Ya Bezzer!

Home form is decent, away form is poor. We've had four out of six away and Celtic at home. I'd hold off from panicking for the moment.

Oh the positive side Aberdeen and Hibs are losing again.

Away form is shocking.

He scored 11 goals in his last two seasons for us ....and one of those seasons was truncated.

I remember him coming on against, I think it was Celtic at Fir Park the first time, and he made an impact. He's not had a lot of minutes on the pitch to make much of an impression.

Dundee Utd have scored 4 goals in their last 10 matches and one was an OG, one was a penalty and one was scored after 90 minutes. Of course there is the, ahem, Tony Watt factor.....

And has an awful plastic pitch.

The fact that Celtic lost twice in the league last term to anyone other than Rangers during "their worst season in over a decade" kinda shows how massive the gap is. Between them they have lost 5 league matches in the last 126, excluding defeats to each other. Our points total from the Old Firm over the last two seasons is pretty typical for a non city club Livingston 7pts from 5 results Ross County 4pts from 2 results St Mirren 3pts from 1 result Motherwell 2pts from 2 results St Johnstone 2pts from 2 results Kilmarnock 1pt from 1 result Hamilton 1pt from 1 result

Was thinking about this during the game. I think all Scottish football has gone backwards including Rangers and Celtic but back when they had genuinely world or european class players we competed better than we do now so the gap is probably bigger than its ever been. Think back a couple of weeks. We are a little bit better than Morton, a little bit, and absolutely miles behind Celtic and I think you could say that about pretty much every team from 4th place down in the Premiership so it's not just us. On a related note I was also thinking about 'quality'. Right now I don't think we have a single outfield player of quality in the squad. Not one of them is better than Scottish Premier diddy team level. The one exception is Kelly in goals. Overall I think Alexander has done a decent enough job given what he has to work with and where we were when he came in but the lack of any quality is slightly dispiriting and definitely comes to the fore when you see actual footballers on the pitch at Fir Park, albeit in the form of opposition.

Just started snowing. Get the trainers and the orange ball out!

Could go either way. Maybe Celtic are flying, full of confidence and firing on all cylinders in which case it could be a long afternoon for Motherwell fans. Or maybe playing at a dull, rainy Fir Park is a bit of a come down from midweek and they aren't up for it. Looking at the results this season it seems fairly obvious that you have to get to half time at 0-0 to get a result against Celtic. 5 out of 6 occasions with dropped points this season for Celtic came from matches where they didn't score in the first half. We've seen Celtic struggle to break teams down in the second half if they don't get those early goals. Even against Dundee Utd a couple of games back where they won by the skin of their teeth in injury time. Livingston and St Mirren played 5-4-1 and I think if we are going to get anything out of this that's probably the way to go. Just shut the game down, get to half time and then you give yourself a chance with 45 minutes to go.

He's scored 2 goals in his last 10 appearances. Motherwell 7+0 (2); Dundee Utd 2+1 (0) I think he was still probably our best player last season when he wasn't scoring either but that early season form this term may have been a career anomaly.

Well the thing about Griffiths is he actually can. Remember when he played for Hibs he played off the centre on the right side. So that's two out of three at least.

I think Griffiths would be worth the risk till the end of the season. He's a massive talent but he needs a right kick up the backside. Maybe Alexander could be the guy to deliver the boot up the arse. I suppose it depends on how much demand there is for him and if Alexander would be willing to give someone who's really wasted 3 or so years of his career another chance. He's actually played in the last 9 Dundee matches before last night anyway so he should be 'relatively' fit, although we all know what previous managers have said about Griffiths fitness regime.

I always remember Jim Hamilton's first match back at Fir Park and virtually on the refs whistle he absolutely smashed Stevie Craigan in the face with an elbow and just flatten him. Of course if you do that sort of thing in the 1st minute it's the rules that you just get a talking too.

I think that story has grown legs over the years. As I understand it Solskjaer did his national service and when he came out the army his agent basically contacted every British football club in the telephone directory...

Some people are being harsh on Shivute. Not saying he was a Motherwell great but there have been a lot worse players wore a Motherwell shirt. He came to us from Aachen in Germany, I remember because my grandfather was shot down there during the war!

Money in the bank just in time for hyper inflation to roll on through!

Was having a look at our goals this season and previous to last night's 92nd minute equalizer the latest goal we'd scored was 80 minutes. Bit surprising given how many goals are scored late in games.

As a statto with a spreadsheet I can't express how much I'm against all these additional substitutions. Back to two on the bench like the old days!

Exactly. We were dismal latterly under Robinson. I've consistently said for a long time that the standard of the league has nosediving and I'm afraid we are where we are in that regard. Were Hearts, Hibs or St Mirren playing scintillating football over the last couple of weeks? The standard of player just isn't there across a league where at least half the teams have a lot more money than we do. The financial situation at the club and across the league is pretty much 'make a purse from a pigs ear'. Even Rangers and Celtic are grinding out 1-0s. And the winter break also has a big effect as it essentially kills the players fitness stone dead right in the middle of the season and has a big influence on the quality of the football even within an already substandard context. Covid justifies the break this year but under 'normal' circumstances I'm very much against it. Also why do some Motherwell fans think we should just turn up at St Mirren and win? We don't have a right to take a single point against any team.

As I understand it if one team has a concussion sub the other team can make an additional substitution. Therefore if Shaw went off with a concussion St Mirren would then be able to make an additional substitution out with the three stoppages.

If anyone lives on Fir Park Street can you tell us if the lights are on?

Not the best start to the second half of the league but I think if you look at the individual results there is nothing catastrophic there. Hearts are by some distance 3rd best in the league and Ross County are in form right now. The worrying thing is we've not scored in 90 minutes in 3 out of 4 matches since the season restart and it's glaringly obvious that we need a striker in. I've generally been a supporter of Alexander but I feel like this might be a moment where he needs to make the right decision about bringing a player in or else risk the good work he's done so far.

To be fair he said he said he wasn't given team sheets at the beginning of the match.