Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Quatermass]

23 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

what's the "won X in X games" at now?

I *think* it’s 2 wins in 24 league games, 3 in all comps. 

Beyond ridiculous no matter how it’s spun.

[welldaft]

Thought we were OK today. Hearts dominated possession as you would expect. But we were very disciplined right up until the point we were not ! Normally have a go at Kelly but I thought he was OK today. Not at fault for either goal. The 1st shows that if it is not the goalie it is the central defence. Both CB thought it was fine to give a free header to the most in form striker in the league. Got back to the comment someone made that Killie, Dundee and St Mirren just would not lose a goal like that. All that good work undone in a flash. 

Also felt we missed the likes of a Biereth today or Van Veen in his prime. We had quite a few forays forward and got in decent positions but did not have the personnel to create that guilt edged opportunity. 

Kinda worrying that Spittal and possibly now Gent are injured. Hopefully both will be back soon. 

 

[ropy]

50 minutes ago, Ron Aldo said:

As usual, we had a few decent bits of play but never really looked like we were going for the win. 

Defence poor for both goals yet again. At least Kelly can't be blamed this week. Bringing on SOD when Gent went off was daft. 

This club continues to improve  ruin people's lives. 

I thought the first 10 minutes of the second half we were going for the win.

i take it the new left back boy is mince as Devine up the left only to pass it back to midfield did nothing to aid our attacking intent.

I think we could have got a 0-0 but defending a free kick isn’t our bag.  You would expect Shankkand to be picked out as a threat but we gave him a free header, we need to win that or use the body to make sure he isn’t getting a clean contact.  Poor.

Until we conceded the performance had been reasonably good. 

Edited February 17 by ropy

[thisGRAEME]

Another shite goal conceded.

Miller was good.

['WellDel]

Was working and only caught the 2nd half. As @ropy says above, we came flying out the traps for the first 10 mins of the second period and had a lot of the ball in and around the Hearts box. Sadly, our lack of cutting edge was again evident and we couldn't take advantage.

For Shankland's goal we are yet again so soft at the back,  no-one should be getting a free header like that from a set-piece. Criminal.

Kettlewell's decision to bring SOD's on when we have what looks like an actual decent option on the left hand side sitting on the bench was a melon scratcher which just unbalanced the back line. A poor substitution.

The additional injuries today on top of what we already have are a worry.

[rowsdower]

It's amazing how many teams just let shankland score.

Shame Miller missed that chance, would have been a good draw if he'd scored that.

[thisGRAEME]

On the SODs sub; I've been impressed with Devine and continue to be impressed by Gent, but neither of them can contest Kelly's goal kicks, which SODs does very well with generally, so I can see the logic.

[capt_oats]

9 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

On the SODs sub; I've been impressed with Devine and continue to be impressed by Gent, but neither of them can contest Kelly's goal kicks, which SODs does very well with generally, so I can see the logic.

Aye. I also think there's kind of been an assumption that Devine's just a RB/RWB which isn't actually the case.

Was the shout when we signed him not that most of his appearances Rangers have been at LB? So in that respect it wasn't really Kettlewell reverting to the sort of thing he was doing earlier in the season by shoving Spencer out there.

[ropy]

31 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Aye. I also think there's kind of been an assumption that Devine's just a RB/RWB which isn't actually the case.

Was the shout when we signed him not that most of his appearances Rangers have been at LB? So in that respect it wasn't really Kettlewell reverting to the sort of thing he was doing earlier in the season by shoving Spencer out there.

Devine didn’t use his left foot once to put the ball in the middle although he did get into advanced positions.

Put the left back on for Gent then replace Devine with SOD, simple stuff.

Obika doesn’t have what little he had at the start of the season any more.

We lost the second because Mugabi was masquerading up the park (probably).

A good performance but because we were pressed in our own half then many of the chances we had were isolated breaks.  

[Handsome_Devil]

1 hour ago, rowsdower said:

It's amazing how many teams just let shankland score.

Shame Miller missed that chance, would have been a good draw if he'd scored that.

Think he showed his youth tbh, he obviously knew he didn't have the pace so took the low percentage shot when he should have taken an extra touch across the defender to get the probable red card or penalty.

[wellboy1991]

1 hour ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Think he showed his youth tbh, he obviously knew he didn't have the pace so took the low percentage shot when he should have taken an extra touch across the defender to get the probable red card or penalty.

Being slightly harsh on Paton I guess but Miller had to slow his run also to get the pass and then knock it on front rather than run onto it. He then tried the cute near post curling finish rather than across goal. 

I was more pissed at Vale, could have just rolled it to Bair to fire home but was caught in between and slapped it wide. 

[rowsdower]

Aside from how most of our results have gone this season, some of the counter attack moves we've pulled off have been pretty fucking slick.

He might have his limitations, but i really like gent. We should keep him. I like what I've seen of devine so far, and he's way too ginger not to play 100+ games for us, that's in the ginger handbook.

[Antiochas III]

14 hours ago, wellboy1991 said:

I’m more concerned with Mugabi not looking at the ball. Just running towards the goal. Ball over Casey’s head aswell. How can Shankland get so much time. Zonal marking is shit.

Mugabi had his man.  f**k knows what Casey was marking as it certainly wasn't his man.  But that sums Casey up to a tee.

[MurrayWell]

While he can be a bit hit and miss, I thought yesterday would have been the ideal game for Slattery. Hearts were starting to look really frustrated at around 60 minutes just after our best attacking spell, if we had someone winning those wee fouls, disrupting and slowing the game Hearts wouldn't have taken as much of a hold on the game as they did. All ifs and buts,  but just another case of us missing one of our better players due to the really bad run of injuries we've had this season. 

[Swello]

14 hours ago, well fan for life said:

I feel for Kettlewell here because you can't legislate for individual errors that we make every week across every defender we've got.

If we are constantly losing the same types of goals and it goes across every defender we've got, it probably points to a deeper problem. While I don't think the situations are identical, Kettlewell solved the same situation last year where Hammell had seemed unable to stop us losing bad goals over a period of months. 

I don't know if there is such a thing as specialist defensive coaching in Scottish fitba - but I think we need to invent it if not as we can't continue the way things are and the current coaching team simply aren't fixing anything.

[Handsome_Devil]

7 hours ago, rowsdower said:

Aside from how most of our results have gone this season, some of the counter attack moves we've pulled off have been pretty fucking slick.

He might have his limitations, but i really like gent. We should keep him. I like what I've seen of devine so far, and he's way too ginger not to play 100+ games for us, that's in the ginger handbook.

Gent has another year at Blackburn iirc so it'd be a pleasant surprise if we can keep him.

[Busta Nut]

I really like Gent too. 

Think wee Davor is brilliant anaw. The defence (centre) is absolutely stinking but I strangely like Mugabi when he's on his period of decent games, far to wild most of the time though. Complete restart needed.

I don't quite dislike Paton as much as others but I am starting to get annoyed with the hard on that Kettlewell seems to have for him.
Obika is dugshite.

It's gonna be a "fun" summer.  CEO's Chairman, we'll probably have Kettlewell still here and about 15 new players.

[Handsome_Devil]

6 minutes ago, Swello said:

I don't know if there is such a thing as specialist defensive coaching in Scottish fitba - but I think we need to invent it if not as we can't continue the way things are and the current coaching team simply aren't fixing anything.

I found it bizarre Hearts, who presumably watched us recently, seemed to use every corner variation rather than a simple inswinger onto Kelly.

As for the goal we did lose, clearly you could claim set pieces are a 50-50 challenge so you'll inevitably lose some goals. However, you then ask are runs we are on now versus Alexander's teams not conceding from X hundred (or whatever) corners etc just statistical quirks and the answer is probably not.

Given the importance of set prices and the oft-quoted margins, it's arguably an all or nothing issue for SK's job - time is running out for him to prove he can fix this because it's absolutely killing us.

[Handsome_Devil]

2 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

I really like Gent too. 

Think wee Davor is brilliant anaw. The defence (centre) is absolutely stinking but I strangely like Mugabi when he's on his period of decent games, far to wild most of the time though. Complete restart needed.

I don't quite dislike Paton as much as others but I am starting to get annoyed with the hard on that Kettlewell seems to have for him.
Obika is dugshite.

It's gonna be a "fun" summer.  CEO's Chairman, we'll probably have Kettlewell still here and about 15 new players.

Agree on Davor. 

Mugabi has games like yesterday when we're sitting deep defending and he just seems to win header after header, block after block and it teases you into thinking maybe...

Tbh you could just about make a case, individually, for the various ooc defenders we have even while it's been a collective disaster. I could imagine keeping one but we need bodies out the door to make a change.

I'm often critical of Paton, I think he's reasonable but the fact SK insists on him being a starting 6/8/10 option at all times is mental. That's a word salad of a sentence but you know what I mean, Paton is blatantly not good enough to be an on the pitch pick at all times in three different roles...it just doesn't compute.

And aye, someone else mentioned earlier that what little Obika offered earlier is now gone....the option in his contract better be on our side.

[Gianfranco]

We’ve had far worse players than Paton imo. He’s a good squad player and certainly an upgrade on the likes of Barry McGuire and Tierney. However, once everyone is fit he wouldn’t be a starter for me but a decent option off the bench.