Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Ron Aldo]

I'm just thinking out loud here tbh but my recollection of the playoff season was that we were just a shite team that lost every week because we deserved to, in contrast to this season where I think the general perception is we are a mediocre side that have been hampered by bad luck,officiating, injuries and decision making at times, without ever being quite as awful as the 14/15 team. Had a look at Statto and found it quite surprising that we are actually 2 points worse off than at this stage in the 14/15 season. Prompted me to think a bit more about both teams and I'm not really sure which could be classed as "better".
 
Long
Law Laing McManus Straker
Pearson Lasley
Ainsworth McDonald Johnson
Erwin
 
Vs
 
Samson
Heneghan Mchugh Jules
Cadden Frear
Pearson Clay
Gordon
McDonald Bowman
 
(formatting has fucked my 3-5-2)
 
Obviously we more or less signed half a team on #BaracloughDay and this current team are decimated by injuries making this an even more pointless exercise on my part.
 
 
 

Any team with Tony Straker in it is instantly better.

I'm surprised that we're 2 points worse off now than we were in 14/15. I suppose, in a way, we can count ourselves lucky that there are a few teams this season who are just as shite if not shiter than we are.

Hibs are going to come up (at least) and, I hate being that guy, but I would say they're better than all of the bottom 6 and will probably be eyeing up a top half finish. If we do stay up then we need to recruit well in the summer or this time next year we could easily be wishing for the days of seasons 14/15 and 16/17...

[mjw]

Do you think hibs will draw their way into the top six the way they are drawing their way to the championship trophy?
The only reason they are getting out of that league is because of the dross they are up against this year.

[Casagolda]

I'm not surprised we're 2 points worse off if, we were shite then and we're shite now. There seems to be a perception that Baraclough was an incompetent clown(he was tbf) who was taking us down where as McGhee was doing a good job and was just unlucky with injuries/suspensions this season.

Yet looking at it objectively, their win percentage is almost identical and they both got sacked while sitting on 35%. Which actually is a bit kind to McGhee considering his includes wins over part timers like Cove Rangers, Annan, East Stirling and Stranraer that significantly boosts his stats.  

Of course when you add in the top six finish of last season, the money we raked in from that and the sales of Johnson and Hall who he helped develop and the fact he had a reduced budget, McGhee obviously done a far better job than Baraclough.

However no matter how well he done last season, this season has been utter shite no matter how you try and dress it up. No home win in 5 months, conceded more goals than any other team in the league, 2nd most defeats of any team in the league, awful football and numerous kicks in the baws with late goals at the death and several absolutely embarrassing pumpings to boot. It's been awful for the most part and for me it's been every bit as bad as the 14/15 season and unlike then it won't even have a redeeming ending.

I do agree with the above though, if Robinson keeps us up I also believe the key to a decent season next year will be how he recruits in the summer. I genuinely can't remember the last time we had a decent summer window. I know our budget is 'reduced' these days but our recruitment process on the whole has left a lot to be desired in recent years and seriously needs looked at. 

Edited April 14, 2017 by Casagolda

[Pettywulliegrew-2]

Already posted this on Steelmenonline........

Here we go with the last game before the split

Killie 34
Ross Cty 32
Dundee 30
Accies 29
Us 29
Ict 25

Killie v hertz .........home win could see Killie safe.......draw I think......away win would be the best for us

Dundee v Accies.......hard to call .........again think a draw ........draw best for us

Us v Ict ........must win game for us .........dread anything other........best for us ,must win game

Ross Cty v Smelic....... Hopefully can't see anything other Smelic win........Smeltic by a barrow load best for us

Best case scenario
Killie 34
Ross Cty 32
Us 32
Dundee 31
Accies 30
Ict 25

Worst  

Killie 37
Ross Cty 35
Accies 32
Dundee 30
Us 29
Ict 28

Tomorrows game,for me,is the most important game of the season for us,we have got to start winning games,starting tomorrow 

Happy Easter


Ps after 33 games 2 seasons ago we were already well adrift of the pack

Accies 43
Thistle 38
Killie 38
Ross Cty 37
Us 31
St Mirren 21

And ICT were third in the league 55 pts Dundee were sixth on 44 pts

[Ya Bezzer!]

On 13/04/2017 at 20:01, ropy said:

What is our best 11 and how often have they played together?

Depends on what half of the season you are talking about.  This is my take, not all will agree but I don't think either is especially controversial.

First half

Samson

Tait Heneghan McManus Hammell

Cadden Lasley McHugh Johnson

McDonald Moult

We never started a match this season with the above line up.

Second half

Samson

Tait Heneghan McManus Hammell

Cadden Pearson McHugh Frear

McDonald Moult

Once again the line above has never started a match.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Ya Bezzer!

[Desp]

Don't think I'd really disagree with those line-ups Ya Bezzer. I think it's telling that we are where we are, and those line-ups never got the chance to play together.

 

I'm not saying we'd be up there with Hearts or St Johnstone, but I think we'd be pretty much safe if that "Second half" team had a 10-12 game run together from January onwards. We'd probably have the same manager in place as we did at the start of the campaign...

 

Our squad depth is really poor.

 

 

 

 

[capt_oats]

22 hours ago, Casagolda said:

I'm not surprised we're 2 points worse off if, we were shite then and we're shite now. There seems to be a perception that Baraclough was an incompetent clown(he was tbf) who was taking us down where as McGhee was doing a good job and was just unlucky with injuries/suspensions this season.

Yet looking at it objectively, their win percentage is almost identical and they both got sacked while sitting on 35%. Which actually is a bit kind to McGhee considering his includes wins over part timers like Cove Rangers, Annan, East Stirling and Stranraer that significantly boosts his stats.  

Of course when you add in the top six finish of last season, the money we raked in from that and the sales of Johnson and Hall who he helped develop and the fact he had a reduced budget, McGhee obviously done a far better job than Baraclough.

However no matter how well he done last season, this season has been utter shite no matter how you try and dress it up. No home win in 5 months, conceded more goals than any other team in the league, 2nd most defeats of any team in the league, awful football and numerous kicks in the baws with late goals at the death and several absolutely embarrassing pumpings to boot. It's been awful for the most part and for me it's been every bit as bad as the 14/15 season and unlike then it won't even have a redeeming ending.

I do agree with the above though, if Robinson keeps us up I also believe the key to a decent season next year will be how he recruits in the summer. I genuinely can't remember the last time we had a decent summer window. I know our budget is 'reduced' these days but our recruitment process on the whole has left a lot to be desired in recent years and seriously needs looked at. 

I can't really disagree with that tbh. I think McGhee was on the whole "a.good.manager" for us but he's clearly got a lot wrong this season and it's clutching at straws to say that this season has been anything other than awful. We've had good results certainly but even with the 4-2 against Accies it amounted to a good half of football, we fell out the game completely and needed the 4th. I totally take on board the injuries line as well. McHugh looks to have been arguably our best signing of the summer window and we lost him for almost the entire first half of the season.

Having said that, every side will have had injuries; Thistle lost Cerny for 10 games, Doumbuya has been out most of the season, Bannigan hasn't played for them at all since he signed his new deal. Killie had Kiltie injured, Addison's only played 11 games and they sold Magennis and Coulibally (the latter having contributed 11 goals to their season). You can absolutely point to injuries having had an detrimental impact on our season but we're not some sort of exceptional circumstance in that respect.

I completely agree that had we been able to put our *best* team out consistently that we'd probably be in a much safer position than we are just now though.

While it's fair comment that we haven't been able to put out our best team once, let alone for a run of games the back 5 of Samson, Tait, Heneghan, McManus and Hammell has played regularly. You could maybe make a case for McHugh being a better defensive option but on the whole that is our first choice defence and they've not been anywhere near good enough. You would hope that the more they played together they more solid a unit they'd become but by the time McGhee got his jotters our defence looked as porous as it did when Hibs were reaming us 4-1 in pre-season. Whether that's the fault of the coaching staff or the individual players IDK but McGhee's shrug of the shoulders and line of "we're capable of those kind of results" wasn't really the answer. If we weren't improving as a defensive unit through coaching then we really should have been looking to reinforce, we didn't do that.

By the time the January window came around we were sat in 9th place with the 4th worst goals against record and 5th worst goal difference. Since the January window opened we have the worst goals against record (26 conceded in 12 games) and a -17 goal difference. OK you can be generous and put the 7-2 and 5-1 results down to freak occurrences with a radically altered back 4 playing in the Dundee game but either way the upshot is that we've not been anywhere near good enough defensively. Where Thistle were able to welcome Cerny back to their side and add Keown, Killie brought in Woodman for MacDonald and loaned in Ajer from Celtic we released Brill and Laing, brought in Griffiths and Jules and kept playing the same goalkeeper and back 4 that had been conceding 1.65 goals a game.

Since the January window Thistle have the 2nd best goals against record (7), Killie the 5th (14).

In that respect I wholeheartedly agree that recruitment is going to be key for us but equally I think there needs to be an honest appraisal of the squad as a whole and a re-think of the approach to bringing players in. I'm all for bringing players with potential to develop and sell on, that's fine but at the same time I think at a boardroom/managerial level we really need to be asking whether the players we've been identifying and bringing in have been anywhere near good enough and if they're not, why not. Similarly we need to be looking at the current first team and honestly identifying where the weak links are and making sure we fix that.

Edited April 15, 2017 by capt_oats

[Gianfranco]

I noticed Jacob Blyth moaning on Twitter about being injured 'again' because of a plastic pitch.

[well fan for life]

I noticed Jacob Blyth moaning on Twitter about being injured 'again' because of a plastic pitch.

Guy's made of fucking glass.

And he's shit.

[capt_oats]

32 minutes ago, Gianfranco said:

I noticed Jacob Blyth moaning on Twitter about being injured 'again' because of a plastic pitch.

He went off the park on crutches this evening. Didn't actually see what happened, just looked up and he was lying crumpled on the deck. I'd imagine he'd be out for a while now.

[Del_Superwell]

As I've said on steelmen online if he is out for the season and we need cover on the bench then surely we can just recall Mackin and put him there.

Blyth isn't a loss as he's slower than a week in jail and jumps about 10 minutes late for his headers as well.

[capt_oats]

11 minutes ago, Del_Superwell said:

As I've said on steelmen online if he is out for the season and we need cover on the bench then surely we can just recall Mackin and put him there.

Blyth isn't a loss as he's slower than a week in jail and jumps about 10 minutes late for his headers as well.

I'd just go with Hastie as cover tbh. Totally different type of player I grant you but he's got more pace and is more of a goal threat than Blyth will ever be tbh. Can Mackin even be recalled from his Dev loan anyway?

[Del_Superwell]

Hastie is a natural out and out left winger and not really a striker and been playing more a second striker through necessity due to injuries within the 20s set up.  But aye if we had to then he could be used as well.

[capt_oats]

Just now, Del_Superwell said:

Hastie is a natural out and out left winger and not really a striker and been playing more a second striker through necessity due to injuries within the 20s set up.  But aye if we had to then he could be used as well.

Oh absolutely but given we've been playing with 3 up front (kind of) I could see Hastie being able to at least make a half decent attempt playing on the left side of the front 2 with McDonald playing off them. I reckon at the very least he'd win us a few penalties playing off the shoulder of defenders.

[Del_Superwell]

Yeah that's certainly true, I just wonder if physically he's ready yet as I think he would maybe still get knocked off the ball too easily in senior football,  I was thinking he might be one we loan out at the start of next season to toughen him up.

[capt_oats]

just checked with one of my pals who knows more about dev loan rules than i do and apparently since Mackin has played for Alloa's first team we can't recall him. Which thinking about it & registrations, makes sense.

re: Hastie I think Craigan actually said that both he and Turnbull were 2 he'd ideally have liked to have loaned out. In all seriousness though if it's just cover off the bench I'd be more than happy for Hastie to be in there. In truth I'd rather he was there even if Blyth was fit!

[Gianfranco]

Didn't Dundee United get docked points for playing a recalled development loan player last season?

[capt_oats]

Didn't Dundee United get docked points for playing a recalled development loan player last season?

not quite, his dev loan had expired rather than him being recalled but yeah the point still stands.

[RandomGuy.]

So, Alan Mannus..

[steelmen]

Decent keeper??