11.15pm

Tonight's result: Motherwell 1, St Johnstone 2 (Scottish Cup Quarter Final)

Just back after what has to be one of the biggest disappointments in recent seasons.  If you were fortunate enough not to see the game you might think it sounds like a fairly closely run contest, but in reality 2-1 flatters us completely and had it not been for a few great saves from Graeme Smith we'd have been looking at an absolute humping.

Major rant coming up (and be warned, I've had a few).

That was an absolutely pathetic excuse for a performance, and we were completely outplayed by a 1st Division side who were well organised but nothing more.  The difference was that they clearly wanted to win more and were first to every ball, while Motherwell just didn't seem interested.  Our sole tactic seemed to involve persistently lumping long balls onto the head of 6ft 7 Kevin James, when it was patently obvious after 5 mins that this wasn't going to work.  Aside from that we were completely devoid of any ideas, and didn't manage to string more than a couple of passes together all night.

Sorry, but things were so bad tonight I'm going to have to criticise player individually.

Defensively we were a shambles tonight, and I'm sorry to say that Danny Murphy looks completely out of his depth already.  He continually dives into tackles and is apparently unable to pass the ball to a team mate standing 3 yards away from him.  Craigan also had a nightmare, with Jason Scotland running rings round him all night, while Martyn Corrigan is a shadow of the player he once was.

The midfield was completely non-existent, and quite why we've just awarded Steven McGarry a new two-year contract is beyond me as he is a 1st Division player at best.  Fitzpatrick has been awful for weeks now but is seemingly guaranteed a starting place, while if Paterson is going to get a game at all it should be at left-back.  It was very noticeable that St Johnstone's midfielders all seemed far quicker and livelier than ours, with Kerr and Paterson in particular so far off the pace at times it simply wasn't true.

Upfront, at least McDonald and McCormack looked interested but created very little.  Quite why McCormack was allowed to continue taking all the set-pieces I have no idea, as his free kicks in particular were embarrassing.

When you consider a semi-final place was up for grabs, this level of performance was simply unacceptable.  We've been playing poorly recently but scraping wins, however we were finally found out tonight to be the mediocre team we really are.  And although I can accept a lack of quality from the players, if there is no passion or commitment then it simply isn't good enough.

Maybe it's time for Malpas to chuck it.

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