Motherwell v Aberdeen Scottish Cup Semi Final

[mjw]

On elbows, did Newell take one to the jaw, he looked out cold as he hit the floor

It did look like an elbow - but nothing out of the ordinary - it was the fall that just about knocked him out.

[naegoodinthedark]

Strange feeling walking out after that yesterday. Really felt like it was the last game of the season. We’re usually a bit shit after the split, and I can’t see us improving to anything capable of picking up enough to finish top 3. It’s unfortunate that we have the leagues form team first up, Killie will see us as 3 points guaranteed.

Biggest issue for me though, 2 utterly spineless performances in a row shows a disconnect between the management team and the players. The goodwill Derek has banked over the last few years is being eroded at an elaborate rate. I don’t want to see him move on, but I think he regrets not taking one of the jobs he was asked about.

Finally I’ll say that ‘Well were absolutely worth the score line yesterday, and the fans I met after were a good bunch. I couldn’t really give a f**k about European football so I wish them well for the final.

See you at Killie next week.

[Casagolda]

Strolled it.

Was actually quietly confident all week to be honest but that was even more straightforward and comfortable than I thought it'd be. For all the talk of us creating nothing and Aberdeen gifting us goals I can genuinely only remember Carson having one save of note to make which was fairly routine for him and May's chance before half time aside, Aberdeen despite their wealth of attacking options created virtually nothing. 

It always amuses me when people criticize us for being a poor, limited team etc - I'm the first to pipe up about our poor use of the ball at times but the way we're set up, organized and the manner in which we play without the ball is outstanding and must take hours of hard work and practice on the training ground to get right. We've played 4 top flight sides on route to the final and conceded just 1 goal(even that was a pen) and have now kept 17 clean sheets in all competitions so far this season. Watching Aberdeen's two International centre backs flailing about yesterday as they got bullied by Main and Bowman while our assortment of waifs and strays casually strolled their way to another clean sheet was tremendous viewing.

Fair play to the often underappreciated Rose and the much maligned Grimshaw who came in and were excellent in the middle of the park alongside the ever impressive Campbell. Those three plus Bowman and Main upfront deserve the credit for that clean sheet every bit as much as the defence and Carson. The work rate, aggression and desire from them to close down and defend from the front was a huge part of why we won- epitomised by Grimshaw when even at 3-0 up, he started to hunt the ball down on the edge of his own box and ended up closing down Lewis in the Aberdeen box and forcing him into (another)duff kick which saw us regain us possession. 

Another great day out following Stephen Robinson's side, I've seen silkier Motherwell sides for sure and there's been times this season where we've been a brutal watch but the give no fucks attitude and bottle of this side is absolutely tremendous. Days like yesterday, and there's been a fair few of those this season, make it all worthwhile. A tremendously enjoyable season thus far and let's hope we can finish it off in style back at Hampden in May.

[capt_oats]

Watching the game back, big ups to Curtis Main...he had fucking ages to think about what he was going to do with the 3rd. I think it was AJLS had a similar sort of chance for Dundee against Aberdeen a couple of weeks ago and he just ended up hitting the ball straight into Woodman. Not to be a dick but I wouldn't have fancied Moult in a similar situation tbh. 1 v 1s were never really his thing. With Main it was genuinely #neverindoubt.

That's 8 in 16 for Main now, that he's slotted straight in as Moult's replacement is a credit to him, the coaching staff and the scouting team. Not only is he an absolute machine but he's probably closer to Moult's level when he left than Moult was when he arrived (if that makes sense). We've had a great track record of bringing in strikers Moult, Sutton, Higdon, Blackman, Jutkiewicz, Porter, McCormack, McDonald et al but given the context and the form we were in prior to Moult officially moving to Preston there wasn't much margin for error with Main. He wasn't one we could afford to get wrong.

I've read quite a few tear-stained, borderline heads gone posts from Aberdeen fans (not on here but on their other, less enlightened forums) along the lines of "Motherwell weren't even good, they're a dreadful side". It's actually quite a common narrative that kind of misses the point. There are zero pretensions to this Motherwell side, no one is claiming that they're here to play total football. This Motherwell side are here to absolutely body teams and make no apologies for it. The fact that they can press, bully and harass opposition sides into coughing up chances is as much a skill as hitting the bye line and shroo balls IMO.

Also, something that only really crystallised for me yesterday was just how much the players in our side seem to enjoy playing in this team regardless of whether they're set up to play like Barcelona or not. It's a squad of players who just seem to bloody love being competitive.

[kingjoey]

2 hours ago, Forest of Dean said:

Strange to see so many Aberdeen fans wishing Motherwell when the league positions aren't decided yet. Same is true of Hibs fans too actually.

If you play like that in the last 5 league games you'd be finishing 4th and would be wishing for a Motherwell defeat.

I think that has already been said on here a few times.  Do try to keep up.

[Swello]

20 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

This Motherwell side are here to absolutely body teams and make no apologies for it. The fact that they can press, bully and harass opposition sides into coughing up chances is as much a skill as hitting the bye line and shroo balls IMO.

It's possibly as I started going and grew up at a point where football was much more physical and where there was no "rule" that says you must try to mimic the silky stuff that the top sides play - but I actually *prefer* the style that we've adopted. I'm probably a total dinosaur on this stuff but I'd rather - to put it delicately - see us get absolutely fucked in about it rather than play in a style that our personnel and (most importantly) our budget doesn't really enable.

Back when we played Dundee in the cup, I made the point that their manager has pretensions of sending them out to be a top notch footballing side - but they simply didn't have the people to carry that out. They made a few passes, ran out of ideas and ended up humping it long anyway (as did Aberdeen yesterday) - and that would 100% be us if we tried to play the "approved" way with our squad. Precisely because of the way we play, we give teams different problems than they usually face - and that sometimes works for us as it did yesterday. 

[big al]

1 hour ago, Bob Mahelp said:

Not to make excuses for McInnes, but it was only at the beginning of last week when he knew that McGinn and GMS were unfit and wouldn't be able to start.

That meant that we were without 5 (important) regulars at the beginning of the 90 minutes yesterday.

That doesn't take away from the fact that the replacements were incompetent and that two international defenders had the day from hell. 

GMS not fit to start but fit enough to come on in first half?

[Antiochas III]

1 minute ago, big al said:

GMS not fit to start but fit enough to come on in first half?

Well our manager knew Dunne and Campbell would only be fit the night before.  Dunne strolled it, Campbell bossed it.  

So in otherwords that's a shite excuse

[big al]

McInnes has to take a huge chunk of the blame. 

The team were so lopped sided, nobody in the left mid/wing area until GMS came on.

like watching a schoolboy game the shape was so bad. 

Started with 5 centre half’s basically and a holding midfielder, turgid to watch and all in each others way causing all sorts of confusion and nervousness.

considine is never a left back, stalwart or not, he’s holding the team back. Good teams have good footballing full backs, he can’t even kick it with his left FFS!

Arnesson is finished, cart horse. 

Paying a fee for Stevie May is almost a sackable offence in itself, he brings the square root of F all to the game.

obviously to am biased as a big Cowden fan but Greg stewart was the best of a poor performance and even he could do better. 

Christie flattered to deceive and won’t make it at Celtic.

shows the ridiculous gulf in finances between 1st and 2nd. 3 players missing an Aberdeen fall to pieces. Meanwhile the green ugly sister has at least 2 teams of pretty much equal ability and wouldn’t bother if half a dozen were out.

fair play to the well though, clinical and effective.

[big al]

8 minutes ago, Antiochas III said:

Well our manager knew Dunne and Campbell would only be fit the night before.  Dunne strolled it, Campbell bossed it.  

So in otherwords that's a shite excuse

I’m agreeing 

[kingjoey]

14 minutes ago, big al said:

GMS not fit to start but fit enough to come on in first half?

Yes.

[Suspect Device]

Disappointing performance from us but not unexpected given our abject display against Hearts and the players we had missing.

Can't take away from Motherwell's showing though. Every one of your players gave every ounce of energy they had. Some of the folk on here who complain about the style of football would bite your hand off for players at their club who fight for the cause like that. Robinson has to be in with a shout for manager of the year with his 2nd final. 

Your lad Grimshaw?? Nuber 4, epitomised your team. At 3-0 up he was still chasing down a lost cause pass to our keeper. No need to do it at that point but Robinson has obviously instilled that kind of ethic into each and every one of the players. Possibly why you will be a good cup team because the one off match is easier to motivate players for but you neeed consistency over a season to do better in the league.

I'm not wishing you well in the final, unless we manage to finish above Hibs (and Rangers preferably) and that is not looking promising at the moment.

[LinkinFighter]

Still in bed rough as f**k, but bravo Motherwell. Aberdeen are an absolute gang of shitebags. Mon the well!

[Casagolda]

6 minutes ago, big al said:

shows the ridiculous gulf in finances between 1st and 2nd. 3 players missing an Aberdeen fall to pieces. Meanwhile the green ugly sister has at least 2 teams of pretty much equal ability and wouldn’t bother if half a dozen were out.

Doesn’t really wash though when Aberdeen were bodied yesterday by a team with a much smaller budget who were also missing their Captain, vice Captain as well as their top scorer. 

[MJC]

3 minutes ago, Casagolda said:

Doesn’t really wash though when Aberdeen were bodied yesterday by a team with a much smaller budget who were also missing their Captain, vice Captain as well as their top scorer. 

The AFC mafia on Radio Scotland yesterday and today's paper reports completely overlook the fact that we had key players missing ourselves, all their focus is on Aberdeen and their woes, bad luck, injuries/suspensions. 

[Jacksgranda]

1 minute ago, MJC said:

The AFC mafia on Radio Scotland yesterday and today's paper reports completely overlook the fact that we had key players missing ourselves, all their focus is on Aberdeen and their woes, bad luck, injuries/suspensions. 

Seems reasonable...

[Al B]

Very much agree with Swello above. I've heard fans (both ours and others) that we didn't play very well yesterday, and for me that just shows how conditioned many people are into what "playing well" actually means. There's more than one way to play well.

We're almost mathematical in our tactics...it's like an equation in that if one value changes, it changes the rest of the equation and the skill for the players is in knowing how and why. I've heard our squad mention a few times that the way Robinson sets us up is so that no matter where on the pitch the ball is, and who has it, every one of us knows exactly where they are supposed to be relative to that. If the ball moves to another area of the pitch, every single player knows the corresponding change they have to make, and what they have to do when they get there.

It may not be pretty to watch in the traditional "footballing" sense, but it's very VERY clever and incredibly difficult to execute well for a multitude of reasons. I've tried it a few times (whilst watching a re-run of a match), but if you accept that we're doing something different and watch us purely as an off-the-ball side as opposed to what we do on the ball, we're actually fantastically entertaining and impressive to watch (when we execute it well). You just have to watch us from a different perspective, essentially ignore the ball and spend a full game watching everyone that doesn't have it, but it really gives you a lightbulb moment regarding what it is that we're trying to do.

Fair enough when we don't get it right we look absolutely terrible (because you don't have silky play to fall back on), but when we do then it's something that no other team in the league is doing to the extent that we do. It's hugely impressive to pull that off, and it's a shame that the pundits and media generally just pin it lazily as "physical" or "clogger" or "hammer thrower". I'd suggest if Robinson were to sit down with Sky Sports analysis screens and do a bit of a presentation, it would be a fascinating watch. Just not in the "little triangles of passes and movement" way that most people associate with playing well.

[Swello]

This is nicely done - but I'd hate to see my face when there is a chance like that in a big game

 

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

34 minutes ago, Antiochas III said:

Well our manager knew Dunne and Campbell would only be fit the night before.  Dunne strolled it, Campbell bossed it.  

So in otherwords that's a shite excuse

Dunne didn't look fully fit either. Although he never had to put on the afterburners he did even less with the ball at his feet than usual.

The Aberdeen excuses are pitiful. We were also missing our 2 best ball playing midfielders in McHugh and Tanner. And Peter Hartley has been out for months. The guys who have stepped in for us stepped up. Aberdeen's replacement players didn't have it in them.

[Dunning1874]

1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

There are zero pretensions to this Motherwell side, no one is claiming that they're here to play total football. This Motherwell side are here to absolutely body teams and make no apologies for it. The fact that they can press, bully and harass opposition sides into coughing up chances is as much a skill as hitting the bye line and shroo balls IMO.

Also, something that only really crystallised for me yesterday was just how much the players in our side seem to enjoy playing in this team regardless of whether they're set up to play like Barcelona or not. It's a squad of players who just seem to bloody love being competitive.

As a neutral this Motherwell team is extremely likeable, and this is why.

It's easy to sound patronising when talking about a team who work hard and have a physical presence, but while it's true that those are positives to this Motherwell team they're so much more than that. It's not a load of headless chickens charging about the midfield at 100 miles an hour bodying people for the sake of it, every single one of them knows what they're doing and has real positional intelligence and awareness. Players like Campbell being everywhere and bodying everything that moves while somehow always maintaining positional discipline as well is fucking great to watch.