a great game but panned out exactly like I would have expected it to. Accies dominated the early stages without really threatening. Coke looked a little uncomfortable out left and Accies had an extra man in midfield. After about 20 minutes Coke came on to more of a game and we were (just about) the better team for most of the rest of the match. Accies only really threatened in the final few minutes. Very scrappy, lots of fouls and the pitch looked like it had taken an artillery barrage which didn't make it easy to play flowing football. You couldn't fault the players for effort but there wasn't a lot of quality. Still most of the players showed they were prepared to battle and dig out three points. Ruddy [7] Not much to do but looked very commanding and confident when called on. Hateley [7] Fitted in well again at right back Craigan [7] Solid Reynolds [7] Looked comfortable Hammell [7] Excellent shift from Hammell O'Brien [7] The poor surface didn't help him much but showed excellent energy and determination to chase things Jennings [6] Battled away unspectacularly but effectively. Lasley [8] Sorry if it sounds like fawning but he really was our best player. Coke [7] Took 20 minutes to settled down but did well overall Jutkiewicz [7] Scored the winning goal and showed some good touches on a terrible pitch. Sutton [5] Never really happened for Sutton today. Humphrey [2] Occasionally ran fast. Fitzpatrick [1] Injured within minutes of coming on. Saunders [2] Defensively a little slack.

Accies support wasn't bad by today's standards - maybe 500.

If McLaughlin is out that will be good news.

He's been in and out but I bet he gets an appearance on Saturday.

Ya Bezzer is an accepted ethnic variant. It's also the skillful wordsmith melding of the late eighties/very early nineties sporting and cultural zeitgeist with nods to Stevie Kirk and The Happy Mondays.