crazylegsjoe_mfc

Long is one of those players who I hoped would maybe be reinvigorated under Alexander. Don't get me wrong, there's absolutely no excuse or justification for performing for one manager and not another (especially to the extent of his disinterest so far this season) but whilst we are paying his wage and he's probably going to find it even harder now to get a move than he did in the summer when he came back with his tail between his legs, we might as well get our money's worth as 2019/20 Long is certainly a player we could use about now. Either way, I'd cut all ties in the summer regardless of how he performs between now and then.

I agree that all those positions are ones we need to strengthen, but we also desperately need some creativity out wide. Hastie was the only player who didn’t get pass marks at all for me today. Ineffectual once again. We either need to play a formation that doesn’t have wingers or sign some good ones.

Almost sounded on the edge of being realistic until you suggested that Polworth could be arsed going to Peru.

Or turn up to manage a game when they've already been replaced. Quite the basket case is Rowan.

Mad to wonder where we would be if he hadn't set up Moult for the winner against Accies on the Saturday, then scored one and got two assists (I assume he must have won the free-kick Lionel scored) against Killie on the Wednesday. Disappointing he never built on that, but he made some contribution in those few months.

I get the impression that at the time of signing, Gallagher wanted the clause as much as we did. Between his age, personal life and the fact he'd only played one full season in the top flight before joining, he probably wanted extra security. He's essentially became a victim of his own international success and that's not Motherwell's fault. I understand that he has concerns about his euros place whilst playing alongside Mugabi, Lamie et al, but a good leader would drag them up, not sink to their level as he has. How he has gone about it in the press absolutely stinks though, right down to the "gun to his head" patter.

Who would you have given it to? We have a team pretty much bereft of leaders. Carson would've been the only other player I would have even considered for it.

That would be a very good move given the circumstances.

It's in the BBC gossip column today that Rolando Aarons is set to sign for Huddersfield, so looks like there's no chance of him returning on loan.

If Robinson had still being doing well with us and was enticed by a more attractive job and that was the reason for his departure, I would have been fine with Lasley getting the job to smooth things over, at least in the short term and keep the continuity up. However, with the reality of Robinson leaving after nine games without a win and a squad full of average at best players, I don't think it'll work for a few reasons: He's never been a manager before No reserve football means that his in club knowledge is far less likely to help us unearth a teenage gem or two to help get us out of this mess The fact he's spent most of his career at Motherwell makes me think he will lack both the contacts and knowledge of the players and leagues we may need to use for the transfer market If there were players (Long and Polworth for starters) who weren't firing for Robinson, I find it more unlikely that they'll suddenly step up to the plate for his number 2 His opinion on players will at least partially be influenced by Robinson's and therefore not have a fresh enough approach I know it's slim pickings to an extent, but his starting XI plus the subs of White for Cole and Maguire for Hastie makes me think he'll hardly do anything radical He seems too nice a guy to be the b*****d that is required just now I love Lasley and would have liked him to get an opportunity to manage us under different circumstances, but this one is just too big a job to give to a novice for me, especially one which is emotionally weighted.

Don’t get me wrong, no one is setting the heather on fire at the moment, but any role Cadden could come in and improve isn’t particularly a priority for me. A keeper, A centre back who is a leader, a centre mid who can do what Polworth currently isn’t, a creative forward and a b*****d of a penalty box striker are all ahead of any role Cadden could fill on my shopping list. I think with Hartley and Tait, not many people are debating whether they were “finished” or not. Both were on the decline last season. However, on evidence of this season, both on the decline are better than anything we’ve brought in since. Hartley would at least be a slight improvement on Lamie and Mugabi and would at least offer some short of leadership we are currently missing. I say this as someone who was never fully convinced by him after his permanent signing. Less shite is what we seem to be longing for. The McGinley thing is a big mystery to me too. But the fact that at now two different people have decided that Lamie and/or Mugabi is better than him rings alarm bells for me. Surely Morrison needs to play through the “not being Aaron Chapman” rule on Saturday, similar to when Russell Griffiths played through the “not being Craig Samson” rule.

I was doing the avoiding the score then watching BBC Alba thing today, but fortunately one of my mates messaged my girlfriend and told her to warn me off watching it. I’m forever in his debt, can’t believe I almost missed the wheel for that.

The point in part I was trying to make was that if we were sitting here on January 1st 2015 (incidentally the day we got royally pumped by Accies) we’d probably have been saying the same about not having players who could blow teams away. Maybe our January dealings will dictate if we are able to become a more creative team in the second half of the season. Mind you I think getting three bodies in with the quality of Johnson, McDonald and Pearson is pretty much an impossibility Totally agree with Gallagher, seems like the captaincy sits heavy on him the way it did with Carl McHugh. For all Peter Hartley had some shortcomings on the pitch (albeit he would walk into our team just now) and said/done the odd moronic thing (Imrie/Bowman breaking noses) he did appear like he was a decent captain. A lot of our problems are probably highlighted by the fact that we can identify Gallagher doesn’t seem to be a great captain, but there’s no real candidate to take over.

There's a lot of love for Ainsworth (myself included) but it's easy to forget that season he looked utterly disinterested for a large spell until that night he scored twice against Accies. Getting Johnson, Pearson and McDonald in after the turn of the year was pivotal to being able to click and hammer teams, especially as McDonald really brought out the best in Erwin, who went August - April without a goal. The first half of that season was turgid, I reckon if we had that March - May team all season, we would have been absolutely fine.

Interested to see how we line up for this one. I know we don’t have too much scope to ring the changes, but if it’s the kind of team Robinson would put out then that would rule Lasley out of the job for me. Maybe he will have his own ideas and I’m not giving him enough credit.

There were lots of highlights in McCall’s time but that spell from the victory against Celtic where Faddy won a hunner heifers until the end of the season was just pure joy!

I think there's a lot in that to be honest. With attitude problems in the squad as he has hinted at numerous times, he would have had to use the transfer window to try and put the current fire out, whilst preparing for six games in the month, rather than sunning it in Tenerife before facing another new fire in the summer. There's only so many rebuild jobs on small budgets he'd have the energy to navigate. Most of our previous managers have had continuity in the squad, a healthy budget or both. For me, Robinson has had neither and you have to factor that in when judging how good a job he done. I think it was time for him to go, but as I said last night, he seemed very conscientious, a nice guy and achieved a lot for the club, so he'll leave with my best wishes.

I feel like I'm more towards "Robinson out" now, which is sad because I think he comes across as a nice guy and a conscientious worker, but one win in nine, six wins in thirty league games, however you want to frame it, is taking its toll. It's clearly not working. The amount of times he's dug his players up interviews now for attitude or application tells me something that players aren't playing for him. Long, Hastie and Polworth we already know have had incidents over the course of the season, who knows who else has. He looks like a man out of ideas. Much like McCall was after that Friday night game away to St. Johnstone in 2014. However, as much as I think a freshen up might be required and soon, I also realise that the fact the window is about to open and we have games right through it, rather than a winter break, is going to make it very difficult for any prospective new managers to get bodies in and out. As far as I'm concerned with the transfer window in terms of players, as long as we keep Gallagher, Campbell (although neither has been anywhere near their best of late), Watt and Carson, if any other player were to leave, I doubt I'd lose much sleep over it.

This might sound weird or masochistic, but I actually felt quite pleased with us at the end of the game yesterday. It was a strange feeling again to actually feel aggrieved by the outcome of the match. Most weeks I’ve felt we’ve deserved everything we got, but the fact that we had chances and got into goalscoring positions was a step in the right direction for me. I was, like many others, baffled by the substitutions. I imagine Cornelius will be a good player for us in time, but his first appearance in 18 months shouldn’t have come with the game in the balance. Once we find a partner for Watt there might be something in this 3-5-2. I’m not sure Archer did a lot wrong but for some reason I just felt so much more comfortable with Trev back in yesterday.

At least tonight stopped the rot of defeats. Other than Main hitting the bar, I don’t think we looked that bothered at any point at the back which was frustrating. The 5-3-2 certainly helped us defensively but killed our creativity. No issue with Grimmy’s performance tonight but when he’s your entire left hand side it isn’t great. In those circumstances, you need your centre mids to be creative and Polworth was absolutely rotten tonight. Have questioned him being on the bench the past couple of games but that tells us why. His once great delivery has been absolutely pathetic of late. Also, O’Hara is 100% a centre half and not a midfielder.

I know he had a relatively product evening against Glentoran with a goal and being involved in the build up to another two, but domestically, other than the goal Lewis put on a plate, I can’t actually remember him doing anything of note domestically this season. Like, I’m genuinely struggling to think of him playing a good pass, beating his man, even getting into a good position. I know I’ve made my #numberpolis feelings clear in the past, but the number 99 thing does really annoy me as well. If you’ve thought you’d get a better move to the point that your number has been given away by the time you sign your deal, just take the next number in the 20s or 30s and get on with it. I did like Long last season, but I’d more than happily see the back of him when the window opens.

He's going to play in India, with Robbie Fowler's East Bengal, I think the article said.

That’s my thoughts behind it. Lang has done enough to stay in our XI for now in my opinion, but that in itself for a team averaging 1 goal a game, isn’t a great accolade on its own. Something needs to freshen up and it might be that it’s out of Robinson’s hands how that can freshen up. If there isn’t that much between a bunch of misfiring forwards then it’s probably logical that the pick of them is the one who another team might want.

I wouldn’t be distraught to see Lang go. Would prefer us to get Long, White, Seedorf or Hastie off the books first, but he’s not got enough about him for me to want to keep him desperately.

I guess most years we've been fortunate that we've either had a goalscorer, or a good few players in the squad contributing. We've just not got neither this season, although at least Lang's goal on Saturday can stop me bleating on about our top scorer being on 3 goals with 2 pens. I think the market for a "number 9" has changed quite a fair bit in recent years. It's madness to think that we signed Higdon and Sutton (the 2nd time) on bosmans from clubs in the same division. I think Higdon scored 15 league goals for St. Mirren in his last season there. There's almost no chance now that a 15-goal striker in our league (regardless of build/reputation etc) would end up at Motherwell the following season. We've not signed an out-and-out goalscorer since Moult left and to be honest, I'm not flush with examples of strikers with a proven track record that I think we should have signed, so for that I sympathise with Robinson. He probably feels that there's no one option to hang his hat on, so he's tried to get several in with potential, in hope that among them one or two will come good. I think by this point last season, Cole and Long were on four goals apiece, which was decent enough, given that Donnelly had five and Scott and Campbell were contributing regularly enough too. Perhaps those two were our best shot at regular goals this season, but both's seasons seem somewhat dented by the fact they've never got match fit, due to think the grass was greener.