Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Casagolda]

Good to see he knows where we need to strengthen, bizarre that apparently Rose's wage being freed up won't impact his budget. Noticed he wasn't even on the bench today, wonder if he's played his last game?

I said January would be a big month for Robinson but today's result, provided we follow it up with another big one at home to St.Mirren next week, has the potential to ease the pressure on him somewhat and not force him into any rash decisions- like signing more average dross just for the sake of it.

Although to give Robinson his due this time last year he went out and signed Aldred, Main and big Nadz who played a big part in turning our season around after a disastrous December. Could really do with a couple of similar shrewd bits of business this time round, no point just adding more bodies to the squad for the sake of it.

Also Gillespie and Johnson both proving their worth again today, just to show that despite our protestations as fans, the Summer business wasn't a complete disaster.

Edited December 15, 2018 by Casagolda

[MJC]

8 minutes ago, Casagolda said:

Also Gillespie and Johnson both proving their worth again today, just to show that despite our protestations as fans, the Summer business wasn't a complete disaster.

To be fair, neither were getting much game time until very recently. Carson was the first choice so Gillespie wasn't getting a look in and for whatever reason, Robinson preferred Main & Bowman to Johnson from the beginning of September until mid November so the protestations over the summer transfer business were(and still are) completely justified. I think in the case of Gillespie, he was signed on the belief that Carson would be sold before the end of the summer transfer window so his signing was understandable in that respect, but with Johnson benched in favour of a failing partnership and the signings of Sammon and Gorrin who offer little then the support were right to.question our transfer dealings.

[capt_oats]

2 hours ago, Casagolda said:

Good to see he knows where we need to strengthen, bizarre that apparently Rose's wage being freed up won't impact his budget. Noticed he wasn't even on the bench today, wonder if he's played his last game?

I said January would be a big month for Robinson but today's result, provided we follow it up with another big one at home to St.Mirren next week, has the potential to ease the pressure on him somewhat and not force him into any rash decisions- like signing more average dross just for the sake of it.

Although to give Robinson his due this time last year he went out and signed Aldred, Main and big Nadz who played a big part in turning our season around after a disastrous December. Could really do with a couple of similar shrewd bits of business this time round, no point just adding more bodies to the squad for the sake of it.

Also Gillespie and Johnson both proving their worth again today, just to show that despite our protestations as fans, the Summer business wasn't a complete disaster.

Agree that the bit about the Rose wage not impacting his budget just sounds weird. Then again after the media coverage of our record profit and turnover I wouldn't be surprised if Robinson's keen to play down any ideas that we're flush with cash. It's been a pretty consistent narrative in that respect; we don't pay big wages, budget, blah.

I get that it's fairly common for players to sign PCAs and continue to play for their current club but I wouldn't be surprised if Rose's appearances are limited between now and the break. I noted Robinson was fulsome in his praise of McHugh in his post-match interview earlier.

Genuinely interested to see who we're interested in for January, from the way Robinson's been talking it sounds like he's on the same page as a lot of us on here in terms of what we actually need. How that translates into who we can actually get ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.  Do we step away from the general template we seem to have had for bringing players in (20-24, with a view to selling on), do we go for a few loans 'til the end of the season etc? 

It definitely feels like his chat about promoting u20s to the first team squad would be that bit easier to implement if he's got a bit of breathing room between us and the bottom 3.

We're running with a 24 man first team squad (Turnbull actually makes it 25 I guess) so the whole thing about him needing to move players out before he can sign others seems reasonable. You'd think that budget-wise if we're looking to bring in players to drop into the first XI then it'll need to be first team squad players we'll need to move on (which in fairness is what Robinson's said he wants to do).

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

We definitely need another wide attacker. Whether that is just bringing Hastie into the first team squad or looking to sign someone else. It is clear that Elliot Frear is not in Robbo's plans and has been quite ineffective in his limited apearances.

Even with Rose leaving we have enough midfield cover with Grimmy, Cadden, Rodriguez all capable in that role.

[capt_oats]

On 12/15/2018 at 21:30, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

We definitely need another wide attacker. Whether that is just bringing Hastie into the first team squad or looking to sign someone else. It is clear that Elliot Frear is not in Robbo's plans and has been quite ineffective in his limited apearances.

Even with Rose leaving we have enough midfield cover with Grimmy, Cadden, Rodriguez all capable in that role.

Aye, with Cadden out for the foreseeable, Frear not only limited in terms of impact but seemingly miles out of favour and Hastie still out on loan by my reckoning the only other wide option we've got at the club just now is Broque Watson.

I think the key thing is that we need someone who's adaptable. Aside from him having generally struggled one of the main issues with Frear is that he's an out and out winger. He's been game in terms of having a go at wing back but...he's really not a wing back, nor is he particularly suited to playing through the middle. Having someone who's exclusively a winger is a bit limiting in our squad.

Thinking back to summer and our quite regular links with O'Halloran in the press, it kind of makes sense if there was something in that in hindsight.

Given we don't play with wingers as standard someone who offers that sort of flexibility and option to switch things about would be quite useful. Even more so given Robinson's been a bit more open to playing with a back 4 this season.

He's clearly miles from the finished article but Hastie has that adaptability. He's got a bit of physicality and pace, can play wide and he can pay through the middle.  It'd be good if we could add someone in a similar sort of mould for the right hand side of the park.

[Gianfranco]

Is it me or have we conceded a lot of goals from corners this season? I noticed it was Dunne who lost his man but I’m hoping he’s just rusty and he’ll get back to last season’s form soon.

[capt_oats]

25 minutes ago, Gianfranco said:

Is it me or have we conceded a lot of goals from corners this season? I noticed it was Dunne who lost his man but I’m hoping he’s just rusty and he’ll get back to last season’s form soon.

By my count it's 6 from corners in the league.

01/09/18 - Dundee: 1
20/10/18 - St Johnstone: 1
11/11/18 - Rangers: 2
01/12/18 - Livingston: 1
15/12/18 - St Johnstone: 1

We've conceded 27 league goals so that's 22.22%

It'd probably be a different story if it was broadened out to "set pieces" in general.

Edited December 16, 2018 by capt_oats

[welldaft]

56 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

By my count it's 6 from corners in the league.

01/09/18 - Dundee: 1
20/10/18 - St Johnstone: 1
11/11/18 - Rangers: 2
01/12/18 - Livingston: 1
15/12/18 - St Johnstone: 1

We've conceded 27 league goals so that's 22.22%

It'd probably be a different story if it was broadened out to "set pieces" in general.

Would like to see the stat for headed goals conceded. Must be higher than what would be considered normal. Even the last handful of games all goals have been headers - 1 for St Johnstone, 2 for Livi and 1 from Hearts. 

[capt_oats]

8 hours ago, welldaft said:

Would like to see the stat for headed goals conceded. Must be higher than what would be considered normal. Even the last handful of games all goals have been headers - 1 for St Johnstone, 2 for Livi and 1 from Hearts. 

Depends what's considered normal I suppose. By my count we've conceded 8 headed goals in the league...29.62%.

Edit: Only 1 of Livi's have been headed goals. So it's Lafferty, Kallman, Kerr x2, Morelos, Grezda, Halkett, and Haring.

Spoiler

(L) 05/08/18 - Hibs 3-0: Mallan 30' (direct free kick), Shaw 45' (shot from close range), Boyle 51' (shot from outside the box)
(L) 11/08/18 - 0-1 Hamilton: Boyd 67' (shot from outside the box following blocked free kick)
(X) 26/08/18 - 3-3 Rangers: Lafferty 15' (deflected shot from outside the box), 38' (header from cross), Ejaria 43' (shot from outside the box)
(W) 01/09/18 - Dundee 1-3: Kallman 71' (header from corner)
(L) 15/09/18 - 0-1 Hearts: Naismith 28' (shot from edge of the box)
(L) 22/09/18 - Aberdeen 1-0:  Wilson 6' (shot from inside the box)
(L) 29/09/18 - Kilmarnock 3-1: Burke 39' (shot from close range), Stewart 43' (shot from edge of the box), Brophy 59' (penalty) 
(X) 06/10/18 - Livingston 1-1: Jacobs 64' (direct free kick)
(L) 20/10/18 - 0-1 St Johnstone: Kerr 90+2' (header from corner)
(W) 31/10/18 - St Mirren 0-2: n/a
(W) 03/11/18 - 1-0 Dundee: n/a
(L) 11/11/18 - Rangers 7-1: Arfield 7' (shot from inside the box), Tavernier 35' (penalty), Morelos 38' (header from a corner), Middleton 59' (shot from inside the box), Arfield 60' (shot from inside the box), Grezda 68' (shot from inside the box), 75' (header from short corner)
(W) 24/11/18 - 3-0 Aberdeen: n/a
(L) 01/12/18 - Livingston 2-0: Lawless 22' (shot from inside the box from a long throw), Halkett 83' (header from corner) 
(X) 05/12/18 - 1-1 Celtic: Christie 13' (shot from inside the box)
(L) 08/12/18 - Hearts 1-0: Haring 14' (header from cross)
(W) 15/12/18 - St Johnstone 1-2: Kerr 83' (header from short corner)

 

Edited December 17, 2018 by capt_oats

[Busta Nut]

https://www.mfc1886.com/mfc-podcast-2018-19-episode-22/

 

Sparra is joined by Busta and Jay to reflect on a big win over St Johnstone and look ahead to another busy week in which Motherwell will take on Celtic and St Mirren.

[capt_oats]

With a nod to the 'Robinson... HoW DO We ThINk He'S DoInG?" thread (started a year ago this month).

Here's the comparison between this season and last after the same number of games.

• 5 points worse off
• 6 goals fewer scored
• 2 goals more conceded
• 2 games fewer won
• 1 game more drawn
• 1 game more lost
• Danny Johnson has 2 fewer league goals than Moult had at this point. (6 vs 8.) Johnson's had less minutes on the park though (886 vs 1172) so the goals per minute rate isn't actually that different (148 vs 146.5).

You can probably acknowledge that we has a dire December last season but broadly speaking, even factoring in the League Cup bounce the first half of the season (up until December) was generally viewed positively. (That thread on Steelmen was started after a run of 7 without a win, 8 if you include the cup final and 4 more games than we've played to date).

There's no avoiding the fact that some of our performances this season have been brutal but in real terms it's not difficult to see the difference fine margins make.

Spoiler

 

Edited December 17, 2018 by capt_oats

[Swello]

It shows what a cup run (or 2) can do to make a season more enjoyable and there is no denying that a team with Moult and Kipre in it was simply a bit more fun to watch. It feels this season where we have been limping along since the pre-season LC games and at no point have we looked like actually stringing some decent results together, as opposed to the occasional decent performance followed by some horror shows.

Last season, we had a good run of form until we hit the buffers completely after the LC cup final and so it's not inconceivable that we could end the year on a similar total to last time if we pick up a couple more wins - which would be pretty weird...

Also - it's pretty clear that the league has more teams in it this year who are competitive - whereas none of the bottom 6 were having any sort of decent season at this point last year (with the obvious exception of Kilmarnock who were starting their recovery after a few weeks of Steve Clarke, even if they still had a mediocre points tally at that point)..

[nsr]

Looking at those tables, this season there are 8 points separating the 8 teams above us, while this time last season there were 17 points separating the 5 teams above us. So in terms of points we haven't done that much worse but more teams have done better than us than did last year, in particular Livi and Killie.

[Casagolda]

I think because this summer we had the much sought after ‘solid foundation’ to build on and thus there was no need for a massive rebuild as per every other summer, there was almost an expectation that we’d kick on this season. 

The fact we haven’t really- starting with a fairly underwhelming summer, having no cup run to distract us, have played some awful football and had some awful results as well along the way has has meant this season has been seen as something of a damp squib.

Despite all of that we could well be 12 points clear of the bottom 2 by this time next week, have brought through another youngster into the first team(Turnbull) and sold another player(Kipre) which would pretty much mean Robinson is hitting most of the targets set out for him before a ball was kicked this season.

Even looking at his much maligned summer business- 2 of his signings scored on Saturday with another saving a penalty. Chuck in Mbulu and that’s a third of Saturday’s team that was brought in during the summer. I mean we won in Perth and we done it without Carson, Cadden, Rose, Hartley, Tanner, Bigi etc even kicking a ball.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Casagolda

[capt_oats]

It's the Young Team out for the Reserves today...

[thisGRAEME]

Almost tricked myself into getting tickets for Wednesday, wise up Graeme. 

[ONeils4Oyarder]

I wonder if Turnbulls agent is winning the 'sign or not to sign a new contract', argument

Edited December 17, 2018 by ONeils4Oyarder

[well fan for life]

45 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

Almost tricked myself into getting tickets for Wednesday, wise up Graeme. 

I can walk to it in about 15 minutes but £28 to sit in that corner behind a lampost a week before Christmas? It's a hard no from me. 

[Swello]

16 minutes ago, ONeils4Oyarder said:

I wonder if Turnbulls agent is winning the 'sign or not to sign a new contract', argument

The thing is, regardless of how good a player he is (and I rate him based on what I've seen and really hope he signs on), if he doesn't sign and goes at the end of the season - it will be similar to Ben Hall in that he'll be something of a footnote for us - he won't have been around long enough to really establish himself..

[well fan for life]

11 minutes ago, Swello said:

The thing is, regardless of how good a player he is (and I rate him based on what I've seen and really hope he signs on), if he doesn't sign and goes at the end of the season - it will be similar to Ben Hall in that he'll be something of a footnote for us - he won't have been around long enough to really establish himself..

I'm still not sure how good Ben Hall was. He seemed to be good alongside McManus telling him what he should be doing but in that youth cup final he was one of the worst players on the park.