The Cabbage vs The Steelmen

[MJC]

22 minutes ago, Tamdunk said:

We were shocking today. Midfield an absolute shambles. Even after Hibs got the cigars out we didn't offer much and couldn't take our chances. Disappointing.

Allan Campbell is our midfield. When he's out we offer nothing in the middle. Again, why was this not addressed in the summer?

[Lebowski]

Working today so not at the game. Wasn't expecting that result after the team travelling back from Greece midweek.  Mind Molde tickets are on sale 10am tomorrow.

I don't think there will be many Molde tickets available tomorrow tbh. Sold out the non ST's already so tomorrow will just be the ones not taken up. I'd guess they'll put the South available tomorrow night or Tuesday morning.

[Del_Superwell]

1 hour ago, wellinwigan said:

How much longer is Tanner out ?

Mid September he said he was aiming to be back for.   We badly miss his creativity and quality just off the strikers.

[Ya Bezzer!]

Motherwell have won 6 of their last 26 league matches.

Over those 26 league matches we scored 23 goals.  So less than a goal a game.

Of course these facts are 'negative' and should therefore be ignored.

 

 

[Alan Stubbs]

Mallan's going to end up being an improvement on McGeouch at this rate. He's obviously not as good at the general midfield stuff but having someone chipping in with golazos all the time might end up being more important

Full season of the likes of Boyle and Kamberi drawing free kicks and Mallan smashing half of them hame 

[The_Judge]

5 minutes ago, Alan Stubbs said:

Mallan's going to end up being an improvement on McGeouch at this rate.

FFS! That's a big call at this stage.

[Green Day]

21 minutes ago, The_Judge said:

FFS! That's a big call at this stage.

Aye, but he doesnt mean his "pulling the strings in midfield" bit rather his goals  (Dylan basically didnt score)

Mallan, 5 in 5 so far I think? Goals from midfield is the one area we have been absolutely crap in the last few years.

[The_Judge]

4 minutes ago, Green Day said:

Aye, but he doesnt mean his "pulling the strings in midfield" bit rather his goals  (Dylan basically didnt score)

Mallan, 5 in 5 so far I think? Goals from midfield is the one area we have been absolutely crap in the last few years.

Fair enough.  5 in 5 for a midfielder is an impressive return.

[Dave1875]

38 minutes ago, Green Day said:

Aye, but he doesnt mean his "pulling the strings in midfield" bit rather his goals  (Dylan basically didnt score)

Mallan, 5 in 5 so far I think? Goals from midfield is the one area we have been absolutely crap in the last few years.

Haven't really had someone so deadly from set-pieces either since Griffiths

[The Ginger Prince]

Mallan slipping in free kicks like that all season is going to be sumptuous. 

Ryan Porteous absolutely bitching Sammon & Main all afternoon was gorgeous. 

Martin Boyle running c***s ragged down that right hand side. 

I feel a title challenge coming. 

[BawWatchin]

Credit to Motherwell. 3-0 isn't a bad result when you're up against a European outfit.

[capt_oats]

Allan Campbell is our midfield. When he's out we offer nothing in the middle. Again, why was this not addressed in the summer?

I’ll take a stab at that one.

Cadden being viewed as a midfielder rather than RWB is probably intended to address an aspect of that area of the park. It also adds another midfielder to the squad. As yet we haven’t moved any on.

If, as Robinson alludes, we’ve been expecting Bigi to leave the club then I’d imagine we’d been planning to allocate that wage to addressing the midfield question. I could obviously be wrong but I’m not sure we could necessarily afford to add another type of player in Bigi’s wage bracket to the squad and have him still sitting on the bench or in the stand.

Assuming Cadden sticks around then he, along with Campbell, will start most weeks if fit. That leaves Tanner (when fit), McHugh, Rose, Grimshaw, Bigirimana, Gorrin and Turnbull all vying for one place. Unless one or two of those players move on then it’s a case of making do with what we have.

The natural response to that is to point the signing of Gorrin but I’d have thought that wage would be more in line with the 12-19 squad bracket. Similarly you can point to giving Rose and Grimshaw year extensions last season. It’s tied money up in a couple of very similar players and is entirely fair comment but at the time we announced we were heading into our 2nd cup final and for all his limitations Grimshaw had found a bit of form.

[welldaft]

10 hours ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

Motherwell have won 6 of their last 26 league matches.

Over those 26 league matches we scored 23 goals.  So less than a goal a game.

Of course these facts are 'negative' and should therefore be ignored.

 

 

It is quite a worrying stat but what would be more refreshing is if you actually focussed on some positives or any positives ! 

Like 2 cup finals never happened in your negative world. Or the £3 million in transfer fees we have now taken in over the past 3 seasons. 

Or the absence of key players for suspensions and injuries 

Or the fact that new players need more time to settle in. Dunne being a classic case in point.

I will wait to see how we fare against Hamilton and Livvy in Betfred. If we lose - pray for Ya Bezzer 

 

 

 

[Casagolda]

22 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Assuming Cadden sticks around then he, along with Campbell, will start most weeks if fit. That leaves Tanner (when fit), McHugh, Rose, Grimshaw, Bigirimana, Gorrin and Turnbull all vying for one place. Unless one or two of those players move on then it’s a case of making do with what we have.

See to me, that’s mental.

If everyone’s fit, you have 6 senior players vying for 1 position in the team. Why?

Cause the 2 boys we brought through from our U20’s are better than most of the guys we’ve brought in from elsewhere.

Yet this summer we re-signed both Rose and Grimshaw, we then signed Gorrin which subsequently pushed the 20’s current brightest prospect Turnbull even further down the pecking order- despite a promising end to last season when he did get his chance.

It’s similar to what we did last season with Allan Campbell, until Robinson realised about 8 or 9 games in that he was far better than boys he’d brought in ahead of him during the summer.

[Desp]

Not going into panic mode in any way, but it's frustrating that Robinson seems to have started another season without knowing his best side.  Yes, we had players missing through injury/suspension, but going to his old favourite of 'two changes at half time and switch system' doesn't reflect well on him. 

Take nothing away from Hibs though, they were far, far better than us on the day (as I assume they'll be over the season).  The big lad at the back, Porteous (?) played very well.  Looks a good prospect. 

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, Desp said:

Not going into panic mode in any way, but it's frustrating that Robinson seems to have started another season without knowing his best side.  Yes, we had players missing through injury/suspension, but going to his old favourite of 'two changes at half time and switch system' doesn't reflect well on him. 

Agree with that. Though it's really only just hit home for me that of the side that until Saturday had only lost 5 of their 17 league games in 2018 including 8 clean sheets we literally have none of that back 3 available now.  Kipré sold. Aldred back to his parent club. Dunne injured.

I think what irks me is that we had a relatively poor away record last season. We took 29 points at home and 19 points away and +4 goal difference at home vs -10 away. (Apologies in advance to Hibees on the thread at the very dry content here).

Hibs at Easter Road is clearly a tough game. They're a cracking side so I'm not sure it's entirely fair to judge but it feels like Robinson's default in games like that is to fill the central area with defensively minded players to "earn the right to play" etc and it's probably up for debate whether it actually works. Yes, injuries, suspension and general player (un)availability dictated things but as an approach to the game it seemed very much a case of more of the same.

Then again there's every chance that Hibs would have scudded us 3-0 if we had put a ball player in the middle of the park alongside 2 of Rose, Grimshaw and McHugh anyway so c'est la vie.

Edit to add: for balance it's probably worth me mentioning that 3 of those away defeats came during our December slump (Hearts, Killie and Thistle).

[Busta Nut]

17 hours ago, Swello said:

I might just  be in a cynical mood after the scudding today - but (a) family reasons is the trusty catch-all for everything when a player isn't working out and (b) he patently didn't trust Bigi last season when his family was presumably without reasons....

Bigi wasn't used last year, whenever he was there was often snide comments about the "footballing" players from Robbo.

 

 

Also Cadden is shite, get's away with murder cos he's "one of ours".

[thisGRAEME]

I didn't think we were that bad, really. Absolutely shot ourselves in the foot with stupid things at stupid times. 

That said, the diamond didn't work, and curious as to why Robinson is claiming we couldn't play any other way, when we had McHugh playing at centre-half throughout the betfred. Rose in McHugh's role gets the most out of him, and gives the opportunity for Bigi as well...

... And bigi. I understand Robinson's thinking in 'earning the right to play' and whatever, and that Tanner remains a big part of his plans, but I dunno how you watch us and look at what Bigi can do and come away with the conclusion that you don't want him in the team. He keeps and moves the ball better than anyone else in that midfield did, and the only time when Cadden got into the game was when Bigi was making space for him. 

Finally... Sammon and Main doesn't work, does it? Like, any of the other combinations have shown they work to a degree at some point or another, but those two don't. As soon as Johnson came on it immediately looked like a partnership.

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, thisGRAEME said:

I didn't think we were that bad, really. Absolutely shot ourselves in the foot with stupid things at stupid times. 

That said, the diamond didn't work, and curious as to why Robinson is claiming we couldn't play any other way, when we had McHugh playing at centre-half throughout the betfred. Rose in McHugh's role gets the most out of him, and gives the opportunity for Bigi as well...

... And bigi. I understand Robinson's thinking in 'earning the right to play' and whatever, and that Tanner remains a big part of his plans, but I dunno how you watch us and look at what Bigi can do and come away with the conclusion that you don't want him in the team. He keeps and moves the ball better than anyone else in that midfield did, and the only time when Cadden got into the game was when Bigi was making space for him. 

Finally... Sammon and Main doesn't work, does it? Like, any of the other combinations have shown they work to a degree at some point or another, but those two don't. As soon as Johnson came on it immediately looked like a partnership.

100%.

Looking back at last season vs Hibs:

16/09/17 - 1-0 HT / 2-2 FT. Started with McHugh, Rose & Campbell. Bigi & Tanner on at 2-0 down.
28/10 /17- 0-1 HT / 0-1 FT. Started with McHugh, Rose & Campbell. Bigi & Tanner on at HT.
31/01/18 -1-0 HT / 2-1 FT. Started with Grimshaw, Rose, McHugh & Campbell. Bigi on for Rose, Cadden on for Grimshaw, Ciftci on for McHugh at 2-0 down.

I absolutely get the whole "earn the right to play" business and I'm all for it but it seems curious that we've basically just went out on Saturday with a similar workmanlike midfield and are surprised at the same outcome where we're 2-0 down at HT and chasing the game.

We spent pretty much the whole of last season with a pretty solid 352 / 3412 and even allowing for that back 3 having been obliterated there's still a pretty serviceable XI in a similar shape there. The idea that we had to play a diamond doesn't really stack up given McHugh ended up playing in a back 3 anyway.

It feels like, right now, Robinson would do well to just get back to a shape that he knows. There's a fair chance he's going to have to reappraise things though since, as you say, Sammon and Main isn't a partnership. It's one or the other plus Johnson.

After Robinson's post-match comments I'm curious to see whether this means that Bigi is actually back in the fold or whether that interview was just sticking a 'For Sale' sign up ahead of the English window closing this week.

[Lebowski]

Not going into panic mode in any way, but it's frustrating that Robinson seems to have started another season without knowing his best side.  Yes, we had players missing through injury/suspension, but going to his old favourite of 'two changes at half time and switch system' doesn't reflect well on him. 
Take nothing away from Hibs though, they were far, far better than us on the day (as I assume they'll be over the season).  The big lad at the back, Porteous (?) played very well.  Looks a good prospect. 

Porteous is brilliant. Absolute stand out for the under 20s last season and in the group stage of the Betfred. He's been really unlucky that he hasn't got a run in the side but Lennon won't drop players playing well and rotate players out of the defence. Which is completely fair enough, but I think Macgregor is not going to be close to playing every game and he makes the breakthrough this season.

BTW, wait till you hear him in an interview. He sounds like a lawyer, it's completely disconcerting considering that he looks like someone who will definitely need a lawyer at some point.