Swello Posted February 6, 2018 Share Posted February 6, 2018 Quite surprising really - one of the most routine wins of the season - and the first one where there wasn't really a serious chance for the opponents. First half was another in a series of eye-bleeding non-football games we've seen recently but it was weird to see a much better performance and shape with the same players in the 2nd half when I thought we were crying out for a creative sub. At this point, it looks like we've done it again with a striker - Main looks excellent - his touch is decent, his decision making is good and he can clearly finish. When you sell your best player and someone drops in and fills the gap, you've got to give credit to the manager and scouts. Campbell was - by some distance - the best midfielder on the pitch and not for the first time this season - genuinely looking forward to see how far he goes. It must make Murray Davidson nostalgic for when he was seen as the next big thing rather than what we saw tonight. I thought the back 3 were really good again - although they weren't under too much pressure.... This win takes the pressure off a little and there is no reason that we can't get to the cup QF on Saturday... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim McLean's Ghost Posted February 6, 2018 Share Posted February 6, 2018 Shite hoofball filled first half. Generous of St Johnstone to let Kipre dribble the ball unopposed past the halfway line in the 2nd. Much better football played in the 2nd half and some nicely worked goals. Alan Campbell was the clear Mot M and deserved his goal and Curtis Main is continuing his fantastic form and doing more than just score. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nelsjfc Posted February 6, 2018 Share Posted February 6, 2018 1 hour ago, Kyle said: Motherwell changed their shape in the second half and were rampant after that. Pretty much the story of the game. We were doing well until half time but it was down to some abysmal finishing by Main (the one he squared ) that we lasted at 0-0 as long as we did. Players looked that they'd accepted defeat after the first goal went in too. To me that was most worrying aspect tonight, the visible lack of belief of getting back into the game. It's a system that in the main does nothing for us. Forces us to play two strikers when you'd happily swap all three of our available options tonight for anyone half decent. Foster and Tanser aren't exactly Cafu and Carlos going forward either. It meant us completely losing the midfield battle too. I'd rather go back to a 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 then afford the space in the wide areas we allowed at times tonight. Williams and McMillan really need to give us a spark when they appear. McMillan must really be worrying how he'll go about displacing the others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_oats Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busta Nut Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 Did we change out shape? I don't think we did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 1 minute ago, Busta Nut said: Did we change out shape? I don't think we did. On reflection, I don't think you did beyond pushing up the pitch (we don't have any pace to hurt in behind anyway) and perhaps keeping the ball better. Motherwell certainly went up a level, our level dropped off a cliff and it made for a perfect storm of shite from our perspective. Certainly didn't see that second half coming at half time. Motherwell hit the bar, but we had more 'chances' (if you can call sclaffing the ball straight at the goalkeeper or wide as that). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swello Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 The biggest surprise for me - having admired St Johnstone for the past few years - was that they utterly downed tools after they went behind..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Brightside Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 Allan Campbell scoring with a tackle again, absolutely love that boy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gianfranco Posted February 7, 2018 Author Share Posted February 7, 2018 Some of the link up play in the highlights were very pleasing on the EYE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaggy Jenkins Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 9 hours ago, RandomGuy. said: How do folk feel about keeping TW upon relegation? I'd reckon he'd deserve a chance to get us back up, tbh. Be interesting to see who stayed and who left though. Alston and Johnstone as our main players in a Championship title charge, boys and girls. Genuinely I don’t think he does, he has been a good manager when times were good with a core of trusted players. Unfortunately he has proved that is, unable to build a squad and is currently proving that he does not have what it takes when the going gets tough. I have no confidence in him finding players to kick us on. That is maybe not all of his fault however his marquee signing in Scougall is just a complete imposter, even played in his ‘secondary’ position he should be more effective given his perceived pedigree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radford Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 Second half not nearly good enough. The players did give up after the two quick goals but I think everyone in the ground knew the game was dead as we just couldn't get into the game after half-time, it was a like a loop of Motherwell chance, Saints restart, Motherwell win first header or if not the second ball, Motherwell chance... We were very good at the weekend and for the first 10 minutes looked like we'd carry it into tonight (one of the early posts in this thread talks about us having 4 shots in that period) but although it evened out, I thought at half-time that the game was still there for us. Foster and Tanser were prevented from getting forward as much after the break and, as both managers said on the radio, we were bettered in the basics, which then let Motherwell play their football. We were weak in challenges for both goals but the scoreline flattered us in truth. The stats for the league show Saints give away the fewest fouls outside of Celtic and I suppose the arguement is there that Main shouldn't be getting the chance to get the ball away for the opener. Shaughnessy messing about costs us the second but even if those mistakes had been avoided, goals were coming. There weren't many failures on Saturday but not many can hold their heads high after last night. Actually thought the much maligned Anderson was maybe our best performer and Mannus was solid, with one brilliant save from Main. Kane started brightly at least but then completely faded and the wing backs worked well in the first half. The rest? Kerr was walking a tightrope after his booking but you can see the promise in him, Willock is technically good but didn't cope with the intensity he'd handled on Saturday and Davidson didn't get near his weekend levels. Alston was anonymous and MacLean worse in the sense you noticed him because of how poorly he was playing. Finally, can't believe I'm even humouring this but the right man is undoubtedly in charge of this group of players. I don't want to be tactless so will just leave that point as it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tree house tam Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 7 minutes ago, Radford said: Finally, can't believe I'm even humouring this but the right man is undoubtedly in charge of this group of players. I don't want to be tactless so will just leave that point as it is. Tommy of course is/has been great for Saints but he has many faults he could do with rectifying. Like any decent players we have, if they were perfect they wouldn't be at Saints. Doesn't stop him or them at least acknowledging those faults and striving to eradicate them, which then leads to frustration and vilification from some parts. I'm not worried. Yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desp Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 Good win last night. Very pleasing after a brutal first half. I felt St. Johnstone were the better side in the opening 10-15 minutes but we came back into slightly over the half. Not much football played and 0-0 was a fair reflection at half time. In the second half, it appeared that only one team came out of the tunnel. We actually started getting the ball down on the deck, playing nice football between midfield and the front. As others have mentioned, Campbell was excellent but Main was superb as well. It's early days I know, but this guy is looking like a superb replacement for Moult. He's got pace, power, holds the ball up well, can pick a pass and loves a goal or two as well. I'm very much looking forward to what he and a fully fit Ciftci can do. It just shows what a good striker can do for your season. We've made it to a cup final and are sixth largely thanks to Moult and now Main, whereas St. Johnstone aren't doing too well with MacLean, Kane & Denny Johnstone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thisGRAEME Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 12 hours ago, Desp said: To be fair, it was tangle of legs between him and Allan Campbell I enjoyed this a lot. Him and Campbell got in each other way, Ciftci had a wee strop because it just wasn't happening for him and the Saints fans started booing him for diving. 11 hours ago, Gianfranco said: Alan Campbell is getting all the praise on Mixlr. Some boi! By miles, the best player on the park, and the best performance from him in a while. We've all been crying out for a midfielder that can actually play a bit, and Campbell really stepped up last night. Did his running around, chasing, harrying and tackling everything, all while adding a collection of smashing touches and passing, typified by his goal. Knocked it off to Main and barged his way into the box to finish. I wonder if he's been watching Bigi, who's fantastic at using his body to block and move the ball, as he's improved that element of his game massively. The point where he was single-handedly holding off two Perthshire farm hands in front of the East Stand was amazing. I absolutely love him to bits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swello Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 Watching the first goal back - it was a fantastic team goal and Campbell touched the ball at the start, the middle and the end of the move Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al B Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 In the highlights there from about 45 seconds onward, I absolutely love Campbell's little faint then cut-in and drive, drawing 3 defenders then popping the ball into Main. That's beyond his years (as is most of his game). Speaking of Main, to think his starting point is already ahead of Moult's (and we all know where he went), it's exciting to think how well he could be doing once he's fully settled and confident. It can frustrate the life out of you and it did with Moult at times, but you really do need your number 9's first thought to be "how can I score from here". I think it was Steelboy who mentioned how early he hits the ball, that's an absolutely key instinct. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radford Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 Not a huge proponent of luck but Motherwell get their new centre forward in and he bangs in the goals, Saints get their one and he just gets banged in the face when heading towards goal. Certainly not looking like there is going to be too many obstacles to McMillan establishing himself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 29 minutes ago, Desp said: Good win last night. Very pleasing after a brutal first half. I felt St. Johnstone were the better side in the opening 10-15 minutes but we came back into slightly over the half. Not much football played and 0-0 was a fair reflection at half time. In the second half, it appeared that only one team came out of the tunnel. We actually started getting the ball down on the deck, playing nice football between midfield and the front. As others have mentioned, Campbell was excellent but Main was superb as well. It's early days I know, but this guy is looking like a superb replacement for Moult. He's got pace, power, holds the ball up well, can pick a pass and loves a goal or two as well. I'm very much looking forward to what he and a fully fit Ciftci can do. It just shows what a good striker can do for your season. We've made it to a cup final and are sixth largely thanks to Moult and now Main, whereas St. Johnstone aren't doing too well with MacLean, Kane & Denny Johnstone. Our strike force last year was Kane, Maclean and Cummins at the same time as you had Moult and we finished 4th. Lack of goals and pants strikers is a very clear issue for us, but there's other more pressing factors IMO. Apart from the opening 5 games of the season when MOH was on fire, we haven't replaced Swanson (who I think managed 15 goals from midfield and gave us real quality in the final third). Our defence and midfield - largely made up of the same players as last year too - have regressed horrendously this year. Whilst the first goal was a great move, there's no way you would've gotten that far up the pitch last season without someone - anyone - putting in a meaningful challenge. In the middle of the park, we don't have anyone who can put their foot on the ball and take a game by the scruff of the neck aside from Millar who is, once again, out of favour without any explanation. For most of the season we've had Davidson, Craig, Paton (all cloggers - 2 of whom I would argue are either past it or shit),Alston (championship player), Wotherspoon (horrendously out of form and starting to show signs that he either needs a change or he's peaked and starting to regress) and Scougall (for all his neat touches, he's flattered to deceive for us so far - 1 goal and (I think) 1 assist just isn't good enough for an attacking midfielder. I have sympathy for him as he's been forced to play out wide for most of the season and that's not his position, but his quality should still shine through. Beyond odd flashes, that hasn't happened). Couple that with the fact that we have no pace in the squad and one player who would call themselves a winger (anyone playing wide is shoehorned in there really) it's easy to see why we're struggling. We are putting a lot of pressure on a 29 year old striker who has never played full time football before and a 22 year old winger who has scored 1 career goal and is very injury prone to save our season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_oats Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 I found Robinson's post-match interview quite interesting as he kind of touches on the "hoofball" criticisms a bit. Saying that we need to "earn the right" to play football and that we're "not Man City" and can't go out to play from the start, we need to give ourselves a platform. It feels like the main focus from the outset is to batter folk, get ourselves a foothold in the game and see what we can do from there. I think we all knew that was his outlook but it seems relevant that he's articulated it. You can argue that the two positions don't necessarily need to be mutually exclusive but I've mentioned before but it feels to me like Robinson's still learning as a manager (it stands to reason as this is to all intents and purposes his first proper management gig given that Oldham were an absolute basketcase). There's no doubt he can set up, organise and drill a side and by my count last night was our 12th clean sheet of the season. Even the players are talking about the "difficult to beat" mentality. We've played 17 at FIr Park in all competitions and seen 9 clean sheets at home. To put that in a bit of context, the last time we finished 2nd under McCall we had 11 clean sheets in total, home and away in all competitions. Where I think Robinson's still learning is the other side of the game in terms of attacking transitions and breaking other teams down. I mentioned it the other week but I wonder whether he might take the handbrake off a bit if we can ensure safety reasonably early. Last night seemed to be a low key "must win" given we've still got Aberdeen, Rangers and Celtic to play in the run in to the split so it's nice that happened to ease a bit of pressure and give us a bit of a gap. That's our form since the winter break with a fully fit squad; WWXLXW and without wanting to tempt fate it doesn't seem unreasonable to say that the form in December was probably more down to half our team being injured than any "bubble" bursting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RossDee01 Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 Ffs. That's you down to one game in hand now Thomas. 2 points from your last 6. Let the panty pishing commence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.