steelboy

it's always good to get three points but that second half performance was as bad as we've played in a long time. forbes and coke were shocking, especially forbes, and with jennings and lasley sitting on the bench it has to be asked why a change wasn't made in the centre of the park. i also thought we were toothless up front again, we never really applied pressure to a poor falkirk defence and i doubt we'll ever look like scoring from open play until we switch to two up front. on the positive side humphrey did well, it was good to see lukas get a goal and hammell played well again. other than that not much to be positive about and it's good we've got the international break to sort things out.

what you do is drop him and tell him he's getting a rest. delwell - reynolds and saunders were two of the better performers for us on saturday. reynolds has thrived since moving back to centrehalf.

it just seems like the kind of accolade that should go to someone who has done more claret and amber than ross has so far. there's another thread right now where most people who have contributed a team for saturday think that it'd be best to leave him out the starting 11 on saturday. ross is just starting out in his career and has a lot of hard work ahead of him to reach his full potential. but also saying that i can't think of anyone in the team right now who would be totally appropiate for something like this. the kaiser at the peak of his powers would have been ideal for this, right now we're a team in it's infancy and i don't think there's anyone yet who could be branded as the 'face' of the team. and i'm not putting in any money because i spend enough on tickets and travel to watch games, my credit card is still feeling the effects of bucharest.

is it really wise to get a big flag made up of someone who has only played a dozen first team games?

sammer played. although from what i remember he wasn't playing football as we know it. on topic i'd have craigan back in as well. i was actually thinking on saturday we could have done with playing some long balls, mix things up a bit and get hibs on their toes.

cheers. that's pretty much what i thought, we're getting fouled twice as much as we're commiting fouls. in an ideal world refs would protect us but since conroy got lynched in the press for actually applying the rules in the rangers-killie game i don't think we'll be getting much help from them.

does anyone know whereabouts you can get one of those crimecount spl tables? i'd be quite interested to see how we're doing compared to other teams. it was extremely frustrating watching hibs commit 20 odd fouls on saturday while we only commited six during the entire match. we were playing as if most of our team were on yellow cards while hibs quickly realised conroy wasn't booking anyone after last week and played accordingly. i'm guessing i wasn't the only one in the second half who was thinking i wish we had someone in the mould of quinn or klimpl to start getting in about the hibs players and make it a bit more physical. obviously you don't want a team of hackers like hearts or killie but a lot of the new guys in the team this season seem to be in the mould of reynolds in that they're going to defend properly and challenge honestly which is good but in a league where teams can commit 20 odd fouls and no one blinks an eye as long as there are no bad tackles or violent conduct we're putting ourselves at a disadvantage playing this way. we're going to have to get a bit more streetwise very soon as when the bad weather starts and pitches start cutting up we'll need to be able to mix it.

he had ripped whittaker and a few others an new arsehole over the first few games of the season but hibs clearly knew what to expect from o'brien on saturday and it resulted in us losing the ball for their first goal. he even ended up getting switched to the right as it wasn't happening for him at all on the left. other teams will pick up on the fact that he's looking to spin infield and drive at defenders, if he's kept on the outside then he's not as much of a threat as his crossing isn't up to much. it also looked to me like he got hooked for commiting such a stupid tackle for the free kick for their first goal. i think he can be a big player for us this season but it's not going to be as easy for him as it has been.

that's fairly reasonable but when you see a motherwell team defeat themselves like they did today your going to get frustrated. meant to put this in my first post but our defending for the freekick for third was brutal. only having a one man wall in a poor position was inviting a goal.

hammell. the 2nd and third came from the other side. the first came when forbes was covering him. reynolds and saunders played ok as well, everyone else needs to look at themselves.

after all the hard luck stoires from the cup game on tuesday it was suprising to see a lighter gettting thrown out the section of the oppressed at zemmana after hibs third today. luckily nacho novo and the rangers' physio have been hit with missiles at the girodome recently so we can't get more of a punishment than celtic got for those incidents. the older neds need to get a grip of the younger neds.

very poor today. hibs have four or five guys in their team who are goalscorers i'm not sure if we have any. our system wasn't the best either sutton is never a loan striker, the three in central midifeld means forbes can pretty much hide and playing yassin as our rightback/right winger isn't working. riordan is one of the most dangerous guys we'll face and we were basically ignoring him today. the choice of subs was pish as well. i'm behind gannon but i think i'm a bit more grounded than a lot of fans. 2 goals from open play in 6 games, that's a poor return.

do you think motherwell are somehow going find cops to work at the games that aren't dicks or stewards that aren't tinks? we've more more chance of signing lionel messi. the situation is what it is and if people want to see the 90 minutes then they need to be use their heads and not give the stewards any reason to chuck them out. i'm not saying that people need to behave like choir boys, just to try and avoid confrontations that you can't win.

i saw the incident and although i thought he was very harshly dealt with it didn't exaclty come as a suprise either. the steward who chucked him out was getting well wound up and was looking for a reason to chuck someone out. if it had been the old stewards (who took dogs abuse from a lot of people including me) they probably have let him off but the new guys clearly aren't up for taking shite off of anyone. bop - it's not fair but we're the ones with something to lose so surely it's not difficult to sit down and not mouthoff whenever a yellow jacket approaches. we all look forward to the games and pay to get in so it's daft to risk getting chucked out and miss the game for the sale of defending your right to stand up and wanting to put scummy stewards in their place.

what expectations can you possibly have about a 20 year old striker who hasn't played 90 minutes or scored a goal for two years and who was chased out of his previous two loan clubs? he was unlucky not to score on a couple of occasions on tuesday and looked far more mobile than sutton so if it's to be one up on saturday i'd pick lukas.

i agree with you that the police and stewards are often out of order but on tuesday night it was clear people were going to get lobbed out and those that did can only really blame themselves. it's obvious after a few games that the new stewards aren't willing to take any cheek and will bounce people out for acting up. it's no skin of the stewards nose to chuck folk out so everybody needs to use the heid and realise that they're the ones with something to lose and if they want to support the well for the entire game they're going to have compromise occasionally. i've never been lobbed out of a motherwell game so it can't be that difficult. midweek league cup games over the past few years have been full of wee guys more interested in fueding with the stewards than watching the game and it happened again the other night. maybe if the police/stewards had taken a harder line a few years ago we wouldn't have the pantomine we have to suffer now.

bit of a pish draw, this is our fifth cup game in paisley in the past ten years. doubly annoying as we're there on the saturday as well. it's a good chance to make a semi though and it'd be good to win twice against them in 4 days to shut up the st mirren P&B mongos.

i think clubs get to pick their own midweek dates. i'm sure i read about it on P&B about how particular clubs have preferences.

that's a ridiculous statement. it was only a year ago that he first broke into the team and we were all getting excited about him. since then his appearances have been limited and he has mostly played on the wing which imo doesn't suit him. he did well in europe in the summer and the times he has played through the centre this season are when we have looked most like scoring (2nd half St J, 1st half killie). he played quite well against aberdeen as well. i can't understand why gannon didn't bring him on sooner last night. mchugh was toiling after an hour and murphy looked bright when he came and caused ICT problems.

a very strange game. mchugh scored but after half time he wasn't involved at all yet yet managed to stay on for another 50 mins and murphy only got on because he mchugh got injured. lukas looked bright but suffered from playing out wide for large parts of the game. o'brien got their right back sent off then got subbed straight away. typical unpredictable game from gannon. i thought foran deserved his round of applause as well. he was a free transfer and we got 150k for him. he had a great goal scoring record. there was a debate about this fitness but here was never anywhere near the most unfit player at the club (fagan, paterson, mcgarry). he scored in two semi finals and most importantly for me he burst his arse in a lot of great away performances where we ended up with results through sheer hard work. he put in a great shift in every one of his last six games (killie, dunfermline, celtic, rangers, airdire, hibs) there is nothing for motherwell fans to be bitter about.

i don't think levien went out his way to nulify any of our players. big giles struggled a bit because he was being played out of position. united played their usual style it was us that pulled a bit of a flanker by playing 4 central midfielders.

permanent. they're going to play for free but they need digs. got a sofa bed?

not the best performance today but you can't turn your nose up at three points away from home. we were murder for the first half hour until jennings got booked (harshly) and gannon pulled him for lukas. after that we dominated the rest of the first half but after halftime we slipped again. that's the third away game in a row we've had to change the system in 45 minutes or less, let's hope we can start getting things right from the start soon. one bit of skill from o'brien and one amazing save from ruddy got us the points today. united fans probably walked away gutted but fuck them, i think we'll keep improving i'm not sure if they will. another poster commented on coke's performance and although i didn't think he matched his other performances he was played out of position today and that should be taken into account. the defence was superb today. yassin had a harder game than last week but did well. hammell had a couple of bad passes but had a good game and was involved in the build up to the pen. saunders was immense again and reynolds stuck a stake in the heart of the people who think he isn't a centreback.

the same thing could be said about arsenal, man u, chelsea and liverpool in the past five years. the moral of the story is young players are better off at smaller clubs.

aye but we're signing kaka and frank ribery in january so it should be a skoosh. hotd for this pish