Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[rowsdower]

Alexander mentioned shields had a hamstring thing in a recent interview.

As for the game, I missed the whole thing due to meetings at work. That may be why I'm not joining the pitchfork brigade. 

I am anxious about the glaring hole in our midfield though, hopefully some of these (at least)5 singings are on the way.

[Alert Mongoose]

7 minutes ago, rowsdower said:

am anxious about the glaring hole in our midfield

Prudent advice is to read this slowly and not fall into the trap I did.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Bear in mind I've not actually been able to see either the QOTS or Airdrie games but I find it hard to get too worked up in either direction about performances at this stage of any season. I'm fucked off about the result because it means we'll likely go out in the group stages or get a harder draw in the next round, in turn diminishing our chances of winning a trophy, but I don't think there's necessarily much correlation between the early rounds of the League Cup and our league showings.

 

[Busta Nut]

I think most folk are annoyed at the glaringly obvious problems we've had for 7 months haven't been fixed.

[Mr. Brightside]

I'm annoyed that Robbie Crawford is still stealing a fucking wage from us.

[WeAllDreamOfATeamOfAndyRyans]

Get it fucking up yous, you were absolutely rotten[emoji815]️[emoji1360]

[thisGRAEME]

6 hours ago, Busta Nut said:

I think most folk are annoyed at the glaringly obvious problems we've had for 7 months haven't been fixed.

Very much this. 

Rounded off with the same "earning the right to play" patter from Alexander that we got from Robinson. Fully expecting some "it hurt us" quotes in the coming days and tbh; heard it, bored of hearing it. 

The league Cup is consistently our best chance to win a pot, as the whole competition is weighted for Premiership clubs, and we're making it harder for ourselves by failing to beat fucking Airdrie.

Edited July 22, 2021 by thisGRAEME

[steelman1991]

Can’t work out why Watt is exempt from much of the criticism here. He showed absolutely no desire tonight and was dug shite. Showing the petulance and bad attitude that’s seen him punted from all his previous clubs.

[0Neils40yarder]

Anyone that doesnt think that was embarrassing last night, probably has some form of heat stroke. Problems all over the pitch.

 

Central defence is alarmingly poor, both full backs were ponderous and indecisive. Up front we lacked any sort of cohesion or focal point.

 

Individually, I do not think any of our starting midfielders are poor players, but collectively? Oh my, it just wont do...I dont see OHara or Donnelly making a huge difference either. Playing 4-3-3 with a lack of a real playmaker sees us extremely easy to play against and contain.

 

Alexander needs to get his finger out his arse, pronto 

[Aufc]

Very much this. 
Rounded off with the same "earning the right to play" patter from Alexander that we got from Robinson. Fully expecting some "it hurt us" quotes in the coming days and tbh; heard it, bored of hearing it. 
The league Cup is consistently our best chance to win a pot, as the whole competition is weighted for Premiership clubs, and we're making it harder for ourselves by failing to beat fucking Airdrie.

No shame in losing to the best club in lanarkshire

[thisGRAEME]

13 minutes ago, 0Neils40yarder said:

 Playing 4-3-3 with a lack of a real playmaker sees us extremely easy to play against and contain.

Yep. There's some industry in the midfield but no guile. Crying out for a good season Polworth/Craig Tanner/Half-as-good-turnbull.

Lawless isn't it. Wasn't it ten years ago and isn't it now either.

[Ron Aldo]

Still pretty pissed off at that last night. Midfield in particular is a disaster - we've known for months that Campbell was leaving and spent pretty much the whole of last season crying out for a creative midfielder after Poloworth chucked it. We're now 3 games into the League Cup and neither of those problems look close to being fixed. We could drop Craig Clay and Jake Taylor into that midfield and it would genuinely improve it.

Lamie is never a footballer and a few competent games after Alexander came in doesn't change that. He's not been involved so far but Mugabi isn't the answer either. We need a centre half to try and replace Gallagher and, so far, we've brought in a guy from Leicester's youth team (who hasn't looked bad to be fair).

We've pushed the boat out for Kelly which is fine but there are positions which are far more in need of attention than goalkeeper. As much as I like Kelly I think most people would have been happy going into this season with a fully fit Trevor Carson.

I'm usually pretty laid back but as a club, we really need to get our finger out. That midfield in particular will see us relegated if it's not addressed pronto.

[Allroy for Prez]

I’ve lurked about this forum for a while but I’m so concerned for our plight that I’ve had to create an account in hope that someone can tell me everything is going to be alright and we aren’t destined for relegation before the league season has even begun!

The only thing stopping me from from having a full blown “heads gone” is the fact that we are clearly still at least 4/5 first team signings away from where we should be. 
 

That said, the league season starts in just over a week and if we go with what we have at the moment we are going to get absolutely destroyed.  The most worrying thing there is we have known what was needed and who needed to be replaced for several months and none of it has yet been addressed. Players who are clearly not of the required standard and/or absolute bombscares are also still heavily involved every week.

Like someone else said above, I absolutely cannot go another full season of us being shite, hating every single player, and having nothing about us. It is the absolute pits. Yet incredibly that is the scenario we are hurtling towards as we are inexplicably about to start this season even weaker than the previous one! 

Whisper it, I’m starting to think Alexander might be part of the problem….

[MP_MFC]

His inability or unwilling to have a plan B or even make fucking subs is infuriating - especially when this time of year is about ‘getting minutes into legs’ by my reckoning Johnson amaluzor and Parker have seen 0 minutes, when you’re talking about trying to protect SODs and we clearly have nothing in the middle or up front it’s worrying that either these three are nowhere near it at this stage or they’re that bad it’s not even worth it.

[Desp]

There's no doubt last night was abysmal and the team, as a whole, and the manager, deserve every bit of criticism coming their way.

I was disappointed, however, to see a few, shall we say, prominent, Motherwell going after Stephen O'Donnell on social media.  It was only a few weeks ago (aye, weeks ago) that every Motherwell fan was praising him to the heavens after his performance at Wembley.  As others have said, he's no more, no less than a competent SPFL Premiership level full back.  However, when you surround him with utter dross at the back and in midfield, and a forward line who spent 60 minutes hiding, what chance does he have?  O'Donnell should have been nowhere near these League Cup games.  The physical, and more importantly, the emotional toll the Euros would have taken would have been huge.  He needs a rest, but that's on the manager.  As is it the decision to give him the armband.  Does he look like a captain?  Probably not, but who the f**k else have we got?

We need at least half a dozen in, who need dropped into the first XI.  I don't actually think O'Connor, Woolery & KVV have looked too bad, but they look miles off it on their fitness.  A centre half, at least two midfielders (preferably three with a couple of those starters last night being moved on), a wide player and another striker is needed.  

It looks from here like Alexander won't have long to get this right before the fans really start to turn.  

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

Fortunately, I had a dinner that had been planned weeks ago last night so I managed to avoid watching the game completely.

However, one thing that does massively concern me is that he's looked at his bench at 2-0 down and thought that none of the eight players sitting there could make an impact. I know that Parker and Amaluzor were probably signed as "projects", but if he doesn't think either, at this stage, could have an impact against a league one side for 15 minutes then for me, we simply shouldn't have signed them.

The "at this stage of the season" line is becoming more and more redundant when you realise the league starts next weekend.

We still clearly need at least three starting players to sign before then. If we don't, I'm trying to cast my mind back to anyone we've signed between the first game of the season and the end of August who's gone on to have the impact we will need these players to have.

[Guest superward]

9 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

Fortunately, I had a dinner that had been planned weeks ago last night so I managed to avoid watching the game completely.

However, one thing that does massively concern me is that he's looked at his bench at 2-0 down and thought that none of the eight players sitting there could make an impact. I know that Parker and Amaluzor were probably signed as "projects", but if he doesn't think either, at this stage, could have an impact against a league one side for 15 minutes then for me, we simply shouldn't have signed them.

The "at this stage of the season" line is becoming more and more redundant when you realise the league starts next weekend.

We still clearly need at least three starting players to sign before then. If we don't, I'm trying to cast my mind back to anyone we've signed between the first game of the season and the end of August who's gone on to have the impact we will need these players to have.

Yeah, had the same discussion with my dad at the game last night.

Not sure if GA is sticking to his absolute plan of using these games as pre season for a specific 13-14 players (regardless of what he says in the press about winning etc.) or if he truly doesn't think anyone on the bench is good enough. 

It felt like he wanted to see 90 mins out of McGinley to give him game time as his 2nd 45 was so poor he would normally be hooked. Also felt he kept the likes of Watt and Woolery on for similar reasons. 

I'm assuming we will see Carrol, Donnelly and KVV restored to the line up on Saturday and they didn't play last night due to playing on the Saturday prior. 

Edited July 22, 2021 by superward

[well fan for life]

First of all, I had a cracking chippy from Senors in Airdrie before kick off. Absolutely unchallenged in it being my highlight of the night. 

I think what I find most infuriating is that two of our worst performers from last season are likely still going to be nailed on starters come the start of the league season. Lamie's been a calamity from the minute he set foot in the door and Crawford's so alarmingly out of his depth against every team we ever play against. We pushed the boat out for Kelly, and I'm happy about that. But what chance has he got with the same soft as shite defence and midfield sitting in front of him.

Lawless I feel a bit sorry for tbh. His legs have absolutely gone at this point. He'd rip the pish out of anyone on a fives pitch but he can barely move. Either you find a way of playing him in behind a striker or just leave him out of the squad. 

As far as defenders go we've only got Mugabi to return from injury. I like big Bevis. But is he going to solve our problems? Absolutely not. How we've managed to get to this point having signed one youth player in defence is beyond me. 

Crawford is, simply, the worst midfielder in the division. He's playing in front of the back four so he should be making sure the ball isn't lost but I have lost count of the number of times he'll concede possession after taking a first touch. I don't need a @RandomGuy. visualisation to tell me that he's absolutely stealing a wage. 

Maguire's not looking like he's even an inch towards replacing Campbell. Cornelius I can probably give some slack to with him never having really played for us until this point. I can understand not risking Donnelly on a sticky plastic park but I hope he's back on Saturday. 

4 minutes ago, Desp said:

I was disappointed, however, to see a few, shall we say, prominent, Motherwell going after Stephen O'Donnell on social media.

Seen this as well. An absolutely roasting take. I have noticed that perhaps the most prominent of the support has deleted his tweets now. SOD's going to have playing for Scotland thrown at him at every opportunity, sadly.

Tbh the bois up at the end were a bit of a riddy last night. Like a load of 16 year olds that had their first beer. One of them shoving a polis when they'd told him to leave already before he got huckled being a spectacular bit of stupidity. A couple of their songs coming directly out the fucking stone age as well.

[one m in Motherwell]

28 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

Fortunately, I had a dinner that had been planned weeks ago last night so I managed to avoid watching the game completely.

However, one thing that does massively concern me is that he's looked at his bench at 2-0 down and thought that none of the eight players sitting there could make an impact. I know that Parker and Amaluzor were probably signed as "projects", but if he doesn't think either, at this stage, could have an impact against a league one side for 15 minutes then for me, we simply shouldn't have signed them.

The "at this stage of the season" line is becoming more and more redundant when you realise the league starts next weekend.

We still clearly need at least three starting players to sign before then. If we don't, I'm trying to cast my mind back to anyone we've signed between the first game of the season and the end of August who's gone on to have the impact we will need these players to have.

This is the most glaring issue for me.  Alexander has had a decent amount of time with the club to be able to identify where our (obvious) weaknesses are and the type of players that we need to address them.  Also, with Daws on board, and having worked with Alexander before (IIRC) you would hope there are names there that we are actively targeting.  I'm sure there are, but time is against us in terms of getting key signings in and bedded down before the league starts - I don't think we can afford to wait three or four games before folk are up to speed.

One thing that I would say is that the entire team have looked miles off in all three games (with the exception of a few flurries against QOTS) - it very much fits in with the 'pre-season' nature of the LC group games as I don't think that, on paper at least, all of our players are as shite as they've looked.

Undoubtedly though we are in a position where we have five or six 'squad' filler-type players who we are relying on to be regular - and important - players for us.  

[Luke92]

The bottom line for me is we need probably atleast 4 or 5 first team player in the door ASAP. The SPFL starts next week, I'm all for being patient but we can't be weeks into the season and still trying to get half a team to gel together.

I think we need atleast 2 experienced centre midfielders and 2 centre backs for starters. Of these 4, a couple need to have some sort of leadership qualities because this is lacking at the moment. As I said after the last game, I would also like us to try another formation perhaps some form of 442, I don't think the 433 is working particularly well.

As far as other issues go, I think Tony Watt has looked miles off it fitness wise in the last couple of games. I've always thought he's 'naturally unfit' and he has alluded to this himself before so hopefully it will just take him a couple of extra games to get going. I thought some of the groans at SOD were well OTT last night, he didn't have a good game but I think you could say that about 9 or 10 of our players. As pissed off as I was at full time, I couldn't say it was about any individuals in particular more the full team.

My biggest annoyance last night was us consistently firing long/diagonals ball across the pitch when there was space to play. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come because I really don't think we have the players for this type of football.