Before yesterdays game Brewster had won six, lost six and drawn one of his games in charge since he returned. Of the six losses, two came against Aberdeen, two against the Old Firm and one away to Hibs. All these sides have far bigger budgets and, if we're being honest, better squads. In an ideal world we can take points from these games but the idea we should sack our manager for losing these matches is not a credible one. The Motherwell result and performance was obviously very, very poor.
The six games he lead us to victory in were against: Gretna (twice), Hearts, Falkirk, St Mirren and Arbroath. We also drew with Killie meaning that of the teams around us in the league Brewster has an undefeated record. If we accept we are in a struggle to stay up then these are the games we have to take points from and he is doing that.
The main problem faced by Brewster when he came back was that our solid defence - the base of much of our success in the SPL since 2004 - had lost a central cog in Darren Dods. He has not been replaced. Brewster had a very short window within which to work but brought in Phil McGuire, who was again praised today. McGuire has played practically every minute of every game we have won. When he was injured our form suffered, just compare how many goals we concede without him to how many we let in when he's playing. Hopefully Brewster can keep Phil at the club after December. He also brought in Proctor who I think will be a valuable squad player, especially considering Rosscoe's poor form.
I don't agre with releasing Rankin and I hope he stays. I really hope that Ian Black stays, he is a vital part of our teams future. Perhaps though a short sharp shock is what he needs. Last season he displayed severe petulence on several occasions. Lets hope that he and Brewster have buried the hatchet and that he can get on with his game. I'm also interested into how Brewster can use Markus Paatelinan, he seems like he could be a Brewster player.
Perhaps I'm just in a happy place due to todays result (a fantastic result against a side who had the best home record outside Celtic in the SPL until today) but I'm confident things can improve.