capt_oats

Honestly, it's not even funny. You'd only lost 3 of the previous 14 before he made his debut. Played 6 W 0 D 1 L 5 We'd only lost 2 of our previous 8 before he made his first league start. As of now he's started 4 we've lost 3 and drawn 1.

Yeah, I get all that. I should have qualified it by saying "mistakes we weren't making previously". For reasons that aren't exactly clear we seem to have started making really dumb decisions defensively. Kelly coming flying out his goal at Tynecastle to needlessly concede the penalty and again the other night against St Mirren for Brophy's first goal being examples.

I've no real interest in a navel gazing post-mortem about today because...tbh, what's the fucking point? To speak broadly though we've had a good start to the season, that's undeniable and remains the case regardless of the 1-6 today. Like most I'd have taken sitting 6th on 15 points after the first round of fixtures so I'm not about to pretend otherwise and getting on the revisionist bandwagon is for the birds. We picked up points because we were clinical with our finishing, created good chances and for the most part were comfortable keeping teams at arms length. It was true when we were all posting about it in August and September and it's true now. That's fine. The flip of that is that if you accept that we were worth our points up until Alexander won MoTM (and we were worth the points) the recent run is something that can't really just be swept under the carpet. In the first 7 games we'd conceded 7 goals, in the last 5 we've conceded 14 (FOURTEEN). I'm no fitba' genius but that would suggest an issue somewhere. Pointing to underlying numbers kind of misses the point in that, as @crazylegsjoe_mfc pointed out the other day, for the most part the goals we've started coughing up have fundamentally been mistakes. Kelly inexplicably conceding a penalty with 3 mins gone at Tynecastle, O'Donnell ball watching against Celtic and United, McGinley getting caught on the ball and handling for the free kick that led to United's 2nd, Brophy's first the other night....there are plenty to choose from. It's a coulda, woulda situation but even on Wednesday night regardless of "style" or whatever we got ourselves in a position to win the game. We're 2-0 up with 53 mins played. Sure, Bobby Madden cost us the win (I 100% believe this and won't be swayed otherwise) but even that in itself is a "look at the shiny things" distraction - we still conceded 2 goals where it feels like we probably wouldn't have a month and a half ago. We've not won a game with Goss starting. I'm not saying it's all Sean Goss's fault but it's a fairly obvious question to ask in terms of "what was different in the first 7 games vs the most recent 5". There are probably some pretty inconvenient truths in the answers. Either way, it needs fixed. So get it done Grezza.

3-1 at Ibrox under Robinson. The 5-5-0 game.

Yeah, I looked at Rule 14 and weirdly there's no mention of goalkeepers not being allowed to move. What it does say is:

Yeah, I'd agree with you if it was just one image (actual lies, I wouldn't) and it's really a fucking tedious discussion that doesn't change anything but with the first image the ball has been struck, the 2nd his right foot is on the line. There will be a fraction of a second between the two images and the position of his right foot has barely changed (it's flat on the ground in both).

He's not off his line. There are clear images that his right foot is planted on the line when the ball is struck. It's not even something that's "open to interpretation". Madden and his assistant completely fucked it.

In fairness to Alexander in terms of the "things conspired against us" patter his post-match on the club YouTube highlighted that we "weren't good enough" and were fortunate to be going in level at half time. It was very much the opposite of his "we were the better team" chat after the United game. You can litigate the rights and wrongs of either position he's taken but I didn't listen to his interview last night and get the impression he was happy with how we played albeit he seemed chuffed we came out in the 2nd half and went 2-0 up. Equally, the penalty stuff feels like a separate discussion as it's had a direct impact on how things panned out. He's every right to be absolutely fucking seething about the penalty a) being awarded and b) having to be re-taken as the award itself is dubious at best and the re-take is not only a fucking nonsense it's demonstrably wrong. No matter which way you slice it, it's a decision that has had a material impact on the result. It's weird. In the opening run of games up to the point Alexander got manager of the month it felt like we had an idea of what we were. Perhaps not particularly aesthetically pleasing but working towards an identity where we were efficient offensively and defensively. The run of games since then feels like trying to get to grips with the squad and it's all become a bit of a mess in doing so. Tbh, if you'd have offered me a point before the game I'd probably have taken it just to stop the rot but over the piece with the way it went down it just feels like a massive kick in the nuts.

100% it's the one circumstance where a freeze framed still image is actually relevant. His foot's on the line when the penalty is taken and the re-take is a fucking nonsense. It's just a wrong call.

Say what you like about Alexander's style (and there's a lot to litigate there) that's Tony Tony Watt now top scorer in the league with 7 in 11 and a shot accuracy of 79%. He's averaging a goal every 129 mins and has now been responsible for 50% of our 14 goals. The fact that he also turned Decanter into a 1 in 2 striker when he came in last season suggests that through some witchcraft Alexander's actually quite good at getting goals out of our centre forwards. Noting that neither Cole nor Watt were previously known for being particularly prolific goalscorers makes it quite the coincidence that the purple patches we've seen from both has coincided with them having Alexander as their manager. Generally though, if we could get back to not doing really dumb stuff defensively and making really weird decisions that would be lovely.

Aye, I know some of the Saintees have a weird beef with Tony Watt for whatever reason but the fact is he's signed 3 contracts with us prior to this, was our PoTY last year and has consistently been a very good player for us. Assuming he sees out his deal with us he'll have been with us for 2.5 years at a point where he should be hitting his peak years, that's unusual in itself as we normally get them on their ascent or as they're winding down. As @YassinMoutaouakil says, it's a weird quirk that's meant he's landed in our lap when he has. I'm pretty sure he did a podcast (actually, it may have been OTB) last year where he discussed his original short term deal with the club where the negotiation was him basically saying to Burrows/Robinson "I'll sign the deal, just pay me what you can afford" and was done a day after he'd been in the door on trial. You can't argue with the graft he's put in in terms of strength and conditioning under Robinson/Alexander either. I don't think you'd find many Motherwell fans who'd particularly have a problem with his position on his contract now tbh. He's been very good for the club and the club have been very good for him. If that means he's done enough to have clubs willing to chuck some money at him then absolutely fair fucks.

I suppose it just depends how you choose to look at it. "Hoping" the other side don't take their chances implies that it's mostly luck, which I'm not sure it is. If we're set up in such a way that we're making the opposition take lower quality shots then that's more down to actually being quite efficient/effective defensively. I can't remember whether it was on here or over on Steelmen where one of the resident Robinson h8rs was putting forward the argument that the only reason we weren't in a relegation scrap was because opposition strikers were shite. To me at least, this isn't that. Of the 13 goals we've conceded 2 have been penalties, 1 a direct free kick, 1 an O.G, 1 a cross and 1 was blatantly offside. Turnbull's 25 yard ping was entirely predictable but it was by no means a high percentage opportunity we'd coughed up. I get that for a lot of folk ceding possession feels counter-intuitive and it also probably underpins why a lot of folk seem to be getting bent out of shape in the "we're not playing well" stakes but there's definitely a difference between consciously letting the opposition have the ball and defending it and being "under pressure".

I don't think we've been particularly outstanding in any of the games we've won. We rely on our opponents not being able to take the chances we try to limit them to. If we'd lost any of those games we'd probably have been saying it was pish. Is that not true of any team though? Like, it's how the game works? We rely on our opponents not taking the chances they're able to create and us taking the chances we create?

What with Wednesday being the end of the first round of fixtures it's kind of got me wondering how it's gone. On the face of it so far we've won 4, drawn 2 and lost 4. Of the 4 losses 2 have been at home (Hibs, Celtic) and 2 away (Hearts, United). Would I have expected us to win any of those 4? Probably not. Hibs (h): 2-3 (L) - 1 St Johnstone (a): 1 - 1 (X) - 1 Livingston (a): 1-2 (W) - 1 Dundee (h): 1 - 0 (W) - 3 Aberdeen (h): 2 - 0 (W) - 1 Rangers (a): 1 - 1 (X) - 0 Ross County (h): 2 - 1 (W) - 3 Hearts (a): 2 - 0 (L) - 1 Celtic (h): 0 - 2 (L) - 0 United (a): 2 -1 (L) - 1 I've tacked on the points I'd have predicted us getting given previous results, venue and general historic form and in terms of expectation vs reality we're probably a couple of points ahead of where I'd have expected us to be that's before you even factor in the turnover of players during the summer. We're averaging 1.4 ppg and are currently double digits clear of the relegation spot. All things told if you'd offered us that after the Airdrie game I think we'd probably have taken it. Looking at the way the fixtures have fallen I'd always have said that this run was likely to be tougher than the start we had. Albeit we never usually play particularly well in Perth or at Almondvale. I suppose there's a different strand of the multiverse where we'd have been looking at 1 win from our opening 6. I've noticed that there seem to have been a number of the happy clapping types clutching their pearls about Alexander (as opposed to the usual suspects who seem to be absolutely furious regardless of whether win or lose) and it feels like their noses are being put out of joint because their definition of "playing well" isn't the same as his. @crazylegsjoe_mfc kind of hinted at it a couple of posts above when he said that bar the 2 goals on Saturday Kelly wasn't really troubled whereas Siegrist was making some decent saves. I don't know because I don't know the guy but I get the feeling that when Alexander's talking about the game that's what he's leaning into and whether or not the players are carrying out his instructions rather than playing neat passing patterns. Tbh, I don't think he gives a f**k what the "welcome to our great wee club" reply guys think either. And fair fucks to him for that. It's the sort of situation where folk were getting bent out of shape because we only had 25% of possession against Aberdeen, it didn't matter that we won 2-0 (and were pretty comfortable). That's not to say there aren't things that need fixing, there clearly are and equally I'm not entirely sure having the full squad available that Alexander has been talking up is necessarily helping him at the moment. It's almost as if he has too much choice at the moment.

There's an irony that up until recently we were chopping and changing the back 4 but still picking up results but that's us lost 3 on the bounce and shipped 6 goals with a "settled" back 4. That's the same number we conceded in the opening 7 games. Hibs (2-3) - SOD, Mugabi, Lamie, Carroll St Johnstone (1-1) - SOD, Mugabi, Lamie, Carroll Livi (1-2) - Mugabi, Ojala, Lamie, Carroll Dundee (1-0) - Mugabi, Ojala, Lamie, Carroll Aberdeen (2-0) - Mugabi, Johansen, Ojala, McGinley Rangers (1-1) - SOD, Mugabi, Ojala, McGinley County (2-1) - SOD, Ojala, Lamie, McGinley. The last 3 have been SOD, Mugabi, Ojala, McGinley and we've only scored 1 goal. Compared to us having scored in every game up til then and Carroll still sitting on 3 league assists for the season (Ramsay and Tavernier are top with 4).

Oh....

Oh aye? To link back to the "Brand Perception survey" this idea of who/what influences us, how we view ourselves as a club and the fact that we're out there engaging about this specific sort of stuff is interesting to me.

I see the club have a "Brand perception survey" on the go. Looking at the questions it's...interesting.

That's right, I forgot about that. I just assumed it was until the end of the season. Edited my post to correct.

To re-up that point, by my count this is the contract situation: January 22 - Parker, Roberts (loan expires) Summer 22 - Fox, Morrison, Lamie, Mugabi, O'Connor, McGinley, Grimshaw, Maguire, O'Hara, Crawford, Donnelly, Amaluzor, Watt Summer 23 - O'Donnell, Carroll, Ojala, Johnston, Devine, Cornelius, Goss, Van Veen, Summer 24 - Kelly, Johansen, Slattery, Woolery, Shields So on day 1 next season we've 13 players signed up which gives us starting XI of: Kelly O'Donnell, Johansen, Ojala, Carroll Cornelius, Slattery, Goss Woolery, KVV, Shields Plus Johnston & Devine. If we're working on getting Tierney in then you'd hope that we're also speaking to a handful of the Summer 22 expiries that we'd be keen to keep around as well. As it stands unless things go massively sideways or other clubs start pitching up with bags of cash it looks like next summer will be less of a turnover than we've become used to. Which, in fairness, is what both Alexander and Burrows have said is what we've been aiming for as the churn we've seen with Robinson's squads was increasingly unsustainable. By my count we signed 55 players in 3.5 seasons (4 summer windows) under Robinson.

That's interesting as it's been mentioned before Alexander's apparent 'go to' Plan B has been a 4231. It's a longstanding discussion on here that while we've addressed the defence and forward areas from last season our midfield's still not quite right. The chat was that we were after another midfielder in the last window but Robbie Gotts ended up at Barrow on deadline day. It'd be interesting if Tierney was a similar profile of player to Gotts as it'd suggest that we'd been targeting a specific role. On the face of it it'd leave us quite heavy on numbers in midfield but I suppose Parker's deal is only until January while O'Hara, Donnelly, Grimshaw and Crawford's are up in the summer. From the RTE piece: It's fair to say that's something that we don't really have in our midfield options at the moment?

The Irish Tam Muller.

The amusing part of it is that she was firing these tweets off 10 minutes after the final whistle of games we won. Polworth "opened up" about his time under Alexander and basically it turns out he ended up being told to f**k off and go and train with the weans. There's not a lot of self awareness in his wee chat with the P&J. This was after he had turned down a new contract, was part of an XI that was literally bottom of the league, had a shitfit and got himself sent off against Aberdeen then phoned in one of the most abject performances you've seen against St Johnstone... "a few other things happened"...no fucking shit Liam. After the Aberdeen game we played 17 games without him in the team and only lost 4.