Handsome_Devil

Meanwhile: https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2024/03/20/statement-on-var-decision-against-aberdeen/ Pew! Pew! Goes the sound of our toy gun.

Of course he did because this season. FFS.

There's various articles about the City Group in France: https://onefootball.com/en/news/feature-estac-troyes-manchester-citys-french-affiliate-abandoned-by-fans-and-in-freefall-38579102 https://www.essentiallysports.com/viral-sports-moments-soccer-news-incompatible-with-this-team-magic-troyes-supporters-unhappy-with-promotional-activities-in-manchester-citys-multi-club-model/ While I'm unsure about the merits of this for us in general, if the offer was to become part of the Abu Dhabi promotion campaign I'd take kicking around the Championship and Challenge Cup every time.

Time will tell. I find it hard to believe it's a free lunch. Certainly I've always thought if there were clubs where investment could work it was Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Anywhere else and you're basically giving away your money, those three medium clubs at least offer a theoretical path to profit...but as we've seen, converting that theory into practice is far from easy. It's like the old joke that anyone who wants to be a politician should be excluded from the job - anyone who says they can make money investing in Scottish football, old firm apart, should be chased from your club.

Nah, there's a big difference in deciding your own course as opposed to existing purely to benefit the bigger club in your ownership model. Hibs certainly aren't walking into that status next week or anything but there's a phrase about thin ends and wedges which springs to mind.

It's now been X weeks since the Hibs thing was waved through by the SFA and I still struggle to have a concrete position on it. Every instinct I have says I want us to have nothing to do with this sort of shite yet there's no doubt being independent will get old very quickly when we struggle. How long do you try to push water uphill (insert analogy of your choice here)? Are principles worth being a yo-yo club? Might enjoy some junkits to Ireland and winning the Challenge Cup, who knows...

Definitely but there's something incredibly depressing about our biggest clubs turning into feeder sides for that level of team down south.

Perhaps it's just me but I really don't think we were *that* bad. Good absolutely not but we still made what, six or seven decent chances, had a goal disallowed and a penalty denied. And that despite picking a stupid team. Draw that 1-1 as we should have done and quite frankly that game would have been forgotten by all concerned by Saturday evening. There were people jumping off bridges at half time v Livingston and eyeing up the top six after Ibrox and I understood neither view. Robinson used to say he thought we were never as bad as some said when things were bad and never as good as some said when things were good. Wise words and perfectly fitting to our level now. We're on course to survive what was universally regarded as a tough season having cleared the deadwood and are on course to do so with, at worse, a minor operating loss. This season is heading for the 'job done, move on' tick virtually everyone would have settled for last summer. Any time I'm optimistic in spring rather than panicking over our immediate future I think things are ok overall.

They certainly added bugger all, no argument there, but we nearly all agree we want to develop players and part of the cost of that is the make mistakes or don't contribute much initially. The logic of short-term pain for long-term gain is sound, frustrating as it is to watch in practice. Each to their own on whether it was meaningless or not and again whether you value the extra league place more than minutes for the boys...it's a fine line and I wouldn't be starting the pair of them next week for the sake of it. But if - say - the seemingly decently rated Wells leaves on the basis we never gave him a chance and he turns into a player, we'll look pretty stupid having refused to throw him on because the pursuit of eighth rather than ninth was deemed all important.

I was fine with him chucking them on. We were huffing and puffing, and had nothing to lose in a game which was (we hope) largely meaningless. I'd much rather throw them in yesterday's situation than when we're defending something a la Cornelius at Tannadice.

It's even more bizarre as keeping it obvious was a large part of our good run last season and even turning it around in late December happened, funnily enough, with an actual lwb and six in the team. And yet again, here we are ...

It's been said before that Kettlewell would benefit massively from one of those 'Keep It Simple, Stupid' signs in his office and dugout. His work improving individuals suggests he's a decent coach but his tactical genius is much more limited and we nearly always play ourselves into bother when he overthinks.

I imagine the explanation will be the County guy was an accident as he miscontrolled it on his arm, Bair 'deliberately' gained an advantage by handling directly having made himself bigger. Tbh as much as you can be annoyed at the officials for yesterday (and in that context the Bair foul is understandable, not looking at Shinnie less so), they have been left to look ridiculous by how they're instructed to interpret handball and use VAR. The actual guys trying to make the decisions are a much smaller problem than the big picture imho. A modicum of common sense on handball and - however you do it - restricting VAR to clear errors would still leave people moaning but I suspect much less than now.

Halliday was at it there tbf, you see on the replay a pass was never on and Bair was right to shoot.

Bair has obviously made massive progress but in games where the opposition don't push up their backline and/or we can't play on the break, you see he still has a long way to go. You could well see him struggling again next week but looking better again against Dundee and Hibs.

To be clear, both are totally accidental and essentially unavoidable. Neither should be fouls. However, when you analyse one to death and call it a foul, to ignore the other is utterly bizarre.

So was I but it was sold on a totally different basis as to how it's used. I still think you'd solve most of the issues by giving teams one appeal a game. The handball rule is a different bucket of shit but obviously combines to make it a farce.

We've beaten Livingston two out of three, we tonked County last time and play only against the bottom eight sides, who are all various shades of shite. Of course these are winnable games.

Thought it was somewhere in between...he showed flashes but as brilliant as he might turn out to be, having a 17-year-old alone behind two more attacking midfielders is bold. I would have Miller along with either Davor or Halliday and Spittal ahead of them with Nicholson coming off the bench for now.

It still needs a near complete collapse for that. We have eight winnable games to come, even a modest one win and two draws will probably be enough (if closer than we'd like). Easy to say if but Halliday bundles in late on everyone says today was a fair if uninspiring point and there's zero panic. If we lose the next three I'll reconsider my position.

I didn't even see Shinnie's alleged handball so I don't feel especially hard done by - but if it was it certainly contributes to the random nature of it all. Kettlewell's question as to why the County goal at FP was deemed ok but this one wasn't sums it up related.

The win at Ibrox effectively left us needing five or six points from nine games to tick off an awkward season and start afresh. The notion we were going to smoothly cruise to five or six wins was as unrealistic as the top six for me. Nicholson and Spittal were great in front of Miller at Livingston. I'd have kept Davor as well but I can understand taking a risk on that one. McGinn at lwb was mental from start to finish though, I can't even imagine the thinking behind it. Assuming fitness not an issue etc.

I appreciate emotions are high on a Saturday night but come on...we were never going to reach the top six just because we had a couple of wins, we're highly unlikely to collapse into the playoffs because a 50-50 today went against us rather than for us. It's frustrating to drop needless points and obviously the sooner we can get the win to confirm matters the better but there's no need to go ott.

Particularly annoying is the Aberdeen arm was up as well and could only have missed the ball by inches first. It's a bit of a meh game, being level would have been fair but we've been poor enough you don't feel hard done by either. McGinn at lwb is no less mind-boggling than at kick-off.

Same... Nicholson for Davor is a calculated risk, not bringing back Gent just seems like he didn't feel he could drop Blaney, even though the situation different.