Ya Bezzer!

You might look at the stats and say "St. Mirren haven't scored more than once in a league match since October so if we score we won't lose" but of course that last time St. Mirren scored more than once was against us! Another stat though is that the Buddies have lost their last five away matches in the league, in fact their away record is pretty dire they have only won twice away from home against the two bottom sides (Falkirk and Kilmarnock) and lost the rest. So no excuses on Saturday its a game we should be winning, so I'll go for a 1-0 win. Last five at Fir Park doesn't make great reading though. Lost 0-2 Won 2-1 Draw 1-1 Lost 2-3 Draw 0-0

Forget about the telly curse, its more than a year since we won two league games on the trot! Last time was 07/01/09 - 18/01/09 with wins over Hearts (1-0) and Dundee Utd (4-0).

Yeah but we played on Saturday and Inverness didn't. So we've played 2 games in 3 matches and Inverness have played 1. So obviously Inverness we going to have more in the tank than we would. It was a poor result but given the circumstances I'll let it ride, fitness won't be an excuse on Saturday because the players will have had 5 days to prepare.

Disappointing result. I think professional footballers should be able to play twice a week but twice in three days is really a big ask especially as Inverness were fresh from not having played for a couple of weeks. At least it gives the players a couple more days to prepare for the Saturday match which is going to be an important one.

1. Predicting the weather is a difficult business, are these the boffins who thought it unlikely we'd get a month of lying snow? As for summer weather here are some facts rather than predicitions. a) There has been MAJOR flooding two summers in a row. b) Rainfall in Scotland increases each month from May until December. October, November and December are the wettest months of the year and according to the winter shut down timetable we'd still be playing in these months. 2. Placing surfaces would not be immune to the elements, as pointed out the wettest weather is October, November and December. Admittedly pitches tend to get worse at present around February/March but it that because they've had three quarters of a season played on them? In any case all most all pitches are much better now (excluding ours a couple of seasons ago!) than they were 10, 15, 20, 25 years ago. Also summer pitches, assuming we actually have warm weather might have grass on them but they dry out and get bumpy which is just as bad as bald muddy pitches for good football. 3. Improved player technique has NOTHING to do with summer football. It has to do with the amount of practice kids get with a ball at an early age. Player technique has decreased since the virtual abolishment of schools football, since kids weren't allowed to play for more than one organisation and with the rise of the computer game and the sale of just about every football pitch by councils for housing. At the professional level Scottish supporters are not interested in watching highly technical football. Think of the booing that goes up when someone plays a sideways pass. Scottish footballer supporters want to see a high paced, exciting matches. 4. and 5. TV in the summer. Scottish football would be up against all the major golf competitions, major events like the Olympics, European Championships, Wimbledon, rugby world cups, cricket etc etc. It would be a great idea to REDUCE the amount of coverage that Scottish football gets. Outside of Old Firm matches there is no real television audience for SPL matches - that will not change by switching to summer football. Ask any television executive when the lowest television audiences are and they will say "the summer".

Could be interesting - the team that's played twice in three days versus the team that's not played for three weeks! It will be a difficult match, Butcher always gets teams up for cup runs.

Butcher as well had a period when he didn't fancy Lasley much even though he was probably playing the best football of his career that point, he even scored goals back then!

I've been said it before put him in charge until the end of the season now. If he's successful and he wants to continue we can always draw up a longer term contract. It looks like it is going to be a grueling season with not much between most of the teams, his experience will be very important and he has a track record of managing young players and that could be crucial over the season. We need someone who knows the SPL inside out to get us through this transitional stage of being dependent on a very young squad and you are unlikely to find anyone better than Brown at doing that.

I noticed that as well, he also said we played better against Hearts and lost, Broon is a sly old fox and he knows the game inside out. Our season is still balancing on a razor blade and could go either way but things seem to be on the up with two good performances and this win. Now if we can win this cup match...

Yep first appearance of the season. 3-0. I've seen it all as a 'Well fan but I think we can safely it's points in the bag now! Winning feels good doesn't it?! All hail Craigie Broon!

Great stuff! Glad to see its 2-0, cos it was reported on the radio as 2-1! I thought Killie had sneaked a goal when I hadn't been paying attention. According to the half time report we'd been playing well.

I'm not too bothered about Boyle's absence because he's obviously been keeping tabs on things while he's been away and as you've pointed out the manager has been given permission to sign players. However I think he should announce that Brown/Knox will be in charge until the end of the season and that would ease a lot of the uncertainties.

I think a draw from this match would be OK, I think I'd put out a team designed more to not lose than go on the attack, of course if we won all the better, but I think we have to be careful not to take too many risks as another defeat would be disastrous. Some kind of balance is required because we don't want to sit back and invite them on to us either. Hateley would be wasted at right back, put Saunders over to full back. I think we have a bit of a problem on the left side of midfield in that we don't have a 'solid' midfielder who is comfortable in that position and that with Saunders at right back you aren't going to get many good runs/crosses from fullback position, so I think I'd play a sort of 4-1-2-2-1 formation. Let Hateley play just behind the two central midfielders Jennings and Forbes in a covering role, let Murphy play in his best position just behind the main striker and give O'Brien a 'switching' role to give us width on either side. From that basic formation it can easily switch to a 4-5-1, a 4-4-2 or a 4-4-1-1 without too many problems. Ruddy Saunders - Craigan, Reynolds - Hammell Hateley Jennings, Forbes Murphy, O'Brien Jutkiewicz

I'm not sure if this is economically viable but I agree in principle. I no longer go to away games simply because of the expense but if I could afford to I would follow the team every week. I remember the days when we would regularly take 3,000 fans to Celtic Park and its a while now since a relatively small team like Falkirk would bring 1,500 to our place for an ordinary league match. It's obvious that the atmosphere at matches has suffered terribly from reduced numbers of away fans which makes for an overall poorer match experience. I would even accept lower gate prices for away fans than for home fans if it was carried out across the whole SPL but likely that wouldn't be popular with most home fans and it would probably never go into operation due to the risk of home fans going into the away end. However I think something should be done to encourage fans to travel.

How wrong can you be? Any success we had this season was down to the players rather than the coach. Gannon sabotaged about 10 points from us in 6 weeks with absolutely ridiculous decisions when the players 'who can't even do the basics' were dominating matches, taking leads and actually doing reasonably well. If Gannon was a "poor bastard that carried the can" then he only had himself to blame, not that he ever had the guts to admit it, since EVERYTHING was someone else's fault.. And I'd like to see you tolerating the way Gannon treated some of those players. The guy was a clown comparing him to Shankly, Busby, Stein, Ferguson is ridiculous, those guys commanded respect through their achievements, Gannon was like one of those lizards that puffs itself up to make it look bigger than it is - at the end of the day he got found out. The fact that it was one of the English players he brought in that sprayed him with water tells you he had very little respect from the squad in general, not just the players he victimized.

I wouldn't answer yes or no to this. He wouldn't be a first pick or even a second pick but at the same time I wouldn't be dead against him if he did end up as a manager, we could do a lot worse. His record is actually pretty good in the SPL. Some said "all his teams play boring football" but that simply isn't the case. Falkirk and Hearts played some excellent football with Jefferies in charge and so did Kilmarnock before they started going backwards a couple of seasons ago with the sale of Naismith and all the behind the scenes upheavel. Of course most of the people on here would rather gamble the clubs future on an unknown from down south with a 'fresh approach' who if successful would bugger off in next to no time rather than have someone like Jeffries who knows the league inside out, knows our opponents inside out, knows the whole Scottish football inside out and on top of that has a pretty good track record. And I mentioned it before but Tam McLean was as close to a match in terms of personality to Jim Jeffries as you are likely to get.

Interesting to note in the wake of the Kyle Controversy down at Rugby Park that all SPL players have to sign a standard clause in their contract instructing them not to discuss internal club affairs. Basically any player coming out and discussing internal club affairs is breaking their contractual agreement with their employer so I wouldn't expect many players to bother taking the risk of discussing it openly, certainly to the media.

Could have been better could have been worse. If you want to win the cup, and who doesn't, you are probably going to have to go to grounds like Inverness, Kilmarnock or Falkirk and win. It will be difficult to get through two away ties but it is possible and if we can do that surely the law of averages will give us a home tie for the quarter finals.

In the old days I used to always stand on the North Terrace but one day about 1991 (we beat Dunfermline 3-1 that day with Bobby Russell scoring a beauty) it was absolutely pelting it down monsoon style so instead of going on to the uncovered terrace I went into the East Stand and I've been there ever since. I used to sit down near the corner flag at the Davie Cooper end but when I started getting season tickets I moved up to the half way line.

He wouldn't be a first pick but even his critics would have to admit he has a decent record in the SPL. Funny that so many Motherwell fans don't like him when if you were to compare him to any other manager in Scottish football it would probably be wee Tam McLean.

I agree with this but we have to have a wage structure and stick to it. If O'Brien wants more than the club can pay then we have to let him go. We have to look at the long term viability of the club rather then the short term benefits of a season or two and the most important thing is we keep wage costs down.

There are problems with the East Stand, the amount of water that comes down out of the roof is ridiculous. The toilet facilities are also poor but I very rarely use them living close to the stadium. Better exits would also be welcomed. However, generally the East Stand is fine for watching football from. When I go to a game I just want to sit down and watch the game. Maybe I'm old fashioned in that regard but I don't really care about 'facilities'. The couple of times I've been in hospitality I've not really enjoyed the match as much as I would have if I'd been in the East. Frankly I think a lot of people are just soft these days. Oh no it's cold! Oh no they don't have canapes! Oh no the seat isn't cushioned in deep velvet!

I think they are there until a permanent manager is brought in. Personally I'd sign them up until the end of the season right now, that gives Boyle more time to look around and bring the right man in and it also stabilises our team and enables us to bring in players and do business during the transfer window. It seems like a win/win situation to me.

Good news - but only if we can get a game on this month!

Ruddy isn't as good as some on here would have you believe but he's far superior to Smith.