Kmcalpin

Certainly the Ladies team seems to be going from strength to strength.

This is common practice on mainland Europe. More often than not its the buying club that requests that the fee is kept confidential. It cropped up with us when Henri Anier was transferred and some posters were unhappy with our club's attitude. However, a club spokesman said that it had nothing to do with MFC and was a condition demanded by the buying club.

Presumably Cadden then is very much in the Pearson mould ie box to box. What the under 20s lack is what the first team lacks ie a solid defensive midfielder?

St Johnstone will be no pushovers. They'll be physical, hard working, organised, and very streetwise. Not the most talented team in the league but they can grind out results through biting, scratching and clawing their way through 90 minutes. Its hard to know what midfield formation we should deploy. Play 2 wingers and we might be short in the middle and there's no guarantee Johnson and Ainsworth would receive any decent service. If we play 3 in the middle it might bottle things up there but neither Leitch nor Taylor has impressed so far. Would love to see both full backs changed but thats unlikely.

Not at Tannadice. Gauld, Mackay Steven, Robertson, Armstrong all came from other senior clubs.

The worrying thing is these weaknesses were well known last season and we don't appear to have done much about them. Our goals against column has been very poor for a few years now and I cannot see it changing drastically this year if the root causes have not been addressed - thats not rocket science. On a more positive note Pearo will return in the early autumn; we are creating more up front; and central defence seems to be more settled. Fingers crossed thats enough to secure us 8th/9th/10th place.

Would agree with most of that, although maybe a tad harsh. Both Hammell and Lasley have been loyal servants to the club and, in my view, have been reasonable players no more no less. Neither has been good enough to move on successfully to a higher level. They have their weak points. Yes, Stevie has never been great off the ball and the comparison with Graeme Shinnie yesterday really was quite stark. Shinnie did not give Ainsworth an inch and was all over him as any ball was about to arrive. Shinnie was quite happy to all but smother Ainsworth 40-50 yards from his goal. I think it was Wellwell91 who said recently that a defenders first priority should always be to defend and that is 100% correct. You will never stop all crosses from coming into the box but you can reduce them in quantity and quality. If the back is tight up against the crosser then the chances are that if a cross is slung over it will be under pressure and less accurate. Many posters know my views on Keith Lasley so I won't repeat them in full but yes, he has always tended to disappear when we're under sustained attack and were crying out for someone to stick out their chin and lead the midfield out from its tortoise like shell. Neither Hammell nor Lasley should have been offered 2 years by Stuart McCall - maybe one year but there again would they have accepted that? As an interesting aside Derek McInnes saw fit to field a real midfield battler in Willo Flood yesterday, so even Scotland's second best team sees the need for a midfield scrapper.

I can live with Stevie Hammell not playing well on the ball but of more concern to me is his off the ball performance. Like his right hand side counterpart his positional sense is poor and gave his opponent far too much leeway. We defend very narrowly and that causes big problems for the centre backs and keeper. Quite impressed so far with Moult and Fletcher but they are a tad lightweight and will struggle against towering centre backs especially if they are given balls in the air. We need to start playing with 3 men in the centre of midfield against the better sides and only play 2 wingers against the weaker sides. Problem is that we don't have 3 decent central midfielders.

Aberdeen looked a far better side than us and were about a yard faster all round. For me Louis Laing was MOTM. Moult had a reasonable game but suffered from lack of support and decent service - too many aerial balls which he was never going to win. Central midfield struggled, which shouldn't come as a surprise given that we played with 2 wingers. In games against decent teams we need 3 in the middle. Lasley was poor and I can't say that I noticed Taylor as he was anonymous. Both full backs were very poor and showed their lack of positional sense. Time for another right back, maybe Kennedy, and Chalmers to be given a run at left back. Same defensive problems as last year. Felt sorry for Ainsworth as he received shocking service - kept having to back track for short balls - just not his game. We need another defensive central midfielder and quick, and not just for back up.

There were 2 or 3 add ons and its quite possible that a sell on clause was one of these. From press reports however, it seems at least one of the so called add ons was tied to Sheffield United gaining promotion.

As season ticket holders living outwith the area we've had no problems getting tickets for the past few games until today.

Just rang club to purchase tickets. Be warned they are not permitting telephone bookings, which isn't handy for those living away from Motherwell. This is contrary to what we were told earlier in the week. So in our case, instead of time taken to buy all our tickets by single telephone call the office staff will now have to deal with 8 individuals queuing up in person before the game tomorrow.

For home fans its PATG. For our fans its one brief per season ticket holder with a general sale from next Friday, if there are spare tickets.

Whatever line up or formation we deploy tomorrow, I genuinely hope that we play Scott MacDonald in a forward, as opposed to a deep defensive role. He isn't suited to the type of game he's been asked to play this season. It doesn't help the lone striker, doesn't help the wide men nor defence. If he plays deep it leaves the main striker very isolated.

Yes, that and centre midfield Ian. Certainly RB & LB are the achilles heels of our defence. I was surprised that Josh Law was retained on a 2 year deal and I'm not a fan of Stevie Hammell. I'll qualify that by saying he has been good offensively but has always been weak defensively - last night being a classic example of his lack of positional sense. I'd like to see Josh Watt being given his chance at RB and perhaps Joe Chalmers being brought in at LB to stake his claim.

I don't know - the jury is still out for me. He took over a very poor squad ravaged by injury but was given some cash for a short term fix in January. Play offs apart we were poor last season. To be fair he had to work to a large extent with with Stuart McCall's squad. This season he was able to bring in quite a few of his own players. We've had a very hard start to the new campaign with limited success in the 3 games so far. Its too early to form a judgement on him so far. Perhaps we'll have a better idea of how he and the team are faring after the first round of fixtures.

Interesting to hear Ian Baraclough's post match comments. He said that we lost the physical battles in midfield, which you have to win to get a foothold in the game. In short our midfield is just too soft without Pearo. Given that I'd expect another central midfielder to be brought in before the transfer window closes.

He did look lively but his final ball was very poor. Someone said that he was trying too hard. In general its great to give young lads a chance but they have to be good enough. From what I've seen so far only Luke Watt is really knocking on the door.

Yes. To take the example of Bilate, who we looked at before he went to Tannadice: the manager said that said that we simply couldn't look at the wages they offered him.

No limit has yet been set on how many tickets season ticket holders can buy. This should be known tomorrow.

I've had one or two reports that Jake Taylor had a reasonable debut last night. An FPC report described him as being "A steady Eddie sort of player with good passing and awareness without too much flair." Sounds a bit like Conor Grant. If so, is he really the sort of player we need? Any initial views from someone who was there last night?

Just watched the BBC highlights of the game and wasn't impressed. Hearts seemed to have far too much energy, enthusiasm and pace for us in midfield. In general our defence looked to be very weak. We gave them far too much room around our box for the first which was a stupid penalty by MacDonald. The second was schoolboy stuff with our midfield, and Hammell & Johnson in particular posted missing. Ripley too didn't cover himself in glory. All in all it looked like a replay of a game from last season. We really need to get the midfield and defence sorted out and if that means putting one or two noses out of joint then so be it.

In answer to your question probably about twice what we have spent. Ok perhaps Inverness have gone back a bit but they're still a solid hard to beat side on their ground. Dundee United have spent a good bit more than us. That then leaves Hearts and Aberdeen. I know its not a popular thing to say but Hearts have spent big. The youthful side of 2 seasons ago has largely moved on because they weren't good enough and they've been replaced by expensive incomers. Aberdeen too have a very large budget compared to us. I agree with most of the remainder of your post. My abiding memory of last season won't be the play offs but a series of utterly abysmal performances and an unacceptably high goals against column. Given that, I was expecting drastic surgery to our defence and central midfield but that hasn't really happened. Hopefully Conor Ripley will prove to be an improvement on George Long and Louis Laing seems to be a better player but thats about it. That said, we may sign another central midfielder. On the basis of who we have signed so far, I'm not expecting us to improve very much defensively. Attack wise I think we're very much an unknown quantity. The likes of Moult and Fletcher may take time to settle in and we shouldn't draw too many conclusions too soon about them. Overall I'm sensing a modest improvement. On that basis I expect us to finish somewhere between 8th and 10th, probably the latter. Tonight I think we played the wrong team and used the wrong tactics. That said I don't know if we had the critical players in the key positions. Pearo's absence was certainly a body blow and Taylor will take time to settle. Our central midfield 2 (should it have been 3 like Weeyin suggested?) was always going to be under great pressure to firstly protect our defence and secondly feed the 2 wingers and striker with a continuous supply of quality balls and I don't think they managed that. Early days and despite my realistic (?) view of Saturday's game we have to show fight and determination.

Absolutely. If we get beaten, as I expect us to on Saturday, we'll have 3 points more than I anticipated before the season kicked off. No need to panic. Our season starts in earnest a week on Saturday at Perth. A 1-0 or 2-0 defeat tonight was always very likely. Main thing tonight was to avoid red cards or injuries. Being realistic, tonight was always going to be about damage limitation.

BBC reports us as having a meagre 35% possession. That doesn't sound very good if true and implies that Louis Moult is having a difficult evening. We can't do much if we can't get the ball. Sounds as though midfield is being overrun. Is Scott MacDonald playing in support of our striker or as an auxilliary defender?