Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Right, outside, now.

[BigTamMuller]

Bring Baraclough back as his assistant for a laugh? If he's done enough to impress the board to get the job permanently then I'm fine with that, glad we've got a bit of stability going forward though.

[Radford]

What's that slithering in the grass?

Oh, it's Stephen Robinson...

[thisGRAEME]

6 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

 

 

 

 

[MikeyWellFan]

Underwhelming and cheap.

That's Motherwell FC in a nutshell.

[Gianfranco]

We need more winter animals in our gifs

[Gianfranco]

Has he released a statement confirming Motherwell as the best club in Scotland yet?

[Swello]

Genuinely not up or down with this appointment - it's a wait and see job. He'll obviously have no scope to change the squad, so it's all about getting more out of the existing bunch to keep us up. I'll take shit-festing it to 10th place right now...

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

Completely uninspiring appointment. 

This is a Tommy Craig style appointment, just find the easiest option. If this was based on merit Robinson would be nowhere near the job having just been emptied by Oldham after 6 months. And that was his first top job.

[Ya Bezzer!]

For me Stephen Robinson absolutely reeks of failure.

Imagine Maurice Malpas had been appointed manager again?  Well Malpas at his worst was still better than Robinson's record at Motherwell.  We were 3rd bottom instead of 2nd bottom.  Robinson's time at Oldham was also a complete and utter disaster.

Has done nothing to deserve being given the job over the last two matches either.  We only got the win against Kilmarnock because Boyd missed a penalty and our performance level over the match wasn't anything special, in fact it was fairly typical.  Then we shite fest a defeat up at Aberdeen.

Having said that what is best for the team is best for me too.  It's the results I care more about than the personalities.  So if Robinson can get a win on Saturday he'll make a start  on getting me on board but I have to say I am fairly unconvinced at this point.

I'm trying not to think too much about the nightmare scenario of Robinson bringing in Lee Erwin to replace the departing Scott McDonald.

 

[YassinMoutaouakil]

This is the outcome I've expected from the start and one that I'm reasonably happy with. Wasn't at Killie or Aberdeen but it sounds like Robinson's tactics contributed to a good result at Killie and an much better performance than we've came to expect at Pittodrie. All in all, I reckon he's got enough about him to grind out survival, though question marks remain about his ability to carry out a summer rebuild.

 

[Dudu Dahan pal]

What chance is there of Motherwell going down this season? Genuinely not seen much of them this season on tv

[capt_oats]

[YassinMoutaouakil]

What chance is there of Motherwell going down this season? Genuinely not seen much of them this season on tv

Hard to say now tbh. By and large our squad should probably be comfortable lower midtable, despite a few glaring weaknesses at centre mid mid, left back and in goals. Either the team just haven't clicked this season under McGhee for whatever reason or simply aren't as good footballers as we thought. I reckon we'll stay up but it's pretty up in the air until Robinson gets a few more games under his belt and we get a clearer picture.

[thisGRAEME]

20 minutes ago, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

Completely uninspiring appointment. 

This is a Tommy Craig style appointment, just find the easiest option. If this was based on merit Robinson would be nowhere near the job having just been emptied by Oldham after 6 months. And that was his first top job.

Or alternatively, he did enough in his year here to show the club that they think he's good enough.

I dunno, much like Swello, I'm neither up nor down. There's no outstanding candidate here, and there are risks with either sticking or twisting. I didn't want Hughes, I think Simo is a big risk in our situation just now. As has been highlighted, Robinson has a bit of a failure whiff about him from Baraclough and Oldham.

I dunno, honestly, I'm not even sure I'm arsed. The players had chucked it under McGhee, as they had under McCall, as they had under Gannon, as they had under Baraclough as well. We're stuck in the same pattern of rinse and repeat, except we've got the same collection of problems every time. 

Long been a defender of Lasley, Hammell etc., but there has to be a big fucking broom taken through the club in the summer, regardless of what happens. I've lost count of how many times I've heard the "we're going to have to look at ourselves" from a Motherwell captain.

If Robinson can keep us up, then fair fucks to him. The players looked distinctly more arsed about it in Kilmarnock and Aberdeen, so if we can do that again on Saturday, and another couple til the end then fine, but I'm fairly confident it isn't going to solve anything longer term.

[Ya Bezzer!]

9 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Either the team just haven't clicked this season under McGhee for whatever reason or simply aren't as good footballers as we thought.

I'd love to see pass completion stats on the Premiership because I think we are absolutely woeful at keeping possession.  Our passing is uniformly awful.  I don't seem many teams that have poorer basic technique than our players and I'd even include our better players in that like McDonald and Cadden.

Also doesn't help that 90% of the guys in the squad couldn't hit the proverbial coo's arse.  Do you watch our shooting practice?

[capt_oats]

4 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Hard to say now tbh. By and large our squad should probably be comfortable lower midtable, despite a few glaring weaknesses at centre mid mid, left back and in goals. Either the team just haven't clicked this season under McGhee for whatever reason or simply aren't as good footballers as we thought. I reckon we'll stay up but it's pretty up in the air until Robinson gets a few more games under his belt and we get a clearer picture.

Pretty much. Our record against the sides around us isn't that bad (Dundee aside) and the run of games since the break has been; Rangers (h), Ross County (a), Hearts (h) Aberdeen (a), Celtic (a), Dundee (h), Kilmarnock (a), Aberdeen (a). So 5 of the 8 have been against the top 4 sides, of the 3 against those in the bottom half we've won 2 and imploded spectacularly against Dundee by which point it seemed like the players had all but chucked it under McGhee.

Of the sides outside the top 4 our form is:

St Johnstone: L X (1 pt)

Partick Thistle: X W (4 pts)

Kilmarnock: W X W (7 pts)

Dundee: X L L (1 pt)

Ross County: X W W (7 pts)

Accies: W X (4 pts)

ICT: L W (3 pts)

So P: 17 W: 7 D: 6 L: 4. We're sat on 27 points just now so really looking at picking up another 4 or 5 wins between now and the end of the season to be safe, assuming neither Accies or ICT go on some mental run of form. It's difficult to say for certain but based on form against those around us so far you'd hope that we'd have enough about us to do that.

Essentially the Robinson appointment reflects where we are, we're sitting 10th, 3 points off the play-off spot having just sacked our manager after getting scudded 5-1 at home by a Dundee side who didn't even have to break sweat in one of the most comically inept defensive performances I've ever seen. I'm genuinely not sure what makes folk think that we'd be an attractive proposition for an "exciting" appointment tbqhwy. If we were sitting comfortably 6th then McGhee would (in all likelihood) still be here and we'd see things out until the end of the season where, presumably, an option like Valakari may have been a bit more palatable but we're not.

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

19 minutes ago, Hibeesbounce75 said:

What chance is there of Motherwell going down this season? Genuinely not seen much of them this season on tv

Pretty decent.

Our defence and goalkeeper is an absolute shambles most of the time. No goals from midfield either. It is grim.

[Swello]

Basically, our realistic ambition for the next couple of months is to be marginally less shite than Accies and ICT - I think we're more than capable of that most modest of aims with Robinson there.

I'm more interested to see if he has the wherewithal to make significant changes to a dressing room that he's been very close to as Asst Mgr. There was a point (I think under McCall especially) where there was a genuinely good culture of togetherness in the dressing room that helped us as a team but under Barraclough and McGhee, I think that had gone to a very large extent. At one point, I loved the fact that players wanted to come back and was all for it - now that thinking has to change as the players in question are over the hill and I suspect that their influence makes it difficult for any manager to have authority.

Assuming we stay up, having a new team in place for the start of next season that is competitive without our very familiar faces is a massive challenge, even more so for a very inexperienced manager - and that is where Robinson will ultimately be judged I think.

[steelmen]

I am reasonably happy with it. He knows the players and they have improved now McGhee is offski.

He did manager to sign a whole team for Oldham in the summer so he's had a shot at rebuilding a team and they weren't that bad, defensively they were good but not great in attack.

I am happy going into these last bunch of games with him in charge rather than and unknown in Simo, someone who would cost a bit in Coyle, and a complete arsehole in Hughes.