El Grew

A very decent performance by all accounts tonight that should have yielded at least a draw. Saturday's game against Hamilton is now massive for us as we must get some points on the board again and stop the rot. Our record against Hamilton in the league at FP, is dare I say it, execellent (only 8 losses in 54 games) P-54, W31, D-15, L8. Their last win at FP in the league was 1981 and before that 1938! Surely we can do the business on Saturday and bring the New Year in with a win.

Hearts have only scored 7 goals in 8 home games BUT have only conceded 6. Only teams to have won there this season (so far) Rangers and St Johnstone. Hard defensive nut to crack.

And is it not? I'd love us to get a draw out of this or better a win but the head rules the heart.

Same old story. Best of the play, but can't score. Hamilton game now assumes mammoth proportions.

Shankly on whether one of his players had been 'interfering with play' when called offside - "If he's no interfering wi' play, he shouldnae be oan the park"

You can talk about it until the coos come home, but the main things that might get young people into FP is a decent football playing team that is regularly in the top 6 of the SPL and much reduced gate prices for under-21s - say £10 and a free programme.

McGarry back to keep Auld Broon and Knox company!!?? Otherwise why??

I don't want to play the age card but I've been watching the 'Well for more years than I care to remember and the one thing that our club has been consistently excellent at, is making a right roaring c*nt of things. I believe Jim Gannon thought in coming to manage a club in the SPL he would be stepping up to a much higher level of football than he had been at. However, he was genuinely shocked at what he had taken on at FP in terms of the poor quality of the playing staff. He did try really hard to improve things in that respect but obviously stood on the egos of a few players whose opinion of their own football ability is vastly greater than it actually is. In my view Gannon was right - the standard of player at FP when he arrived was about as low as I can ever recall, and I've seen some pretty awful ones. Players lacking in physical stature, physical conditioning, lack of ability and unable to take on board simple instructions. He rightly decided a clear out was needed and some of the players would not do and brought in a number of younger players plus some loan signings to try and jump start things. Yes he was ruthless but sometimes that's called for and I think it was the right call. However, during the last 3 games in particular when we shipped 12 goals the cold light of reality finally dawned on him and he knew that with a large number of the playing staff he was wasting his time. We do have far too many players o our books who just will not do for SPL level for many different reasons and maybe he felt that the rebuilding job was going to be too much without having the freedom to get rid of all the dead wood and a bit of cash to strengthen the team. So I think that whoever comes in will be faced with exactly the same problems as Jim Gannon.

WellWell this is the best post I've read on these boards. IMO it hits right to the heart of things. I too am sorry to see JG leave because I thought he was just what we and the SPL needed badly - new blood with a different perspective. JG, thanks for what you tried to do and good luck for the future.

Jimmy Calderwood would be a good shout but I believe the reason he parted company with Aberdeen was down to him wanting them to put up some cash to improve the level of player at the club. He was quoted as saying he was fed-up having to make do with short-term loan deals and not being able to prevent some of his established better players leaving for the Championship. So, I can't imagine he'd be remotely interested in us given that's exactly what he'd be getting into, if not worse. Jim Jefferies gets a lot of stick but he has been loyal to every club he's ever managed. Perhaps if he feels he needs a change of scenery and a new challenge, we might be able to get him and he and his assistant have a very good track record of working with young players. I'd take him in a flash. As for Chris McCart? Certainly not. Seems more into coaching than management and would be far too inexperienced for the job in hand. What's needed now is an experienced and respected older head to steer the team away from the rocks and prevent us going into freefall.

Sorry to have been proved right - perhaps for wrong reason - but as I posted on Saturday evening, I did think that he'd gone too far in his post-match interview when he publicly stated that it didn't matter what he did the players were basically no good. IMO JB is not entirely blameless in this affair.

The problem of shipping goals did not just begin this season. Lets remember that our so-called experienced defenders have consistently shipped goals since Terry Butcher was here. If he's going to arrest the present slump, then IMO Gannon will need to for the time being, abandon his 'play football' philosophy and begin to make us hard to break down. Now that might mean either playing 5 at the back or 5 in the midfield to strangle games but he must get a few more points on the board and quickly. The next batch of games (Hamilton (H), Kilmarnock (A), St Mirren (H) Falkirk (A) are all against clubs that are in the bottom half of the SPL and if the slump is not arrested by the time we have to go to Falkirk then we could be right in the shit.

As I 've said on a few previous posts, I'm for Jim Gannon staying at FP to continue building a squad and a team because he's a breath of fresh air to us in particular and Scottish football in general. However, I've always felt that there were two things a manager should never do or he would be living on borrowed time - have a go at the supporters or have a go at the players in public. Well, I'm wondering if JG perhaps crossed the rubicon yesterday with hs post match comments about the players. I must admit he did sound really downhearted when he was interviewed (and this is not always a good thing to do straight after a game when emotions are still high) and lamented that it doesn't seem to matter how much coaching and training he does with the players they are basically poor players. Now, what he says might be true but surely saying it live on radio is hardly going to get the dressing room behind him? Do you think perhaps he's had enough and is he looking for the exit door?

This is the standard reaction from far too many fans when a team hits a bad patch. Sack the manager. As somebody else posted, we and just about every other club in the SPL would be going through 3 or 4 managers a season if this became policy. Anybody with any sense and who has watched Motherwell for any amount of time would know that this type of thing was inevitable. We were always in a false position in the league from the start. Jim Gannon came in at the start of the season and took over a club with just about the poorest squad of players in the league. Any decent players we had were gone south, literally, leaving a rump of players that most knew were not good enough and a load of unproven kids. He brought in a couple of guys that he knew from his time in England and managed to eke out some early season results that took everybody by surprise and had them playing some good football into the bargain. One defeat in 12 games must be the best start to season any Motherwell manager has ever had. So now we've hit a poor patch but look at the run of fixtures he was handed - Aberdeen, Dundee Utd, Hibs, Celtic and Rangers one after the other. And, if we are realistic, the only game we looked outclassed in was at Ibrox and look at their recent run of results - beat Dundee Utd 3-0 and beat Hibs 4-1 both away from home. To me that puts things right into perspective.

Special aka. Your story parallels mine. I'm a third generation 'Well fan as my granddad and my dad both followed the dossers. My gran lived in Grange Street just behind FP and we used to visit her every Saturday. My dad used to disappear at the same time every Saturday and I used to wonder where he went. To see a man about a dog he'd tell me. Yes, you guessed it he was going to FP. When we played in the street at my gran's I could hear what I later learned were the roars of the crowd inside FP. Eventually when my dad thought I was old enough to be initiated he started taking me along. I was instantly hooked. This was early to mid-sixties and I can remember seeing Andy Weir, Willie Hunter and Charlie Aitken who were all just coming to the end of their time at Motherwell. Alan Wylie was the goalkeeper and a young guy called Alan McKay played right back. Other than that I can't remember much more about my first game. Going to Knowetop PS meant I saw FP every day of my life and I think this cemented my future as 'Well fan and I've been going ever since. Wouldn't change a thing.

Ditto mate.

IMO we need to stop leaking easy goals and the way to help do that is to abandon the attacking full backs theme. First and foremost full-backs need to be solid and dependable and able to defend and I'm afraid at present, that's the last thing you could accuse Moutaouakil and Hammell of. I've also never been convinced that Reynolds is a centre-back. So for me get Saunders to RB and Reynolds to LB. Field team in 4-3-1-2. Murphy to play slightly withdrawn just behind the big two front men. GK - Ruddy RB - Saunders CB - Craigan CB - Hutchison LB - Reynolds RM - Hateley CM - Coke LM - Jennings CM - Murphy AC - Jutkiewicz AC - Sutton

Apparently its our biggest defeat at Ibrox since 1910. Well, records are there to be broken.

Ya Bezzzer, I understand your point and it is well made. However, the board do need to make up their minds whether they want to be in the SPL and competing at a reasonable level or whether they want to go down to SFL 1 and let some others with ambitions have a go. I'm certainly not advocating reckless spending of the like we saw when John Boyle arrived at the club but there is a medium to be struck without going tonto with the club's finances and future. Jim Gannon needs to be given a bit help to bring in a couple of more experienced players to help him bring the youngsters on. If a few of the younger ones continue to progress then the club can reap the benefit of the revenue from selling them on. That's the way it has to be for clubs like us.

Jim Gannon is spot on with his obervations on Scottish referees. Take last week at Easter Road. Hibs committed 22 fouls and had 1 player booked. We committed 4 fouls and had 3 players booked. Anyone looking at these stats would be forced to conclude that we are a team of cluggers. The referee was Ian Brines who is amongst the worst referees I've ever seen and yet he has been allowed to continue to handle Grade 1 games rather than get sent to the 3rd division. Jim Gannon is being pilloried by all parts of the media because he has had the audacity to speak publicly about something that nearly all football fans agree with him on - that the state of our referees is shocking. Personally, I think it's a case of 'who is the English upstart coming here and telling us how bad our referees are' by the small minded, old-firm biased, in-bred media. I listened to Tam Cowan on radio Scotland at lunchtime today defending referees and berating Jim Gannon for his views and said he should "keep his trap shut". I don't know who he thinks he is bit its him that needs to keep his trap shut as its nothing but hot air and wind that comes out of it when he speaks. The next time he says something sensible will be the first time. Fat arse Jim Traynor then comes on and reduces the debate to the level of making it personal - "Who does Jim Gannon think he is? He only managed Stockport County so what does he know about anything?" Then the two-faced wee turd goes on to criticise referees for exactly the same things Gannon has been trying to get the SFA to look into. He states that referees might be inclined to referee Motherwell games with a view to 'punishing' Gannon for his outbursts. Ah, so he admits our referees might not be so unbiased after all. Just remember the treatment that Craig Levein had to suffer for also having the temerity to criticise two of the most biased instances of refereeing last season when against Rangers in the cup and then in the SPL, Dundee Utd were shamefully treated by Mike McCurry and Kenny 'Bluenose' Clarke (both of whom thankfully are no longer in employment at the SFA). Levein suffered the same kind of media tirades and abuse as Gannon is getting now. He even defied the SFA and refused to pay a £5K fine 'for bringing the game into disrepute'. Jim Gannon has my full support in his criticism of our referees because if nobody raises the issue then the standards will continue to fall. For far too long referees have been allowed to get away with ridiculous performances with no action being taken. Stick in Jim the majority of fans are behind you on this.

- Undoubtedly the better side won and probably should have won more comfortably. - We only really competed from when Samaras scored until half-time. - Man of the match and the best goalkeeper seen at FP in years John Ruddy. - It took 3 goals right out of the top drawer to beat us. - The guy who came off the bench (the bench mind you) to score the winner cost £4M!! - Jim Gannon inherited a playing staff that had been sorely neglected by previous managers and deserves great credit for getting us into 5th in the SPL with a team of boys. - Disappointing to note that yet again (as in too many games this season) we capitulated far too easily in the second half. - We badly need to look at our two full backs who couldn't defend for toffee. - Jim Gannon will need a wee bit of financial help from the board to try and get a few more experienced players in.

I'm not an apologist for referees but I can't understand what all the fuss is about Saturday's referee. IMO he got nearly all the big decisions correct. The tackle to deny Sutton in the first half was clean and fair - no penalty. Buaben's two fouls were shocking and both booking offences so after the second he had to go off. Swanson's tackle on Lasley was disgraceful and disgracefully late and merited a red card. His one major blunder was in not sending Myrie Williams off for two reckless and shocking tackles. If these tackles had been perpertrated by us on Dundee Utd players I think Levein would be singing a different tune. As for Lasley's 'goal' it should have stood. He was miles onside when he ran onto the pass before squaring it. I was sitting in line with the 18 yard line in the east stand side and the linesman on that side had four offside decisions to make in the game and he only got one right. You can't blame the referee for this.

I think where we have gone wrong against 10 men in our last two games, has been that we continued with four defenders, Tom Hateley in front of the back four, three midfielders and two forwards. As soon as the opposition went down to 10 men, we should have pushed Hateley into the midfield to go to 4-4-2 and shut the midfield and the game down. We didn't and in both games this led to Aberdeen and Dundee Utd having to make minimal adjustments by moving to 4-3-2. It let them continue with two forwards and also control the midfield area when we should've had the game shut down.

I thought both sets of players should've been commended for providing an exciting and entertaining game in what were absolutely atrocious conditions. In terms of the game, I think we were a wee bit fortunate to get the draw as Aberdeen missed two great chances in the first half and were by far the better side in the second half. Aberdeen started both halves much better. Our goal came against the run of play and our inability to stop cross balls into our box eventually cost us the goal. They certainly bossed the first 20 minutes of the second half and we only came alive again after their goal. Overall though considering where we were before Jim Gannon came, only 1 loss in 12 games, clear 5th in the SPL by 4 points I'm quite happy.