Ya Bezzer!

Carson had to make three saves in the first 8 minutes but after that we were fairly comfortable, our first goal took a lot of the wind out of their sails. Decent first half performance. Bowman and Sammon linked up well and there was noticeably fewer high balls being played. Sammon is a better player with balls to his feet if tonight is anything to go by. Sammon was pretty clinical in taking his goals (although he probably should have got his hat trick with a couple of chances in the 2nd half) but for me the star man was Chris Cadden. Looked back to his best tonight although he did reasonably well in the group stages last season before falling away. However if he can take his form from tonight into the Premiership we will have a decent player back. 2nd half wasn't quite up to the same standard and Carson pulled off another very good save from Dobbie but at 2-0 up and fairly comfortable, with that one exception, you can live with that.

Noticeably less hoofball tonight. Two well taken goals by Sammon. Cadden excellent, the difference between the teams so far.

Carson. No blame for the goal and made three good saves in the penalty shoot out. I'd elevate Cadden slightly above the rest of the outfield players but the rest of them.....yikes.

Well I went to 35 matches last season I went nearly 6 months without seeing us winning a league match. So cup runs aside.....

It's hard to imagine how bad Kipre and Hartley were if you weren't here. I hope with Hartley it's just fitness or even poor attitude and noting to do with his injury but he actually looked done today. Glaciers have moved faster. The rest should be more familiar. Prehistoric long ball tactics. Non existent midfield sans Campbell Atrocious youth development Here comes the new season, same as the old season. I usually have people lining up to disagree with me but if the super fans were actually here today how can you disagree with any of the main points I've been making for a year now?

Old story but no Campbell means no midfield. The midfield hasn't been addressed in over a year now.

Well that was a shambles! Dreadful penalties.

Would you believe me if I said Adam Cummins was miles better than Hartley or Kipre today? Penalties incoming.

Stranraer through on the keeper and missed. Sitter. Lucky to get to penalties

A deserved equaliser to be fair. 3-4-3 since Frear came on.

Started 3-5-2 but nothing was happening so we switched to 4-4-2 about half way through the half.

It's a small, tight park and we've struggled to find space and create anything in open play, goal came from a set piece, surprise, surprise. Stranraer have probably had the three best chances to score and one was really quite a bad miss. Been a bit sloppy at the back on occasion. Not been impressed with Taylor-Sinclair doesn't seem to defend or attack. HT 1-0.

Sell on clauses seem like the best bet to make money. If I was down south I wouldn't pay seven figure sums for any Scottish Premiership players outside of Celtic who are playing international and European football. The present standard of the league is too low and probably 85% of the players that go down south come back up without having made any impact or disappear into the lower leagues down south. Buying from our league is a big, big risk. Then again, some people have more money than sense.

Yeah, I don't think the PR advice would be to get into a slanging match and attack the victim.

MOTHERWELL BOSS SILENT ON OLDHAM BULLYING CLAIMS is not a media managed headline. Looks like the club has stuck their head in the sand over this but the story is on the BBC website and is bound to spread across the rest of the media. The only response to the claim is the manager saying " I can't talk about it at this moment in time" and there has been no club statement as far as I know. So as a result the whole story is coming from the accuser. It's like a 101 in not what to do in PR. The manager should not be dealing with the media personally and the club ought to be giving him a bit more protection here.

At the start of the match Edinburgh City played the ball round well and kept possession for the first couple of minutes. Then when we finally got possession we immediately hoofed it up the park! Getting an early goal against these teams is always the key and we did that with some nice play from Cadden. We were actually impressively ruthless in the first half and took our chances well, albeit with a little help from Antell in the Edinburgh goal. Thought he should have saved Tait's and the Main goal was an 'oh dear' moment. Still if they are on target, you always have a chance and the accuracy of our goal attempts tonight was probably the highlight - there wasn't a lot going high, wide and handsome, excluding a couple of centre half attempts. Second half we switched to power save mode and Edinburgh City played more compact and were obviously told to treat the match as a 'don't concede' training exercise so the resulting 2nd half was more about sitting out in the evening sunshine than the football. Fair play to Edinburgh, they try to play decent football on the ground, but some of their players where miles off our guys fitness levels and they didn't have anyone who could get behind us so our back 3 and keeper had a very easy night.

If you score a hat trick you get the MotM.

Had almost exactly the same record as Bowman last term in the league Bowman 23+9 (7) Sammon 21+10 (7) However 3 of Sammon's goals came from the penalty spot. On the other hand Bowman has never been capped by Giovanni Trapattoni.

If it's Bowman out, Sammon in, fine, Sammon is probably a bit more technically accomplished and arguably a better goalscorer so you are coming out on top there. If it's Bowman and Sammon, in addition to Main then my heart sinks a bit at what's in store.

Does anyone actually have their season ticket card yet? Was told the club would inform me when they were available but I've heard nothing so far.

The home is basically a traditional Motherwell strip without any unnecessary gimmicks - except for the collar which spoils it a bit. Either make it a V neck or a scoop neck, the hybrid design just doesn't look good. Overall though I like it outwith the collar. I'm sure the away top will fly out the shop but is completely pointless as a 2nd kit.

Never been to Stranraer so looking forward to getting down there and ticking another ground off the list.

Someone I know who has been a season ticket holder for 2 seasons has got their renewal literature in but myself who has been a season ticket holder for 25 years hasn't! Probably end up walking to Fir Park to do it since I only live 5 minutes away but I generally don't buy my season ticket until nearer the new season anyway.

Bowman has his merits but he's scored 9 league goals in 56 appearances. Even though his goalscoring improved last season he still only got 7 league goals. That's not enough for over a season. Between them Main and Bowman only scored 3 goals in our last 11 matches from 18 starts and 4 sub appearances. A goal every 6 matches from your strikers is way off. Goal scoring has been a problem since Moult left and even more so since Tanner's injury. It's one of the things Robinson will have to sort out during the close season. We need a 'natural' goalscorer and they don't grow on trees.

Care to expand?