St Johnstone Vs Motherwell - The Liam Gordon Derby

[Jamie_B]

13 minutes ago, Gianfranco said:

Sportsound went as far as to say St Johnstone players weren’t working as hard as Motherwell and looked bereft of confidence. 
 

ETA St J actually equalised when the people watching in the studio were slating them for how poor they had been . 

To be fair at that point we had been garbage for the previous fifteen minutes!

Agree at the comment about Lennon Miller. Motherwell have done well to hold on to him through the summer.

[RandomGuy.]

1 hour ago, Jamie_B said:

On top of that we had 65% possession in the first half

How much of that was down to us already being 1-0 down and Motherwell knowing our 3 CBs would just pass sideways endlessly without hurting them?

Its reminiscent of the time were like 3-0 to Livingston after 25 minutes a few years back, and folk praised the manager and players for "recovering well" when we spent the rest of the game in their half and attacking, as if it wasn't because they knew the game was won if they didn't do anything stupid.

Motherwell put in a performance we got under TW. Take a lead, make sure you do nothing stupid, up the tempo when needed. They held us at arms length all afternoon until Kirk came on and caught them by surprise, and even then once the game settled again they yet again took control.

They never "dominated" in the sense of them battering us, but they never actually seemed worried by us bar that little spell after we scored when we went stupidly open and made the game end to end.

Those two teams match those performances for the end of the season and we finish well below them.

[Jamie_B]

That’s what I felt really - when we concede it’s easy to defend against us because we’re so ineffective in possession with MacPherson in the middle and the centre halfs not supporting the attacks ever and offering an option.

[Stevie Kirk]

I thought your Tommy Robinson guy played ok and wasn’t as bad as I had been lead to believe.

 

Nicky Clark however - hide and seek champion , should be donating his wages to charity after that “ display” 

[ropy]

10 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

How much of that was down to us already being 1-0 down and Motherwell knowing our 3 CBs would just pass sideways endlessly without hurting them?

Its reminiscent of the time were like 3-0 to Livingston after 25 minutes a few years back, and folk praised the manager and players for "recovering well" when we spent the rest of the game in their half and attacking, as if it wasn't because they knew the game was won if they didn't do anything stupid.

Motherwell put in a performance we got under TW. Take a lead, make sure you do nothing stupid, up the tempo when needed. They held us at arms length all afternoon until Kirk came on and caught them by surprise, and even then once the game settled again they yet again took control.

They never "dominated" in the sense of them battering us, but they never actually seemed worried by us bar that little spell after we scored when we went stupidly open and made the game end to end.

Those two teams match those performances for the end of the season and we finish well below them.

Yes, we dominated within the context that we scored an early goal and therefore were in control of things and St Johnstone were required to do something to get back into it, which they didn’t look capable of doing.

The subs changed things either because it was managerial master stroke or we just failed to adapt to the changes.  We looked vulnerable for a bit until we played ourselves back into the game.

I definitely thought we were chucking 2 points away after we had controlled so much of the match.  The winner papered over the fact that we didn’t convert anything from open play (off side goal aside).

[Archie McSquackle]

I'd echo the thoughts of a good few of the St Johnstone fans, I don't think there was much between the sides and at half time I thought we had go the goal and then dug in.  We weren't really closing down and seemed happy to sit and protect our shape.

We came out and had much more of a go at the start of the second half and I thought a lot of that was down to Watt being more willing to push up than Robinson but he might just have been getting more support. I thoroughly enjoyed the second half as it was wide open and entertaining with both teams going for it and I didn't think we could particularly grudge St Johnstone on their equaliser and I thought a draw would have been a fair result.

Obviously a very late winner was brilliant and we'll no doubt end up on the other end at some point this season but it was coming to an extent because of the relentless pressure in injury time. Strangely this was the heaviest pressure either team had exerted in the full game.

I always think there's not much between most of the teams in the league and it often comes down to those with a steady defence and a goal scorer. We just need to work out how to get goals from our forwards and I'll be more confident but I think we have enough about our forward options to at least be entertaining this season.

[ClaretAmberb]

My pal who was at the game said that she thought Motherwell were the better team till St Johnstone scored and then we lost the plot and sneaked it at the end. It's always going to be fine margins to be fair I think. 

[ClaretAmberb]

On 01/09/2024 at 11:30, Jamie_B said:

To be fair at that point we had been garbage for the previous fifteen minutes!

Agree at the comment about Lennon Miller. Motherwell have done well to hold on to him throuhavee summer.

I personally didn't think Lennon was going to go this summer - for all he's a fine talent I don't think other clubs are going to be very interested until he's at the end of his contract with us. 

For all he's a great player he's still only 18 and I'm personally happy he's still with Motherwell rather than going to a bigger club and potentially being benched. 

I think we will struggle to hold onto him beyond the end of this contract but good luck to him wherever he ends up 

 

Edited September 2 by ClaretAmberb