Relegation Threatened Thistle vs Moultless Motherwell

[Crilly]

8 minutes ago, Swello said:

PS - if there is a crowdfunder for some Grit Bins in Maryhill, count me in.

 

A few years ago the Police would have stepped in to ensure the environs of the stadium were safe but not now.  Anyway onto the game.   What a horrific first half.  We pressed the self destruct button not once not twice but three times to give ourselves a mountain to climb.  Wrong team wrong tactics.  The loss of Carson and Hartley and to a lesser extent Moult, was simply too much for us.   We did make long overdue chages but by that time the game was lost.  We should be thankful for small mercies though - thank god Thistle's  central midfield was weak. 

[Swello]

6 minutes ago, Crilly said:

A few years ago the Police would have stepped in to ensure the environs of the stadium were safe but not now.

I'm glad of that actually - a game called off when the pitch was fine but the pavements were slippy was the worst.

Also - just watched the highlights - Tanner's goal even better than it looked at the game..

[capt_oats]

43 minutes ago, Swello said:

What a bizarre game that was last night - still can't get myself into a seething frenzy over Accies-quality timewasting or the fact that the goal being disallowed was a shite piece of officiating regardless of whether Dunne was offside or not - the first half was the killer.

I get that every other week, we will be playing a team with more resources than us and so our very direct, pressing style is a good thing on those occasions - but on the other hand, we will be playing our peer group of teams other weeks and we need to have the courage to actually pass the ball and play some football when we do. Last night when Bigi and Tanner came on, we started moving the ball as well as we have for weeks and looked a half decent team - Frear was brilliant when he was was brought into play as he was constantly in the 2nd half. I'm more annoyed that from the outset we didn't play in a way that exposed Thistle's obvious weaknesses - and allowed them to have joy with ours.

McHugh is showing every sign of being a player that needs dropped for his own good - he has shown he is very decent indeed but is hugely short of confidence at the moment and has been the biggest disappointment of the season for me. I doubt even he would complain if Hartley was made captain as things stand - it doesn't seem to sit well with him.

This week has shown that we, like most teams, can't cope with our 4 best players being injured at once - but that can't be an excuse when the fringe players put up a decent show in the 2nd half that would see us being at least competitive.

PS - if there is a crowdfunder for some Grit Bins in Maryhill, count me in.

Pretty much. You can't give sides a 3 goal start and that's twice we've done it in the past couple of months.

After Tynecastle where we could still have been playing and been no closer to scoring the natural question is where are the goals going to come from. For all you can look at last night's game and say that Thistle let us have the ball in the 2nd half because, well...they were three up at half time and were happy to try and see the game out we still had to break them down and to a point we managed to do that. It could have had 3 or 4, watching it back Frear's header at the end was some chance.

None of that's to say we deserved anything out the game. You can't defend like we did and expect a result however it was a reminder that we could be a half decent football side if we can get beyond the attritional side that seems to be our default (and has, granted, served us reasonably well to a point).

Frear was great and while they've clearly been inconsistent this season both Tanner and Bigi showed why they were signed. I think it was Yassin said the other day that we've been trying to replace Nicky Law for years, Bigi looked like that player in the 2nd half. If we'd actually give him the ball and allow him to be a playmaker rather than just launching the ball down the channels. Weirdly we looked more of a footballing side than I've seen us under Robinson in the 2nd half in so much as we were making passes and controlling the game, not just trying to run the opposition off the park.

Ultimately if we're heading into a Moultless existence then Robinson's going to have to find a way of getting our creative players on the park. That means Frear, Tanner and Bigi. The latter two he's so far failed to work out how to get them into the side on a regular basis.

[thisGRAEME]

Bigi and Frear were magic last night, Tanner too. Having them all on made Bowman look better as well.

The first half though, good grief.

Rose I've liked all season, McHugh as well, but if we set up like we did in the second half, along with Hartley and Carson, we're a better footballing side, so lets do that.

[Swello]

15 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

but if we set up like we did in the second half, along with Hartley and Carson, we're a better footballing side, so lets do that

My simplistic, punters view is that we play the type of line-up that we finished with last night (with the addition of Cadden, Hartley and Carson obv.) against "bottom 6 sides" and play our (so far) normal approach against "top 6 sides", then we'll do ok - and it would give the benefit of using the squad more fully, meaning that guys like Bigi and Tanner aren't expected to be up to speed instantly when they are selected....

[cyderspaceman]

12 hours ago, professor challenger said:

May be the worst ten minutes of my life

You must be quite young. You have many, many more minutes of  'worseness' to come.   

[MJC]

With our absences it was always going to be tough but the highlights make for painful viewing, especially for Griffiths and the defence. 

Another concern for me is that yet again Robinson has had to make changes at half time after a poor first half showing. While I credit him for doing so unlike his predecessor, it's a worry that he seems to be sending the wrong team out in the first place. How many times is that now this season where we have basically failed to turn up for a first 45?

[bunglebonce]

Raging at Thistle's opener.  Two and a half years we had to endure Woods's free-kicks and he goes and lets Spittal continue on as normal.

[MJC]

12 hours ago, Desp said:

When do we start criticising the manager?

AGAIN, we've put in another horror show in the first half and we've had to make yet another two changes at half time.

Looks like once again the manager has picked the wrong starting XI. Not good enough.

That's the point I was making, that must be the fifth(?) time this season hes had to change it at half time because it's not working in the first half. We got away with it early on in the season but you can't keep getting it wrong and having to re-jig at half time.

[Thistle_do_nicely]

Caught the radio on the way up the road last night; was quite impressed with Robinson's comments afterward, didn't blame the referee for disallowing the goal and giving them less time to mount a comeback (as a certain specky ex-Scotland managing 4-6-0 twat at a certain Edinburgh club would doubtless have done), just lamented that they left themselves with far too much work to do 2nd half and that the 1st half performance from us won the game.

Still can't believe how shaky we were for the bulk of the 2nd half, even by our own pant-shitting standards; couldn't retain the ball, no composure, no-one wanting to take some responsibility on the ball, couldn't win a 1st/2nd ball from any throw ins/goal kicks... all the more frustrating given we were managing all of the basics solidly in the 1st half.

[thistledo]

22 hours ago, thistledo said:

Unlikely to make this due to work and less inclined anyway having developed the plague this week. But I can definitely see one of those odd Thistle wins where we've been so shit previously it's laughable and all of a sudden pop up with a convincing win and everyone is happy again. 

2-0 Thistle, Dools hattrick. HWFG. 

There is no way this is coming back to bite me...

Ignoring the score, called it. Defo had that odd feeling we would win last night. But, christ we don't half make it hard work for ourselves, ridiculous being 3 goals up and still worrying about a collapse. 

Anyway, some much needed points. Onward to Dundee for another 3 pls. 

[Swello]

1 hour ago, MJC said:

That's the point I was making, that must be the fifth(?) time this season hes had to change it at half time because it's not working in the first half. We got away with it early on in the season but you can't keep getting it wrong and having to re-jig at half time.

I totally get that argument, I would rather we had played the finishing team from the start and there have been times that he has clearly got it wrong and changed it - however, last night was 3 pieces of lower league defending in an otherwise fairly tight game - I'm not sure Robinson could legislate for that level of utter pishness. 

[Reid]

Raging at Thistle's opener.  Two and a half years we had to endure Woods's free-kicks and he goes and lets Spittal continue on as normal.

 

He’s taken most of our corners in the 90 minutes he’s played over the last 2 games. They’ve been surprisingly good.

[cilitbang]

1 hour ago, bunglebonce said:

Raging at Thistle's opener.  Two and a half years we had to endure Woods's free-kicks and he goes and lets Spittal continue on as normal.

Spittal always gets 1st dibs on freekicks for us, Woods delivers decent corners though 

[jagfox]

7 hours ago, bunglebonce said:

Raging at Thistle's opener.  Two and a half years we had to endure Woods's free-kicks and he goes and lets Spittal continue on as normal.

I’ve liked the look of an obviously not match fir Martin Woods in his two cameo appearances. Can pick out a pass and also holds his position. This maybe down to him being the first genuine experienced central midfielder we’ve had in the team this season?

[Gianfranco]

I only watched the highlights to see Tanner’s lovely goal. Grimshaw and in particular McHugh didn’t do well for the last two goals.

[Cerberus]

Cerny got a goal chalked off then sold one a few minutes later.