fat_tony

Straight shoot out between Higdon and Randolph. The former was excellent all game, won lots in the air, took his goals extremely well and caused all sorts of problems for Caley. However, Randolph made several excellent saves throughout the game, including keeping us in it early on, and a couple of spectacular stops, from the overhead kick and penalty. The way he plucked Foran's blasted free kick out the air without even moving was hilarious. So, a close contest, but I'm going for Randolph. Despite Higdon's cracking goals, it was Randolph that made sure that we didn't fall behind early on and had a platform to build on for the goals.

Highlights up on YouTube now: Seems to be more Motherwell than Killie judging by these, and could have been a couple more goals from the looks of things. A couple of ambitious volleys from Higdon that could have been great had they been on target. Fantastic ball through from Higdon to split the defence wide open for the second goal. A couple of scrambles in our defence, perhaps Killie could have got more bar a cracking save from Randolph. Murphy looked confident at both goals though, bit of luck with the first but two tidy finishes. Lets hope he can keep his confidence up for Thursday and into the weekend!

I stupidly keep clicking into this thread when I see it's been updated, expecting to read some news about a potential midfield signing or an offer for one of our players.

The new Moutaouakil

Watching the BBC highlights there, there really could have been more goals for both sides in the game, with Ojamaa and Hasselbaink perhaps not doing as well as they could have with a couple of efforts. Predictably of course, they completely failed to catch the penalty incident on camera, so there's no way to say whether it was a definite red card/penalty, other than the word of those who saw it more clearly on the day. Can't argue against the St Johnstone red though, two late challenges on Hutch, no way they could complain about that. So unlucky at the end that Hutchy's shot gets blocked. From the clip, I get the impression that if he'd even lifted it a little, it would have been in. St Johnstone player was just in the right place at the right time, well done. From looking at their goal, it looks like Lasley's the man on the front post, and he leaves it to come out to Davidson, who's already got 2 players trying to pick him up. Both players are about a yard behind him, so maybe he's trying to close the gap from the front, but I reckon if he stays where he is, it gets blocked. Nevermind though, could have been better, could have been worse. Given that was played 3 days after a game in that heat and all the travel involved, I'm not too unhappy about the draw. Lets hope for a fully fit team for Saturday and a first win of the season! BBC site

I'm in a similar situation too. Away in Paris for the home leg and only just get back before the away leg but will have an extremely empty wallet. Gutted.

As with most, a bit of mixed emotions from today. Would have been disappointed with a draw beforehand but given how the game went, happy enough with the result. Not many stand out performances, Hutch and Law probably the pick of the bunch. Hutch made a number of mistakes but was able to save most of them and made some crucial stops. Hateley took a bit of a roasting from Hasselbaink at times but never gave up on his task and kept coming back for more, so top marks for commitment. Randolph looked a bit uncharacteristically shaky today, but still did well at the penalty. Can't really comment on the penalty and red card as it was the other end of the park. The second half was almost farcical at times, and I think the tiredness from Wednesday was showing. Lasley's apparently been ill for the last couple of days, so did well to last as long as he did. Thought the young lads (Hetherington and Angol) did okay, but were just a little caught out with the pace of the game. More game time for them will help that though. McHugh made some great runs (again) when he came on, just looked a step ahead of others at times. That clown Brines did his best to ruin yet another game. How that man keeps getting appointed SPL games is beyond me. Still, onwards and upwards. Good to get a goal (even if it was a mis-hit) and could have had 2 more but from superb stops by Mannus and whoever cleared Hutchy's piledriver off the line.

To be honest, I'm not too worried about that statistic. 2 of those games were after we'd already wrapped up the Champions League spot and took our foot off the gas. Of the 3 games this season, 2 were against a higher level of opponent than we will face in the SPL and the only one against SPL opposition was against a very well organised, defensive team. We've always struggled to break down teams like that, and the start of this season is no different. St Johnstone will come at us, so we're going to get some space to play today. As long as we move the ball more quickly than we did against Pana, I'm confident the goals will start coming today.

It's a tricky situation having that much money to burn. Working on a shoestring means that the manager has to work hard to bring in the best players he can within a fixed, sustainable budget structure. Throw a crazy amount of money in there and there's a temptation to overspend and perhaps not work as hard to get value out of your buck. Not quite the same situation, but look what happened in the days of McLeish and Kampman. We paid well over the odds for a bunch of overvalued duds, something you could argue that Hearts have done (at least in some respects). In saying that, I do agree that it would have been interesting to see if we could have retained some of our better players and perhaps established a sustained growth over the last few years. End of the day though, we're going in the right direction with the fan ownership model, but it does mean that we're unlikely to ever see a big marquee signing again.

He may have been, but that's no reason for him to act like a complete prick. Was quality when Hammell took him out a couple of minutes later, even the ref didn't seem to mind! Great trip, absolutely exhausted today though, glad I've got the day off. The only downside for me (apart from the result) was the organisation and attitude of Panathinaikos and the Greek police. To only inform Motherwell the night before the match that you want all Well fans in the stadium 3 hours before kick off is an absolute farce. It would have been a good move arranging the buses, if they'd bothered their arses to inform anyone at Motherwell beforehand so that the club could have advised all fans to travel that way. A complete lack of information from the Greeks, only added to by the different police forces over there saying different things and that fact that none of them seemed to have any idea that half the people in the square were already going to be getting to the stadium on the charter bus. Add to that the setup at the stadium, which I thought was absolutely shocking. In a ground where the temperature was mid-thirties, to have one single guy selling water for 700-odd fans is shocking. The whole thing reeked of minimal effort from the Greeks, who were obviously providing the bare minimum they could get away with. Maybe the over the top police presence is standard in Greek football but it did feel like someone forgot to tell them that we'd taken Rangers' place in the tie. All in all though, a great trip. Some fun travel, a couple of hairy landings, fortunately no sunburn, and a fantastic experience. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq-Mrgzg16M http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuDUL7gDuWw

Doing the same myself in Heathrow T1, waiting for my 7pm flight to Edinburgh. What a few days though, superb.

Anyone still at Syntagma Square...we are standing at the old Panathinaikos stadium and the buses are here waiting for us. Anyone at home who has numbers for people in Athens, please let them know.

Will be there shortly then!

Sitting in the hotel's rooftop bar looking at the Acropolis. Heat has fucking floored me. Need to take on my bodyweight in water before doing anything!

See you there! Heading for the train through to Motherwell shortly, staying overnight with family before getting an early doors lift to the airport. See the rest on the other side!

Hearing everyone getting underway is making me regret not booking the flight out earlier than Tuesday. Hope you lads get the place well and truly ready for the rest of us! Enjoy, see you there on Tuesday!

Hearts' looks worse:

That's the announcement up on the official site now (finallly): fishal

Not sure about pre-game, but I really wish they would stop playing Chumbawumba when we lose. It makes defeat ten times worse for me knowing that I need to hear that pish at the end.

Bit harsh in my opinion. Okay, he didn't have a great night last night but that was more to do with a lack of service. We got the ball in behind to him once or twice early on and he roasted the full-back. Also had a decent effort at goal early on. Unfortunately, he's very much a confidence player and when the ball started being played short into his feet and he couldn't get past the man, he was always going to struggle. If we want the best out of him, we have to play him in behind and let him run onto it.

It was a tricky one though. Randolph had to be ready for Boumsong getting a touch, which he was. Unfortunately by him missing it, he just couldn't get back across to stop it. Could someone on the post have got there? Maybe, but who knows?

I originally thought the same about the first one, but considering it in hindsight, the boy was flying in, sliding and could do very little about it as the ball ricocheted off his arm. Definitely seen them given but tough one to call. Ah, yes. Because the team who struggled to overcome Brechin at the weekend would have fared so much better

Gutted to have lost but can only echo the words of others. Superb performance and unfortunately just short on luck on the night. A freak goal and a quick counter were our undoing, both simply a lapse of concentration. As Al B said, that's one of the big differences between our level and a higher one. All the players put their heart and soul into that tonight and had a couple of things happened differently, it could have been a different story: If Law's shot had squirmed in, the offside hadn't been given (resulting in a penalty) or if Ojamaa had squared to Murphy. Overall though, a superb performance and if we can keep that up throughout the season we are really going to batter some teams in the SPL. It's a big ask for Athens, realistically too much, but as we all know, football's a funny old game where anything can happen so you just never quite know. I'll be there, praying and hoping for one of those spectacular nights that football can sometimes deliver.

Lasley for me, just. It was between him and Nicky Law who was involved in almost every single attack we had but Lasley just shades it for the way he conducted himself throughout the game. Winning the ball, harrying the opposition and leading from the front. As superb Captain's performance. Law was superb though and unlucky with his long drive which threatened to squirm over. Also thought Hutchinson dealt with their front line very well for a young lad. On nights like this, it's easy to forget that he's only early on in his career.

Absolutely. Ah well, we'll know in a few hours I guess!