Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[well fan for life]

4 minutes ago, Ron Aldo said:

The 14/15 season was one of the worst I can remember.

Are things now that bad that we're looking back on it with fondness?

Had we been before the play offs and we'd just finished 11th it would be looked back on as a complete stinker. However kicking Rangers up and down the place for 180 minutes really, really helps with the old rose-tinted specs.

[Luke92]

Some really interesting points here.

On the face of it, I agree 9th in November isn't that bad but I just think it's hard for fans going week in and week out to have that sort of pragmatic approach.

Clubs similar to ourselves like Kilmarnock, Livingston and St Johnstone have kicked on in recent times and I think this has compounded things somewhat. Ordinarily these teams would be at a similar points tally and level to ourselves but they are massively overachieving and this leaves the majority of us questioning why we can't reach this level.

My short term worry is who apart from Dundee and St Mirren do we look like we could actually get 3 points from? The run-in to the St Mirren game in December looks like it is going to be very tough and I am struggling to find more than a few draws from these fixtures. Other than Accies I don't really know who else I would be optimistic about beating just now.

Being able to beat 2 teams in the division isn't good enough for this point in the season. Ultimately we could very easily lose our next 5/6 games and find ourselves right down in the relegation dog fight. We seem to have went backwards this season and everyone else has took decent strides forward. I think the majority of fans including myself were hopeful that we could build on the momentum of the cup runs last year and add some well needed quality to the team. Instead we seem to have recruited terribly and added cheap rubbish rather than investing in actual quality.

I don't think there is an outstanding candidate to replace Robinson but there would be countless suitors willing to take the job. We need to be careful though and take lessons from similar clubs who have pulled the trigger and ended up in a worse predicament than before. If it was up to me I think I would make a decision nearer to Christmas. If things continue we either need to make a change or invest properly in the January window.  I refuse to believe that the quality of player we have is good enough.

Edited November 13, 2018 by Luke92

[thisGRAEME]

56 minutes ago, Luke92 said:

Being able to beat 2 teams in the division isn't good enough for this point in the season. Ultimately we could very easily lose our next 5/6 games and find ourselves right down in the relegation dog fight.

See while I do agree with you, I reckon we could go the rest of the season, beating only St Mirren and Dundee, and probably stay up.

[well fan for life]

30 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

See while I do agree with you, I reckon we could go the rest of the season, beating only St Mirren and Dundee, and probably stay up.

Aye it's not exactly the most positive outlook but Dundee look mince and St Mirren look fucked beyond repair. If you said we'd end this season in 9th with no real sweat I'd probably take it this season.

[capt_oats]

Aye. It's a deeply unhelpful way of looking at things but if we manage to average a point a game through to the end of the season then it'd, more than likely, be enough to keep us safe.

Prior to Sunday we were 11 points from 11 games. 

You're looking at us needing 3 wins and a draw from the fixtures up to the end of the year to keep that up and also avoid any more humiliations.

*looks at those two fixtures against Celtic in December*

Edited November 13, 2018 by capt_oats

[MJC]

1 hour ago, thisGRAEME said:

See while I do agree with you, I reckon we could go the rest of the season, beating only St Mirren and Dundee, and probably stay up.

While we'd all probably take that at the end of the day rather than relegation, I don't think that scenario would be good enough to see Robinson remain in position. The fans certainly would vote with their feet if we were toiling and only scraping the odd draw against everyone out with Saint Mitten and Dundee and it would make for an awful, awful season. The football we have served up this season has been utterly awful to watch and we're not even at half way point yet, but crowds have already dropped from the start of the season so that is very telling imo.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

1 hour ago, well fan for life said:

Aye it's not exactly the most positive outlook but Dundee look mince and St Mirren look fucked beyond repair. If you said we'd end this season in 9th with no real sweat I'd probably take it this season.

 

Maybe not...

 

[MJC]

St.Mirren losing Samson is a blow for us and anyone else playing them. He's off to be a coach then? Well if Stevie Woods can do it an be highly rated at Celtic then anyone can do it I suppose.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Grasping at straws here, but if Robinson was sent to the stands in the first half then he presumably didn't give the HT team talk etc aye? I'm all for blaming goals 4 -through- 7 on Lasley being an absolutely shite motivationsal speaker. 

[looked demotivated]s and [seemed to switch off]s all over the shop.

[capt_oats]

Tbh, I think Sunday was what it was. A total shitemare.

A couple of things that piqued my interest were Robinson using a similar oblique line as a couple of weeks ago about having "protected a lot of these players, stuck by them and been very, very loyal and didn't get a whole lot back today".

I'm curious who the players he's saying he's "protected" and been "loyal" to are as it's not the first time he's said it this season. Bigi's obviously been a favourite for him to dig out but If he's talking about our defending being "woeful" (it was, he's not lying) and the fact we've just shipped 7 he's got to be looking at the team as a whole.

Also, it seemed interesting that it was Tait who did the public apology rather than Hartley. Who knows maybe Tait's just a better "face" to front up.

Edited November 14, 2018 by capt_oats

[Casagolda]

The shitebag nature of the performance 2nd half is where I have sympathy with Robinson to be honest.

For all we’ve criticised his summer business, me more than most, everybody involved on Sunday(bar Mbulu who came on at 7-1) was at the club last season. You can’t lay the blame at the door of the new guys for this one, 8 of Sunday’s starting 11 also started the Scottish Cup final in May.

These guys got him to 2 cup finals and a comfortable 7th place finish last season, in that respect it’s understandable that Robinson would want to show them a degree of loyalty. Just about everyone one of them have let him down this season though, with nobody really coming close to reaching the levels/standards they set themselves as a team or individuals last season.  

I don’t think Robinson is blameless, the lack of quality in the final third wasn’t addressed in the summer and that’s on him. The poor attitude on Sunday, as well as the weak mentality and soft centre we’ve shown this season though is something Robinson couldn’t possibly have seen coming. 

Edited November 14, 2018 by Casagolda

[well fan for life]

8 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Tbh, I think Sunday was what it was. A total shitemare.

A couple of things that piqued my interest were Robinson using a similar oblique line as a couple of weeks ago about having "protected a lot of these players, stuck by them and been very, very loyal and didn't get a whole lot back today".

I'm curious who the players he's saying he's "protected" and been "loyal" to are as it's not the first time he's said it this season. Bigi's obviously been a favourite for him to dig out but If he's talking about our defending being "woeful" (it was, he's not lying) and the fact we've just shipped 7 he's got to be looking at the team as a whole.

Also, it seemed interesting that it was Tait who did the public apology rather than Hartley. Who knows maybe Tait's just a better "face" to front up.

I did find it odd that Tait was thrown in front of the camera. I mean we'll never know how it came about but you'd think it would be the club captain who'd be doing that kind of thing. I'd be quite interested to see what happens when Dunne gets back to full fitness. I think Hartley's been fucking grim at times this season. His lack of pace is hard going, and he's brutal for giving away daft free kicks. But he's the captain so I don't think he'll be dropped. 

Obviously McHugh's made the job easier for selection next week but he's been a fucking nightmare for stupid bookings this season. The Livingston game in particular he just totally lost his head after the first booking. He really needs to screw the nut because we cannot afford a hothead who gets suspended every month. 

Bigi may end up getting fired out of the team again which is quite harsh. Playing him on the left and expecting him to cover in defence is never going to happen, but he keeps the ball well. 

But, as I said before, Sunday's loss was down to us being a team entirely made up of shitebags. You can't really blame Robinson for an entire team downing tools with an hour of football still to play. Which is off because when you saw us a lot of the time last season that's the last thing you'd have called us out for. 

[Swello]

2 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

I did find it odd that Tait was thrown in front of the camera. I mean we'll never know how it came about but you'd think it would be the club captain who'd be doing that kind of thing. I'd be quite interested to see what happens when Dunne gets back to full fitness. I think Hartley's been fucking grim at times this season. His lack of pace is hard going, and he's brutal for giving away daft free kicks. But he's the captain so I don't think he'll be dropped. 

Both Hartley and Aldred have been victims of Dunne's injury and the sale of Cedric. When they were part of a defence with 2 genuinely pacy defenders, they brought something to the blend (as a shorthand let's call it "being a mental c**t") - and when you hit on the right blend of players like that, it must be one of the most satisfying things about being a manager. With 2/3rds of last season's central defence being missing, it has exposed the weaknesses in their game and has seen them diving in for stuff that they probably wouldn't have last year.

Also - I doubt they will ever again let Hartley in front of the cameras when the OF are involved - which is a *massive* shame as the build up to the Rangers game at Fir Park was one of the few brightspots in a pretty desperate season so far  

[Swello]

18 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

Bigi may end up getting fired out of the team again which is quite harsh. Playing him on the left and expecting him to cover in defence is never going to happen, but he keeps the ball well. 

I fucked up the multiquote - so apologies for 2 posts in row.

I don't do Ibrox, apart from special occasions - so I wasn't there on Sunday but when I saw the team on Twitter, my first reaction was a bit of surprise that Robinson had picked both Bigi and Turnball. I guess he is maybe reacting to a bit of pressure from the support but I don't believe he would have been pilloried for picking a more defensive team for an away trip to Glasgow and I was genuinely surprised that Rose wasn't in the team.

My biggest complaint about Robinson (who I like quite honestly) is that he had seemingly been unable to pick more open, attacking teams when we are playing the poorer teams in the league, especially at Fir Park. In the team that beat Saints and Dundee, I think he finally hit on the right approach but I find it really weird then that he continued with the same team when his seemingly beloved tactic of keeping it tight for an hour would probably have been totally legitimate against a team just off the plane from Russia, who have also been starting games at Ibrox really strongly.

[well fan for life]

17 minutes ago, Swello said:

Both Hartley and Aldred have been victims of Dunne's injury and the sale of Cedric. When they were part of a defence with 2 genuinely pacy defenders, they brought something to the blend (as a shorthand let's call it "being a mental c**t") - and when you hit on the right blend of players like that, it must be one of the most satisfying things about being a manager. With 2/3rds of last season's central defence being missing, it has exposed the weaknesses in their game and has seen them diving in for stuff that they probably wouldn't have last year.

Also - I doubt they will ever again let Hartley in front of the cameras when the OF are involved - which is a *massive* shame as the build up to the Rangers game at Fir Park was one of the few brightspots in a pretty desperate season so far  

Aye I know what you mean. Which makes it infuriating when we've been playing with a back 3 with absolutely no pace for most of the season. We struck the perfect balance last season and it's all over the shop now.

3 minutes ago, Swello said:

I fucked up the multiquote - so apologies for 2 posts in row.

I don't do Ibrox, apart from special occasions - so I wasn't there on Sunday but when I saw the team on Twitter, my first reaction was a bit of surprise that Robinson had picked both Bigi and Turnball. I guess he is maybe reacting to a bit of pressure from the support but I don't believe he would have been pilloried for picking a more defensive team for an away trip to Glasgow and I was genuinely surprised that Rose wasn't in the team.

My biggest complaint about Robinson (who I like quite honestly) is that he had seemingly been unable to pick more open, attacking teams when we are playing the poorer teams in the league, especially at Fir Park. In the team that beat Saints and Dundee, I think he finally hit on the right approach but I find it really weird then that he continued with the same team when his seemingly beloved tactic of keeping it tight for an hour would probably have been totally legitimate against a team just off the plane from Russia, who have also been starting games at Ibrox really strongly.

100% this. The one that always comes back to me is the 3-2 loss at Firhill last December. I mind walking up to the stadium and, while trying not to slip and fall on my arse, checking the line up thinking why the f**k are we attempting to shithouse a game against Thistle. All due respect to them but they were absolutely pish and we set up with an incredibly defensive and stodgy looking team. Admittedly we had Griffiths in goals who couldn't keep weans out of a close but they went in at half time 3-0 up. I mean, for f**k sake, even Conor Sammon scored. We brought Tanner and Bigi on in the second half and ripped them to bits but the game was already too far gone. 

[thisGRAEME]

27 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

100% this. The one that always comes back to me is the 3-2 loss at Firhill last December. I mind walking up to the stadium and, while trying not to slip and fall on my arse, checking the line up thinking why the f**k are we attempting to shithouse a game against Thistle. All due respect to them but they were absolutely pish and we set up with an incredibly defensive and stodgy looking team. Admittedly we had Griffiths in goals who couldn't keep weans out of a close but they went in at half time 3-0 up. I mean, for f**k sake, even Conor Sammon scored. We brought Tanner and Bigi on in the second half and ripped them to bits but the game was already too far gone. 

I dunno if it was that night, or a different one where he chucking the shape to something totally mental (I think it might've been the one that turnbull crossed for Bowman) but it was absolutely right for the scenario in front of us.

That's what frustrates me the most, is that we're capable of pivoting to something mid-game, but aren't able to shift before kick-off to spot the inevitable problems before they happen.

[Swello]

Given that the league is arguably as strong as it's been since the great setanta meltdown - it makes sense to almost have two core ways of playing. We are going to have to shitfest a fair number of games as we will simply be playing against better (resourced) teams every other week. But it's more important than ever that we play teams similar to us that we are a bit more baws-oot as we *have* to pick up points in these games...

[capt_oats]

7 hours ago, Casagolda said:

The shitebag nature of the performance 2nd half is where I have sympathy with Robinson to be honest.

For all we’ve criticised his summer business, me more than most, everybody involved on Sunday(bar Mbulu who came on at 7-1) was at the club last season. You can’t lay the blame at the door of the new guys for this one, 8 of Sunday’s starting 11 also started the Scottish Cup final in May.

These guys got him to 2 cup finals and a comfortable 7th place finish last season, in that respect it’s understandable that Robinson would want to show them a degree of loyalty. Just about everyone one of them have let him down this season though, with nobody really coming close to reaching the levels/standards they set themselves as a team or individuals last season.  

I don’t think Robinson is blameless, the lack of quality in the final third wasn’t addressed in the summer and that’s on him. The poor attitude on Sunday, as well as the weak mentality and soft centre we’ve shown this season though is something Robinson couldn’t possibly have seen coming. 

^^^^^ Absolutely this.

It's precisely why I have a degree of sympathy for him. I think there's a fair chance he's fucked it, but I've sympathy with him. To me, the major failings this season are rooted in something he couldn't have seen coming. He's getting it tight re: summer transfers, which is fair enough to a point but that whole approach was presumably predicated on showing a bit of loyalty and trust to the players who did well for him last season.

Equally if you'd said to most supporters at the end of last season that we'd go into 18/19 with a first team squad with Carson, Aldred, Hartley, Dunne, Tait, Cadden, Campbell and Main all still on the books and a cool £1m banked for Kipré then I think most would have been fine with that. To pivot to an "our players aren't good enough" line seems a bit revisionist IMO.  In a general sense retaining our better players and extending their deals is something that people have been endorsing for a while. This season we've done exactly that. Rather than shipping a few out he's extended deals instead and looked to supplement the squad.

He's completely misjudged his forwards and that's fully on him. However if you look at that 'core' then I'd guess that Robinson would have been expecting us to be roughly where Livi are at the moment.

Even some of the signings he has made; ATS had over 100+ games for Thistle in a position we needed to fill. It's not like we've just plucked from obscurity. He's Scottish, he knows the league...he's been a liability in almost every game he's played for us. Donnelly is slightly different but he's a player who came through at Fulham and holds the record for appearances for N.Ireland's u21s who he's only recently captained to victories against Spain and the like.

These are the sort of players who tick a lot of the boxes for a team at our level. You can pick fault  and question whether we really needed Gorrin (even if Bigi had left we probably didn't) and Sammon's the shitshow everyone predicted but when it comes down to it the reason that the summer window's been fucked is because the guys Robinson's put his faith in and was clearly banking on have regressed hugely.

Who takes ownership of that? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯...ultimately it'll be Robinson I guess.

7 hours ago, Swello said:

My biggest complaint about Robinson (who I like quite honestly) is that he had seemingly been unable to pick more open, attacking teams when we are playing the poorer teams in the league, especially at Fir Park. In the team that beat Saints and Dundee, I think he finally hit on the right approach but I find it really weird then that he continued with the same team when his seemingly beloved tactic of keeping it tight for an hour would probably have been totally legitimate against a team just off the plane from Russia, who have also been starting games at Ibrox really strongly.

This is pretty much where I am. I've mentioned before that I felt this season would be a "difficult second album" type affair for Robinson purely because there was a fair chance he'd be asked to adapt a team and get them playing in a way that possibly pushed him out his comfort zone a bit. Setting up a team to be that bit more attacking is something that he hadn't really shown he could do. Last season he was often quoted saying "we're a team who score a lot goals" which wasn't entirely true. We only won by a margin of more than 2 goals 6 times from 24 wins (Queens Park and Morton in the LC, Aberdeen in LC and SC, Thistle and Accies in the league).

We won games because we were solid at the back not because we were free-scoring. Which is fine but it feels like Robinson kind of oversold what we were doing in the attacking third.

When you look at last season we started off with a back 4 then struck upon the back 3 against County. It seemed to click and Robinson (understandably) stuck with it. The upshot was a shape that worked but players being "out of position" to make it work. However we generally just rolled with it. Weirdly we seem to have done the same after two clean sheets and decent performances against St Mirren and Dundee. Almost like he's thought "right, this is my team from here on in..."

Given Robinson comes across as a pretty pragmatic and dare I say it, conservative manager going to Ibrox with a 442 diamond with a teenager and a player he's still not wholly convinced by in the middle of the park is a pretty weird move. And fair fucks, up until 34 mins we were still in the game.

[Al B]

Regarding the questioning of putting Tait in front of the media, I'm not surprised. Captain or not, Peter Hartley reading out fortune cookies for 4 minutes every week is fairly pointless. He's like a human version of those meaningless generic motivational posters that are intended to inspire but are just cliched nonsense.

If he wasn't a footballer he'd definitely be a team leader in a call centre, and there would be stories about him all over the "Business-Speak/Corporate Nonsense" thread.

Edited November 15, 2018 by Al B

[Luke92]

2 hours ago, Al B said:

Regarding the questioning of putting Tait in front of the media, I'm not surprised. Captain or not, Peter Hartley reading out fortune cookies for 4 minutes every week is fairly pointless. He's like a human version of those meaningless generic motivational posters that are intended to inspire but are just cliched nonsense.

If he wasn't a footballer he'd definitely be a team leader in a call centre, and there would be stories about him all over the "Business-Speak/Corporate Nonsense" thread.

Aye he's defo been reading too much of 'The Secret' or something similar. Each to their own and that I suppose.

Generally speaking I like guys that speak postively in the media rather than having the negative outlook we had with the likes of McGhee but Hartley has done an awful lot of talking and not a lot of playing this season. I wonder if he falls into the category of players who Robinson has repeatedly mentioned he has been 'very loyal' to? Hasn't kicked a ball this season.