Kmcalpin

Yes, Received mine this morning. Encouragingly I've heard of two nominations for Directors so far.

A good question. Like Stuart Elliott before him he's difficult to pigeonhole. He's not an out and out striker as you rightly point out. He has bags of natural talent - but how do we use it? I see him more as an attacking winger who revels in open games or when we're leading and the opposition have to have a go at us. He's not suited to prising open packed defences. Ideally he needs to move on to a club down south who can add a bit of beef to him, and with a manager and coaches who can take him to the next stage. At the moment he should be selected on a "horses for courses basis" ie sometime starting and sometimes coming off the bench. His talents are wasted when he plays deep. At his best when we are counterattacking, the opposition are retreating in disarray and the ball is fed up and out to him. As you'll know as well as I, Mark McGhee always said that he needed to put on muscle and learn to defend better but that wasn't his natural instinct.

I've never been Keith Lasley's biggest fan but he had a good season last year although he struggled a bit towards the end and must take ashare of the credit for our 2nd placed finish. Although he's never been the fastest of players, nor a leader, his commitment has never ever been in doubt. There was an outcry on this Board when we were slow to offer him a new deal on reduced wages. It was right to re-sign him but he is 32 and starting to show his years. He did rely a lot on Jennings and now that the latter has departed Las has struggled a bit. Did feel sorry for him yesterday though - he was asked to play a more attacking role (as opposed to Ramsden's more defensive role) and was obviously uncomfortable in that. My point though is that with Las getting on in years and Jenno refusing to commit to 2 years deals we should have foreseen and planned for this very situation. It may be of course that Stuart Carswell was expected to make the step up by now - who knows? Steve Hetherington, although promising in his own right, is not the kind of player that we're missing.

He's repeatedly done it when playing with Stevie Hammell as well. I don't blame the player. He's being asked to play in a role for which he is unsuited.

Thats my main gripe too. I was listening to BBC radio on the way home tonight and heard Stuart McCall being interviewed. Probably about 80% of what he said was praise for Celtic, how well they'd played, how they'd played good football etc. We get enough of that from the so called unbiased commentators without our own manager banging on about it without prompting. After listening to that gloom and doom I came to the conclusion that there was no hope we'd ever beat Celtic again. Players are no fools, and irrespective of what he tells them in the dressing room, they'll hear and read his public comments. As I wrote elsewhere I'd no problem with SM saying Celtic deserved to win. However, I'd far rather hear his views on how he though we'd played and what went wrong. The impression I was left with was that its a waste of time playing Celtic at all. That defeatist attitude will translate itself onto the pitch.

In my view he's no worse than Stevie Hammell, is faster and is a slightly better defender - it would be very harsh to drop him.

Another poor performance today. Celtic could have won 8/9 -0 and we had not a single effort on target. It summed it all up for me when a Celtic fan said afterwards that they will play better and get beat. In fairness Darren Randolph and ZFA had decent games and Michael Higdon can't be faulted given his total lack of support. I thought that playing Ramsden in midfield would have been a good move but he sat so deep that he was, in effect, part of a back 5. Keith Lasley was pushed far too far forward and looked uncomfortable given his lack of pace. Jamie Murphy again look totally ill at ease in his left sided role and sat far too deep to do anything of note. We were surprised that he wasn't hooked before half time in favour of Henrik Ojamaa. Disappointingly we defended far too deep with both 10 and 11 men. Many other posters have summed up our weaknesses pretty accurately. In short our formation and tactics were confusing even for the players, let alone the fans. It was unbelievable wasn't it that Celtic caught us out about 8 times with the long ball up the left hand side. Very few positives to be taken out of today's game.

I assumed that Steve Hammell had been dropped. Thought ZFA did enough to deserve another chance next week.

Murphy should have been hooked in the first half. He was playing far too deep to make much of an impression and is clearly like a fish out of water with this role. At times he was playing left back, which is not his position. Felt very sorry for Michael Higdon today - played in an isolated role with no support whatsoever until Henrik came on.

I was a bit disappointed in Stuart's post match interview on BBC Radio tonight. No problem with him saying that Celtic were the better team and deserved to win, but did he have to go on and on about how good Celtic were? He hardly mentioned his own team. Surely he's paid to manage Motherwell FC and improve us. I dread to think what his team talk will be prior to our next visit to Parkhead. "We've no chance/Celtic are a great team etc etc". That'll motivate the players ...not.

That midfield, and SM may well select it, is very lightweight and would get bulldozed, Gav. We'd be playing much of the game in or around our penalty box.

Good post Alan. In the main we're just too lightweight and soft, especially in the midfield and defence, critical areas of the pitch. In recent years we've implored the team to get in the OF faces; hassle and harry them. That has not happened. Instead the OF players get in our lads' faces and bully them. We've had some months now to strengthen the team in critical areas and have not done so. I'm not referring to multi million pound players here - just robust solid, and reliable players who can show a bit of aggression and steel. Watching Levante and Panathanaikos was a real eye opener for me. Both typical European sides if there is such a thing. I was expecting to see players around 5-8 or 5-9 in height and in need of a good square meal. Not a bit of it - they had pretty big lads in all areas well capable of holding their own physically; more capable than us. Oh for a McVie, Millar or MacLaren right now.

A fair question Haggis. All I would say is that neither lad is the "Jenno" type of player. What we need right now is a Billy Bremner, Dave Mackay, Colin O'Neil or Stewart MacLaren sort. A guy who is going to advance, on his own if needs be, against a wave of attackers and get stuck in. I believe that Ian Davidson of Dundee is earning rave reviews right now. A big lad he apparently dominated the midfield physically against us and only when he retired injured did we begin to turn the screw. He didn't come from Barcelona or Inter Milan but from Raith Rovers.

I can't add much about the performance to whats been said already. All I will say is that our central midfield is the root cause of a lot of our problems. Steve Jennings has not been replaced and thats left a huge hole. Keith Lasley is struggling at 32. We have no ready made replacement to step in. The nearest we can come to that is Simon Ramsden who hasn't yet been played in midfield. There's far more to it than that of course, but this critical issue should have been addressed months ago. The players and management have a lot of making up to do on Saturday.

There little doubt that our defenders have been responsible for a few of the goals we have lost recently. However I firmly believe that we are paying the price for not replacing Steve Jennings with a similar type of player. Someone who can get in the opposition's faces and break up attacks. If we can't defend cross balls in the box why let the opposition cross into our box in the first place? For all his faults, Jim Gannon rightly identified this as our achilles heel. Going back to the Levante game, I thought they defended excellently - we were not allowed to go anywhere near their penalty box and certainly not test their to test their keeper. We're doing well just now but if we want to improve then we have to bolster the midfield and learn to defend higher up the pitch.

Very true Alan, Jennings is being badly missed. Keith Lasley was never the fastest player and he's now 32. Central midfield needs bolstering badly. Now that we have Hately and Fraser Kerr to vie for the right back slot I'd be tempted to try out Simon Ramsden in that position until we can sign someone. We do have the comfort though of being looking to strengthen from a position of strength ie first place.

A good result today in what was always going to be a very tricky game. Great to see Higgy come good and notch an important brace for us. I think Dundee will now start to pick up points but thankfully it wasn't against us. Credit to Stuart McCall and Kenny Black for masterminding the win. Their changes although a wee bit late paid off and turned the game.

I doubt if Templeton is much of a threat to be honest. A bit like Stuart Elliott, he turned up in roughly one game in five for Hearts last season. One of these games happened to be against us.

You'd think so but they do vary for some reason.

Our financial year ended on 31 May. The annual accounts will be presented to the shareholders in the next month or two - possibly November? Presumably the Directors now know the exact figures.

My take on the incident too FC. At the time it looked like a possible penalty, but after having watched it on a televised replay I'd have awarded a clear foul to Cummins. Don't forget too that O'Reilly denied us a late stonewall penalty at Tannadice last season when Henrik was the victim of a simultaneous 2 foul incident (the game ended 1-1). That error could have cost us 3rd place as it gave United a potential 4 point uplift.

Good result today and credit to Stuart McCall for making some changes today, many of which were enforced. Substitutions, in the main, worked. Good to see young players perform well - they are the lifeblood of our club. Thought that Higdon just shaded MOTM the match from Darren Randolph. Chris Humphrey too put in an excellent shift although the referee, an old friend of ours, afforded him little protection. Of the young lads, Fraser Kerr and Adam Cummins were the pick of the bunch. Francis Angol impressed too, but to me looks more of a midfielder than defender. Bob McHugh and Jon Page really need to make their mark soon - time is running out tfor them. Inverness made it easy for us with some poor defending but credit to Higgy - his finishing was very clinical. Quite a few lads were carrying knocks so good on them for lasting the pace today. I'll be interested to see our penalty claim - the BBC chose not to show it. It did look a stonewaller. We still need a defensive central midfielder to replace Jenno - there was a big gap in front of the defence today and at 32 Keith Lasley can't be expected to do too much running around. The international break should give the lads a well earned rest. Top of the table too :-)

Pretty much agree. He had a reputation for being a bit of a dead ball expert but also for being a bit lazy.

Although just a rumour at this stage, I think Ryan Stevenson would be a decent signing for us. Ok we know he isn't the quickest player in the world but he's fine with the ball at his feet and has an eye for goal. He split the Gorgie Road support, some of whom didn't think he was Hearts class - whatever that is, and was moved on after speaking out about Vlad and non payment of wages. A little surprised that we're going for an offensive midfielder with Nicky Law still still on the books at the moment. Perhaps SM sees Steve Hetherington or Stuart Carswell cementing their place in the team this season to take the defensive pressure off Keith Lasley.

What I'm saying is if someone does well, which Stuart McCall did last year (very well in fact) then they deserve credit, which he was given. If they make mistakes or don't do so well then they deserve constructive criticism which I think I've done to some extent this season. Even someone doing a good or very good job isn't perfect and makes mistakes. Whats wrong with that? This season, I can't speak for the games in Athens or Kilmarnock as I wasn't at them. However to win at Kilmarnock would suggest the players and SM did well. So that leaves home games against Panathanaikos, Levante, St Johnstone, and St Mirren and an away game at Dingwall. I don't think we played well in any of them. Not saying we should have won them all of course. Now thats not all down to Stuart McCall. We have a very thin squad; there have been injuries; despite SM's best efforts players can play badly on the day - which quite a few have done; and we've had a taxing European campaign. However these factors alone don't explain our failure, as a team, to play as well as we could have done. I happen to think that Stuart McCall could have used fringe players (McHugh, Page, Francis Angol and Carswell) slightly more than he has done, thereby keeping first picks a bit fresher. Quite a few others have made exactly the same point. Then we come to tactics. At Dingwall we showed no imagination whatsoever; against St Mirren the formation was all wrong and we allowed our opponents the freedom of the wings to rain cross after cross into 2 big strikers. Jamie Murphy (one of my favourite players) isn't suited to his current roving role; Nicky Law is being wasted in a deeper role; our build up is slow, laboured and predictable despite having three fast guys in Humphrey, Ojamaa and Murphy. Finally, our set pieces have in the main been consistently very poor. These points have been made by many others incidentally. Now its quite possible that even if we had played to our full potential that this would not have resulted in a single better result, not one. As you say we are not Barcelona (or even Barnsley). But my main gripe, so far, is that we have not done ourselves justice. In most of the games I've mentioned we could have played considerably better and quite a few folk have said just that. Just for the record I thought that Levante's defensive tactics were absolutely spot on Ross County are a very hard team to beat and St Mirren are a half decent team. Hopefully that explains my view.