Motherwell v Accies

[YER SISTERS YER MAW]

Good defensive display tonight. Looked much more solid but we still look vulnerable at corners. I thought Sarris and McMann were best for us. Both solid performances. Dougie actually played quite well for once as well. Bingham disappointed me again though.

[Bert Raccoon]

Sarris was indeed immense, rock solid at the back. My only frustration was in the first half every attack was exactly the same, high ball down the right wing, knock down and hope it goes to one of our players. Can't complain though, it was a hard fought and well deserved point.

Oh and the ball was definitely over the line.

[capt_oats]

46 minutes ago, Gianfranco said:

It'll be interesting to see if the ball was over the line or not but accies deserved a point. Bowman missed a sitter in the first few minutes as well.

Robinson got the tactics right the last two games but tonight there was far too much hoofball to Blyth who never won a ball in the air all night.

Robinson by and large acknowledging this in his post-match. Saying they were far to keen to go long & lacked composure going forward. Highlights the clean sheet, which is fair enough I suppose, they're pretty rare for us these days.

Also confirms that the ball was over the line having watched it back.

[accies1874]

Someone needs to tell Devlin to stop trying to fire long passes from the back. He's awful at it.

Forgot to mention D'Acol in my previous post. Tough shift for him tonight, but as Accies1874 said, his link up play is excellent.

Cheers, Bateman. I can always be relied to pick up your pieces. X

[Busta Nut]

Thought Samson had a good game tonight, few decent saves and no errors.

 

The back three thing seems to work well also.

It leaves Cadden and Frear with a lot of tracking back to do and I think we are losing a wee bit from Frear when he has to do that.

The centre midfield was awful. Pearo is an empty jersey, Clay I try to like but does nothing good or bad. We never ever win that second ball though, never. In defence or attack

Scot McDonald Had a good first half as did Ryan Bowman. Blyth was pretty awful.

 

We never tried to play any football in the 2nd half whatsoever. At least in the first half there was some attempts at ball on the deck stuff, Bowman actually looked good running at and bustling with players. Can't time a jump for shit.

 

The ref and main stand side linesman were awful today, Some of the lino decisions were baffling.

 

[YER SISTERS YER MAW]

29 minutes ago, Patrick Bateman said:

Someone needs to tell Devlin to stop trying to fire long passes from the back. He's awful at it.
 

Indeed. Reminds me of a certain individual who used to try this almost every game a few years back. I just hope for Devlin's sake he's not giving him lessons.

[capt_oats]

There's yer highlights.

 

[Busta Nut]

two feet?

[Fuctifano]

 

Worst. Japanese. Porno. Ever.

[Ya Bezzer!]

Don't want to repeat myself too much from what I said on Steelmen but I felt our confidence drained away after a good start due to players making some unnecessary defensive errors.  After that we had a sort of 'what if we lose this?'  look about us.  We had more to lose tonight than Accies and I think that began to play on the players minds as the game went on and resulted in us not taking many risks.

McHugh has done well at the back.  I'd keep him there even though it leaves us short in midfield.   As I said on Saturday though - Blyth is 100% donkey. 

[Laid-back Accie]

Pleased with a draw, especially after going down to 10, thought we'd be really under fire after that, but we coped reasonably well.

So you get a straight red for flipping a fan off, but you can get in a linesman face screaming f**k and get nothing (Scobbie last week) Don't get me wrong, i think MacKinnons an idiot, but these inconsistencies get so frustrating.

Sarris is one of those players i cant make my mind up, whether i like him or not. He can be really solid, as shown tonight, he was outstanding, my motm, but he can also make silly crucial errors.

As mentioned Imrie had his best game of the season tonight. But we're still lacking any sort of sharpness up front, it seems if Crawford and Bingham aren't at it, we're not going to score (unless it's against 9 men)

 

 

[Busta Nut]

46 minutes ago, Laid-back Accie said:

 for flipping a fan off,

 

 

Red for that Americanism anaw.

[craigkillie]

Managed to grab a couple of screenshots of the moment the ball was headed away by D'Acol.  Neither angle is particularly conclusive, but it is worth noting that the assistant was standing right on the line and probably had the best view in the stadium.  Doesn't mean he got it right, of course - everything happened quite quickly.

 

[ropy]

Maybe inconclusive, what convinced me it was a goal was that the flight of the ball from his head seemed to come from behind the bar up on to it and out.  It didn't go straight up onto the underside which it would have if it had been cleared from the line and then presumably it would have rebounded straight back down. There was more of an angle.

[stepek 4 tellys]

10 hours ago, akredz said:

Agreed, stupid all the way round.

Just need "well to take advantage now and get the horrible accies one step closer to relegation

We only took 474 fans tonight. We only have two stands. We have an old bus parked at one end of the ground. You can't seem to be able to beat us at our place. To sum up, get it right fuckin up ye!

[Todd_is_God]

That looks like a goal tbh. Would be raging if that was us.

[Poet of the Macabre]

If that's over the line, then it's by an inch or less. Can't blame the assistant for not giving it.

[thisGRAEME]

We had enough chances to win it twice in the first half. Bowman, Pearson, Bowman's cross to McDonald, the Heneghan header looks in, for me and McDonald's header. 

Thought Bowman faded badly in the second half and Blyth was shite, unsurprisingly. Any chance we can recall Mackin?

Gordon had a lot of energy, and winning the ball and running around the outside of McMann was decent, but looked a bit undisciplined. 

Frear continues to impress, and Carl McHugh is magic.

A real disappointment, as it was a great opportunity to get ourselves some breathing space. Positives in that we didn't concede, and looked more defensively solid over the last 180 minutes. We're making chances and performing okay, but we absolutely need a win, and I'd be astonished if we could do it against Thistle on Saturday. 

[capt_oats]

Maybe inconclusive, what convinced me it was a goal was that the flight of the ball from his head seemed to come from behind the bar up on to it and out.  It didn't go straight up onto the underside which it would have if it had been cleared from the line and then presumably it would have rebounded straight back down. There was more of an angle.

Going by the screenshots (particularly the 2nd) which aren't completely in line D'Acol's left foot is on the line and he's square on with his right foot well behind the goal line in the goal and his back to the linesman. It's not like he had both feet on the line and headed the ball straight up on to the bar. As you say he's headed the ball forward, up on to the bar and away.

The speed with which it happens makes it a pretty difficult call but with it having come from a corner you'd have hoped that the linesman would have been directly in line. It definitely looks more in than not tbh.

[Swello]

If we had got a goal in the first 15-20mins last night, I think we would have been comfortable but as it didn't come, we resorted to route 1 pish for the rest of the game - and gave the accies defenders an easy time of it as a result, as they looked less than comfortable when we got down the flanks.

I'm not one to slate players - but both McDonald and Pearson were utter pish last night - McDonald had one of those utterly disinterested performances that he comes up with from time to time and in Pearson's case, nothing he tried came off, just woeful. Blyth looks like a total imposter and McGhee's judgement on him (apart from signing him in the first place!) looks sound.

On the plus side, Frear looks quite promising although I think he still has some adjustment to do to the pace of the game and his fitness. McHugh, one huge mistake aside, looks like our best player most weeks - captain material. Bowman is showing some encouraging signs now that he has settled in and is getting some decent game time - but his timing on headers is shocking - all his best work was on the deck.

The "goal" looks like a close call but in absence of that goal line hawkeye thing they have down south, you are always going to be struggling to get them, so no complaints from me. The only bit of refereeing that annoyed me was when he blew for half time dead on 45 mins when we were on the break, after speaking to Canning just a few mins before - surely a few seconds added on wouldn't have been an injustice.

As is often the case, Comedy is more entertaining that Drama - and seeing Imrie (who as usual, put in a good shift against us) falling on his arse and wanting to fight the 'Well bench as he had a beamer was good - as was seeing a red card for sticking the finger up at the crowd followed by a shame faced walk off....