Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[D-Fens Foster]

Could be worse chaps. We could be the wee team fae doon the road. 

[D-Fens Foster]

3 hours ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Chance missed...Rangers are fragile as f**k right now and our failure at the absolute basics before chucking them a comical gift let them off the hook.

13 points from 11 isn't the end of the world by any means but we're in some slump right now and need to tighten up all over the park asap if this is to remain a blip rather than a major problem.

The relegation race is gonna be ridiculously tight this year. I know it’s early but we will be involved. No slight on the team or Hammell but we will be there or thereabouts. I know games against this shower won’t define our season but we need tae be careful because i can’t see one team being cut adrift this year. Ross County maybe ? Even that’s debatable 

[YassinMoutaouakil]

21 minutes ago, D-Fens Foster said:

Could be worse chaps. We could be the wee team fae doon the road. 

They have been taken to the Championship's woodshed. 

[YassinMoutaouakil]

21 minutes ago, D-Fens Foster said:

Could be worse chaps. We could be the wee team fae doon the road. 

They have been taken to the Championship's woodshed. 

[Kapowzer]

1 hour ago, Swello said:

My straw clutching at the moment is that we are not getting a doing from anyone - these are all narrow losses. Our biggest loss was the hearts game and ironically, we played better in that than any game since, including a 5-0 win. We are in the midst of a tough run - next Saturday feels like a very big game for us.

Maybe so Swello, but we're pretty unique in not knocking out teams already on the on the ropes. I get that there has to be a turning point for a poor run but a bit scunnered that teams seem to turn that corner with the common denominator being us.

Kilmarnock had 1 point when we met them in GW5, few can argue with them getting a 300% increase.

Dundee United also had just 1 when we met them in GW6, they lost 0-9 the week before. I appreciate Dundee United have put in decent results since and they are now getting points reflecting the decent quality in their squad. 

Hearts have only 1 win their last 8 away games (D2 L5), guess who they handed that out a 0-3 to?

Celtic, poor results and below par performances since their draw in Poland, St Mirren (loss), Leipzig (lost twice), St Johnstone (90+5 winner) and OK we played them at Parkhead which is always a task but did we honestly give them a fright?

And then today, off the back of a shell-shocking 1-7 midweek our players don't seem as fired up as those of other teams vs them. Their domestic form is the opposite of Europe (minus Hibs and Celtic), so I'll give today a degree of slack but Tilman's goal was criminal from us.

 

[boozyBJ]

We missed Joe Efford today. Hope he’s back for Wednesday 

[beesher]

Sitting with the Mrs bemoaning our inability to beat Rangers in the league.

she pipes up with ’at least Motherwell have never been liquidated’

Don’t think I’ve ever been more in love than I am right now tbh.

 

 

[D-Fens Foster]

Watching sportscene…… asking myself why

[D-Fens Foster]

[Phillips455]

Same thoughts as everyone else. Both goals were down to our own mistakes in the moment. A bit depressing that it will kow be 20 years at least since we have beaten (Both versions of) Rangers in the league itself. We seem to be able to pull it out in a do or die situation (play off and Semis) but the league part is very annoying to me.

 

Additionally, the faking head injuries pisses me off much more than I thought. Sure, go down and exaggerate an injury for time wasting. Every team does that. But faking a head knock? Firstly that's bad all around. It stopped one of our attacks late on. What makes it worse however is that it puts doubt on any actual head knock situation. A boy who cried wolf situation. I really wish there was some punishment to prevent this kind of thing but not punishment the players who do need treatment.

 

If you look back at the season so far, none of the defeats have been that big. Always just a goal (apart from the hearts game). Even the hearts game was tight util we kept missing and conceding from the breakaway.

If I had to summaries this first part of the season, I would say "expected, but hoping for more". The 1 win in 7 does scare me as that's entering alexander territory, but we all knew the last 5 games of our opening 11 would be the hardest.

 

 

Onto a possible cup run and VAR controversy Aberdeen Game.

[AnderooMFC]

11 hours ago, rowsdower said:

Morris getting the full game wasn't terrible either, because we need to try and get something out of him. There were a couple of times that he took up good positions for KVV to ignore him, but I'm not sure if it would have led to anything since I'm sure the guy hasnt had a single shot on goal for us.

I'm no fan of his, but I do think today was the best performance I've seen from Morris so far.

 

Also, going by social media comments some are already coming out against Hammel. Idk if it's just the run we're in or if they really are deluded enough to think we should be strolling games against the OF, but there are some among us. I can only imagine how much worse the social media team are gonna get it on Wednesday night. Here's hoping we can do our usual against the sheep and calm things down a bit.

[CoF]

5 hours ago, AnderooMFC said:

Also, going by social media comments some are already coming out against Hammell

Couldn’t really see anything along those lines on Facebook or twitter, but the ever reliable Steelmenonline has come to the rescue. 

['WellDel]

28 minutes ago, CoF said:

Couldn’t really see anything along those lines on Facebook or twitter, but the ever reliable Steelmenonline has come to the rescue. 

No idea who runs Steelmen now, but it's very doubtful to be a Div style overlord making enough money for a gold plated shunky and champagne filled hot tub.

It's been months since I even ventured onto it, but traffic seems very low these days with only a handful of decent, sensible posters lost among the remaining mentalists with their crazy takes. We should welcome the few good guys over here then that site can be put out of its misery. It's become as big a stain on the name of our club as the memory of the Albion Rovers cup game. A true wasteland.

[welldaft]

In some ways the fixture list has been friend and then foe. 

To start with a run v traditional bottom half teams and finish with the big city clubs was always likely to have this outcome. And to make matters worse we appear to be starting next round of fixtures with the big city clubs. Which quite possibly means very few points on board before the World Cup. 

If you had asked most Well fans after Sligo would we take 8th place and a few points off 3rd with a 0 GD. Most would have taken that after 1st round of fixtures. What has compounded matters is the 4 points from 21. Also the entertaining football on show v United and Hearts at home has given way to mediocrity v Old Firm and Hibs away. 

I mentioned quite a few times when Alexander was in charge. Would we like to see more entertainment and losses than dour football and narrow wins. Well we are starting to find out. And the answer is as it was always going to be. No. Winning is as important as style and always will be. The very fans on Alexander’s back will be the same ones on Hammell back. They have no patience at the best of times. And everything is either feast or famine. 

I have Zero expectations for this coming Wednesday v Celtic. Zero. After that the two games v Aberdeen and United are vitally important. Lose those two and the pressure will b ramped up quite a bit. And not just from the usual doom mongers on Steelmen. 

[Swello]

22 minutes ago, welldaft said:

In some ways the fixture list has been friend and then foe. 

To start with a run v traditional bottom half teams and finish with the big city clubs was always likely to have this outcome. And to make matters worse we appear to be starting next round of fixtures with the big city clubs. Which quite possibly means very few points on board before the World Cup. 

If you had asked most Well fans after Sligo would we take 8th place and a few points off 3rd with a 0 GD. Most would have taken that after 1st round of fixtures. What has compounded matters is the 4 points from 21. Also the entertaining football on show v United and Hearts at home has given way to mediocrity v Old Firm and Hibs away. 

I mentioned quite a few times when Alexander was in charge. Would we like to see more entertainment and losses than dour football and narrow wins. Well we are starting to find out. And the answer is as it was always going to be. No. Winning is as important as style and always will be. The very fans on Alexander’s back will be the same ones on Hammell back. They have no patience at the best of times. And everything is either feast or famine. 

I have Zero expectations for this coming Wednesday v Celtic. Zero. After that the two games v Aberdeen and United are vitally important. Lose those two and the pressure will b ramped up quite a bit. And not just from the usual doom mongers on Steelmen. 

Agree with most of this - (some) supporters will always get restless when we lose a few or have a difficult run - and losing lots of games narrowly can in itself become frustrating as it puts a spotlight on mistakes/shite play like Shields' red card situation or the first goal yesterday. In other words, it's more frustrating losing narrowly against a low confidence, off-form Rangers team than being pumped by a good Rangers team.

That being said - the vast majority of supporters lost patience with GA for the twin facts that he was seemingly picking the team out of a Fine Fayre bag the way the half time draw used to be done at Fir Park, and the team he did randomly select played some of the worst football we've ever seen. If things were purely results based - he got us a 5th place finish and europe, so he should have been safe until Christmas at least. 

SH has changed the style to something a lot more watchable (and done it quickly with largely the same players) and has clearly been trying to have a consistent core of the team game to game - so even by football supporter standards, it would be fucking harsh and hypocritical to get on his back at this early stage (but I don't believe that is really happening to any great extent yet outside of a few people who get a semi by trolling folk on Twitter and Steelmen). 

[AnderooMFC]

1 hour ago, welldaft said:

In some ways the fixture list has been friend and then foe. 

To start with a run v traditional bottom half teams and finish with the big city clubs was always likely to have this outcome.

I think it's this. But also two comments down on facebook there was someone passionately advocating for the return of Barry Maguire to save us, so maybe they're just headcases.

[CoF]

2 hours ago, 'WellDel said:

 A true wasteland.

Aye. Feels like a weird post-apocalyptic backwater now. I don’t actually mind wild-takes, that’s kinda expected in football forums but it’s the inability to disagree without things descending into personal digs that makes any reasonable discussion unreadable. 
 

 

Anyway, Hammell out. 

Edited October 17, 2022 by CoF

[Dosser2014]

It doesn't really concern me what others post on our other sites - thats up to them and they're entitled to their opinion. I'm no more important than they are. I'm certainly not obsessed by them. Hammell is a rookie manager. He's got some things right and some things wrong.  A popular but risky appointment at the time, and those views are still being expressed. Hey ho. Quelle surprise.   

[capt_oats]

Speaking in a broad sense that's the first round of fixtures done and compared with the same point last season we're 2 points down, having scored the same number of goals and conceded 1 goal fewer. We've won the same number of games but lost 2 more.

It's a case of could've, would've, should've but KVV tucks that penalty away against United or we hold out for the draws against St Johnstone and Killie and we find ourselves on the same points. As it is, it still feels like the first round of games could have been a lot worse for us (and could clearly have been a lot better).

Given the circumstances around how Hammell got the job plus the fact that by and large he's still working with Alexander's squad it still feels we're in a slightly weird place.

The main positive, for me, is that we've been competitive in every game we've played and while we're improved in style I don't think we've anywhere near hit our ceiling - there's plenty of room for improvement. It's a question of what Hammell can do to implement that.

We've only lost one game so far by more than 1 goal and of Hammell's 12 games in charge so far we've kept 5 clean sheets yet after almost every game we've lost we've heard Hammell say exactly the same thing about the defence and poor goals conceded.

There's only so many times Hammell can come out and say the same thing before the question is what does he do about it. We've 2 and a half months until the window opens so it seems that his hands are tied in that respect - which means whatever needs done it probably needs done by coaching.

As much as it's fair to say Rangers are 'fragile' at the moment they've still only lost one game domestically (to Celtic) and their previous two league results prior to Sunday were 4-0s against St Mirren and Hearts.

We absolutely didn't need to give them a helping hand by defending as we did though.

Spoiler

7 hours ago, 'WellDel said:

No idea who runs Steelmen now, but it's very doubtful to be a Div style overlord making enough money for a gold plated shunky and champagne filled hot tub.

It's been months since I even ventured onto it, but traffic seems very low these days with only a handful of decent, sensible posters lost among the remaining mentalists with their crazy takes. We should welcome the few good guys over here then that site can be put out of its misery. It's become as big a stain on the name of our club as the memory of the Albion Rovers cup game. A true wasteland.

It's not often I dip into Steelmen these days but having done a quick audit of my posts I seem to have sacked it off around the summer of 2018 - I've only posted 18 times in the 4 years since and only twice this year (neither of those were particularly interesting).

Tbf, it is what it is - it has the same faults as most single club forums in so much as it's incredibly one-eyed and the result is a completely skewed perspective - some of the absolutely mental "could do a job" shouts confirm that there are plenty of posters who don't pay any attention to other sides.

Having said that I get the impression that the handful of regular sensible posters are relatively content over there and don't really have much time for chat about paneer or LCD Soundsystem - which is fine I guess.

I've said it before but it's always seemed that SO (and single club forums in general) appeal to a different demographic who engage with their club(s) in a different way. It's a pretty tough hang a lot of the time though.

That said, I signed up here in 2009 and over there in 2012 and at the time it felt like there was more crossover in terms of posters. Like, I get there are some on this thread who still post on SO but it feels like there are definitely fewer than there were.

Maybe I'm misremembering though.

Edited October 17, 2022 by capt_oats

[Busta Nut]

21 hours ago, Phillips455 said:

 

 

Additionally, the faking head injuries pisses me off much more than I thought. Sure, go down and exaggerate an injury for time wasting. Every team does that. But faking a head knock? Firstly that's bad all around. It stopped one of our attacks late on. What makes it worse however is that it puts doubt on any actual head knock situation. A boy who cried wolf situation. I really wish there was some punishment to prevent this kind of thing but not punishment the players who do need treatment.

 

 

This ripped ma knitting too. There should be retrospective bans for that.


SO is fine, I enjoy it at times but I come and go in spells. Not been on in a while but soon I'll go back to posting on it and then disappear again.  I think Andy P is a big miss to that website. RIP to him.