Ya Bezzer!

Came on last night, within 10 minutes loses a header and it's 1 each and McHugh is giving it his anguished 'hands on head I fucked up' signature move. You shouldn't need stats to see what's readily apparent but... McHugh has started 17 league matches and we've won 4 and kept 2 clean sheets. He's not started 8 league matches and we've won 5 and kept 4 clean sheets. There's a reason for that. He's a liability.

Gillespie was solid tonight. Excellent performance from him. Hastie was great first half but didn't see as much ball when he switched flanks in the second half. Turnbull was poor-ish by his standards in the first but thought he had some superb touches in the second half. Played some lovely through balls. I'm going to give it to Allan Campbell though. Excellent performance and a goal as well.

Not our best recent performance, some patchy individual performances tonight, but overall I think we deserved to win on chances created although I felt at times we were sitting too deep, especially second half and you could sense more of a 'don't lose it' rather than a 'go out and win it' vibe. Thought Hastie was sensational in the first half but then quietened down a bit in the second, Turnbull had a poor-ish first half but came more into it in the second, Ariyibi had some nice touches but drifted out of the game too often and Main worked hard but when he needed a wee bit of quality he just didn't have it. So we weren't quite as fluent tonight as we have been in the last few matches but it was still a decent enough performance and another step in the right direction.

Bit of a mixed bag so far. Some of the individual performances haven't been what they could be but as a team we are competing. Some room for improvement though. Hastie on the right tonight and I think that has favoured him more than Ariyibi who's had some nice touches but not really asserted himself. Hastie has been fantastic though and scored a pearler. Need to make 2-0 as St. Mirren have looked dangerous on a couple of occasions.

I'd agree with that although perhaps his illness had something to do with his form earlier in the season which was not as good as last season. But generally I'd say if you have players performing anywhere on the field you leave them there so it's Gillespie's position to lose now.

Tanner should be kept on simply because he performed for us and deserves another chance. There were times last season when Tanner was far and away our best player and the only guy that was putting in performances week in and week out. If he can get back to where he was he is a definite option for us.

OUT McHugh. It should be a priority to move McHugh on. He's dreadful and emblematic of everything wrong with the team over the last year and a half. Can't pass, poor decision making, riddled with mistakes, rash, no pace etc. For me he's got to go and I don't make any apologies for it. Frear. He's not had many starts this season and I can't see him getting many next season either. I think his time may have passed. I want players coming in who are pushing for a first team place, not guys settling into a perennial sub spot and I think that's where Frear is at the moment. Main. A frustrating player because he does good work in certain areas but he just doesn't have the cutting edge. The number of chances he misses is criminal and his shooting accuracy is really poor. Unless he had a Sam Cosgrove style improvement on his goal scoring I think I would let him go and look for a different player. Newell. Basically made no impact whatsoever. Like Mbulu he's a bit older than the other 'younger' players and I don't see a route for him into the team. We should be concentrating on James Scott so Newell has to go. Sinclair-Taylor. I actually thought ATS did reasonably well in his last couple of games but he's not done enough to earn a new contract and his loan away suggests his time is up at the end of the season. ON THE FENCE Mbulu. For me Mbulu has been a wee bit shakey and he's a bit older than the other younger players. At 22 I'm not sure his development curve puts him ahead of younger guys like Livingston and Maguire. Grimshaw. I have not been a Grimshaw fan for the most part but he has done quite well at right back, much more so than in midfield, so he has kind of turned my opinion around but I think long term I'd rather have a proper left back with Tait going to right back. If Grimshaw can keep his current form going I'd maybe offer him a deal as a back up or at least a challenger for RB. Cadden. Right now Cadden doesn't make my starting XI but of course Ariyibi won't be here next season. Perhaps a bit like Mark Reynolds, Cadden's development has stalled a bit and think from his point of view more than anything else that a move away in the summer wouldn't be the worst thing for either parties. I wouldn't broom him out the door like McHugh but for me Cadden is no longer an automatic first team pick and it's difficult to see where he fits into the team. Not technically gifted enough as a winger, not creative enough or enough goal threat for attacking midfield, would need to improve aspects of his game to be a defensive midfielder. Kinda like Bigirimana in that respect, I'm just not sure where he fits in. Gorrin has been a huge improvement in the defensive midfield position over McHugh but like Grimshaw I think he needs to keep his form going for the rest of the season. A couple of games doesn't make a player and we need to demand more consistency right across the board from players but I've been encouraged with what I've seen recently.

Pretty much although I don't think we should be prioritizing a top six place at this stage, we should be looking to improve the team long term. But with the tough matches coming up I think we need to win this one just in terms of keeping the momentum going. St. Mirren have been dreadful this season. They only have 3 wins all season and in the last 10 they have only won once and that was against us at Fir Park. In fact they have lost 7 out of the last 8. Their goals against makes horrific reading; 1 clean sheet in 10 (again against us!) and they have conceded at least 2 goals in 8 out of the 10. Overall 24 goals against in the last 10. They haven't scored twice in a match since Dec 5th and have only scored two goals in the last 5 matches. We need to be dealing with this team.

I'm glad at the way things are going recently but let's be clear about this. We've won 4 games in a row with a year of absolute turgid shite behind them. Hopefully we go in the right direction now, there are signs we might, signs of a different philosophy taking root, but it's taken Robinson a long time to enact changes that a lot of punters could have told him to do last October or even before then. These victories only underline how badly wrong Robinson got it for so long before hand. In my opinion he's lucky to still be in the job, and not just once but on a couple of occasions, but I'm not a hypocrite, I will support him if I see the criteria I've outlined so many times before being ticked. I hope he continues to do so.

A lot of the discussion after a defeat is people arguing for and against various points with exchanges going on for two, three, four replies so obviously that's going to generate a lot more content. When people come on and pretty much agree that it was a good performance that sort of rolling debate doesn't happen.

I'd say it was a 4-2-3-1.

https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/club/supporter-services/our-50-50-draw/

Last time we won 4 in a row it was as part of a run of 5 in a row. Between 27 Feb and 2 April 2016 - Partick 3-1, Hamilton 1-0, Dundee Utd 2-1, Aberdeen 2-1, Inverness 2-1. EDIT - for 6 wins you go back to 2013-14 season, between 14 Dec 2013 and 11 Jan 2014 - Ross County 2-1, St. Mirren 3-0, Aberdeen 1-0, Partick 5-1, St. Johnstone 4-0, Hearts 1-0.

Got to be Hastie.

He's a massive upgrade on McHugh in that DM position. Bit of a weird one today. Thought we were great going forward for the first half hour but at the same time you have to accept that Livingston had a lot of chances too and perhaps a better team would have scored one, or two, or three. So on the ball we were what you are looking to see, defensively I just think we might have struggled against a better team. Still rather that than creating nothing and pumping the ball high but it's something to look at. Second half we stayed in 2nd gear and just killed the game off and not a lot happened. With Turnbull, Arriyibi and Hastie in the side we've literally quadrupled our attacking threat and you can see teams, especially bottom 6 level teams really struggling to cope with that. LOT more football being played and it's great to see the young players, and I think we have a generation of really good young players at the club, proving they are more than good enough to play first team football. Probably more positive about the team at the moment than I have been at any time under Robinson.

Yeah but Cooper was great. Bigirimana wasn't the worst player in the squad but he wasn't really good at anything. Not a defensive midfielder, not a creator, not a goalscorer. My hope is that Turnbull has shown up a lot of the players in that squad for what they are and the manager has recognised that. The players that started this season weren't and aren't good enough and they need to be cleared out. Rose gone, Bowman gone, Bigirimana gone, Taylor Sinclair gone, there's more need cleared out but we are headed in the right direction.

I've been saying it for ages but the young players we have, for the most part, are better than the guys we were bringing in from non league/League 2 level. If it gives guys like James Scott and Barry Maguire more of an opportunity great. Hopeful the likes of Main, McHugh and Hartley are moved on in the summer and we can bring in players with a wee bit of pace and ability. Certainly signs that Robinson's dinosaur team are soon to be extinct.

Livingston might be on their worst run of the season (no wins in 5) but looking at the results they have all been closely contested, excluding the Rangers match (1-1, 0-0, 0-1, 1-2). In fact Livingston have never conceded more than one goal against any of the bottom 6 teams this season so I don't see them as being fodder on Saturday. Another wee stat. Robinson has never won 4 league matches on the trot as Motherwell manager. So if he manages to overcome that it will be the best unbroken run of league form in his time at the club.

It does mean that the 3 clubs below us and the 2 clubs immediately above us have fired their managers this season. So Robinson in a sense is very much a sole survivor.

Dundee is Robinson's lucky team. Out of our 8 league wins this season David Turnbull has scored in 5, scored the opener in 4 and scored the winner in 3. Colossal contribution and didn't even start a game until October.

We've not won three league games in a row since 25th October 2017. And if you are interested we've not won four in a row (actually part of a five in a row) since 2nd April 2016 under the much maligned McGhee. Will be up against a very different Dundee side than last time. Jim McIntyre has undoubtedly improved them and if you look at their last 10 results they have tended to only lose against the better teams in the league (St. Johnstone, Aberdeen, Celtic, Kilmarnock) while getting results against the rest (Hearts, Livingston, Rangers, Hamilton, Hibernian, St. Mirren). Of course a lot of those results were draws but I think it highlights that we shouldn't think we are going to go up there and get an easy win.

What about the fight inside the ground!

Turnbull took his goal well, Hastie did well until he took a sore one but I'd give my MotM to Liam Grimshaw.

Deserved to win. Looked a lot livelier in the first half and the personnel suited the team shape much better than Saturday. Aroyibi, Turnbull and Hastie playing behind the striker showed promise. Sadly the striker didn't. Main now on 3 league goals from 30 league matches. Missed some sitters today as well. Overall it was a decent first half showing with the two wingers actually providing some ***drumroll*** entertainment. Second half was a bit scrapper and our performance dipped but not enough for a pretty poor Hibs team to get anything out of it. The line up tonight showed some potential but I'm not sure what we are going to do about the striker position.

Enthusiasm 0.1% Hopefully that will temp fate to a win.