fat_tony

Great thread! For me it's got to be: Randolph Corrigan - Craigan - Reynolds - Hammell Hughes - Jennings - O'Donnell McFadden McDonald - Porter Subs: Ruddy, Hutchinson, Patterson, Lasley, Law, McCormack, Clarkson Couple of players on there judged on their best form for the club (i.e. Hughes and Patterson under McGhee, not Malpas and McCall, and Corrigan pre-injury). May change my mind at any time though!

It'll still be Higdon. One miss on a night of freak events doesn't make him a bad penalty taker. He'll be keen to tuck the next one away and put the whole thing to bed.

Totally agree with the first part. I think it was either Jay or Lobey Dosser highlighted McCall's tendency to play his favourites, instead of looking to balance the team. I thought Carswell was excellent against Hearts, and really deserves a shot at filling in at centre mid. Certainly would bring an element of balance to the park and offer some more protection for our fragile central defence. Law has done well at left mid but is wasted when he has to drop back to collect the ball deep. Get him in an advanced position and let him create. IMO, Ramsden was a gamble to try and bring in an experienced defender to replace Craigan/Clancy that has, unfortunately, not really worked. The fact that we were down to Kerr/Cummins due to injuries suggests to me that his signing was necessary, although with Saunders/Hutch coming back we should soon be relatively spoiled at centre back. Daley's yet to convince me at all, but then like McHugh he seldom gets more than 10-15 minutes here or there, so it's hard to judge. I've seen him be completely anonymous and I've seen him do well, but only ever in small doses, so hard to judge. We need a central midfielder more than we do a wide player though, so in that sense he's probably surplus to requirements. McCall obviously rates Carswell since he offered him a new deal, but I think he just doesn't like to alter his favourite 11. We have players who can compete with any team in the league (outside Celtic) but I think we should be taking each game at it's own merit and adjusting the team (and gameplan) to suit, rather than sticking with the same 11 week in week out.

Agree with all of the above, although I do think Hateley managed to make a few important stops, not least at their goal. The problem is that the central defence just doesn't cover whenever anyone has to come out of position to deal with a threat. Hateley was very poor offensively though. Ojamaa looked lively and had 3 men on him at most points and still created chances. Don't know what he needs to do to score though. I think when he does get the breakthrough he'll go on a great run. He's carrying the team with him at the moment in my opinion, the only one who always wants the ball, no matter where he is.

I said I would but subsequently forgot and am now rooked. Will happily pay into another fixture this season though to make up for it.

I don't know why the complaints about Higdon still surprise me, but they do. Circa 90% of our attacks involve Higdon in some form or other, usually taking the ball in midfield (anywhere between foot and neck level), battling off some big donkey (or two) of a centre half, and laying it out wide while he then busts a gut to get into the box, only for Humphrey/Hateley/Hammell/Murphy (delete as apporpriate) to put the ball into row Z, or turn back and pass it back to defence. Most games I've seen he's only getting one or two decent balls in to him, while in the box. Wednesday night he had one single clear-cut chance, that he unfortunately didn't hit properly. At this level, we don't have the luxury of strikers who have a 1:1 chance/goal ratio. Create more opportunities for him and he'll start putting them away. Honestly, how much do some people expect one man to do?

No, afraid not. I decided a long time ago not to bet on Motherwell, far too hard to predict usually!

Comparing to Sutton is the perfect example of this. John Sutton used to win us loads of free kicks by doing what you mention above, or when someone came over the back of him, he'd fall to his knees and more often than not get a free kick from it. Higdon just doesn't go down though. I'm not for a second saying he should get a free kick every time, as in a lot of cases Higdon has his arms round behind him as the defender's jumping up his back, but referees surely shouldn't be constantly punishing one player when both are giving as good as they are getting? Why not just let them get on with it and play on in that case, rather than giving the foul the defender's way?

Changes needed for this one. Carswell absolutely MUST play to give the midfield the balance it desperately needs. I don't like putting pressure on the young lad but he's the best fit we've got for the "Jennings" role and we need to give him a chance there. Move Law out left to compensate and go with either Murphy or OJ up front with Higgy (I'd be tempted to say OJ given his energy against Hibs). Funnily enough, I think we're going to win this one, by a couple of goals as well. Going for 3-1 to the Well.

Carswell. Staked his claim for the "Jennings" role by harrying, putting the boot in and breaking up attacks. He's still young so he'll likely have off days but I think he's got enough about him to at least deserve a run in that role to see what he can offer. Midfield looked much more balanced once he came on and Hateley looked more comfortable once he was back in at right-back.

No doubt at all. Randolph. Only reason the score wasn't higher. Several cracking saves from the big man. Well done to Zaine Fracis-Angol though on a decent showing in a tough game. Higdon put in a shift despite having no-one near him all day. But the MOTM, no question.

I reckon we'll be looking at a line-up something like this: Randolph Kerr - Hutch - Ramsden - Hammell Hateley Humphrey - Law - Lasley - Murphy Higdon No idea what the score will be, it depends entirely on which version of each team turns up. The fans are definitely owed a performance after Wednesday's debacle though, so fingers crossed we get it.

Shite Motherwell. That is all. Queue us pumping Ra Sellick on Saturday and adding more fuel to the "you lie down to Rangers fire"

Last week they mentioned it was the first time we had gone unbeaten throughout the opening 6 games since 1954. Don't know how many we strung together then, so I can't comment on whether the 7th today matches 54 or would go even further back.

Yeah, his comments are completely baffling (read it on the beeb), especially this part: Hmm, by "external pressures" I can only assume he means the fans? So glad we've got this mouthpiece's approval though, I was losing a bit of sleep over that one. Won't be going to Ibrox for the usual reasons but really hope we give them an absolute shafting.

I may be an absolute mile out with this, but I seem to recall seeing a list of the SPL prize money at some point and was there not a MASSIVE jump between third and second? Anyone got an idea what the prize money breakdown is this season (and previous years)?

Hadn't even realised! I pay very little attention to what's happening in the English leagues as quite frankly, I really don't care. Guess that puts the kibosh on that plan though!

Anyone know when the last time would be that we had 4 or 5 international players at our club? I make it: Randolph Francis-Angol Humphrey Daley? Ojamaa All there or thereabouts?

A McFadden/Rhodes front line could be quite a pairing! Not that Levein would pay any attention to such things of course.

Not O'Reilly, not O'Reilly, not O'Reilly....

Haha, belter

I did. I know what you mean as "technically" there have been none. But a turd by any other name would still smell like shite.

Typical. Really hope we give them a doing but past meetings would suggest otherwise. Still, at least it's likely to be on the telly, no chance I'm going to that cesspit.

So did Sportscene not show the penalty claim last night? If not that's extremely shocking reporting, as they'd be falling over themselves to show a decision like that against Celtic, Hearts, United etc. Maybe since we won anyway they decided it didn't matter?

Just reading Butcher's comments on the BBC, really had to laugh at this quote: To say that after the referee failed to give us a blatant penalty (which would have resulted in a red also) after Kerr was hacked down in the box is just ridiculous. I perhaps agree with him about the incident in question, but to suggest the referee wasn't as incompetent for us as he was for them is totally laughable. O'Reilly doesn't have the first clue how to referee a match and judging by his decisions, he's either a bottler, or totally useless. Just glad it didn't matter in the end. First half wasn't the best, even with the goals but what a second half performance. Randolph and Higdon were absolutely fantastic and rightly deserve the plaudits. However, I also though Kerr had a brilliant game, and on performances like that, should be making right-back his own. I've been critical of Hateley in midfield in the past but I though his performance yesterday was much better than in the past. He still lost track of his position a bit but was much better on the ball and made better use of it than he has in previous outings. Contrast that with Lasley, who I thought wasn't quite up to his usual standard (at least when on the ball), although he did make a number of crucial interceptions and picked up in the second half. Well done to the inexperienced back four who kept things relatively tight and despite a few mistakes, performed well. Also good to see effective play from both Humphrey and Ojamaa in beating the man and getting the ball across. Very happy to be top of the league for the next couple of weeks and get the goals to silence some of the critics (at least for a few days).