19.3.91

[texaco cup]

I would really like to be proved wrong but I strongly suspect that at least Hastie and Turnbull will no longer be our players at the start of next season. I know Turnbull has recently signed a new contract but from what I understand that was done to guarantee that the club would get a fee for him when he leaves in the summer rather than go as a free agent.

[Wellup4it]

I would really like to be proved wrong but I strongly suspect that at least Hastie and Turnbull will no longer be our players at the start of next season. I know Turnbull has recently signed a new contract but from what I understand that was done to guarantee that the club would get a fee for him when he leaves in the summer rather than go as a free agent.

I've heard this too. I'll be surprised if even one of them is still with us by the time September comes around.

[Handsome_Devil]

The Rangers game was a debacle for sure, the (first) cup loss to Aberdeen less so - for me it just highlights how hard it is, there's no doubt we were a better side than Aberdeen over 38 games then but over 90 minutes? If our normally reliable penalty taker hadn't had a miss that day we'd likely have crushed them. The difference in ability, outside the OF, is just not enough to ever be truly confident. They were a much better side than us last season but lost twice when it mattered.

The one that really hurt for me was the next one to Aberdeen, with 10 men, when without the Old Firm left it was always likely to be us or them who'd win that LC - and even then they needed penalties to get over the line.

I don't have time to check right now but the team who is 'best of the rest' very, very rarely manages to turn that into a concrete trophy precisely because the difference between them and the rest, when over one game rather than a season, is tiny. Off the top of my head only Hearts have done it - and in 1998 they were gifted one of the easiest series of draws you'll ever see while in 2006 they needed penalties to beat Gretna.

Instead you're much more likely to have your moment in the sun when you have a group of workers, a tiny bit of flair and a lot of luck...the Killie side which won the LC wasn't a patch on the current team but en route to the final play no one either not in the second division or heading there. A dismal St Mirren won when Celtic missed a semi-final penalty, the ICT lad practically caught the ball on the line etc. That's the difference.

We've seen recently enough ourselves that we can go from being awful to Hampden in no time at all. It's unlikely to work out next year because it's unlikely to work out any year but we have the same miniscule chance as anyone else.

[LawSteelman]

Dundee United won it in 2010 when they were "best of the rest" I'm sure, but I take your point, it is a big ask.

Of the Aberdeen Cup defeats under McCall, there wasn't one of them that you could point to and say that we were unlucky to go out. The first one where Higdon missed the penalty we were tactically outthought by old Broon and were a goal down inside the first two minutes (albeit thanks to a wrongly awarded corner) and Aberdeen controlled the tempo throughout. The season after we were 1-0 up at Pittodrie then failed to defend properly in the last minute allowing them to equalise before they easily dispatched us in the replay. The League Cup QF in 2013 was a disaster for us and McCall. They played that game for something like 77 minutes with ten men and two banks of four sitting deep in their own half and we hadn't a clue what to do to break them down. Just about every Motherwell fan inside Fir Park knew how that game was going to go as we aimlessly fannied about creating nothing and sure enough, they grab a late goal from a corner and another in stoppage time to seal it. We were awful that night. Then of course a few weeks later we had the Albion Rovers debacle in the other cup.

For all we had a good side under McCall and some good times in the league we absolutely blew our best chance of winning silverware at that time.

[Handsome_Devil]

Ah yes, forgot United.

I'd be hopeful of a good run in the League Cup next season...it's set up to give us a good chance of getting somewhere while being almost impossible to win but if the quarter-final draw works out you never know.