Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[well fan for life]

I still think 3-5-2 is the most sensible system for our squad. This 4-3-3 stuff is fine when you've got wingers that are good/on form/not shite but we currently have a load of attacking options who are either not in form or not very good at football. 

As much as my managerial experience stretches to being passable at FM would this not make sense:

And I mean playing this like a 3-5-2. Not whatever fucking garbage GA tried to pull against Celtic a couple of weeks ago. 

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

41 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

Do you think they can play midfield?

Gone are days when wingers were midfielders, they are now "forwards" and I don't fancy any of our wingers doing the job of a left/right midfielder.

That's a valid point. I don't think the positions are that drastically different, but maybe the week of a Scottish Cup Quarter Final isn't the time to try.

[Mr Hahn]

1 hour ago, well fan for life said:

Aye there's a few of his passes went astray but they were at least on the ground and looking for a team mate. I can absolutely forgive that as at least he's trying to create something. My issue with the rest of the game is that when one of our back 4 gets the ball the first option is to look for someone 50 yards up the park but shelling a pass about 10 yards over their head. 

Tierney was perhaps not too involved on Saturday but at least he looks to pass the ball on the ground as well. 

Yeh pretty much this is why Slattery needs to be in the team. Will he miss his target sometimes? Sure, but it feels like our midfield needs someone who is willing to take a risk. He'll come take the ball and try passes, to feet, that could result in scoring chances. Right now, everything in our midfield feels very conservative, very risk free, and it's resulting in us not creating many chances. There's no doubt in mind that Slattery is our best midfielder so surely we need to be playing him more often. 

O'Hara is a good runner and more than deserves his position in the team for me and Donnelly has a bit of bite to him when he's playing well so that just leaves our midfield needing someone who'll take the chance and try and play the killer pass. Goss just doesn't seem to be that player. He's got a decent delivery but firstly I don't think we're getting him in position to give those deliveries nearly enough to make his selection worthwhile, and secondly, our forwards don't really feed off crosses that much. KVV likes the ball to feet, Woolery likes the ball to feet so he can run at the defender, Shields (I'd imagine given his pace) probably prefers the ball to feet or in behind, and Efford would also prefer the ball to feet if Saturday is anything to go by.

I like the shouts of 5-3-2/3-5-2 that others have mentioned. The persistence with 4-3-3 was doing my nut in earlier in the season until we beat Aberdeen at Pittodrie which made me zip my lips about it. But I think a system change would do us no harm at all and 3-5-2 seems to get more of our players in their preferred positions.

[Desp]

I don't think playing a 4-3-3, 3-5-2 or 2-3-5 will matter a jot if the manager continues to order his players to launch it from back to front and feed off scraps.

If that doesn't change, the formation doesn't really matter.

[well fan for life]

Just now, Desp said:

I don't think playing a 4-3-3, 3-5-2 or 2-3-5 will matter a jot if the manager continues to order his players to launch it from back to front and feed off scraps.

If that doesn't change, the formation doesn't really matter.

That's true. At least the Thunderdome era 3-5-2 was based around getting it up to a couple of battering rams and have Campbell/Rose/Grimshaw rampaging to pick up whatever scraps were leftover.

If League 2/Vanarama/whatever level it is down south is 24 teams playing Alexanderball then they really should pack it in and take up a new sport.

[Handsome_Devil]

12 minutes ago, Desp said:

I don't think playing a 4-3-3, 3-5-2 or 2-3-5 will matter a jot if the manager continues to order his players to launch it from back to front and feed off scraps.

If that doesn't change, the formation doesn't really matter.

Long ball can be effective but if you're going to do it you need to do it properly - our half arsed version is not only brutal to watch but useless.

Two fast guys close to KVV and another high tempo box to box guy beside MOH would still be brutal to watch but we'd at least have a chance of taking some of the scraps that emerge.

[JamesP_81]

Finally got round to watching the Dundee highlights . The editor certainly managed to pull some peanuts out of the sh*te there as there were actually a few passages of play that made us look half decent. That makes it all the more baffling that we then spent the other 87 mins shelling long bombs , playing head tennis and generally looking clueless. Theres definitely potential within the squad , it's just pretty frustrating when GA leaves it to the last 10 mins to change it up. 

I wonder how much of our new year slump has been down to teams sussing us out from the first 2 rounds or it being that time of season that certain teams are now scrapping for survival and GA just not adjusting to it.  The last few games in particular seem to have had way much more holding/shitehouse tactics than I remember seeing used against us that we're just not coping with .

 

[capt_oats]

3 hours ago, well fan for life said:

I still think 3-5-2 is the most sensible system for our squad. This 4-3-3 stuff is fine when you've got wingers that are good/on form/not shite but we currently have a load of attacking options who are either not in form or not very good at football. 

As much as my managerial experience stretches to being passable at FM would this not make sense:

And I mean playing this like a 3-5-2. Not whatever fucking garbage GA tried to pull against Celtic a couple of weeks ago. 

See, I saw it more as a 5221 (BBC have it as a 3421) when he trialed it against St Mirren but the Celtic game pretty much killed it dead.

I kind of wonder if that was the (short-lived) plan that we hoped to transition to and compensate for Watt fucking off as it got all of SOD, Mugabi, Johansen, Carroll, Slattery, Donnelly, Shaw, Goss and KVV on the park at the same time (I mean, it wasn't that long ago that Sean Goss was the guy making our midfield function) with an obvious spot for Tierney coming off the bench, you can even imagine O'Hara fitting in there somewhere in an advanced midfield role.

Ultimately we stumbled through the St Mirren game and only equalised after we'd brought Roberts and Woolery on then got scudded against Celtic when we tried it again so we just quickly binned it and reverted back to 433.

It feels like GA has flirted with different shapes (we'd pivot to a 4231 now and again earlier in the season) but they've never really stuck and even in terms of style, the original iteration of Alexanderball was us trying to play the ball out from the back with the bold Tyler Magloire picking up short goal kicks from Kelly.

Edited March 7, 2022 by capt_oats

[YassinMoutaouakil]

I thought we were the better team in that St Mirren game and dominated them during a period where they were the form team in the league. 

Maybe there is something to be said for persisting with the midfield diamond.

[capt_oats]

4 hours ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

I thought we were the better team in that St Mirren game and dominated them during a period where they were the form team in the league. 

Maybe there is something to be said for persisting with the midfield diamond.

I watched it back on MFC TV just there and I think there's an argument for this. Not necessarily that we should have persisted with it but it's possible that we could resurrect it at some point.

I mean, don't get me wrong we looked like a side playing a unfamiliar shape so it was awkward and a bit clunky and people lost their shit because we ended up chucking Bevis up front but on a rewatch it felt like we were passing the ball in the midfield more, the midfield and SOD were pushed higher up the park so whoscored.com's summary is actually quite interesting.

• had a large quantity of possession in their opponents half
• more possession than St Mirren
• better pass success % than St Mirren
• 13 of our 15 shots were from open play
• had more passes than St Mirren, more short passes and fewer long balls

For comparison I've stuck the report from the Dundee game in the spoiler:

• 27 more passes
• 29 more long balls than the St Mirren game
• 4 fewer short passes
• 63% pass success
• 57.2% possession
• 114 of 418 passes were long balls (27.2%)

Spoiler

Fwiw here's the link to the 1-1 against Aberdeen.

• 76 fewer passes than the St Mirren game
• 99 long balls (31.4% of our passes compared with 21.7% against St Mirren)
• 185 short balls (compared with 284 against St Mirren)

Spoiler

Edited March 7, 2022 by capt_oats

[YassinMoutaouakil]

There's a lot of take homes there- but the main one for me is "team has no significant weaknesses " in the first whoscored screenshot. 

#Announce3421/5221

[capt_oats]

9 hours ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

There's a lot of take homes there- but the main one for me is "team has no significant weaknesses " in the first whoscored screenshot. 

#Announce3421/5221

Aye, to be clear that post wasn't designed to be contrary, it also lacks context eg: that Aberdeen game was played after a week of shitty weather and a pitch inspection so us playing fewer passes could easily be put down to "playing the conditions", similarly Dundee were missing half their team and set up in a 451 so it's probably not surprising that we had significantly more of the ball.

Either way in all 3 of those games (2 against Jim Goodwin managed sides) the opposition played a higher percentage of long balls than us.

Really it was just interesting to me was that while the flirtation with a change of shape only lasted 2 games (we were 3-0 down at H/T against Celtic and back to 433 for the United game) your take on the St Mirren game wasn't off the mark - and we passed the ball more.

Whoscored don't have the same analysis for the cup games so without necessarily boring everyone to death and going through every game we've played this season, tracking back to recent games that we actually won eg: St Johnstone and Livi before the winter break, we made 347 passes (83 long balls - 23.9%) against Saints and 289 (74 long balls - 25.6%) against Livi. The caveat there I suppose is probably that Alexander's default when we go 2 up seems to be to let the opposition have the ball.

[CoF]

Do these dinks from 20ft away and aimed anywhere above waist height count as long balls or short passes? We do a lot of them. A lot. 

[capt_oats]

Big #Pete6 wins the league...(with Owen Coyle as his manager).

[Handsome_Devil]

Interesting analysis on the 3-4-2-1/whatever. 

The team at St Mirren certainly performed better than I - and I think most people, from their initial reaction, expected - that's true, and there was considerably more passing than we've attempted in recent weeks. But as far as I remember most of it was easily contained as we played in front of them and it was St Mirren who made the better of what few chances there were before we went crazy with changes late on. Did their keeper make a save beyond KVV from a tight angle? That's not to say we wouldn't get better with practice ofc but any formation which crowds the centre of midfield usually relies on getting at least some threat from the full/wing-backs getting up and being able to cross. Which with the best will in the world you just don't see us having right now whoever is picked there.

[capt_oats]

39 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Interesting analysis on the 3-4-2-1/whatever. 

The team at St Mirren certainly performed better than I - and I think most people, from their initial reaction, expected - that's true, and there was considerably more passing than we've attempted in recent weeks. But as far as I remember most of it was easily contained as we played in front of them and it was St Mirren who made the better of what few chances there were before we went crazy with changes late on. Did their keeper make a save beyond KVV from a tight angle? That's not to say we wouldn't get better with practice ofc but any formation which crowds the centre of midfield usually relies on getting at least some threat from the full/wing-backs getting up and being able to cross. Which with the best will in the world you just don't see us having right now whoever is picked there.

He did, aye.

Based on the SPFL highlights along with the KVV chance you mention there was one from Goss from a SOD cross and Tierney through the centre when he was crowded out/took a heavy touch. All of them were while it was still 0-0.

Pretty sure there were other chances that didn't make the edit.

St Mirren's best chance (other than the goal) came from a set piece. The only other save Kelly has to make is a dig from about 25 yards that resulted in the corner they scored from.

According to the stats St Mirren only had 3 shots on target. So that will be them.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think anyone is trying to rewrite history with this but it's interesting that the a) we moved away from the 433 and b) the change in shape saw us pass the ball more and dominate the ball in their final third (which seems to be one of the things that's getting a lot of folk bent out of shape - along with the whole no wins in 10 thing).

This is our shot map compared to St Mirren up to their goal in 80 minutes (11 vs 6).

Edited March 8, 2022 by capt_oats

[Handsome_Devil]

Ta for that. I forgot about Tierney but the Goss one was barely a chance. Indeed you'd say Gogic in the first half, similar to Tierney, was a much higher quality chance even if he got nowhere near scoring.

Clearly managers might throw in tactical wrong 'uns to confuse the opposition and I don't think it's always a bad thing that any manager, GA in our case, isn't wedded to a certain style of play. But when you're in the run we're on right now it means there's no default to fall back on and there's the impression, fair or otherwise, he's just guessing from week to week. Beyond the short-term it also makes people ask just what we're working towards - e.g. if we struggled because we played Cornelius and Tierney each week but the manager asked for trust because he reckoned the experience would make them stars next season, there'd be a much bigger tolerance. 

[capt_oats]

32 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Ta for that. I forgot about Tierney but the Goss one was barely a chance. Indeed you'd say Gogic in the first half, similar to Tierney, was a much higher quality chance even if he got nowhere near scoring.

Clearly managers might throw in tactical wrong 'uns to confuse the opposition and I don't think it's always a bad thing that any manager, GA in our case, isn't wedded to a certain style of play. But when you're in the run we're on right now it means there's no default to fall back on and there's the impression, fair or otherwise, he's just guessing from week to week. Beyond the short-term it also makes people ask just what we're working towards - e.g. if we struggled because we played Cornelius and Tierney each week but the manager asked for trust because he reckoned the experience would make them stars next season, there'd be a much bigger tolerance. 

It was a save from Alnwick though. 

Tbh, my take based on nothing in particular is that GA's come from a management environment where teams are playing 46 league games a season plus various cup competitions and the result is he's tying himself in knots with team selections trying to find a balance of "load management", horses for courses and meritocracy.

Mugabi has had good performances against Aberdeen this season so it made sense to drop him in at RB for those games. Putting him up against Kent or whoever seems like a really bad idea so SOD gets the nod there. He put in a shift so it seems unlikely he'll lose the jersey especially given he's our captain.

Binning off Goss at Ibrox to have a midfield 3 who'll rat because we're not going to see much of the ball seems sensible but rightly or wrongly he's viewed as our "playmaker" so I get why he'd be back in against County and Dundee at home.

If that's the rationale I can understand it. I don't necessarily agree with it, I'd far rather see a more settled side, but there seem to be a collection of folk on Twitter who are perpetually furious no matter what team gets picked now - which is just really fucking hard work tbqhwy.

Edited March 8, 2022 by capt_oats

[eliphas]

2 hours ago, capt_oats said:

Tbh, my take based on nothing in particular is that GA's come from a management environment where teams are playing 46 league games a season plus various cup competitions and the result is he's tying himself in knots with team selections trying to find a balance of "load management", horses for courses and meritocracy

Spot on. 

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

17 hours ago, capt_oats said:

It was a save from Alnwick though. 

Tbh, my take based on nothing in particular is that GA's come from a management environment where teams are playing 46 league games a season plus various cup competitions and the result is he's tying himself in knots with team selections trying to find a balance of "load management", horses for courses and meritocracy.

Mugabi has had good performances against Aberdeen this season so it made sense to drop him in at RB for those games. Putting him up against Kent or whoever seems like a really bad idea so SOD gets the nod there. He put in a shift so it seems unlikely he'll lose the jersey especially given he's our captain.

Binning off Goss at Ibrox to have a midfield 3 who'll rat because we're not going to see much of the ball seems sensible but rightly or wrongly he's viewed as our "playmaker" so I get why he'd be back in against County and Dundee at home.

If that's the rationale I can understand it. I don't necessarily agree with it, I'd far rather see a more settled side, but there seem to be a collection of folk on Twitter who are perpetually furious no matter what team gets picked now - which is just really fucking hard work tbqhwy.

That's the best take on things I've seen yet. I normally consider myself to be a rational type of fan, but even I have found myself being annoyed both with how we've lined up and how we've done with that lineup, but seeing that in written form makes a fair bit of sense.

To play devil's advocate though, instead of horses for courses in his lineup selection, he should maybe go more for horses for courses in his management style and realise he's not managing a team who play 46 league games alongside 3 domestic cups any more. 

I can't think of any successful spell or team in the last 20 years, where you didn't turn up to games knowing what at least 8 or 9 of the starting 11 was going to be. Any time I associate constant change in the team, such as Gannon drawing which under 19 would start's name out a hat on a Friday, or Baraclough signing a new striker every Friday has normally signified the end is near to me.

I think the problem is particularly bad by not having a settled defence. We've not only had several centre back pairings, but several back fours over the course of a season. I don't know off hand, but I would be amazed if the same back four had played a stretch of longer than 4 or 5 games together on the trot. When we finished third under McGhee, Craigan and Reynolds started every league game. 

The difference between successful Motherwell teams and this one for me is the distinction between a first-team player and a fringe player. The level of first team player is lower, but there are more of them. A fringe player more or less doesn't exist any more. Now, except for Kelly and Van Veen, there's no one in the team that "must play". That can be perceived in different ways, but for me, it's a warning flag if there's not many people in your team who are good enough to be missed. I'd much sooner return to the days where we had a great starting eleven with Daley, Hollis, McHugh, Carswell and three teenagers on the bench.

I was the biggest Alexander fan going at the turn of the year and have a particular soft spot for the fact that he's a Sky Blue like me and I know we're not in a precarious position by Motherwell's standard - but I just wonder how long a manager can actually survive without winning a league game. I said last week on here that the last time we went 10 games without a win was in 2002/03 when we finished bottom but were saved on a technicality. We're not far off eclipsing that.