Ya Bezzer!

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!

I think my favourite was the 2-1 win at Fir Park in Tommy McLean's last season. People were talking as if Rangers just had to turn up to win even though we were having a great season and had already beaten them. That win blew the league title open again, with us actually having an outside chance of winning it! Heady days. The Ibrox win that same season was a cracker. To be fair we took a pounding for most of the match and then got two quick goals to win. Hugged a few strangers that night! Didn't Richard Gough score a very late own goal to give us a win around the same period?

Ticket match, Old Firm, even more expensive than usual. There's three reasons. I think there might be a case for treating OF matches as normal games, if there was 3,000 - 4,000 empty seats there today - why not?

I do know that we beat Rangers more during the 1990's more than any other team (including Celtic) and that ourselves and Dundee United had the best record against the Old Firm during that decade. Not so sure about this decade but maybe I'll look into it.

It was a tight match and you can't complain about a point too much but I felt we just shaded it in terms of real chances. Really good overall team performance although it has to be said we did sit deep at times but again, if you come away with a clean sheet against one of the old firm you should be fairly happy. Ruddy :7: Was doing really well but then took a bit of a mad turn but generally did very well. Yassin (as I'm calling him) :7: Good debut, fast, good defensively, looks a player. Saunders :8: I slated this guy in the first game of the season but he's found his position. Excellent performance. Reynolds :7: Keep Boyd out of the match. Hammell :7: Must have done a few kilometres today! O'Brien :8: Unlucky with the penalty, looked a great save rather than a miss to me, otherwise he was our most dangerous player, the transformation in O'Brien from this time last season has been amazing. Hateley :7: Really commanding in the first half, not so noticeable in the 2nd but another good display. Forbes :6: Seemed a little over awed today but still played the best pass of the match. Coke :7: Murphy :5: Didn't give enough today and it was no surprise when he was hooked at half time. Sutton :6: Worked really hard up front on his own but didn't have enough support. Jennings :7: Finally coming on to a game as his fitness improves. Looked good today. Lasley :6: Good to see Las back out on the field. Jutkiewicz :6: Won the penalty (looked soft to me!) but not on for long.

I should start using a calculator instead of adding up in my head! The official site isn't quite up to date (doesn't include the last game at Aberdeen) but I now have (having used a calculator) 303+5 (2) and the official site has 301+6 (2), plus the Aberdeen game would be 302+6 (2) so we still disagree about whether one of the performances in season 2005/06 was a start or a sub appearance... I'm not bored enough to look into it right now! The point is he's played more than 300 games now.