Joeboy

I've thought this just about every time I've seen him since his return. Be it a pass, a shot or a tackle, he doesn't seem to go right through anything. He was never famed for being able to hit a thunderbolt but he hit a shot on Saturday that even the blundering Fon Williams could have dealt with like a passback. Everyone who reads these boards is probably well versed on my feelings towards Iain Vigurs, but even looking at impartially, he doesn't seem to be the type of guy that you want in a battle. At the game on Saturday, I begrudgingly thought he looked tidy and was using the ball well, but I've seen an account on twitter showing a clip to show how badly he stood off Cadden for our first. The season before he came to us, he got done for by Law and Humphrey at Fir Park to cost goals and I guess for however good a passer he is, other aspects of his game let him down. Have yet to see an angle that shows our third goal as being in, but after all the bad luck we've had in that regard, we'll take it. Even over the course of the 90 minutes it probably evened itself out as if you watch the MFCTV highlights, it pauses to show Inverness offside for their 2nd. Our goal seemed an easy decision to make in real time, while there's looked a really tough one, however in the balance of justice both were wrongly given goals in my eyes and thus no one can have anything to complain about. Good performances from a lot of our players on Saturday, particularly McDonald, Frear and Campbell. Even Ainsworth had a decent cameo. If we play like we did for the vast majority of that game, it would lead me to think we'd be safe (a long way from how I felt post Partick) but I was concerned at the ease of the goals we gave away, even if one was offside. Also, it seems like Ben Heneghan did his best Mark O'Brien impression for the second week running, giving away needless fouls and getting caught the wrong side of people.

He is due an out of the blue game at left midfield where he turns back and plays the ball to the left back every time he gets it, I suppose.

It finally seemed to get addressed in this week's press conference - Robinson said he's definitely not in contention this week and by his tone of voice I doubt he'll be back sharp. Late decision on Tait for this one too. It's funny as he was reported as out for the season and McManus as out for six weeks, yet it appears to be the opposite.

Yeah, that's why I was wondering. He'll have been out 8 weeks come Saturday.

I noticed that McManus was on that Peter and Roughie show last night but didn't manage to catch it myself. Did anyone see it and notice if he mentioned a return date? Not been any official word on that for a while.

I looked at Robinson's selection against Ibrox and thought what a bold team, with so many attacking players. However, the selection is only bold when the attacking players are actually tasked with attacking. All the 3 at the back has done for me has suppressed all of Frear's good attributes. Our tactics seemed to be hoof ball, but Heneghan (who was also atrocious defensively) didn't even seem to look where Bowman or McDonald were and just launched it in the direction he was facing. I thought Mark O'Brien had returned for a while. Clay and Pearson were both rotten, somehow Pearson seems to be holding back in tackles, shots and passes....reluctant to put his foot through the ball? Clay puts a shift in to be fair to him, but for all the work-rate and endeavour, the way he played on Saturday he'd struggle to get a game in the Saturday morning amateurs with me. Many times this season I've thought Lasley performances are visibly showed his age and we should try other options...but of those three he's by far and away front runner for me currently- pity he's banned on Saturday. Lucas also appears to have disappeared (as weird as that sentence sounds). For all the times I've been critical of McManus in the past, I'm desperate for him to come back so we can shove McHugh back into midfield, who I believe to be our best option at centre back and centre midfield just now. I'm normally rational and reasonable about our performances, but that first half was absolutely woeful and for the first time this season I walked away with the mindset "we'll be lucky not to go down". Hopefully a return of Moult, Tait and McManus helps us get more of a decent side out but I think if we stay up it will definitely be due to other's failings, not our successes.

Fair play, I only seen the MFC TV highlights and didn't see it hit Pearo, the angle wasn't great. I thought it was maybe disallowed because he was in an offside position, which I believe isn't the rule anymore but didn't know it had hit him. It was Skippy who won the ball back and McHugh who crossed it for the goal that day. Transfrmarkt.co.uk only has him down for one assist this season, the cross for McDonald's header against Ross County when we won 4-1.

Bowman hits shot and it's saved and Moult scores the rebound. Just on Saturday there.

See if you watch the MFCTV highlights, it is clear to see that the Accies guy headers the ball, getting elevation on the ball with his jump and then hitting the bar. For me, it would be pretty impossible to hit the bar with an upwards header, which has a forwards motion, unless you are behind the line. No excuse for the officials to miss it, those are the big calls they get paid such a pricely sum to make and more often than not they miserably fail at being correct.

Ainsworth continues to be a curious case. Bags of talent and ability yes, but a questionable attitude. He's not thirty yet and he has had thirteen clubs. We are by far the longest he's spent at a club and he seems to have gone through several cycles of form and attitude in his time here. Add to that that he's spent time out of the team under McCall, Black, Baraclough, McGhee and now Robinson and charge, for me you begin to realise who is the problem. Cadden hasn't been firing the way we would have liked in recent weeks, but there's been nothing in Ainsworth's cameos to suggest he either has the hunger or the quality (in his current form) that would add something to our starting team, certainly not in the current system. Maybe Tait in that role might do a trick with Cadden potentially moving into the centre that could maybe spark some form there? None of our central midfielders are firing at the minute. Ideally, I'd like to see McHugh back in there but if we persist with this system, we aren't flush with candidates to play the sweeper role in the middle of the back three. Anyway, the other night was a frustrating one. Good to see Robinson try something different to try and make things work and using McGhee's signings Frear and Bowman to better effect than he did. I thought Bowman had a very positive game and with that being the first time I've seen him start in a long time, he is much quicker than I'd have initially thought. Can't help but think Moult's poachers instinct would have seen him on the end of one of those low balls across. Blyth didn't offer a lot and as much as you may attribute that to match fitness- we can't afford any passengers at this stage of the season in our predicament. In the middle of the park, Clay had his usually competent game without offering a great deal of quality. Pearson was lacking again and there were several points where he seemed reluctant to put his foot through the ball, both in tackles and passes/shots. Not sure what is going on there, but he hasn't offered as much as I'd have liked upon his return. Lasley showed a bit when he came on but that time he dithered on the ball and didn't release Cadden was helluva frustrating. The officials were absolutely laughable the other night too. The linesman on the POD Stand side gave so many throws wrong (for both teams) and I'm not having that the phantom goal was a tough call to make. From a corner, you can't be offside so the linesman only has two things to concentrate on - is the ball in and have any fouls be committed? With the money we pay them, they should manage that. Farcical. Is that now the fourth wrongly disallowed goal of our season? Partick away, Dundee away, Rangers away and Accies home? All at critical points in the game too. The ref stopping the game when Imrie fell off the park and booking Pearson after the half time whistle were utterly bemusing. The standard of refereeing is dreadful. Since Robinson has been in charge, we have been the better side in most games and arguably deserved something from each game, perhaps Pittodrie excepted. This is encouraging but you have to hope it's not too late. Last night was the type of frustrating game that had you drawn, you could be encouraged by certain aspects and look at the positives had it been October/November or something, but it's too late in the season to drop points under that circumstance. I'd have taken a draw on Saturday had we won against Accies, but it makes Saturday a bigger task against an in-form team.

Hateley was a very good full back in my opinion. Was virtually an ever present in one of our most successful eras of recent times and as well as a few vital goals, got thirty assists over four seasons. What annoyed me more was his demeanour at times. I remember we got beaten 4-0 by Hibs on a Friday night once and he lost the ball up the park and stood with his hands on his hips and sighed instead of getting back, a few folk shouted at him to get back from my area of the East Stand at the time and he turned and made a shut up gesture to the fans - all instead of trying to get back and continue with the game. Having his dad write a paper column about why he should be playing centre mid and not right back and having his family members constantly tweeting saying they'd like to see him play for Rangers didn't endear him to me, but being honest you can't really blame young sportsmen for having bad influences in their family. I also wasn't a fan of him having the arrogance to shoot at just about every corner for a couple of years. Fair enough, he scored two of them but it got on my wick how many times we surrendered the chance to score a header for him to potentially nurse his ego.

Saturday saw me relatively pleased with how we played generally, but obviously two collective defensive headers have cost us. Young Ferguson has made a mistake for either goal which in all honesty, you see young defenders make all the time. I remain to be convinced by Jules and I'm not sure if a relegation battle can carry two inexperienced defenders but with the way things are, we can only play with the hand we've got. It's funny how different managers rate different youngsters (Brown rating Page over Hutchinson, but McCall rating Cummins over Page springs to mind) but I do find it strange that we've played McMillan out of position at left back so often this season, yet when Tait is out and this gives us a chance to play him on his preferred side, we don't do it. Cadden probably is a bit burnt out and as said further up, he may have had more respite if MacLean had been fit. A new manager may have been another new start for Ainsworth I thought, but as a mate pointed out to me on Saturday, perhaps not the case as it was allegedly Robinson and Ainsworth who had "words" after the Morton defeat last season. I was very impressed with Frear and if I'm honest the only area that I think let us down was centre midfield. Don't know if Pearson has finally succumbed to age or isn't match fit, but his trademark lung busting runs into the box have been absent since his return, on Saturday he barely seemed to break stride. Clay has a good attitude and gives 100% every week but his lacking in quality is so evident. I don't like criticising him because he has such a good work-ethos but every attribute seems lacking for me. He often spends too long on the ball and then picks the wrong option at the end. Lucas seems to have gone AWOL and if we are having to play McHugh at the back, you don't know if a relegation battle is the right time to throw a youngster in Campbell in. However, on the flip side from that, based on what I've seen from Campbell he doesn't seem like a player who would be fazed by such a situation and might relish a battle. The goals themselves were definitely a collective error. For the first, I feel Hammell should have been more proactive in stopping the cross, but I wouldn't blame McHugh much, I think his starting position was decent enough and it was just a good cross. I think Ferguson gets caught flat footed gambling that McHugh would have won the header. Unfortunately for the second he almost reversed this, when he got too drawn to the ball when perhaps should have kept more positional discipline. No doubt what happened on the first would have been on his mind at the second and I guess that's just an unfortunate element of a youngster learning the game.

If you judge McManus on the merits of being a former Scotland captain, who was once sold for 1.5 million after winning three titles and playing in the last sixteen of the Champion's League, then he is absolutely a disappointment. That kind of signing should have been a total rock at the back for us. However, if you judge him on the merits of being a 34 year old centre back playing with Motherwell, he has done/is doing a decent job. I've criticised him several times in his spell here but the vast majority of the time I've conceded we're better with him in the team than we would be without him.

Walter Zenga applied for the job when Eric Black got it, that was up there with the comedic shouts!

Fair enough, that's pretty solid evidence The way it was originally presented above would suggest that table tennis was being done at the expense of proper training, whereas that article suggests it's being done in spare time. It was more the McDonald's bit that got me.....how anyone can be that specific I don't know, especially when any account I've heard of Coyle suggests he's quite health conscious. I've seen our players talk about playing each other at table tennis on twitter before and Stuart McCall always came across as "one of the lads" and he enjoyed a fair bit of success as manager, so it wouldn't overly concern me.

Are you doubting the legitimacy of Vigurs' back injury? As anyone who has seen my posts on here will testify I'm far from a lover of Iain Vigurs, but having seen him as a punter in the stand at New Douglas Park one day when he was out, he had the most convincing fake limp I have ever seen in my life if he wasn't injured. For what it's worth, the biggest concern for me during both Vigurs and Kennedy's injuries or "injuries" are that they are/were taking a portion of the wage budget, not either's omission from the team.

I always wonder how people on messageboards are able to speak of things like ping pong tourneys and Owen Coyle taking Charlie Mulgrew for a happy meal....

That's it. If you watch our MFCTV press conferences before a game, the stories you read on the paper compared to the actual words said by the players are often born from such loaded questions. The only thing you may have said is disrespectful would have been the "diabolical" word (however true it may be) I can't see a journo being able to use license to say that. As for saying they're a better squad, had Diego Costa gone to China in January he would even probably have said he joined a better squad in a face-saving exercise. It's just a bog standard question with a bog standard answer.

Kennedy got a bad virus in the summer and was out for a good few weeks and lost a lot of weight. He came back and played once with the 20s and has since had a really bad hip problem, which I believe he's seen several specialists who haven't got to the bottom of it as yet. The lack of clarity about it from the club is probably what is causing people to thing there's more to it than that, but both of those one on top of the other seem too elaborate to be false.

What's Luc Nijholt up to these days? I wonder what it was that finally saw him graduate from being one of the first names in these discussions...

Are you actually suggesting that Gordon Marshall was in our top three worst 'keepers? I think that's a ludicrous shout. He had two bad high profile games within a fortnight of each other (both against Rangers) but otherwise he was really good for us I thought, especially thinking of the Hearts semi and Skippy Sunday. I've been going to games since 1997 and I can easily say I'd have Marshall over Woods, Kaven, Brown, Dubourdeau, Corr, Smith, Meldrum, Fraser, Hollis, Nielsen, Twardzik, Long and Samson without having to think about it.

I always tend to ignore the early speculation as when we're concerned, a name mentioned in the first couple of days never seems to get the job. I thought at first that Steve Robinson would become caretaker and after a few weeks we would give it to him on an extended interim basis, the cheap option and there might have been an element of that thinking when bringing him back. However, the statement when McGhee was sacked led me to believe that he won't be getting it with the way it was worded. Lee McCulloch- I would like to think that was a product of mind games for Saturday but don't think we're clever enough for that. He's a non starter. Owen Coyle- comes with a reputation and I liked him as a player but has ultimately failed in every job he has taken since leaving Burnley in 2010. Alan Stubbs- Done well to reach two cup finals with Hibs, obviously winning one, which would be great for us, but not managing to get out of that league twice or even reach the playoff final with the resources- at his disposal- worrying. Add to that, he didn't last long at Rotherham. Is there any real evidence to backup him being that good a manager? The man in charge when the phrase "hibsed" took off doesn't fill you with great confidence. Simo Valakari- has won all there is to win in Finland as far as I believe, but our last attempt at a successful Finnish manager came back to bite us. Would harbour good feeling among most fans, but still would be a gamble. Jim Duffy- Has worked wonders at Morton and I had heard whispers he had put his name in the ring, but if he has, that article today is a very strange one to write, so I guess he can be ruled out. I guess our next appointment is a tough one to balance. Between now and May, we need a motivator who can get the best out of this group of players to keep us in the division. However, beyond May, we really need a man with an eye for a player, as many players in our current squad are either ageing or lacking in ability and need to be adequately replaced going forward. Getting a hybrid of the two at short notice might be a tough ask.

Haha, you can make an exception when it's a player filling in an unorthodox position. But you're right, number 4 or 6 would be more appropriate for a centre mid who can play in defence too.

I'd go for Jules as well. I've been a big critic of McManus at various points throughout his Motherwell career, but have pretty much always conceded that the team would suffer more for him not being in it. Given he's been a virtual ever present since signing, these next six weeks will probably be a indicator of whether that is true or not. As for McHugh, I think he's by far our best option in the middle of the park, but given our surplus of options there and the fact Clay was most people's MOTM against Celtic, I'd be tempted to play him left back, where has played before rather than Chalmers.

I'm sure I read he was offered a new contract, but on a pittance compared to what Spencer, Brannan, Goram, Teale etc were offered and was rightly quite annoyed being our top scorer at the time. I liked him, he scored goals consistently when he was here and he was the first player I ever saw score for Motherwell.