As the famous and rather silly quote claims, 'football is a silly game'. We are currently in great form with wins over Kilmarnock, St Mirren and Aberdeen (to nil, no less) and a goalless draw at Falkirk behind us in recent weeks while Hamilton have been on a miserable slide to the bottom of the table. Our squad is almost at full strength, they are missing arguably three of their four best players. We have just signed a player going to the World Cup, they have added Dougie Imrie. Hard-hearted gamblers all over the country will be marking this game with a big 'one' on their coupon, yet Motherwell fans would not be at all surprised if Hamilton walked away with the spoils.
Valentine's Day 2009
Perhaps there is a fatalism which comes from supporting a provincial team which suggests that no matter how good things may seem they are only getting ever closer to a reverse and the natural order being restored. That natural order undoubtedly contains misery, disappointment and mediocre derby defeats at home to Hamilton.
Accies will be well and truly up for this game and we will need to match them. McLaughlin (suspension), Neil and Antoine-Curier (injuries) being missing seems like a blow but then their presence hasn't done much for them lately. A change which would only be made when enforced may do them good.
We will surely retain the same side which hammered Aberdeen which means bad luck for Forbes, who will miss out on the bench, and also for Giles Coke who is back for one game before resuming his ban. Fitzpatrick managed a fine ninety minutes in Aberdeen and his reward could be a second successive start.
There is no reason to suppose we cannot win this game and given we are the only show in town in terms of the SPL, the league would look a lot better with three more points to our name - we'd be comfortably in the top six and close enough to United to give them cause for concern. Let's hope we're not let down just yet and are allowed to dream of Braga, Enschede and Nancy (the usual locations which spring to mind for European football remain out of reach in the Champions League) for a little longer thanks to a narrow 2-1 win.