Kmcalpin

If as seems to be the case, Cadden is not fully fit then rest him for a week or two starting with Tuesday evening.

Just watched the highlights and they underlined just how poor our defending was. Despite sitting very deep we gave Rangers plenty of time and space to find gaps. Both of the goals can be attributed to a number of players, in midfield and defence just not doing their job properly. To pick just one example where on earth was Steve Hammell at the first goal? Overall though our midfield was simply overrun and this emphasised just how far ahead of us Rangers are in that part of the field. The usually much maligned Craig Samson was afforded very little cover but didn't do much wrong. Still, we now have to regroup for the trip to Dingwall.

Just the way I see it Iain. Every team comprises a number of individuals as Bill Shankly said and they all need to be treated differently. Quieter ones need gentle coaxing whilst extroverts or awkward customers need a boot up the jacksie. Last Saturday's interview with Mark McGhee was one of the worst I've ever heard. Yes he was very honest and I applaud him for that but as a leader of 11 men he needed to show more defiance, more fire and more leadership. Our players are no mugs and would have heard what he said. They would react differently, most negatively. Some would have smirked and said to themselves "Told you so" whilst others would have withdrawn into their shell and be demotivated. In essence that was the start of our preparation for today. After listening to the interview I had the clear impression he was fearful of Rangers, had run out of ideas and couldn't offer any hope of improvement. In essence just like Stuart McCall's demeanour before he left us. That interview gave me the clear impression that he was pessimistic about today's game and didn't know what to do. I very much doubt he fired the players up. Whatever he said to the squad midweek the players would put that in the context of his comments last Saturday. What message too would that have sent out to our young players?

I'm actually more upbeat today than I was last Saturday. At least today's game is out of the way although regrettably we picked up a red card. Anyone naively expecting Rangers to pick up 2 red cards in one game is living in cloud cuckoo land. Today's game was lost in large part last week. After listening to Mark McGhee's now honest but notorious interview I asked how on earth he was going to motivate the team for this week. Basically he came across saying that he had tried all he could and that wasn't enough; he had no idea what to do and there was no hope. That was not the way to prepare for today's game. Its no wonder the players didn't look up for it. You a expect better from a manager; a leader if you like. I fully expected Chalmers to play left midfield again and so he did and that indicated a very cautious approach. As with last week we played the wrong team and deployed the wrong tactics. It was plain our primary tactic was to try and stop Rangers, who although not a great side are streets ahead of us. If we had a central midfield it was unceremoniously bulldozed. My great fear though is that Mark McGhee's downbeat and depressing tone will carry forward to Tuesday's game.

I agree we do have a lot of depth there but I would say that its unbalanced and perhaps lacks quality. The arrival of Frear gives us more balance and pace on the left but its in the middle where we are a bit unbalanced. If you take Lasley, McHugh, Lucas and Clay they are all deep lying for one reason or another and they lack pace. What we still lack there is a good box to box attacking midfielder.

A bit bizarre I admit Dee. However we have to tread carefully here. There may have been more to this than meets the eye and if I have missed some of the details behind this then I apologise. Whilst I would not actively advocate such a ceremony at Fir Park, I don't see anything wrong with what our Directors did and I presume that our representatives were indeed acting in their capacity as Directors of MFC and not the Well Society. I trust that if there was something unsavoury or inadvisable about the ceremony then the club Directors would have politely said their goodbyes and left. However they didn't. I'm as aware of the political and religious sensitivities of toasting our Head of State as then next Well fan but the ceremony could also be viewed as being a simple act of toasting the monarch. Had the club Directors politely declined and left that act in itself could be seen as being politically or religiously motivated and would have caused even more controversy. You also raise another issue and that is the views of the Society membership. Does anyone actually know what they were or indeed are with respect to this particular issue? We have over 2,000 members after all. It was clearly not feasible to ballot the members about this in advance. There will be many other such issues which will arise in future but again we have to distinguish between Society Directors and Club Directors. Its simply not practical to consult Society members on every such issue. Finally, I strongly believe that the Society must be totally politically and religiously neutral and I have faith in the Directors of the Society that it will continue to be so.

For Erwin's own long term benefit, not the club's, he would have been better to stay another year and develop. Short term gain long term loss career wise I'd say.

I don't even know if they fully own the stadium. They poured money in to the playing side in the late nineties to the detriment of a badly needed new stadium and ran up huge debts. These were paid off when Brockville was sold and there was about £2/3 million left over. Their new stadium was funded in large part by the Council who still own parts of it in a complicated arrangement. The South Stand was funded by a wealthy philanthropic supporter. I would guess that the stadium as is cost around £7-8 million with the football club contributing about 30% of that. Given that I can't see a 4th stand being built any time soon unless another schuhder daddy pops up.

Yes, it was. I suspect that the extent of the Grangemouth Blast Zone has contracted but it was most certainly a problem at one time. I'm not a great fan of Falkirk's stadium to be honest with its corner gaps.

I don't agree with a lot of your post but you are right about this. The current standard of football isn't the best but its better than quite a few Well teams I've watched in the past. In years gone by there was less competition from other activities and fans habitually turned up and were entertained, although they weren't always satisfied with the results. However for many now the yardstick is the English Premiership and perhaps top European football. Anything less is sub standard. We're being brainwashed by the media and wall to wall coverage of top English games. Its just not realistic.

This is situation is always a dilemma for the selling club. Should we have let Scott MacDonald go last week (if rumours are to be believed)? Presumably Frear did sign a legally binding contract. But yes, all this has to be balanced against keeping an unhappy player. If he takes the huff that might dissuade other clubs from pursuing their interest in him.

Cheers Iain

There must be an element of competition and scoring inherent in the proposals surely? What if say 18 academies meet the qualifying criteria? As Superward and the good Captain say however, the devil will be in the detail. We as fans, don't know the detail behind the headlines. If the proposal is put to a vote no doubt there will be the traditional SFA/SPFL horse trading and backroom deals with other totally unrelated issues being dragged into the negotiations. It would be interesting to get Alan Burrows' interpretation of the "revised" proposals. Does anyone know the full list of academies in the current 29 club set up? Can't seem to find it anywhere.

It now seems that the proposal on the table is a reduction from 29 to a maximum of 16 academies.

Congratulations Jay.

Good post. I agree with your conclusion about us being masters of our downfall. Our shaky defence is only part of the problem. If you are going to defend for long spells you have to have a very solid and mobile midfield to shield the defence. We've seen some good teams come to Fir Park and defend for very long spells successfully. They defended 40 yards out and we had to work damned hard to get the ball anywhere near the penalty box. Their keepers rarely saw the ball. Crosses really had to be earned. Thats what we're not good at. We really need to tighten up midfield first.

Visiting directors also receive half time hospitality.

A few reasonable and well argued defences of Mark McGhee's selection and tactics this morning. However the bottom line is it didn't work. I would hope a manager, after a defeat and maybe even after a win, would always admit he could done things better. As O'Neil wrote maybe his options were a bit limited and thats as may be. However Mark McGhee must know as most of us do, that when we sit back and try to defend we end up losing goals. That was always going to be the case on Saturday no matter how poor Rangers are (they are second in the league). He did have options - Ross MacLean could have selected; Ryan Bowman could have been used to partner Moult; Ainsworth could have been deployed on the left or right; Allan Campbell could have been used at some point to shore up a tiring and ineffective midfield. To me if a player isn't fit (apart from lack of stamina) then he shouldn't be on the bench. Now I'm not saying all or any of these would have worked, but they were options. If I was one of our players turning up for training yesterday, I might expect a bollocking or gentle ticking off (depending on who I was) but I would also expect my boss to say that he could have done things better and will work on it for Saturday coming. I just hope our players haven't heard Mark McGhee's interview - that would certainly demotivate some of them and wind up others in the wrong way.

Well hopefully, whoever is elected is one of those who could be contacted. Not sure about the post match boardroom hospitality debate but it is tradition for the home directors to entertain the away directors after a game. If this isn't done or the away party refuse to attend it usually hits the headlines.

Not sure what you're implying. Are you saying theres more to come or alternatively theres various versions of the story/rumour?

Rumours on the FPC site that MacDonald didn't train last week after taking umbrage at the club for blocking a move back to Australia. Just a rumour though.

I agree that that the Rangers player was given the time and space he wanted to fire over the cross but that was down to us defending too deeply and McHugh failing to close him down or hassle him in any way.

Any public news yet? Surely its been possible to contact all of the candidates by now?

Our season is far from over and we have plenty to play for but a plea to Mark McGhee - please don't play lads who are not fit and please set us up to compete and actually win the game.

I don't doubt that you're right Lobey, but who was meant to be our outball then? That makes Mark McGhee's team selection even more ludicrous.