Ya Bezzer!

How many times have all the 'Fox is better' types actually seen Fox play? He's played 9 or 10 games for Celtic, facts is you don't really know how good is he or isn't. Anyway, Lee Wallace has generally been regarded to be the best left back in Scotland for a few years now and he has exactly zero caps; some guy comes up here, puts on green hoops and jumps to the front of the line after a dozen games with out actually proving anything yet. I've nothing against Scott Brown or Kevin Thomson playing for Scotland, they have proved themselves over years that they are good players but these queue jumpers really get my wick, especially when they aren't even Scottish.

Van Der Gaag played plenty for PSV. He was never a first choice but in the early ninties he was getting 10 - 20 matches a season and played along side some impressive personnel - Romario, Erwin Koeman, Wim Kieft, Hans Van Breukelen, Gerald Vanenburg, Gheorghe Popescu, a young Ronaldo - and a certain Artur Numan later of Rangers. He also played with Scott Booth at Utrecht and a young Pepe at Maritimo, now of Real Madrid. 1988/89....PSV 1989/90....NEC 1990/91....Sparta 22 (2) 1991/92....Sparta 33 (1) 1992/93....PSV 10+6 (3) 1993/94....PSV 18+1 (1) 1994/95....PSV 7+2 1995/96....Motherwell 12 (1) 1996/97....Motherwell 26 (6) 1997/98....FC Utrecht 25 (1) 1998/99....FC Utrecht 16 (2) 1999/00....FC Utrecht 30+2 (7) 2000/01....FC Utrecht 18+8 (2) 2001/02....CS Maritimo 27 (3) etc.

Falkirk have three clean sheets in a row, I think a lot of 'Well fans that think this is going to be an easy game are deluding themselves. I'm not a big fan of Olejnik in goals but otherwise Falkirk have a decent side in terms of personnel and it would be foolish to treat them lightly. This will be a tricky match but hopefully with a full weeks rest our players will have a bit more energy about them at the weekend than we've shown in the last couple of games. Will be interesting to see what Gannon does about the recent problems at the back and in giving John Sutton some support. Could we see Craigan come back in while Jutkiewicz drops out? As some else said we really need a good performance to keep the impetus up otherwise with some difficult games coming up we could fall back.

There was a 7 year old reading what I was writing or I would have been more forthright!

Jutkiewicz just doesn't fit into the formation and can't play the position he is being asked to play. Its as simple as that. When Slane comes back Jutkiewicz be back on the bench, unless Gannon loses the plot and thinks he knows better than the evidence on the park. It's Jutkiewicz or Sutton, not both and on this seasons form Sutton looks the better bet.

I'd have less of a problem with Zemmama not getting booked if one of our own players hadn't been booked earlier in the season for running to his own fans. That's what gets me. It's a nonsense that players should be booked for celebrating but surely the referee had to book him since that seems to be the rules. I didn't hear any particular abuse against Zemmama before the celebration but that's not to say it didn't happen. However threw the 'missile' - what an idiot.

Our two best players today were the full backs. I'd go for Yassin but even then he hardly had a flawless performance.

Got torn apart too many times. The signs were there on Wednesday against Inverness for all to see, against a better side we were punished badly. Again like Wednesday too many players looked tired and stiff. Poor goals were given away, goalkeeper blunders and defenders not blocking balls they should have been. Maybe we can get our feet on the ground again and stop thinking we are better than we are. Also some of the abuse directed at 18 year old players was disgraceful. Ruddy :5: Blunder for the third goal. Mouatouakil :7: Was caught out for the second goal but still our best player. Saunders :5: Less than commanding today. Reynolds :6: Scored good goal but defensive slip ups. Hammell :6: One of the better players in the first half but fell away in the second. Coke :5: Poor today Hateley :5: No real influence on the match Forbes :6: Look tired and slow but still probably our best midfielder, it was that kind of day O'Brien :6: Tried his hardest but not at his best today Jutkiewicz :5: Disappointing again Sutton :5: No supply Murphy :2: Humphrey :4: Looked fresh unlike most of the side McHugh :1: Not his day

I went for 2-1 to us on my Predictor but I'm a bit nervous about this one. One thing that worries me a bit is our lack of goals against the 'bigger' teams. Looks like we have enough up front for the likes of Inverness, Kilmarnock, St.Johnstone but our record against the bigger teams isn't so good. Aberdeen 0-0, Rangers 0-0, Dundee United 1-0 (a penalty) now we face Hibs.

Apparently more than a few players last night were carrying knocks and of course we played 120 minutes. Are we going to be 100% on Saturday? I think Hibs will want to show something after a couple of poor results against Accies and St.Johnstone and will see Fir Park, with the hype around us now, as a 'proving ground'. Defensively they look as if we can get at them but with a guy like Riordan in the team, they can turn a game in a second.

Jutkiewicz has been off the pace but remember Porter started very slowly when he first arrived at Fir Park. Although its fashionable to slag off Scottish football most of these players coming up from England are playing at a much higher level than they are used to it and it takes a while to bed in. Add in that playing as a striker is probably the hardest position on the football field and you have to give the guy a few more starts before you start making definitive judgements. Remember last night was only the guys second start for the club.

Voted for Ross Forbes tonight but Hammell would have been my second pick for MOTM.

Thought Hammell did well, O'Brien and Moutaouakil also, but man of the match was Ross Forbes.

We didn't actually play that badly but it was all a bit dozy and there wasn't a lot of urgency a lot of the time. Too many players ran out the tunnel today with the game won in their heads. Inverness keeper, I think it was Esson, made a few great saves but you could hardly say we had them under constant pressure, there were a lot of backwards and side way passes from us, too many you might say. Inverness were probably the better team until we scored and then started (very slowly) to waken up. Even then we lost two goals from set pieces because we were dreaming instead of alert. Overall, we won, we probably deserved to win but it was neither convincing nor a really bad display, just one of those matches you are happy to win and get behind you. Ruddy :6: Maybe I'm being harsh but I felt Munros header wasn't exactly a bullet and Ruddy should have done better. Otherwise nothing major to deal with. Moutaouakil :7: Got up and down well and unlucky not to score a couple of times, needs to work on a couple of aspects to his game but overall another good display. Saunders :6: Looked comfortable for most of the match but defensively the goals we lost were poor. Reynolds :5: Too many slack balls tonight. Hammell :7: Was good tonight, one of the better players, and of course 'scored' a goal! Yeah, right! Hateley :6: Like a few others tonight took a while to get up to game speed. Coke :6: Similar to Hateley, got better as the game went on but looked like he was just out his bed for the first half hour. Forbes :8: Class act. I don't know what his pass completion stats were for tonight but I'll bet you they were mighty impressive. Set play delivery was excellent and scored another great goal. MOTM. Jutkiewicz :5: You can see something there but right now its hidden under a big donkey. McHugh :6: Took his goal well but I'm not sure if he's the sort of forward that will prosper up on his own. O'Brien :7: In the early stages only him and Hammell looked up for the match. Another good display but came off after taking a few hits. McGarry :5: Came on and did OK to be fair. Murphy :4: Late sub but made an impact in the closing stages. Jennings :2: Another late sub.

I've said this before but compared to the Euro refs, the Scottish refs so far have been miles better.

15th Feb 1997 Motherwell 1 Hamilton Academicals 1. Att: 8,050. 4,285 turned up for the replay.

I'm pretty sure I heard Gannon saying he would be taking both the cup competitions very serious so I see no reason why we shouldn't field our strongest XI. The idea that we would rest players and bring in others I think is a bit of a nonsense. Hopefully if there are changes its because Gannon thinks they give us the maximum chance of winning rather than giving out of favour players 'a chance'. Inverness have only lost 1 out of 12 competitive matches this season so we shouldn't go into this thinking its going to be a cake walk.

Excellent away win but need to keep our feet on the ground and concentrate on getting a cup run going now.

I seem to remember we missed a penalty last season - who was it again? Was it Porter?

We should be beating Falkirk at home but we don't have a particularly good record in recent years. Likewise Hibs at Fir Park, and Dundee United away will be a tough fixture. 4 points wouldn't be bad at all but the more the merrier.

I thought Saunders was awful at right back and wasn't shy about saying so but he's done really well at centre half, obviously its his 'real' position. It's difficult to pick between Saunders and Hutchinson on purely defensive criteria because they have both done really well, in fact they were my last two votes for man of the match, but I think Hutchinson offers a bit more. Physically, he might not be as tall but he looks like he has a much stronger build and looks a bit more aggressive. Even though he's just a kid you can't imagine many players bullying him around. He's also probably the best defender we've had since Mitchell Van Der Gaag at getting forward and causing problems in the opposition box. Off the top of my head I think its three goals in five matches which is a tremendous return and I'm a great believer in getting goals from defenders and midfielders, if they can score semi regularly then watch the points mount up.

Surely the claret away shorts are closer to Dundee Utd's black shorts than the amber home shorts! I doubt the referee will do much though, I noticed in one of the games in the early weeks of the season a referee was wearing an all red outfit that was virtually identical to the Rangers goalkeepers strip. Then you had the Hibs/Falkirk fiasco....

When you take a penalty you should ALWAYS go top left.

Lots of good performances but the stand outs were Ruddy, O'Brien and Saunders. Would probably have given it to O'Brien if he hadn't missed the penalty but Saunders gets it instead. Difficult choice though.

Check the shots over the bar stats. I'm sure we won that!