capt_oats

That's him played 4 at RB we've won 4. 3 clean sheets and 1 goal conceded. SOD 9 games at RB won 1. 0 clean sheets and 14 conceded while he's been on the park.

Statements that precede unfortunate events.

Aye, even then it's interesting as this is pretty much the first time he's publicly indicated it's an issue to fix. To be objective about it, he's not wrong in the sense that we've consistently scored goals while he's been manager and this season specifically we've scored a bunch of genuinely well worked goals. but it's interesting that it's taken getting scudded by Rangers for him to highlight the defensive issues considering we'd conceded 2 in each of the 4 games before Sunday's shitshow yet made next to no changes. Who knows, I've not seen the press conference, maybe it's the first time he's been specifically asked about it. Anyway here's big #Pete6 talking about KVV and Liam Donnelly.

I mean, acknowledging that our defending has been a problem is a start I guess.

Interesting to see Ross get a gig. It's pretty difficult to judge his time at Motherwell tbh as Craigan had left after a cycle that saw players like Turnbull, Campbell, Scott and Hastie break into the first team (and make us a lot of money). He was asked to come in and fill some pretty big (and successful) shoes given Craigan had won the Youth Cup and we'd seen a lot of those players at least make first team debuts. As it stands only 3 of the group Ross was working with are still at the club although the pandemic reduced the opportunity for a lot of those players to develop to pretty much zero. He came in at the start of a new cycle of academy players but the Reserve league was an absolute shitshow and then with Covid happening his Academy role effectively became redundant so he was drafted in to working as a first team coach. He definitely talked a good game and initially came across well in the in depth interview he did with the MFC Podcast: https://www.mfc1886.com/tag/maurice-ross/ I don't know if it was just the case that when he was just in the door he kept himself to himself but the longer he was at the club he started getting a platform on Sportsound and the like which led to him opening his mouth in public. Robinson ended up having to apologise for comments Ross made about Celtic (link) and he also managed to put St Mirren's nose out of joint too (link). As others have mentioned his whole racism controversy showed him up badly, there's really no getting away from that. He's also very staunch, annoyingly so tbh... There's an Open Goal interview he did with Si Ferry here:

What a time.

The bold Mo Ross gets the Cowdenbeath job.

I think Watt could probably have legitimately felt hard done by if Clarke had overlooked him and called someone else up, (Brophy for example) but as far as I can see he hasn't done that. He's been in great form and is 100% worth being in the conversation but it's the same centre forwards as he had in the squad the last time; Adams, Dykes and Nisbet. As you say, that's just how Clarke works.

Surprised that anyone would need to ask tbqh.

For avoidance of doubt, given my posts earlier could be read with a slight anti-SOD snark, I'm also of the opinion that if O'Donnell plays he'll be absolutely fine for Scotland.

88/89 - Not that we were any good or that (we finished 9th) but it's the season I started going to the fitba regularly. My first Motherwell game was 1986 but up until this season I'd only been sporadically. 89/90 - Finished 6th this season but we signed Davie Cooper and he was my first genuine football hero. 90/91 - Finished 6th but won the Scottish Cup. So that was nice. 93/94 - Like @Desp's post earlier it was just a phenomenal side. Finished 3rd. In a genuine title conversation around Easter. To this day still the best Motherwell side I've ever seen. 94/95 - As above, finished 2nd but the wheels came off after it. Tbh it's difficult to think of a "favourite" season since then. So I'll stick with those 5. I stopped going to games as regularly through the 00s on account of uni, having a job and general life stuff. In the 10s I never really liked McCall as a manager albeit we had a good team and for all I post about Motherwell on here these days I'd be lying if I was to claim that I felt anywhere near the same sort of connection as I did when I was a wee guy. I'm sure the fact that I was as a pre/early-teen makes it feel more significant as they were formative years but there's also something about a pre-internet, pre-"modern fitba'" era that gives things a bit more weight. Tbh, thinking about the seasons I've mentioned only reinforces the extent to which I can take or leave going to games these days.

Tbh, while I don't disagree, finding out we've only won 1 of 9 league games with SOD starting but won 3 of 3 with Bevis at RB sent me for a walk.

It's not a massive surprise to see Kelly drop out, whatever way you slice it being the goalkeeper of a team who have conceded 6 at the weekend and 14 in the past 5 games is a tough beat that isn't going to get you many call ups. 3rd choice goalkeeper isn't a role I imagine Clarke is going to spend hours agonising over who to pick either. Maybe everyone involved can go and sit in a corner and think about what they've done. I think it's clear that SOD is Clarke's absolute boy and fair enough he trusts him implicitly so it'd have been more of a surprise if he hadn't been in there. Whether his form justifies him being there is a different question.

I agree. With Donnelly you at least have a body of work to reference. I know there's a certain scepticism towards him because of his first season with us and the whole "he's not a natural midfielder, he's a defender who wants to play in midfield" angle but as I say, as recently as September he was called back up to the international squad...as a midfielder. I think the point I was getting at was specifically that I'm not necessarily thinking of Donnelly as a "fix" to the midfield it's more that he's conspicuous by his absence given his 19/20 season and the fact that he was featuring earlier in the season. It'd be tough to imagine us Lawless-ing a NI international. He pops up in the 2nd slide of the IG post on October 21st before the United game. So that's something I guess...

Aye, I'd been wondering about Donnelly as well. Not necessarily because I think he's the "answer" to anything but generally speaking we're not usually in a position to just spuriously bin off a midfielder who gets international call ups for Northern Ireland. Looking at his season so far he made appearances in 4 of the 5 LC games, played the 90 against Hibs, started against St Johnstone then dropped out for the next 3, went away with NI where was on the bench against Lithuania and played 63 mins against Estonia but then disappeared entirely for their next game. Since then he's made 2 appearances off the bench for us; 1 minute against Rangers at Ibrox and the 27 mins against County. As @crazylegsjoe_mfc says since the County game of the last 5 he's only made the bench as an unused sub against Celtic. I get the impression that Alexander isn't always entirely straight when he's talking about injuries/squad health to the press though. He mentioned the other week that being "available" didn't necessarily mean they were fit to play. I'll admit that while it's a pedant's point, I get what he's saying. Given the stop-start nature of his season so far it wouldn't be a massive surprise if Donnelly wasn't "injured" as such but also wasn't "match fit". I mean, with the Reserve league having been patched I take it we're playing bounce games that no one other than the extreme ITK-ers ever hears about.

Fucking hell.

The squad feels like it's been put together with a 433 in mind but for all the reasons everyone has outlined it's not working. Equally I'm not really sure that changing formation makes much of a difference, what matters is what the players are being instructed to do within that system. That said, it feels mental that we're in a position where we've got Watt sitting on 7 goals in 12 games but we're also having to marginalise Van Veen's impact by either shoving him out wide or benching him completely. To that point, while we don't have an obvious #10 in the squad until the wee man from Ireland turns up, does a diamond fix things? It was an occasional alternative for Robinson (the 2-0 game up at Pittodrie being the obvious one). It doesn't necessitate wingers and it gets Watt and Van Veen on the park playing centrally. Just let O'Hara cut about like an enthusiastic puppy chasing a tennis ball in the advanced MF role with 3 'sitters' behind him. Slattery +2 basically.

To take this a little further, while I'm not really one for pile-ons and it's a pretty small sample size it's hard not to notice that the only 2 clean sheets we've kept in the league this season (Dundee, Aberdeen) coincide with Bevis playing right back in place of SOD. In fact the 3 games we won on the bounce had Bev at right back. 3 games played with him at RB and only 1 goal conceded (Carroll started at LB in 2 of them anaw - albeit he didn't finish the 2nd one).

Ironically, I think it's been this run of games where we *have* been playing a "settled" defence. I posted this in the St Mirren match thread last week. Rangers was obviously a change with Johansen coming in for Ojala but aye...I kind of wondered if it was part of the reason for sticking with McGinley in so much as we won 2 and drew at Ibrox after Carroll's red card and we've been trying to make a settled thing happen.

Aye, I'm very much *quiet voice*-ing here but surprising as it seems given he's never exactly won the majority of the fanbase over this is pretty much the first run of poor form Alexander has had since he got the job. He's clearly had a handful of poor results but most of those you could probably mitigate on account of injuries (St Johnstone) or not having the squad in place (Airdrie). Looking at it, until the past few games his only B2B defeats were the Accies and St Johnstone games last season: To that point it's probably not that much of a surprise that he's stuck to things tactically as he has. The question I'd have (and it was also true of Robinson when he hit a wall) is whether or not Alexander is equipped to identify and fix the issues. We definitely have a squad that is better than it's been showing and we have goals in it (Tony Watt is literally top scorer in the league at the moment). It's the fact that over the last 5 games we seem to have gone off a cliff defensively that's grinding my gears.

I mean, literally no one claims for it, we played on and it's a stretch to even vaguely suggest that it's a "turning point" or whatever but it'd have been an opportunity to go 2-0 up and the ball definitely looks like it changes direction off yer man's arm. Puts it squarely in the bracket of "would've been given at the other end" based on previous showings.

That's the one I thought he was talking about. Given Celtic Twitter managed to fabricate a Van Veen handball immediately before Bolingoli's blatant one (because they don't understand how perspective works) and Rangers Twitter's mewling about Mugabi handling the ball in the 1-1 at Ibrox not to mention the one they did get at Fir Park last season I'd say this is pretty stonewall.

Don't get me wrong there's plenty of blame to spread around with that goal. It just kind of felt like he committed then second guessed himself (probably after conceding the penalty against Hearts) so checked out about 6 yards away from Brophy and kind of left himself in no mans land. If you've come out that far just keep going (without launching yourself at his feet obvs).