Welldaft Mk1

Unleash Rolando. They will not know what has hit them.. I will miss the game as travelling so that increases the likelihood of us actually doing something. That said I would take a huge improvement from Saturday and a respectable scoreline which gives us a bit of a boost ahead of Saturday crucial cup tie.

Is O’Hara injured ? Unlikely to start with Aaron’s and Ndjoli I would think. Maybe one or the other and hopefully both get some time ahead of Saturday. I would go 4-5-1 even though we rarely play that formation. Would rather have someone extra in midfield than defence. Same in defence but expect Polworth and possibly OHara to start with Hylton, Donnelly and Campbell with Long up front on his own. Anything less than a 3 goal+ defeat would probably do. Depends what Celtic turn up. The one v St Johnstone last midweek and it could get messy or the one yesterday v Hamilton would be better. Either way we need luck and Gillespie playing to his usual high standards.

Crikey what a bunch of panic merchants. I was looking at the English championship and happened to note that the best 2 teams (in many people’s eyes) Leeds and West Brom have each only won one of their last 5 games. It was a shocker of a performance by all accounts but this was after a very decent home performance v Hibs. Losing Scott will make us weaker imho but not signing a striker more so. Lets hope Ndjoli and more so Rolando can prove their worth. Expect the square root of f all from midweek even if we do play well. But for me I am hoping such a shite performance means we will not see same again in the cup v St Mirren. For me a more important game. More depressing for me was the news Turnbull will not be back till after the split. It would be a huge boost for all if he signed even a 1 year extension. Been rumoured for a while but nothing yet. We now have a few bob more to play with. Might help - might not.

Based on today’s performance they could have 30 shots on goal.

Going to try some reverse psychology..... You are bloody useless Motherwell. Could not score in a month of Sunday’s... Tbf 15 shots v 0 is a mauling. Clearly trying not to sign strikers is not the best strategy...

Tait in for Grimshaw.....mmmmm hope they don’t have any fast widemen. In saying that feel Grimmy has been only OK recently so maybe the gaffer feels Tait is worth the recall. Not surprisingly new signing not on bench but where is Ndjoli ? Not even on the bench.

I am not having that. Losing Scott might not derail our season, but he was a fantastic talent and if he can manage his imperfections will go on to be a big success. He is young but still very skilful and if he had stayed I am convinced we could have got fee similar to Turnbull in a years time. Is it a good deal assuming it is confirmed. Very much in the balance for me. Depends who we bring in on loan.

Not throwing toys out of pram (well yes I am) But again we needed a striker before Scott left. Failure to get anyone in before midnight would really be a p1sser. But there is time yet to make this not such a bad day.

I am a bit saddened to see Scott go. Like many before I still feel in the current market he is undervalued and I had high hopes for him. Not saying he would fulfil this promise but I just feel this is too soon. But I also understand if we net £1.5m + that is a fair chunk of money for a fan owned club. All that said I would be more underwhelmed if we do not manage to get a forward in the door before midnight. I felt we needed one before Scott moves on. Long was coming onto a game but him apart the rest are not reliable enough for fighting for Europe and in the cup. If it comes to it I would take Watt or even Main rather than nobody. Obvs I would want a better calibre of player, but easier said than done this late in the window.

I agree with this line of thought Dave. Robinson clearly thinks or thought for this game McIver was a better bet than Manzinga or Ndjoli. I thought he did OK but did not look like he was going to trouble the Hibs defence. Even on the brief cameo from Manzinga he seemed to offer more threat. However it is worrying that with one key striker missing we don't have what I would consider a capable alternative. I know they don’t grow on trees and it appears we may have been interested in Brian Graham. But this is a bit of an oversight imho. All that said I felt we played well yesterday and our defence and midfield are as strong as they have been for quite some time. 3 clean sheets in a row so far in 2020. Got lucky with Kamberi miss. I saw him go for the header with the whole goal to aim at and expecting to see Hibs support celebrating, but someone stood up in front of me and next thing the ball was out of play. Final word form me was that I actually thought Seedorf did OK when he came on. Granted that comes from a low expectation level. Big game v Livi next week. A win or a draw and I think top 4 is almost a gimmie. A loss and Livi are suddenly only 7 points behind with Celtic up next for us.

He only splits opinion in so far as I have seen a few negative comments about Polworth in here. And in a way that suggests he is a weak link. Me I think he has been a fantastic signing and if he could only have an end product in terms of goals he would be even better. His passing is as good as I have seen at Fir Park but his finishing is awful. I think back to that miss in Dingwall - I would have scored that. I just read an article about Brian Graham transfer to Thistle from Ross County. It states he turned down offers from Killie, St Johnstone and Motherwell ! He was such a nuisance for us I could believe it. But seems a little strange all the same.

Did not see the Pen shout on the MFC highlights ? I did see the cross for the goal. Polworth splits opinion just as fans if ICT said he would but by god he is one skilful player. That cross for the goal. Perfect height and length to evade their central defenders and the goalie. Tiger Woods in his prime could not have chipped a 9 iron that accurately. Great result and almost makes up for the Hamilton game. Hibs and Livi up next. Avoid defeat in both games and I think we will finish no lower than 4th which hopefully be good enough for Euro football. That said Hibs May pose a bigger threat than Aberdeen going forward or even Livi for that matter. Robinson is good at keeping a focus on each game.

This is the team I would go with. Robinson said Donnelly may not last the 90 minutes but I would start him and bring on Ohara if needs be. Plus give Ndjoli a run out at some point whether we are winning and probably definitely if we are losing. Would want to see him rather than Seedorf for example. I think Gillespie will start but he may well go with Carson. It seems like Robinson is resigned to Gillespie leaving especially if he is coming out with comments like Carson being No 1 next season. No issues with Gillespie trying to earn more and further his career. Would be nice if someone came in for him with even a small cash offer.

Some people think they are clever ! :-)

This the 1st time I have seen this rumour. Fanciful at least until Celtic sign another striker and even then I doubt it. Be a gamble but you can imagine the furore if he scores v h**s and we get a result :-) He would certainly split opinion but a fit and able Griffith’s would be better than anything we could afford.

Pretty much the same for most clubs. I am quite sure Rangers would have liked to have kept Billy Gilmour as one such example.

Good news. Gillespie has been in on merit but I would imagine he has (for the time being) got more interest and exposure given his form. One wonders if anyone will come in over Xmas and / or he signs a pre contract elsewhere. This news certainly points to Gillespie moving on. One wonders whether as a result Carson regains the gloves when the season re starts ?

Flow talks about this at length on the Longer Listen podcast just released this evening. Does not blame Cadden at all. Interestingly the MLS had agreed to adopt FIFA player compensation for the 1st time earlier this year. And given that by all accounts Cadden falls into that category I am totally bewildered why then the MLS believe there is no compensation due. It appears we are dealing with the MLS and not necessarily Columbus Crew. Things may change but at the moment FIFA will need to arbitrate which sound like it will costs us money which would eat into any compensation due. That and the latter scenario would take a while to resolve. All a bit of a mess and would certainly take a turn for the strange if Columbus were to accept offer from Oxford.

Talking of Wigan I see the bold Sir Cedric Kipre bagged a goal in a 3-2 away win today. Is that his 1st since he scored his only goal for us ?

Lets hope Sloth gets his wish. One way or another he does not seem a good fit. The concern is who would take him based on doing SFA with us. As for the goalie situation. It is weird in many ways how things have come about. Carson proved himself an excellent keeper and but for bad luck he would still be our number one. Gillespie comes in and guess what he is as good as Carson possibly better - who knew. Carson also denied (rightly in my opinion) a life changing move (Earnings wise) to Celtic. He may not fancy staying on but my feeling is that if Gillespie has no intention of signing an extension he should make that clear and we could see if Carson is interested. This has probably happened. All that said we have had an excellent track record recently of signing good goalies. Hopefully that continues.

I am assuming James Scott voted for James Scott !! I am one of his biggest fans but he had a very poor game yesterday in keeping with the rest of the team. Still he is young and hopefully will help his long term development somehow.

I was raging at FT. It was an awful performance bar the 1st 20 minutes. Oh so typical of Motherwell to conjur a defeat like that when we had a healthy home crowd and were on a high. It is hard to pick on any one player. They all had stinkers bar maybe Long and Gillespie. But the reaction should be restrained on account of the fact we are still 3rd and anyone who thought we would be higher than 6th would be lying. Of course it was a huge chance missed as we could have been 3 more points ahead of Hibs, Killie and Livi. I think we will finish top 6 but worry about top 4 based on today. The only hope is it serves as a HUGE wake up call to management and players we are not as good as we maybe think we are. We need a huge improvement on today to win against Dundee. I hope we can unearth a goalscorer and Donnelly is fit after the break. I think Campbell could do with a break. That hurt today big time !

That is who would get my vote.

Jonte Smith from Cheltenham rumoured. But Bolton also interested. A Bermudian international. We like to sign players who play for Caribbean countries.

Agree with this. He is a decent option up front but he has not really been all that prolific and on the basis of form so far I would start Scott in any case. So if he goes I wish him well and we can hopefully find a replacement or two up front that would help us maintain top 4/6.