CoF

That was outstanding. Fair play to Kettlewell in getting an organised and spirited performance despite the shite run we're on. A sign that maybe all is not lost. Also, of the 16 goals we've scored this season, 7 have come 85 minutes+. Can we not just pretend it's the last 10 minutes for the whole match?

Imagine we signed Van Veen then Kettlewell decided he can never play alongside Biereth. One or the other up-front with Wilkinson. What a laugh.

Is McInstry injured or just not getting a game for Queens Park? I see him mentioned every few pages as an option but I’m starting to wonder if, and I hate to say this, he’s maybe not quite cut out for this level?

Casey goes for the ball. Boyce throws his chest at Casey's foot, wiping him out. It's a free kick to Motherwell. And a sending off for head-knock simulation.

I noticed Kettlewell is quietly moving to the publicly blame the players stage of post-match interviews. We all know that it's not something managers like to or should do, and is only done when everything else they've tried hasn't worked. It's usually downhill from here. I think most worryingly, his complaint was that they weren't following his instruction. With the amount of on-field bickering I'm not actually sure the players have a shared idea of what the instruction actually is. I did wonder a while back if Kettlewell's twenty-six thousand word press conferences reflect how he communicates with the team. Is he over-complicating the message? Impossible to tell, however there's a few signs that his game plan isn't translating to the pitch.

I think squad is fine. We’ve had managers piece together far worst teams than this and do okay. The problem is that there isn’t a single player performing to their best just now. When there’s this level of individual and collective failure that’s on the manager.

Sitting in the car about to go into Fir Park. Todays facts - 4 premiership games on today, none of which feature rangers or Celtic. Chat about Celtic and Rangers in Europe and VAR decisions against started at 14:17, it’s now 14:47…. Whoever can guess what they’re still talking about wins a big boat

Haha, had a wee chuckle at that myself. Im soft as shite so my thoughts on Shaw so far has been “at least he’s getting in the right positions… the goals should come”. Then that happened… the bare minimum is testing the keeper or at least trying to play Bair in and he’s completely failed. He went for the 19th best option so I’m done.

Suppose it’s an appointment that kinda makes sense. Bradford are a big club - Alexander’s big Gruffalo heed will be walking out to 15 - 20 thousand fans every home game. They’ve been in league two longer than expected. To be fair to him, with the exception of MK Dons, Alexander has always done pretty well at other clubs in his first 18 months or so before the wheels inevitably fall off. I assume Bradfords plan is to shitfest their way to promotion then sack him 5 games into next season.

Oh aye, forgot about that. Makes sense.

It’s a complete irrelevance but I take it Devlin is deemed to have only become active when the ball broke to him in the box?

If it’s the one in their box, Spencer kinda nudged the one of the players into the other. It was soft but probably a foul.

Ref stopped a quick throw that got us on the break to move the thrower back about 5ft. I think we were 4 down but the game definitely swung on that decision.

Just watched all 17 minutes 11 seconds of Kettlewell’s pre-match press conference. Fun fact: if you edit out the words “football club” it only lasts 4 minutes 43 seconds.

The club were informed of the decision to move our fixture against Rangers to Christmas Eve yesterday afternoon, an hour before the SPFL initially intended to announce publicly. Whilst we fully acknowledge that the contract which is currently in place between the SPFL and our main broadcasters allows kick off times to be moved from Saturday to Sunday midday, with an agreed notice period, we believe that moving a major fixture to this date is a special circumstance that should’ve led to additional consultation/ discussion with the club. We can only apologise to supporters who will be inconvenienced by this move and especially to those who will no longer be able to attend the game. We understand this move is particularly inconvenient for fans who had booked pre match hospitality, which was already sold out. We are working with suppliers to provide an alternative offering pre and post match. We hope to still see as many of our fans as possible at the game

Fouled every 18 minutes. Mad thing is Slattery seems to have been genuinely trying to stay on his feet more this season.

I wouldn't mind seeing the "official" VAR lines again to be fair. Only caught a glimpse of them on the TV and canny find them anywhere.

I posted this about 400 pages back - I think the ref got it wrong. It wasn't a foul. However the goal shouldn't have stood because Hendry was offside and interfering with play. It's a farce and total incompetence. But it's not a great sporting injustice to have a goal which shouldn't have stood chopped off but for the wrong reason. The ref has made a c**t of it, but in pure sporting terms things have landed the way they should have.

Jesus man, you don't understand the offside law at all if you think for a player to be interfering with play they need to be committing a foul.

Is everyone genuinely raging because the correctly chalked off goal was chalked off for the wrong reason? It clearly wasn't a foul. But it was offside and interfering. There's no injustice here, only incompetence.

Spot on.

Sorry lads, I’m afraid LiveScore have got it right this time.

I had the opposite experience last week, watched most of the Motherwell Rangers game on Rangers TV and when they scored, between the crowd and the commentator, you’d think they’d won a throw in.

Wouldn’t mind seeing Shaw get more minutes. I get the impression he works best with another striker which means sacrificing one of our handsome and wonderful midfielders which probably isn’t going to happen from the start. Can see this being a repeat of the last two games. In it all the way, playing some nice stuff but losing by the odd goal because we can’t score.

Was just about to post the same thing. He's also the same height as Tommy Cooper, Billy Corgan and Malcolm X.