Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[capt_oats]

4 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

I'm getting massive 2019/20 vibes from this season. Sitting high at Christmas, lose a striker or two and be totally miserable afterwards. I'm sure there was even a 0-0 at home to Hibs around this point of the season too.

Hopefully covid spirals out of control again and they call the season with us 4th. 

There was, aye.

We'd also lost a forward who was a big part of making the system work (Cole).

[thisGRAEME]

Happy to be told I'm miles oot, but was faintly heartened by that today. Change of personnel led to, whisper it, some actual football breaking out from time to time. 

If we can get a #9, or KVV fit, we'll be absolutely fine, imo. 

Slattery is class. 

[YassinMoutaouakil]

4 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

There was, aye.

We'd also lost a forward who was a big part of making the system work (Cole).

The Ilic-Maciver-Scott strikeforce would have ran riot if allowed to develop.

[eliphas]

35 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

Happy to be told I'm miles oot, but was faintly heartened by that today. Change of personnel led to, whisper it, some actual football breaking out from time to time. 

If we can get a #9, or KVV fit, we'll be absolutely fine, imo. 

Slattery is class. 

I'm with you on this. 

In a wider sense my expectation is a drop in results (and 2 or 3 places) the next few weeks as we face Celtic, Aberdeen and Rangers. But we've then got a great run in to the split which should see us consolidate a top 6 spot at least. 

I can also see people panicking, chucking toys out the pram like earlier in the season and calling for the head of Alexander.

Edited January 29, 2022 by eliphas

[well fan for life]

1 hour ago, thisGRAEME said:

Happy to be told I'm miles oot, but was faintly heartened by that today. Change of personnel led to, whisper it, some actual football breaking out from time to time. 

If we can get a #9, or KVV fit, we'll be absolutely fine, imo. 

Slattery is class. 

Tierney looks very tidy. Loves a wee 1-2 through midfield.

If big American Joe can give us a few goals between now and June we'll be cooshty.

[thisGRAEME]

34 minutes ago, eliphas said:

I'm with you on this. 

In a wider sense my expectation is a drop in results (and 2 or 3 places) the next few weeks as we face Celtic, Aberdeen and Rangers. But we've then got a great run in to the split which should see us consolidate a top 6 spot at least. 

I can also see people panicking, chucking toys out the pram like earlier in the season and calling for the head of Alexander.

Probably right, but dropping 2/3 places would require hibs or Aberdeen to win games, and I genuinely can't see Hibs in particular, winning games.

[Allroy for Prez]

Quite a few teams in the mix for the top 6 now I’d say. 

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, well fan for life said:

Tierney looks very tidy. Loves a wee 1-2 through midfield.

If big American Joe can give us a few goals between now and June we'll be cooshty.

The interesting thing with Tierney is that he gives us an alternative shape. A lot of folk (not on here, on other corners of the Motherwell Internet) have had a wheeze about Alexander sticking with 433 and that.

It seems clear that with Tierney it allows us to go 442 diamond/4312 (Potato/Potato). So there's the potential of having 2 strikers on the park.

[KirkySuperSub]

9 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

...on other corners of the Motherwell Internet...

 

[Gianfranco]

I’m somewhere in between we’re missing Watt and it’ll take time to adjust.

[For Your Pies Only]

4 hours ago, thisGRAEME said:

Happy to be told I'm miles oot, but was faintly heartened by that today. Change of personnel led to, whisper it, some actual football breaking out from time to time. 

If we can get a #9, or KVV fit, we'll be absolutely fine, imo. 

Slattery is class. 

We've played worse against Hearts in the past and came away with 3 points - I didn't think Alexander's comments after the game about us edging it for large sections of the game were far off the mark and both goals came from daft mistakes in what was otherwise a pretty well drilled performance. I can't see Shields, Woolery or Roberts contributing many goals (certainly not to the level Watt was anyway) so any kind of tactical or personnel changes that get the midfield more involved in the final third have to be seen as a positive thing. Van Veen has been as mercurial as expected but it's clear he can score when fit and getting good service.

Hopefully it's a sign of things to come and it does seem like Alexander is deliberately trying to tweak the system a little without sacrificing defensive structure too much.

 

[Kapowzer]

Shockingly bad for both goals and keystone cops goalmouth scramble saved it being an on-paper doing. I was genuinely quite excited to see how we'd do (minus McGinley) when I saw the line up announced and assumed we'd go 442 Diamond which would throw a spanner in our as long as I can remember our 433 predictability.

I can see why Lamie is off, few if little errors in the cameo's we've seen, not many 1 goal leads to shithouse the rest of the game recently, so no appearances. The McGinley preferred over Carroll at right back thing after it took Carroll ages to get a start too, pretty hard one to swallow from Lamie unless his move to Dundee has been on the cards and known to the management for quite a while, his sidelining would be understood.

I didn't want him to darken our door again a year ago and while under Grezza his performances improved and errors decreased, he was still in negative equity in my mind. LIke Crawford, I wish him no ill will but I would look for the base standard of any replacement to be at their worst, better than Lamie at his best.

Glad ... no relieved, to see Slattery start, genuinely wonder if he would had Donnelly not got the red midweek.

Not much to admire in January. Fixtures and history tell us not much to look forward to in Feb.

[Captain Saintsible]

Outside the Old Firm and Hearts, is there a more despised club in Scottish football than Motherwell?

Maybe Airdrie, but apart from them 

[welldaft]

3 hours ago, Captain Saintsible said:

Outside the Old Firm and Hearts, is there a more despised club in Scottish football than Motherwell?

Maybe Airdrie, but apart from them 

[Busta Nut]

I hope that is a genuine return of that Captain Sensible nutter from years ago.

[rambunctious]

4 hours ago, Captain Saintsible said:

Outside the Old Firm and Hearts, is there a more despised club in Scottish football than Motherwell?

Maybe Airdrie, but apart from them 

I don't mind us tbh

[capt_oats]

8 hours ago, Gianfranco said:

I’m somewhere in between we’re missing Watt and it’ll take time to adjust.

Tbh, I think both can be true.

To take the second point first, that was a new midfield yesterday with two players making their first league starts. There's an element of adjustment in that respect on top of losing someone who was a key part of how we were set up.

re: Watt, with his whole PCA saga and subsequent move we've played 5 games since he last kicked a baw for us:
Livi (h) 2-1 (W)
County (a) 3-1 (L)
Morton (h) 2-1 (W - AET)
Hibs (h) 0-0 (X)
Hearts (a) 2-0 (L)

It's probably fair to say that of those 5 with the games we lost we didn't lose because Tony Watt wasn't playing. We lost because we made some really dumb decisions defensively.

[ropy]

4 hours ago, Captain Saintsible said:

Outside the Old Firm and Hearts, is there a more despised club in Scottish football than Motherwell?

Maybe Airdrie, but apart from them 

Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Airdrie then community minded Motherwell in that niche 5th position in the Scottish despising ranking.

[Al B]

Two things that really annoyed me about yesterday, and starting to annoy me in general:

We seem to be starting to dip into this approach of trying to show that "we're harder than you, we won't be bullied and we won't be out-muscled", and all it does is get in the way of us being able to develop any flow to our play. Physical teams do that to other sides who try and play football to stop them getting any momentum, but we actually do it do ourselves.

Then there's this weird decision making thing that flies in the face of that where, when any schoolkid could tell you it's time to either just put your laces through the ball, or simple pass and regroup.....that's when we decide to do wee pirouettes or drag-backs looking for a cute pass. Both Hearts goals yesterday would have resulted in 10 push-ups and a lap of the pitch for Shaw and Goss if they had happened at training at boys club level, let alone the professional game.

There's times in a match where it's appropriate to dig-in and be physical/agricultural, and there's times when you have your chance to play. We seem to have those the wrong way round....trying to play at times when someone needs a dunt or the ball needs blunt-force trauma, and then breaking down our own decent play by trying to win a free kick or trying to be physical.

Oh....and I'm starting to REALLY take a disliking to KVV. He's not even in the same ballpark of how good he thinks he is, and it causes him to continually take the wrong option. He's the kinda guy that tries the 1 in 100 option every single time because from pure luck they come off now and again and he comes across like a superstar and that's how he seems to see himself, but in reality it just means he spends 99% of his match time making an absolute c**t of everything. I genuinely think that for every good thing he's done, 5 good things could have happened if he'd made the right choice. Nailing my colours to this mast now.....and I may be the first....but he's shite. He's capable of the odd spectacular or impressive thing now and again, but so is anyone if they try it enough times. He's shite.

Edit - On a completely different scale obviously, but it reminds me of that Roberto Carlos thing where he's held up as one of the best free-kick takers in history, and has 3 or 4 entries in any highlights reel of the best free-kicks of all time. But the reality is he only scored about 10 in his WHOLE career.....literally huuuuuuundreds of them went into the stands. But no-one's allowed to think he's shite at free-kicks cos he once hit one that went out for a pie before coming back in and beating the keeper. He was absolutely shite at free-kicks.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Al B

[Desp]

I understand the frustration with KvV. Aye, there's a player in there, but there's a reason he's 30 years old and he's spent the last half decade at Scunthorpe & Northampton. 

I think he'll be an OK, steady player at our level for a couple of seasons but once he goes he won't get close to the top 10 strikers of this century. 

To be fair to Kev, I think he could do with some support up alongside him. Will be interesting to see how the American boy gets on.