Ya Bezzer!

So no centre half can play defensive midfield? He had 5 starts last season and played most of one match. Out of those 6 we beat St Mirren twice (remember when we could beat St Mirren?) lost away to Hibs and Celtic (where he got praise for his performance), and at home to Aberdeen and then came on in the 18th minute against Hearts where we drew 1-1. So that's P6 W2 D1 L3 with most of the matches against city clubs, and mostly away from home. Overall Maguire has played 12 league matches for the club over 3 seasons. 3 of those appearances amount to, literally, a few minutes of football, so in the 9 matches where he has started or got any amount of game time how exactly have you come to such a firm conclusion that he is 'doomed to failure'? Look at our form recent form and I'd be looking to maybe give other players a chance, just a chance, to show they can do better.

I don't think you can sort it out that's why you can't have people sitting next to one another. The rules are too complex and subject to change at any time, either at local or national level. So I think that basically the only way it works is if everyone attending has to be socially distanced. I believe Under 12's don't count in terms of social distancing (might be wrong about that) so you'd be able to have young children next to an adult but you'd have to have seats set aside for family groups.

I was thinking more like Robertson, McGregor, Forrest, McTominay, Armstrong, McBurnie etc. We've been utter drivel for about 5 years so we need to start looking at the players instead of the manager. Way, way too many players given 30% of their club form to Scotland. There comes a time when poorer players putting more effort in, gives you better results than good players doing fuck all time and time again. If you go back as far as the terrible defeat to Georgia, we pick big club players and they just don' t look interested.

If you need 1m social distancing that means most people in the stand will need at least one empty seat in every direction between them and others. So unless you sit on an aisle I make that 1 behind, 1 in front, 1 right, 1 left, 1 front right, 1 front left, 1 behind left, 1 behind right. So a 'box' of 8 empty seats around every spectator. There is no way you get 1,500 people into the East Stand. Nothing even close. At most you are getting maybe 350 fans in there.

Maguire should be playing that DM role, or at least getting a chance, but I just don't see Robinson picking him. He's not had a single second of game time this term. Big, big game for us. Only Rangers have pumped St Johnstone this season so you can see it being a pretty grim struggle with one goal settling it. Between them the teams have played 540 minutes of football and scored 1 goal. And Motherwell and St Johnstone have conceded 36% of the penalties so far awarded in the league so perhaps, if there is a goal, it will come from the spot. I think it'll be tight but St Johnstone have wins under their belt, scored more goals and conceded less so you have to have the old claret and amber lenses on to not have them as favourites.

Or maybe they are accountably for public health in the era of a previously unknown, highly infectious and potentially deadly virus. Football, far from being strung along, has been given significant exemptions.

Ross County chairman was on the radio the other day and the way he was talking it was unlikely in the near term that anything other than very small groups of supporters will attend games and he basically dismissed any chance of away supporters attending this season. Personally I don't think we will get back to anywhere near normality until there is an available vaccine and that is still some time off, that's looking like Feb/Mar 21 at the earliest. For me I'm considering this season as a complete write off in terms of actually attending matches.

Gallagher would have had a better claim if he'd been in last seasons form this season but I agree that he's not been anywhere near good enough this term. As for McTominay, like a number of other players, he's trading off his club sides reputation rather than his form in a Scotland shirt.

Seems like a decent draw until you remember they just posted a result against Maribor which if we had done, would have been our greatest ever European result.

I think there is a kind of middle ground here. It is a new season so the end of last season's poor form doesn't directly effect what we do this season but at the same time it does indicate long standing issues under Robinson. Issues around creating and scoring have been around since James Scott left the club so you have to put your hand up and say that Robinson has failed to deal with these in the second half of last season, during the break and so far this season. We've scored 15 goals in our last 20 league matches, obviously averaging less than 1 goal per game. We've failed to score 10 times in that time, 50% of matches, and only scored more than 1 goal 3 times from 20. When you take out the clear anomaly of scoring 4 against Ross County it takes it to 11 goals in 19 matches which is very poor. And of course using only this seasons stats show the problem has got worse. Goal scoring is the reason we are currently bottom of the league so I do think casting an eye back is warranted if you want to really analyse our form but at the same time I do think last seasons defeats don't have the same currency in 20-21. They have some currency (ask Barraclough) but not the same currency. If we are going into October without a win then critics won't have to cite last season any more because I think failure to win in our next three will constitute a real serious issue, especially if some of the other strugglers pick up points.

Well this summer told us you can be relegated after any amount of games! I hope we improve but it's a bold claim to say we won't be 'anywhere near it' with our current numbers. The thing that really concerns me is goalscoring. Failing to score in 5 out of 6 is pretty bad but it goes beyond that. We've failed to score in 10 of our last 20 league matches and we've only scored more than 1 goal twice in that time. Teams that don't score always struggle.

We didn't do too badly all things considered today although I think Robinson has changed the system too early in the match. We were looking fine and then within minutes of going to four at the back we go 2-0. Felt he should have just kept it as it was until the last 10 minutes or so. Overall though 6 matches, 2 goals, 1 clean sheet and 2 points isn't good enough. Need to see a big improvement in the second half of this quarter.

His last match for us was at Rugby Park against Kilmarnock when we stole the points with an early Tommy Coyne goal and then got pummelled but somehow survived. Remember the away fans singing 'Please Don't Go'. The Dortmund game was a couple of weeks later. [EDIT - Just checked it out, Kilmarnock was his last league match, he played in the midweek match against Airdrie in the League Cup which was his final appearance, 31st Aug 1994. Dortmund match was 13th Sep]

The theory works if we actually pick up points. Our next four matches are Celtic, St Johnstone, Aberdeen and Rangers. We'll also have a Euro game in there. My position is that we shouldn't over react at this stage of the season but honestly I'm not especially confident about getting a haul of points out these matches. We've had easier fixtures than the ones coming up.

Nice one. Tottenham beware!

We aren't out the woods yet.

I had low expectations but this is fucking ridiculous! Glentoran have had the 4 best chances in the match.

Mark O'Hara thinks free kicks are ten pin bowling.

We aren't even making the best chances.

Grimshaw single handed destroying the 10,000 hours theory.

I live minutes from Fir Park and the street was literally under a couple of inches of water during that really heavy rain. It does drain off quite quickly once it stops raining so hopefully that will be the case at Fir Park. If it stays off I think we'll be alright. The sky seems a bit lighter than it has been most of the day.

If we play three centre backs against Glentoran at home that would be a...ahem...talking point if we don't actually get through this tie. For me 3 at the back is a no no. 4-3-3? I agree that our wingers are gash but tonight might be one of the times this season where they are playing at a level that they can actually do something. 4-4-2? Means we will probably out numbered in midfield. Personally I think loading the midfield isn't as effective as some people tend to think, I think good midfields beat bad midfields regardless of numbers most of the time and although I am taking nothing for granted and it's not a stretch of the imagination to see us blowing this I do think we still believe we have better players? Right? 4-1-4-1 might work but once you get into 4-2-3-1s or 4-3-2-1s I don't think we have attacking midfielders that can play through the middle especially with Turnbull away and like 3 at the back I think its too negative playing two holding midfielders against tonight's opponents.

Good luck to David. I hope he is successful and flourishes away from Motherwell. I've always found it strange that often fans are bitter towards guys that did us a turn and moved on rather than the guff that no one else wanted. We'll miss him but he is a major talent and his move to a bigger stage was always going to a matter of when not if. Also, now our entire squad has 1 goal this season.

He started off well and then fell out of things going from the first eleven to the bench to nowhere. He got 4 starts and 5 sub appearances in the second half of the season then left in the close season for CSKA.

Kilmarnock said that last year.