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Six games Six weeks over nearly 3 months Approximate 10M revenue Potential to enhance player market value Co-efficient Experience for players Excitement for fans Tangible and notable achievement Prestige It's not a hard call at all !

Really disappointed with that second half. We were far too deep and kept the giving the ball away too easily. And to leave the final sub to the final few seconds was puzzling. Another two points dropped and we've only ourselves to blame today.

Very much so. This season is all about improvement. Its looking great on that front so far. Frankly europa league qualification should be considered a stretch target.

Think the main problem highlighted today is too many of our fans are moving the goal posts the second we start playing well. The goal this season is to secure higher income through European football and attain second place. Celtic are irrelevant to our plans. We are building for us not to stop them. Think it's also fair to say we all expected to see more money spent this season so all considered we are doing well though it's early days. Football has such fine margins. We win today, Thursday and Sunday and Gerrard is the greatest since sliced bread. Lose today, Thursday and Sunday and it's the end of the world. We have a wage budget of around £18m v £56m thoughts of winning the league or teaching them a lesson this early are premature though admittedly very attractive? we need to try and stay focused on the season goals to help the team achieve them Second place and euro group stages and we are doing great

You play this many games, this early in the season, with this many new players and you’re going to have games when things go off track. It won’t help when the support lets expectation get too far ahead of reality.

Leagues aren't won or lost in August , the over reaction is a sign of how high the expectations are now amongst our support . we need to try and keep a sensible head on things , look at the change in the squad , the massive strides forward that we have taken , yes we are all disappointed but some of the stuff I've read on other sites and Twitter is simply way way way OTT .

Now we know what the team can do when they go behind. Came back twice and then went ahead. Great stuff.

What has amazed me is "the blue boy frae Copland Road",Gerard has obviously seen something in him and he has not let us down in last couple of games,especially today with clearance that many would have put into own goal.

We let them dictate the match in the second half. I would've thought that this will concern the Manager. Too often we went long and gave them the ball back when we needed to get our foot on the ball and take the sting out of their kick and rush gameplan. The defending was too casual at times by certain players and I think that we relied too much on the notion that we'd be able to handle whatever they threw at us. We also gave away corners needlessly in injury time which contributed to the pressure building. Can Flanagan play in a back three, switching sides, and against a team which is arguably the strongest in the league at deploying the tactic of pumping the ball into the air and feeding off the scraps? Debatable imo. Having a mobile second anchor missing today stuck out for me. That's not to say that Andy Halliday didn't have a reasonable game. Lass was, again, a big miss. Food for thought for Stevie. P.S. Thomson was his usual nightmarish self.

This is getting into dangerous territory but .... I agree completely.

It’s called good management. Putting confidence back into players who were let down by previous managers

Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Chairman of the ECA (European Club Association) said in September 2016 that the changes the ECA forced UEFA to accept in the UEFA Champions League (UCL), to be implemented in 2018 would: ‘I believe there are no winners and no losers. The new concept is not a revolution, it’s just an evolution, and I’m convinced that everyone will benefit’. Not quite the Martin Luther King ‘I believe’ speech. Especially since it was a lie. The UEFA Champions League season 2018 changes & who wanted them It was no surprise in 2016/17 and this season that Scottish football media did not publicized that Rummenigge’s sidekick was Peter Lawwell, his fellow member on the ECA board, delivering the following changes to the UCL competition: The 4 big European leagues would get their 4 automatic entries directly into the UCL group stage. The number of qualifying rounds for the Scottish team would increase from 3 to 4. There would be a reduction from 5 to 4 of places for the small European leagues in the UCL group stage. ECA gained increased representation at the top level of UEFA These ‘innovations’ started this 2018/19 season but were agreed over the 2016/17 season. Now half of the 32 UCL group stage positions are now reserved and off limits to the smaller European leagues. Scottish teams now face the hurdle of 4 qualifiers. But Rumminge/ECA said ‘everyone would benefit’. Aye right. The large non-EPL European clubs, especially Rumminge’s Bayern, were screaming that they could not compete with the TV money flowing into English clubs and therefore needed 4 direct entries each into the ECL group stage for the 4 four top performing leagues: English, German, Italian and Spanish. Rumminge and the ECA board held a gun at UEFA’s head with rumours of a breakaway competition and UEFA folded. And who has been on the ECA Board since 2014? Peter Lawwell, and he of course voted with the board. A turkey voting for Christmas? ECA may have dangled talk of previous ECL winners getting a free place too but that was never going to eventuate. We now have the situation whereby 1967 when Celtic won the European Cup after 4 rounds they were in the final. Now it takes 4 qualifiers, courtesy of Lawwell’s vote, for Celtic or any other Scottish club, to only get into the group stages. This ECA/UEFA deal surpasses the Scottish TV deal that Lawwell and Doncaster ‘negotiated’ when they were caught flying to London together and returned with the ‘magic beans’ of the ‘giant’ deal. Extra Hurdles for Scottish Clubs Of course Celtic never made it through their 3rd qualifier against AEK Athens. However giving Scottish qualifiers an extra round so early in the season puts yet another hurdle in front of the lucrative ECL group stage. Qualifiers are now starting mid July before the league starts. How many players, especially after possibly playing in the World Cup/Euros, are still carrying injuries with no rest. Other Scottish clubs have never expected Peter Lawwell to look after Scottish football in general in UEFA. And ECA is a club organization but in this case he didn’t even look after Celtic. Plus it affects other Scottish clubs in the future. For his reward in endorsing the UCL changes Rumminge gave Lawwell one of the 4 ECA seats on the UEFA’s Professional Football Strategy Council (PFSC) and was appointed in August 2017. Mr Lawwell is also a member, since 2015, of the UEFA Club Competitions Committee. The ECA website in April 2017 welcomed the coming 2018 changes saying that: “A working group will shortly be established under the umbrella of the UEFA Club Competitions Committee and will be tasked with finalising all details relating to the new club competition concept for 2018-21 in the coming months.” So Lawwell wasn’t just voting on the ECA to endorse the change he was at the other end in UEFA with oversight of the implementation of the 2018 changes described above. If anybody was forewarned about the changes it should have been Peter Lawwell. He was one of the ECA (European Club Association) board endorsers of the 4 qualifier rounds and the UEFA implementers. But he did not even prepare his club’s squad for even 3 rounds? The Agency Problem Don’t get between a football committee and Peter Lawwell, you could be trampled, as Celtic’s interests were, in Mr Lawwell’s quest to increase his network. It is a well known problem in business called ‘The Agency Problem’. If you own a business or a shareholding, how do you know whether an ambitious employee is acting solely in your interest or not? How does Celtic ensure that Peter Lawwell works for Celtic and not just his own interest? Lawwell seems to get his bonus whether Celtic is successful or not. The Celtic shareholders at the 2017 AGM had the chance to question Lawwell about the ECA board decision or how his bonus is calculated. Did they raise any questions? No. Are the shareholders/fans even aware? They are the first line in holding their clubs executives and directors accountable but sadly they did not step up. Blinded by the disco lights? https://footballtaxhavens.wordpress.com/2018/08/25/blinded-by-the-disco-lights-how-do-celtic-shareholders-fans-ensure-that-peter-lawwell-works-for-celtic-and-not-just-his-own-interest/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

One bonus is we are at home after every tie while Celtic are away.

Reaching EL should enhance the experience of players and transfer values. If Morelos scores a few EL goals he becomes a £15m player. International call ups more likely for the Croats, Scots and Morelos. It also gives us higher profile across Europe especially considering where we have been. Improves advertising appeal and makes us more attractive for higher quality loans and purchases. It’s a no brainer for me. If we do EL and get a trophy it’s a big step up from where we have been and would set our stall out for 55.

Defending is an art form we are still learning , but a lot better than the stoogies of last season just go out and slap the hooped horrors next week .

12 very tough matches undefeated with a new squad! looks good for the season ahead

That feels like a loss for me today. Conceding three goals was never in the script, but I guess we came up against our biggest test so far this season. I don’t accept excuses of fatigue - If we want to compete on three fronts we need to be as fit as we all thought we were. I don’t know what went wrong in the 2nd half, we were completely controlled and the equalizer was 100% coming - clear for all to see, yet we couldn’t prevent it. Okay, if we were going to have one off day in these 3 big games, I’d rather it happened today. Let’s see what SG and his team can now do to recover from this. I didn’t think the defence played like their lives depended on it, which I has been characteristic of us so far. No fingers pointed - several players didn’t do themselves justice today. Win, lose or draw on Thursday, I don’t care, as long as we make it to the groups stages, from a revenue perspective. But the league is where we will be judged and we now need to take something from the next Sunday otherwise we could slip 7 points behind Hearts and 5 points behind Celtic after only 4 games, and whatever way you look at it that would not represent a great start.

I don't believe they score loads of goals at home , something I'm quite grateful about , however I didn't see us losing 2 never mind 3 goals today .

.. was wondering, why we did not bring on Candeias when they were tearing Tav a new one on the right. He's good at covering back ...

Motherwell should move to Murrayfield, no wonder nobody gives a shit about Scottish football, big lumps up the park and get rugby players challenging for high balls

We did nothing going forward in the 2nd half

Unfortunately Tav was really poor today and was the guilty party at two of the goals. However, the whole team looked uncomfortable and the manager seemed unable to change things in the second half. On the positive side we did well to get back in front and you can't fault the team's efforts.

Lafferty League 18/19 Minutes: 138 Goals: 3 #Prolific Any comment Ser Barr ?............

Had my doubts about Ejaria in such a physical game. The wee man has been great

The reason he was signed! seems SG knows a player!. Defensively poor first half, however we have dominated the most dirtiest team in the league and deserve our lead against the hammer throwers

Goldson wasn't comfortable in the middle. He's doing much better now at RCB. Lafferty has been superb. Two goals but his overall play has been so important.

It makes sense. You have natural right footed delivery from the right and left from the left. You share workload up front, take onus off Morelos and put more pressure on Motherwell CH's. Midfield will be busy, be more direct. You also have Flanagan on the pitch who isn't a shrinking violet.

Perhaps people shouldn't be allowed out of their homes,....it's not safe out there ! But then, what's that about most accidents taking place at home,.........everybody go out ! Oh f**k, we are all going to die !!!!!!!!!!

You take what you can when you can. Our stated aim is to access the group stages of European competition to help with the finances that in turn will help build a squad that can challenge for the league. I don't see this squad as strong enough to win the league with or without European football. There is a decent starting XI if everyone is fit and available but IMO the squad isn't yet strong enough and over a season that is what will tell. We need the finance to help improve the squad depth/quality for 2019/20.

There's no point simply listing the benefits of the EL. Those are already obvious. The question was raised to consider the situation where we drop league points to the sacrifice of title hopes because of fatigue or injury due to the heavy schedule. I accept the EL is invaluable but I also accept we could also lose the league at least partly because of it.

I believe we were trying to match their 3-5-2. It worked for the most part, but I agree it needs more drilling; Goldson was uncomfortable and Flanagan is not the best CB. I think it was the subs that were the biggest mistake, but only in hindsight, because I could see what he was trying to do.

Bad day at the office but still unbeaten. Let's learn more from the mistakes and make sure it doesn't happen again

Trying to be positive. SG is a clever guy. Hopefully he'll learn more from the mistakes in that 2nd half.

We just didn't get hold of the ball and play our way forward in the second half.

Seriously, how many balls were thrown in to our box in the second half? Easily two dozen, it's the law of averages. Further, that's the second time in three league games we have conceded in the last kick of the ball.

I would love to see them relegated. I hate them the most of all the relegation candidates.

Wow, what a game of football. Very unlucky to go behind so early with Goldson and McGregor both slipping but to concede such a cheap second goal was disappointing after getting back into it. Lots of credit to the players though, they kept their heads up, kept working hard, matched 'Well physically and eventually got our noses in front with two excellent goals from out of nothing. No idea what's going to happen after half-time though! ?

The formation has worked. We're matching them, giving their back-three plenty to think about. The first goal was a slip. You could question McGregor's positioning, but I think he slips too? The second came after SG switched the line-up of our back-three, moving Katic into the middle, Goldson wide right, and Flanagan wide left. However, I don't that that would mess up who picks up who at set-pieces. We've played well, and crucially matched them physically.

Our captain shit the bed there.

I would rather we had our bad luck today. Plenty of time to get back in it.

Jock Wallace, Then Motherwell manager and a very young Gary McAllister. Looks like Gullane sands.