crazylegsjoe_mfc

I'd probably put in shouts for Tom Aldred and Andy Rose too (when he was fit)

I'm actually fairly pleased with our midfield. Been happy enough with Maguire and Crawford coming into cover when they have. It's defence and in forward areas I have my concerns. Hopefully, when Carroll is fit we can manage to get Lamie and Mugabi on the bench. No harm to the guys as they're clearly trying their hardest, but they're just not cutting it. Neither of our wingers (Hastie or Seedorf) are particularly cutting it and it seems that with the exception of White, all of our strikers fit the bill of a "second striker" which isn't great when you play a 4-3-3 and it doesn't look like White is good enough to partner any of the other options. The team the way it is just now wouldn't have any threat of relegation for me, but I'd be trying to get as many points as possible on the board this side of Christmas incase we do see Gallagher, Campbell and SOD depart in January.

The only change that I would make to that would be Dec in the middle and O’Hara right centre half.

Last season's tactic of signing a Livi player and an Inverness player worked, but it's not been as successful this summer. White does seem to be the type of player Robinson signs then gets rid of in the summer a la Fisher, however, I wonder if there's any desire to get rid of Long in January, as he's probably picking up a decent wage, contributing pretty much similar to White and doesn't exactly look like he exudes happiness around the place. I'd also wonder if we were able to exercise the clause in Hastie's loan if we would do that too but I also wonder if the fact our squad is now so bare (who would have thought it when we had about 30 first team players in August) that we won't get rid of anyone.

I'd like to see us bring Jordan Archer for Aaron Chapman in goals for this one and persist with Mark O'Hara at centre half despite Lamie and Mugabi's returns to fitness. Other than that our team picks itself.

Agreed, however that fear has nothing on a Lamie - Mugabi partnership Hopefully by that point, Carroll is back at left-back and McGinley has moved in one. I think I'd probably say that Mugabi was "decent" before his injury. Much better than what we were used to from him, but still a far cry from an in-from Aldred, Hutchinson or Gallagher.

If Gallagher goes, it wouldn't surprise me that much if we ended up getting Hartley back in a panic after the Indian season ends...

I think we should stick with him in midfield, with O'Hara at centre half, on Saturday even though Mugabi and Lamie are now back fit. We might as well give him a run of games to see if he's going to make it.

This is obviously said with the greatest benefit of hindsight, but there is a big part of me that wishes Robinson had the balls to say, despite the two clean sheets, that Archer is the keeper with the better pedigree and he goes into the team. I thought he could've done a lot better at the third and fourth goals yesterday although I do refuse to blame anyone other than Polworth 100% for the first. When a player is probably second fiddle and the "didn't deserve to be dropped" line comes out, I think it can be a recipe for disaster, as deep down you know the player won't be in the team forever and you're essentially waiting for them to have a stinker before bringing the guy perceived to be better in. I suppose the caveat is Robinson having to manage the morale of the squad in such situations.

Absolutely. Imagine we tied him down that summer, rejected a bid of 500k and then he went on to have this as his second season. I think the only losers out of the Hastie deal, in hindsight, were Rangers and I'm perfectly fine with that.

In the case of Jake Hastie, we can probably be glad about that.

It's strange how much better season 93/94 is on just about every stat other than final position. 2nd place in 94/95, but only four wins and a draw away from the playoffs. I was far too young to remember this time consciously (my first game was Feburary 97) but there must have been some sense of regret in the 93/94 season with the way it ended. Not only that we were that close, but that Rangers managed to win the league without winning any of their last five games.

In fairness, Moult did move on in January 18 and played his last league game for the club in November, so it was still quite a condensed period of time. (Edit - was 2nd December, my mistake) Offsides and fouls given away would take him right up there too.

We must have the worst goal difference of a team finishing second ever in 2013/14 you’d think? Seemed like we won loads of games by the odd goal and every time we got beaten, we got pumped that season. We’ve had a lot better players over the years than the likes of Nielsen, Hollis, Carswell, Kerr, Lawson etc, who won’t be able to say they ever finished 2nd. That said, it wasn’t too much of a surprise that when you took Faddy, Anier (as much as both were hot and cold over the course of the season) and Hutchy out we slid down the table very quickly.

Mind the days when Mark Mcghee took the team bike rides and had them running up mountains in Austria? Say what you like about him as a person and a manager but the team in his first season in charge was about the fittest team we've ever had. He even turned Jim Paterson into a prime athlete. The difference in McGarry and Quinn amongst others was massive too that summer. Last week on the anniversary of the semi-final, I put Louis Moult into YouTube and ended up down a bit of a rabbit hole and rewatched his Open Goal with Si Ferry. Interestingly, he said McGhee done the double sessions and the focus on fitness when he first returned to stamp his authority, but it wasn't so intense the next pre-season, which as we know all too well saw his tenure end with a Zak Jules inspired 5-1 win for Dundee.

For me, the main difference between Turnbull and Polworth is that what we grew to love Turnbull for was scoring great goals and doing outrageous stuff on the ball, but what makes Polworth more effective is his ability to do the simple thinsg, very well, over and over again. I noticed it in the Glentoran game (the first after Turnbull departed) and then I noticed it again on Saturday that Polworth can often play a good, first time, one touch pass without even thinking about it, that can speed up our play and get us up the park. Maybe that makes us tick a bit better. The defenders out statistics perhaps is a bit mad, but I'm wondering if these are skewed by Charles Dunne. I'm wondering if there's any real intent in him playing for us again, or if we are just doing the right thing a la Craig Tanner. The fact that he is still "TBC" for a return date, when even Scott Fox with his ACL has one. What I will say is that I'm willing to eat my words about our squad size that I made earlier than the window 100% when six of our nine subs on Saturday had 40 mins of appearances for the club between them. That is now making a bit more sense with the younger guys loaned out. Was any reason given why Lamie and Seedorf weren't playing on Saturday? I mean, I'm not complaining, but you'd think if they were injured, they'd have said so, so that there was no ambiguity if they were missing due to being contacts of the positive test.

I’d also say that O’Hara had a better game in there than he has in midfield this season. Might be different in a game where we have less of the ball and he has to do more ugly defending, but I’d be tempted to stick with him in there for a while and give Maguire a run of games to see if there is a player in there.

Only thing that could have put the cherry on the top of that game would’ve been a second yellow for Vigurs. The lazy b*****d moved quicker to protest the stonewaller than he ever did in a Motherwell shirt.

Was pretty much about to come on and post all of this. Wouldn’t be gutted to see Long depart in January, doesn’t seem to be working out this time. One thing that I think deserves immense credit is Polworth’s contribution to the first goal. Composed and intelligent turn and then a great pass to McGinley.

I think he's made the bench once or twice with the nine subs this season, but hasn't made it on the pitch. David Devine has come off the bench once, but it was almost a token gesture in the last game of the 18/19 season.

I wouldn't have thought so if it was just an injury in training. The only time I can remember hearing of wages being paid by someone else was when the SFA had to pay Steven Saunders' wages when he done his cruciate with Scotland under 21s, which allowed us to sign Tim Clancy.

That's almost an accurate depiction of our sales of Jamie Murphy and Mark Reynolds when your chief was at our helm. Fortunately due to the sales of James Scott and David Turnbull, we wouldn't need to sell for peanuts.

As much as I liked Cole I wouldn't be happy if we signed him at the moment. If we're bringing in anyone else (which I doubt we will) then defence has to be the priority. Agreed. I feel a bit hypocritical given I was lamenting the size of our squad a few weeks ago, but we do need a whole new defence, a holding midfielder (at least until Donnelly is fit) and a couple of wingers before we need another striker. It would also be concerning if we had got to the end of September and Robinson didn't have faith that between Watt, Long, Lang and White (all of which are his signings) didn't have a workable partnership between them. The same record article also has us in for an extra keeper, with Fox out for the season.

I'd love to see Dunne back playing, but I get the feeling he may have kicked his last baw as a Motherwell player. The "TBC" on his return date, coupled with the fact he has had one season in the last four where he's not had a large spells out with groin/pelvic injuries makes me think we might just be letting him get fit. In any case, by this point, I think the effective Dunne from the second half of the 18/19 season wouldn't be the one we see. I think the problem this year is we have so many decidedly average players. You can get by with a shirt-filler or two, but when the team is plagued with them you have a problem. As well as them getting a lot of game time, it strikes me that Robinson pinned a lot of his hopes on Long and Hastie being good this season, when both have had little impact all in. In fact, this is probably the second season we would've seen off Hastie had he not gone to Rangers, so we should perhaps be thankful of the compensation we did manage to get. Was discussed among my mates yesterday, would it be that much of a surprise to see Hartley sign in January when the Indian season finishes if we continue to do so badly?

What a character reference it is for the thunderdome era that we signed a guy whos done time for serious assault and all his pals and somehow managed to become softer.