Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[thisGRAEME]

2 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

Still. Be interesting to see how the cup game goes on Saturday. The pitch shouldn't prove any problem for us as the ball will never be fucking on it.

I'd assume we're even more likely to shitfest our way through that. A pitch made up predominantly of rubber and two losses on the bounce, 'keeping it tight' being the order of the day.

Bleugh.

[Swello]

I had my first peek at Steelmen since the weekend and I see we've been relegated, which was a nasty surprise and not a great start to the week.

I'm trying to remember if this negativity (which I'm also indulging in so not trying to be a better fan) was about at this point last year? We were unconvincing in the betfred groups last year, took a tonking off St Johnstone and - until Bowman and Campbell came on and pointed the way to our best 11 - were looking every bit as bad against Ross County at Fir Park as we did on Saturday. 

Now that the post-match saltiness has worn off, I'm wondering how much of what is happening is the fact that we are simply at a poorer state of readiness than we were last year (despite all the "settled team" chat) and not that everything is a total write-off. In defence, we are short of Dunne, Aldred was playing his first competitive game of any sort after arriving the day before and Hartley is still looking a *long* way from the sharpness he had when he appeared from nowhere last season. In attack, we are missing Bowman and Tanner, and clearly aren't at the point where we have any idea if we have a blend that works up front (although I think we know that we have one that doesn't).

Despite being pissed off that we look to have regressed, I'm putting myself in the very small "give it a few weeks before losing the plot" camp  

 

[well fan for life]

1 hour ago, thisGRAEME said:

I'd assume we're even more likely to shitfest our way through that. A pitch made up predominantly of rubber and two losses on the bounce, 'keeping it tight' being the order of the day.

Bleugh.

I'm expecting something that would make a good case for having football stopped entirely.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

I don't expect Robinson to ever actually line up like this, but it's the bones of a decent team imo.

Carson
Aldred Hartley Dunne
Cadden Campbell McHugh Tait
Tanner
Bowman Johnson

Early days considering he's played about an hour of actual football for us, but I'm pretty optimistic that Johnson+Bowman will form a decent partnership if given the chance.

[capt_oats]

Another disappointing aspect of Saturday, aside from the performance and the result, is that once again that's Bigi been chucked in for a start following a promising substitute appearance and we've entirely failed to turn up with him in the starting XI.

While on one hand it feels like shifting Cadden and Tait back to RWB and LWB respectively was a conscious attempt to revert back to how we were set up last season after getting scudded by Hibs. It also felt like it was a move to try and incorporate Bigi into the team. We're after someone to look after the ball in the middle of the park, we stick Bigi in there and then just bypass the midfield.

Edited August 13, 2018 by capt_oats

[Desp]

That'll be Bigi out the team for another couple of months now.  Though, f**k knows what he's meant to do in a game where the ball is launched over his head for 90 minutes, feeding off second balls.

I feel sorry for Bigi.  Whether he is what we're crying out for, or whether he's just pretty poor, I really don't know because quite simply the manager sets up his team to play a completely different style of football from what Bigi wants/needs.  I think, over a year later, we can conclude he was one of the signings made by the "Recruitment Team" rather than someone pinpointed by the manager. 

I think Saturday is huge for Robinson.  The win at Dingwall last season gave us all a boost,  something big to look forward to, despite a less than great league start.  A defeat to Livingston, followed by a going over at home to Rangers, will see a fair bit of heat coming the managers way.  That's something he's not really had, despite going through some poor form last season at times.

The "12-18 strengthening" thing, for me, is absolutely staggering the more I think about it.  Rather than bringing in five or six players to fill the bench, surely you bring in three/four players of quality to improve your first XI, which automatically improves your "12-18" because those previously in the first XI will therefore  find themselves on the bench.

[thisGRAEME]

29 minutes ago, Desp said:

I feel sorry for Bigi.  Whether he is what we're crying out for, or whether he's just pretty poor, I really don't know because quite simply the manager sets up his team to play a completely different style of football from what Bigi wants/needs.  I think, over a year later, we can conclude he was one of the signings made by the "Recruitment Team" rather than someone pinpointed by the manager. 

I think Saturday is huge for Robinson.  The win at Dingwall last season gave us all a boost,  something big to look forward to, despite a less than great league start.  A defeat to Livingston, followed by a going over at home to Rangers, will see a fair bit of heat coming the managers way.  That's something he's not really had, despite going through some poor form last season at times.

Agree with all of this. Honestly think Bigi will come alive if he's stood next to Tanner and or Gorrin, or if he's playing to Johnson, but Saturday was horrible.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

The worst part is though, that Robinson seemingly has no intention of using him properly, despite apparently trying to sign him at least twice before.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/revealed-motherwell-close-landing-haris-5769057.amp

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/1102992/motherwell-boss-stephen-robinson-thrilled-to-finally-land-ex-rangers-ace-gael-bigirimana/amp/

Admittedly, the first time was when he was Baraclough's assistant, but Robinson has essentially followed Bigi around for 3 years with the idea of punting a ball over his head all season.

Edited August 13, 2018 by YassinMoutaouakil

[Mr. Brightside]

You’d think against the dross of the league we could afford to play Bigi and Gorrín, we might have a chance of creating something if that were the case.

[Londonwell]

14 minutes ago, Mr. Brightside said:

You’d think against the dross of the league we could afford to play Bigi and Gorrín, we might have a chance of creating something if that were the case.

Not ‘earning the right to play’ type post. 

Edited August 13, 2018 by Londonwell

['WellDel]

2 hours ago, Mr. Brightside said:

You’d think against the dross of the league we could afford to play Bigi and Gorrín, we might have a chance of creating something if that were the case.

This is the point I made after the game on Saturday. 

If you can't set up with creative players and utilise them properly in your starting 11 at home to the other teams currently down and around the bottom end - Hamilton , Dundee , St Mirren , in the first round of fixtures, and on one of the best surfaces in the league, when can you ? 

Getting drawn into a hoofball shitfest from the first whistle always has the chance of ending like it did at the weekend, with the opposition's first real chance resulting in the only goal of the game. 

If Robinson gave the team licence to go out and try to play actual football without having to fucking 'earn the right' there's a better than fair chance our season would be up and running already . 

Bigi and Gorrin are the type to put their foot on the ball, pick a pass and try to dictate play from the central area. Why not let them, you know, give it a go ? 

You never know, this passing the ball to each other, instead of  launching 40 yard diagonals all day might actually be a decent idea. 

Hopefully a lesson learned for when we next face our peers, although with the manager's unwavering love of bypassing the midfield area as much as possible, I sadly doubt it. 

[well fan for life]

Agree with all of this. Honestly think Bigi will come alive if he's stood next to Tanner and or Gorrin, or if he's playing to Johnson, but Saturday was horrible.

Bigi & Tanner in the second half of the defeat to Thistle last season were fantastic. Shame the game was gone before they came on.

[Al B]

Earlier someone said about Frear's first attempt at beating someone in the first 5 minutes dictating how his game will go is spot on, but that seems to be a characteristic of that type of player. Humphrey, Johnson and particularly Lionel were exactly the same. Beat a man early on and you know exactly what kinda game they are going to have, and the opposite is just as true.

Obviously when you have such a confidence player and he bags a hat-trick in the first competitive game of the season, the best way to handle them is to drop him for the next game. A battler might need match fitness so he can battle in all the battles and wars that are coming up.

Battle.

[Busta Nut]

10 hours ago, Desp said:

 

The "12-18 strengthening" thing, for me, is absolutely staggering the more I think about it.  Rather than bringing in five or six players to fill the bench, surely you bring in three/four players of quality to improve your first XI, which automatically improves your "12-18" because those previously in the first XI will therefore  find themselves on the bench.

It's this that's had me thinking for the last two weeks how fucking daft it is.

[capt_oats]

I’m being a bit devils advocate here but I think highlighting the ‘12-18’ recruitment and giving it a name has ended up placing more weight than necessary tbh.

When you strip it down Robinson has, rightly or wrongly, been generally happy with the first XI that he already had. Unless a first team player moved on he’s not aimed to replace them.

It’s unlikely we’d be able to bring in a ready made upgrade on players like Carson, Dunne, Aldred, Kipré, Tait, Campbell, Main etc on our budget anyway. So the logic has presumably been we should aim to improve on those that we released. I get that.

So what we’ve ended up doing is replacing almost like for like those that we released:
Griffiths - Gillespie
Plummer - Donnelly
Petravicius - Johnson
Hendrie - ATS
Aldred - erm, Aldred
Çiftçi - Sammon
+ Gorrin & Mbulu

Going by Robinson’s comment about them thinking Bigi was away I don’t think it’s a massive leap to suggest that Gorrin was probably brought in to replace him.

Kipré has obviously left and Aldred’s come back but you’d imagine that’s being viewed as a net gain and being offset by Hartley being back available.

Looking at the names of those who were released it’s 3 first team squad players and 3 loanees. I’d be surprised if there was much budget to play with (relatively speaking). Which obviously leads to a counter that it’s daft to be spending that budget if we don’t need to.

Gillespie has probably been brought in early to make sure we weren’t caught out if there was an approach for Carson and Griffiths was released anyway. ATS is a natural left sided full back/wing-back as we’d ended up playing Tait on his ‘wrong’ side for the bulk of last season.

Where we’ve really fucked it IMO is replacing Çiftçi with Sammon. He may not have been to everyone’s taste but Nadz actually adapted to what Robinson needed from a target man pretty well. He may not have ran about but he had a first touch, could take the ball in on his chest and link up play. He also complemented Main pretty well which even at this early stage it seems obvious that Sammon clearly doesn’t.

My main gripe, as I said the other day, is that we seem to have pretty much locked up our squad numbers-wise and given ourselves little, if any, room for manoeuvre now that the English clubs have firmed up their squads meaning that there may be a few players kicking around who would genuinely have improved our first XI but we’re launching balls back to front to Conor Sammon with a million centre midfielders on the books.

Edited August 14, 2018 by capt_oats

[WellView]

^^ Amazing - its not been that long since people were pleased we had done our business early.  Our first team was a match for anyone last season,  12 - 18 far from it. How we all winced anytime Petra took to the field. The difference so far this season is that the first team hasn't showed up yet. Give it time. 

[WellView]

Anyway - from our bottom six competitors - who would you sign to play the role of a creative midfielder. Or an attacking wide player. Or even a striker better than we have.  We can forget about the OF and city teams, they all have a wage bill well beyond ours.  I'm not saying that there's no one at these clubs, I would just like to hear your opinion who has anyone better than us. 

[Al B]

I don't think the issue is that those types of players aren't available, or that we can't find them. It's more that it's not even what we're looking for.

Don't get me wrong i'm not saying I could come up with a list, (but then i'm not a scout)...we just don't seem interested in that type, and even when we do find someone that looks like they may be in that direction, we don't play them.

As I was saying in an earlier post, we have a player in Frear who's form is massively dictated by confidence, and when that's high he has the ability to create and score...it's exactly what we need to give us at least another dimension (not to mention something vaguely watchable). He goes out in the first game of the season and bags a hat-trick, a perfect platform for him to kick on...and what do we do? Bench him for the next game.

That's the key for me...it's not that we can't play a different way, that we don't have the personnel for it, or that we can't identify those types of players. It's that we just don't seem interested in that at all.

[capt_oats]

3 hours ago, Al B said:

I don't think the issue is that those types of players aren't available, or that we can't find them. It's more that it's not even what we're looking for.

Don't get me wrong i'm not saying I could come up with a list, (but then i'm not a scout)...we just don't seem interested in that type, and even when we do find someone that looks like they may be in that direction, we don't play them.

As I was saying in an earlier post, we have a player in Frear who's form is massively dictated by confidence, and when that's high he has the ability to create and score...it's exactly what we need to give us at least another dimension (not to mention something vaguely watchable). He goes out in the first game of the season and bags a hat-trick, a perfect platform for him to kick on...and what do we do? Bench him for the next game.

That's the key for me...it's not that we can't play a different way, that we don't have the personnel for it, or that we can't identify those types of players. It's that we just don't seem interested in that at all.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

Robinson has 69 games under his belt at Motherwell now. He's been here a full season and change with a win % of 44.9%. In terms of recent managers he's 2nd behind McCall.

There's obvious context; yes, that overall record includes cup games. When he took over from McGhee it was a case of keep us up by any means. Which he did. His first full season was a massive re-build job with a huge player turnover. He got us comfortably mid-table and was the first time we'd reached two cup finals in the same season since the 50s. While it's fair to say he's been successful thus far, it's also fair to say that there's a body of work there to start judging him on.

As far as his league record goes he's currently P 52 W 17 D 11 L 24 F 59 A 69 GD -10 Pts 62 which equals 1.19 points per game.

Other than the handful who seem desperate to be validated for their shitey takes when Robinson was appointed I think most are of the opinion that he's done a smashing job and are pretty much on board with how he's got us playing. When we're on it, limbs are flying and we're pressing teams there's entertainment to be found there. It's entirely possible to enjoy watching a Robinson side. The problem is that, as @YassinMoutaouakil pointed out, that's a very different 'direct' game to the one dimensional tactic we seem to resort to if we're trying (and failing) to break a side down.

He's still a relatively inexperienced manager and it seems clear based on his career to date that there are things he's good at and aspects that obviously need work.

It's perhaps oversimplifying things but getting our "ball" players on the park seems to be an absolute last resort. At Easter Road the other week we were 2-0 down and we're chucking Bigi and Frear on at HT, which had a nice symmetry with last season where we were 2-0 down in Leith. It's a theme that's a consistent thread going back through his tenure so far. @well fan for life mentioned the Thistle game at Firhill where we set up to out-shitfest them but found ourselves 3-0 down thanks in no small part to Russell Griffiths' lettuce wrists. We got Bigi and Tanner on the park and passed our way back into the game and were unlucky not to get a point.

On the flip side of that, when we actually start those players we don't seem to have a clue what to do with them. Bigi has frequently impressed in cameos as a sub then started the next week and been completely ineffective. It's worth remembering that it took the first half of last season bouncing Tanner in and out the side off the bench before we found a way to utilise him effectively. Either way it almost becomes self-fulfilling. We're forced to re-set and revert to type when our 'technical' players start and it doesn't work out but one of the key reasons it doesn't work out is that we don't play to their strengths.

I think @Casagolda referenced the Accies 3-0 at Fir Park on the final day of the league season. We had Bigi, Ciftci, MacLean and Turnbull on the park and, effective dead rubber or not, we actually played football with a balanced side. It jars that the first game of the season against them this season we're back to talking about "out battling" and "winning the battle". Everyone knows that we have an honest bunch of pros who'll run through brick walls and most of us are on board with that but as I said the other day; as a narrative it's incredibly one note. It becomes even more problematic when you look at the players we have and realise that there's actually more to them than a one dimensional caricature.

The key issue is that it's been increasingly proving to be ineffective. We struggled to break teams down last season, it was an obvious flaw and we look exactly the same this season. We have technical players in the squad, we've shown in the past that we can use them (though usually after we've chucked them on at HT after we're 2 or 3 down) but ultimately our default in a tactical sense is to revert to a style of play that is becoming easily countered by the opposition.

That's a problem for Robinson.

Edited August 14, 2018 by capt_oats

[WellView]

Hamilton downed tools on the last day of the season.  The warm memories of that day involve a degree of self-delusion.