Ya Bezzer!

Maybe that's why I predicted a draw.

It's decent overall form but you've not won many of those games and as a home side we shouldn't be looking at losing to a team that doesn't win many away matches.

Kilmarnock are better than us but their revival has been largely based around getting Power and Dicker back from injury and bringing in Mulumbu to have one of the most dominant midfields in the division. Two of those guys will be out today and Mulumbu maybe has some question marks over his fitness. It should also be pointed out that although Kilmarnock have only lost 1 match in the last 9 their away form hasn't been anywhere near as good as their home form. Of course we have a few problems as well in defence and I'm afraid I'm a little bit worried about Allan Campbell given what has happened to players coming back from injury already this season. Overall though I think it's quite hard to call this one since neither team will be at full strength and it might well end up a draw.

Only in training!

That's not a bad call actually, Kipre is certainly a much better passer of the ball. On the other hand I think McHugh can be pretty reckless the way he puts himself about and I'm not sure I'd want him in the penalty box. And neither player has a lot of pace and I feel like when other teams are attacking us they can simply knock the ball past our central midfield and win the chase.

Can't make midweek matches but to be honest these two teams in a midweek match at a ghostly Fir Park during a cold snap does not hold an enormous appeal. Eyes are bleeding just thinking about it. On the other hand we might put in a dazzling display. 'Might'. I think this is a pretty important match. St. Johnstone are 3 points behind us with 2 matches in hand. If they were to win this it would put them in a good place to go above us in the league again, although I'm not too sure who their games in hand are against. Likewise, if we can win we can put a wee gap between them and negate their extra matches. St. Johnstone are better on the road, their last three wins have all been away from home (Rangers, Hamilton, Hibs) and the last five also includes a draw at Ross County and a unfortunate loss at the weekend to Hearts where they seemed to have played quite well going by the highlights. Might be a tough match.....and a tough watch.

This. Joe Wark was just before my time so for me it's between Rob McKinnon and Tom Boyd and even though McKinnon was a superb player, the best left back in the country in his time at the club and a personal favourite of mine, I have to put Tom Boyd ahead of him. Boyd played more games, was a more adaptable player and of course captained us to a Cup Final. His Celtic connection has seen him more or less erased from our history for some fans but I'm not really comfortable with that sort of revisionism. If he'd never come back to Scotland I don't doubt he would be regarded as one of the very best players we've produced in the modern era.

Mixed today. Finished the match well but besides the first 5 minutes or so and the last 20, a lot of our play was pretty slow and turgid. If we'd shown the level of energy we had at the end of the match earlier we might have got three points. Form needs to improve, that's only 2 wins in our last 15 matches in the league, but main thing is we didn't lose a six pointer after going behind. We now have a run of matches against teams around us in the league and it's important we get a win or two.

Partick have been playing 4-2-3-1 in recent weeks so don't see us going with 4 in midfield. Can't see us straying far from our standard line up, although Hendrie gives you the option of matching up with a 4-2-3-1 but I think that is maybe something we would do later in the match, don't see us starting like that.

MacLean is 21 next month. Needs games now.

Form suggests that in this fixture the away team should just forfeit the match and put their feet up. However I think Partick will be better than the last time they came to Fir Park. They have a few important players back from injury including Abdul Osman who is a huge player for them and their recent form, and especially the away win at St. Johnstone, will give them confidence. We weren't bad against Hearts but our attacking play was very poor, very little movement, no one making runs, no fluidity. Will be looking for improvement in that regard. Would rather have Tanner in the XI than Ciftci who has looked well off the pace so far. A win would put us 8 points ahead of Partick, who are one of the few teams without games in hand against us, so this is quite an important match. Lose and Partick are only 2 points behind so it's a 6 pointer and we can't be losing these types of games at home.

Always think a point away from home is decent. This is no different. In fact in all of Hibs home league matches this season there has never been more than 1 goal in the game so that suggests we are capable of getting something out of it. I'd expect it to be fairly tight. Getting pig sick of all these midweek matches though, with another one coming up next week that'll be me missing another two matches on top of the ones I've already missed. Sometimes feel that Scottish football makes it as hard as possible for fans to actually go to games....

Would be a real fuck you to the fans if this happened. Even if Celtic come in with an improved bid it shouldn't even be considered. Everyone accepts that we have to sell players in the new model but we've done that, sold Hennigan, sold Moult, got money off the Johnson deal, got to a final, are we really going to ignore any attempt at team building for a few hundred thousand pounds? We are already pretty poor fair, selling one of our better players, at this stage of the season, for this kind of money, just says to me Motherwell FC is not about the fans coming to support a team any more, it's all about feeding a financial machine. I've already gone into detail about the way our obsession with 'selling players on', has become a major long term detriment to the club, this is that writ large.

Eh....where did I say it wasn't a goal? In fact I've never even mentioned it because it wasn't a controversial decision for me.

The centre backs, Campbell and Main were the best players but its tough to pick. Campbell got taken off and Main, although he scored the goal, also made a hash of probably the best chance we had in the match so perhaps I can rule them out for those reasons. Leaves you with Kipre and Aldred Probably go with Kipre.

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Decent away point. Performance wise we were OK but I think Hearts will feel they should have won. Certainly had more chances and looked more likely to score. In fact it looked fairly predictable when Hearts scored with 10 minutes to go. They always looked likely to nick one while we didn't really look like scoring from open play. In the end we got one from a free kick fired into the box in injury time but for me our ability to create and score is still a problem.

Living a bit of a charmed life at the moment. Two off our post and Collum has another ridiculous decision for his scrap book cos he's denied Hearts a stonewall penalty. We are still on the game, we've not been blown away, it's just Hearts have much better movement off the ball and the likelihood is they will get the goal. We've not been bad but it's just all a bit laboured when we are on the ball. There is really no creativity beyond 'lump it up to the strikers'.

Almost certainly Hearts *something* Motherwell *nil*. Just looking forward to a choo choo ride that doesn't go through Cambuslang.

If we are ever going to win a league match again surely it has to be this one? Ross County have an even poor record than we do over the the last 12 matches, albeit by 1 point. They don't have a striker of any note and have 1 clean sheet in 11 matches. No excuses tonight. 3 points have to be taken or serious questions have to be asked.

4th time in the last 5 that I've given it to Tanner.

A wins a win and we're in the next round but it wasn't exactly a brave new dawn. We deserved to win the match, Accies were rotten, but the standard of fare wasn't great, we've failed to score in open play against poor opposition and Carson has had to pull off some good saves, including a really great one right after our second goal. Lots of scope for improvement. Our best player by a mile was Craig Tanner for about the fifth match in a row. New players, can't really say much about Aldred as he went off injured, Main looked like your bog standard lower English league target man, Ciftci had some nice touches, including the one that more or less won the penalty but he looks pretty far off the pace in terms of fitness. Next match is huge, unfortunately it's a midweek. Annoying to miss such a crucial match.

I'm not playing stats. I'm making a direct comparison between goals and assists against comparable opposition over a season because some people on here think Greg Docherty couldn't dislodge Andy Rose or Liam Grimshaw from our midfield. That fact that you are producing stats that relate to career overviews against different standards of opponent, since these stats are not league stats, has nothing to do with my argument. They have no relevance to the point I was making. You know this because you aren't stupid and yet you feel compelled to make this quite stupid comparison. Why?

Joe Chalmers scores a 20 yarder! Described as a 'trundler' though....

Would walk into our midfield as most of the rest of the Accies midfielders would. Accies are 1 point behind us in the league. Now imagine where we'd be if we didn't have the best striker in the league outside Celtic for most of the season and the difference that makes. Facts are Accies are as good if not stronger in lots of areas and if you are seriously telling me you wouldn't take Docherty at Motherwell over our season long no show midfielders then fine but we'll agree to disagree. BTW. Carl McHugh - 0 goals, 0 assists Gael Bigirimana - 0 goals, 2 assists Andy Rose - 2 goals, 0 assists Liam Grimshaw - 0 goals, 0 assists Chris Cadden - 0 goals, 3 assists Elliott Frear - 1 goal, 1 assist Allan Campbell - 0 goals, 0 assists Total - 3 goals, 5 assists (from 7,189 minutes of league football this season) Greg Docherty - 3 goals, 6 assists (from 1,867 minutes of league football this season)