Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[well fan for life]

I got quite annoyed in the Alloa home game in the cups because they knew what we were trying and shut 3 or 4 of our corners down. Would be nice to mix it up now and again. 

[Phillips455]

I've been to 4 Away games this season. We have lost all 4 games this season...

 

... I'll see you guys for the Aberdeen away game!

[ropy]

2 hours ago, Desp said:

No. The corners are shite. 

The save from Watt’s header came from a corner didn’t it

[ropy]

7 minutes ago, ropy said:

The save from Watt’s header came from a corner didn’t it

And I suppose Grimshaw’s rocket over the bar came from a corner 

[Guest superward]

11 corners we had on Saturday.  We need to do better from them.

I could understand sticking with the same formula every time if we were converting even 50% of them into decent chances/saves but it's not even that high. 

Anyway, it's a pet peeve of mine as you can probably tell. Haha. 

 

[Casagolda]

Motherwell's Tony Watt: I love it here but my next deal has to be the right one

Hope he signs a 10 year deal but it’d be hard to begrudge him a good move if he got a decent offer elsewhere. 

Edited October 25, 2021 by Casagolda

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

The weird thing about Saturday's game is that I can't remember Kelly being troubled outside of their goals and I remember us having the better chances, but weirdly at the end of the game I didn't feel aggrieved about not picking up anything. I guess it probably came from my frustration at the number of abject performances throughout the team.

I reckon Ojala, Slattery and Watt got pass marks, just about and no more, but everyone else was miles off it. Mugabi has been very good so far this season, but even he seemed to revert to the error prone, swing at the baw version we saw under Robinson.

[ropy]

‘If’ the game had finished 1-1 we would all have gone home praising a professional performance.

As it is it was pish.

[Neil86]

26 minutes ago, Casagolda said:

Motherwell's Tony Watt: I love it here but my next deal has to be the right one

Hope he signs a 10 year deal but it’d be hard to begrudge him a good move if he got a decent offer elsewhere. 

Fling everything and the kitchen sink at making this happen.

[Guest superward]

2 hours ago, Casagolda said:

Motherwell's Tony Watt: I love it here but my next deal has to be the right one

Hope he signs a 10 year deal but it’d be hard to begrudge him a good move if he got a decent offer elsewhere. 

Shame to see it's being talked about in the press right enough. 

We won't be able to pay many people (Tony or not) a contract that suits their definition of a 'last big deal' type contract. Turning 28 in a month or two, I totally get his position. 

Odds on Tony won't be here if that is the chat in the press publicly and as I mentioned earlier, he probably expected to be in England at a new club at this point in time before it fell through. 

Hopefully I'm wrong though and a deal is done. 

Edited October 25, 2021 by superward

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

You can't begrudge a guy looking after his future, but sadly that looks like a come and get me plea and almost a confirmation he won't be here next season. I thought having found form, consistency etc at Motherwell he may have seen this as his home for a good few years and a place to finally settle. It might end up a straight swap between money and minutes, much like it's been for Devante Cole this season.

I 100% see where he is coming from if at 28 he can earn say £4k a week down south, to pluck a number from the air, you'd be daft to turn that down for half of that here.

Edited October 25, 2021 by crazylegsjoe_mfc

[Luke92]

We are nearly in November and I'm still not really sure how to take Alexander or this current team.

Post league cup I was worried we were in trouble but after the Hibs display and then putting a few wins together I was quite encouraged. Unattractive football but the man seemed to know how to grind things out.

Fast forward to now I keep coming back to the feeling that I haven't really seen us play well all year, apart from maybe a couple of halfs here and there. I want to like Alexander and the current team but I'm still really on the fence about us at the moment. Not really sure where we stand. I feel like the style we are playing will continue to make fans a bit negative towards GA when results don't go our way.

I know he's trying to keep morale up etc but Alexander coming out pretending we've played well the last 2 games rubs me up the wrong way. Also the fact he thinks Nathan McGinlay looks like a first team player.

Edited October 25, 2021 by Luke92

[ropy]

7 hours ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

The weird thing about Saturday's game is that I can't remember Kelly being troubled outside of their goals and I remember us having the better chances, but weirdly at the end of the game I didn't feel aggrieved about not picking up anything. I guess it probably came from my frustration at the number of abject performances throughout the team.

I reckon Ojala, Slattery and Watt got pass marks, just about and no more, but everyone else was miles off it. Mugabi has been very good so far this season, but even he seemed to revert to the error prone, swing at the baw version we saw under Robinson.

80% of what he says is positive about his time at the club, I think he is hankering after a sponsorship for an apprenticeship.  I know a plasterer who could get him started.

[capt_oats]

What with Wednesday being the end of the first round of fixtures it's kind of got me wondering how it's gone.

On the face of it so far we've won 4, drawn 2 and lost 4. Of the 4 losses 2 have been at home (Hibs, Celtic) and 2 away (Hearts, United). Would I have expected us to win any of those 4? Probably not.

Hibs (h): 2-3 (L) - 1
St Johnstone (a): 1 - 1 (X) - 1
Livingston (a): 1-2 (W) - 1
Dundee (h): 1 - 0 (W) - 3
Aberdeen (h): 2 - 0 (W) - 1
Rangers (a): 1 - 1 (X) - 0
Ross County (h): 2 - 1 (W) - 3
Hearts (a): 2 - 0 (L) - 1
Celtic (h): 0 - 2 (L) - 0
United (a): 2 -1 (L) - 1

I've tacked on the points I'd have predicted us getting given previous results, venue and general historic form and in terms of expectation vs reality we're probably a couple of points ahead of where I'd have expected us to be that's before you even factor in the turnover of players during the summer.

We're averaging 1.4 ppg and are currently double digits clear of the relegation spot. All things told if you'd offered us that after the Airdrie game I think we'd probably have taken it.

Looking at the way the fixtures have fallen I'd always have said that this run was likely to be tougher than the start we had. Albeit we never usually play particularly well in Perth or at Almondvale. I suppose there's a different strand of the multiverse where we'd have been looking at 1 win from our opening 6.

I've noticed that there seem to have been a number of the happy clapping types clutching their pearls about Alexander (as opposed to the usual suspects who seem to be absolutely furious regardless of whether win or lose) and it feels like their noses are being put out of joint because their definition of "playing well" isn't the same as his.

@crazylegsjoe_mfc kind of hinted at it a couple of posts above when he said that bar the 2 goals on Saturday Kelly wasn't really troubled whereas Siegrist was making some decent saves. I don't know because I don't know the guy but I get the feeling that when Alexander's talking about the game that's what he's leaning into and whether or not the players are carrying out his instructions rather than playing neat passing patterns.

Tbh, I don't think he gives a f**k what the "welcome to our great wee club" reply guys think either. And fair fucks to him for that.

It's the sort of situation where folk were getting bent out of shape because we only had 25% of possession against Aberdeen, it didn't matter that we won 2-0 (and were pretty comfortable).

That's not to say there aren't things that need fixing, there clearly are and equally I'm not entirely sure having the full squad available that Alexander has been talking up is necessarily helping him at the moment. It's almost as if he has too much choice at the moment.

Edited October 25, 2021 by capt_oats

[Archie McSquackle]

‘If’ the game had finished 1-1 we would all have gone home praising a professional performance.
As it is it was pish.

I don't think we've been particularly outstanding in any of the games we've won. We rely on our opponents not being able to take the chances we try to limit them to. If we'd lost any of those games we'd probably have been saying it was pish.

[capt_oats]

3 minutes ago, Archie McSquackle said:

9 hours ago, ropy said:

‘If’ the game had finished 1-1 we would all have gone home praising a professional performance.
As it is it was pish.

I don't think we've been particularly outstanding in any of the games we've won. We rely on our opponents not being able to take the chances we try to limit them to. If we'd lost any of those games we'd probably have been saying it was pish.

Is that not true of any team though? Like, it's how the game works?

We rely on our opponents not taking the chances they're able to create and us taking the chances we create?

[Swello]

On 25/10/2021 at 09:46, Casagolda said:

Motherwell's Tony Watt: I love it here but my next deal has to be the right one

Hope he signs a 10 year deal but it’d be hard to begrudge him a good move if he got a decent offer elsewhere. 

Missed the game on Saturday, so can't comment on it - but this interview reads like a more savvy supporter-friendly version of the Gun to the Head. What is interesting is to see what he is really wanting. At his age, it's feasible that a long contract near the top of our pay scale gives him the security he needs rather than heading off down south for a quick top up of the pension fund (or going into semi-retirement at Aberdeen like Gallagher) as it would allow him to enjoy his football. 

If he leaves at the end of the season (with his reputation repaired) for more money- he can't really be criticised at all based on his contribution.

[Archie McSquackle]

Is that not true of any team though? Like, it's how the game works?
We rely on our opponents not taking the chances they're able to create and us taking the chances we create?

Absolutely but this season we've seemed at times to have gone with the tactic of letting teams come at us, hoping they don't take their chances and we manage to nick something. Sometimes it's worked, sometimes it hasn't but we've rarely been particularly impressive.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

I think we have to be offering Watt the sort of numbers we were talking about for Campbell and Turnbull. We're not going to make a profit on him the way we did with those two but he's a forward of far higher quality than we have any right to attract that's essentially fallen into our lap because he's a bit of a weirdo and stays five minutes away.

[Neil86]

1 hour ago, Swello said:

Missed the game on Saturday, so can't comment on it - but this interview reads like a more savvy supporter-friendly version of the Gun to the Head. What is interesting is to see what he is really wanting. At his age, it's feasible that a long contract near the top of our pay scale gives him the security he needs rather than heading off down south for a quick top up of the pension fund (or going into semi-retirement at Aberdeen like Gallagher) as it would allow him to enjoy his football. 

If he leaves at the end of the season (with his reputation repaired) for more money- he can't really be criticised at all based on his contribution.

That's a really good point actually, a three year deal as one of our higher/highest earners might be very appealing to him. I sincerely hope this is the case.