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Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons


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It's not seethe, it's not dislike of the manager, it's just turning up every game and watching utter garbage.

Supporting Motherwell is becoming a chore - I actually like the idea of being a fan more than actually being a fan right now.

I had a wee look around the East Stand yesterday and everyone seemed to be doing the same, just chatting to their mates, not particularly interested in what was going on.

Scunnered covers it pretty well. The performances and quality on show is so poor right now, if it takes replacing the manager to improve that then so be it.

 

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37 minutes ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

We seem to say it all the time but we need a performance against Kilmarnock.  I don't even really care about the results at this point. 

This is spot on, we're well used to losing football matches, but there's a way to lose games - if we were playing some decent and you could see what we were actually trying to do then I'd probably be a lot more enthusiastic. 

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10 hours ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

2 shots on target today, 1 shot on target at Livingston, 0 shots on target at Celtic Park, 2 shots on target v Celtic at Fir Park, 1 shot on target at Ibrox. 

Went fucking wild at Tynecastle with 4 shots on target (no goals though).

To put that into some perspective, the team immediately above us in the league had 1 less shot on target today against Livingston than we have in 6 of our recent matches.

Imagine watching 9 hours of dismal hoofball to get 9 shots on target.  1 every 60 minutes.

Oh, wait, I don't have to, I've actually done that.

Your stats are wrong again, unless we scored against Celtic and Gordon saved two shots in the middle of his goal that wasn't on target...:wacko:

Edited by Antiochas III
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37 minutes ago, Antiochas III said:

Your stats are wrong again, unless we scored against Celtic and Gordon saved two shots in the middle of his goal that wasn't on target...:wacko:

My mistake - 3 shots on target v Celtic at Fir Park, probably just a typo.

The rest are correct though. 

Does that one shot make all the difference for you?

Home to St. Mirren, Away to Celtic, Away to Livingston.  I can post all of them if you wish.

St. Mirren shots.JPG

Celtic shots.JPG

Livingston shots.JPG

Edited by Ya Bezzer!
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2 hours ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

My mistake - 3 shots on target v Celtic at Fir Park, probably just a typo.

The rest are correct though. 

Does that one shot make all the difference for you?

Home to St. Mirren, Away to Celtic, Away to Livingston.  I can post all of them if you wish.

St. Mirren shots.JPG

Celtic shots.JPG

Livingston shots.JPG

What are the two against St Mirren?  As Johnson, Main and Forbes all had at least 1.  

 

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10 hours ago, Casagolda said:

Aye, didn't get that at all. He hooks Bigi midweek and has another dig at him for not doing his job, yet he's the first sub on yesterday and almost immediately we lose a goal through Bigi's man running off him again.

Then to chuck on Bowman and Sammon so that we had four strikers on the park at the end but nobody out wide to actually put the ball into the box for them was just baffling. The fact he took off Tait, who's about the only one who can actually deliver a decent cross and instead kept Grimshaw and Dunne on the park was equally perplexing. Never thought I'd see myself yearning for Elliot Frear but if ever there was a game where we needed an injection of pace and width it was yesterday. 

Yesterday was nothing new though, it's pretty much par for the course for what we've seen at Fir Park this season the Rangers and Aberdeen games aside. As @Desp alluded to in the Celtic thread though, it does seem like the tide is definitely turning on Robinson with the fall out from every defeat and calls for his head getting louder and louder. I've never jumped on the 'Robinson out' bandwagon but yesterday was as probably as close as I've been.

The one thing we had going for us was that we were better than the bottom two, based on yesterday's evidence I'm not so sure that's actually even true anymore. We are a poor, poor side and the quality of what we were watching is as poor as it's been for a long time. 

I think the biggest risk that I see for the rest of the season (and by definition for the manager's prospects) is that we *fucking desperately* need some attacking creativity and flair - but the type of player that supplies that is the most difficult type of signing to get right at any time (never mind in the January window). Yesterday's goal was a crap one to lose- and we are always liable to do that - but it doesn't hurt as much when you've been able to score a couple of times yourselves.

When you look at the run in to the end of the desperately poor season under Barraclough for example - it wasn't the free stuff or winning the battle that ultimately kept us up, it was genuine attacking quality from Johnson, Ainsworth, Pearson, Erwin and McDonald that did it. Look at the youtube clips of the games against Accies, Killie (twice), St Mirren and Rangers and look at some of the fucking goals!That was by no means a great motherwell side (obviously) - but we were able to fall back on some real quality when needed and that simply does not exist in our current squad.

I'm not confident that we can bring in even a shadow of the type of attacking player we had available in a side that finished 11th - but this is probably what our season is going to hinge on...

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2 hours ago, Swello said:

I think the biggest risk that I see for the rest of the season (and by definition for the manager's prospects) is that we *fucking desperately* need some attacking creativity and flair - but the type of player that supplies that is the most difficult type of signing to get right at any time (never mind in the January window). Yesterday's goal was a crap one to lose- and we are always liable to do that - but it doesn't hurt as much when you've been able to score a couple of times yourselves.

When you look at the run in to the end of the desperately poor season under Barraclough for example - it wasn't the free stuff or winning the battle that ultimately kept us up, it was genuine attacking quality from Johnson, Ainsworth, Pearson, Erwin and McDonald that did it. Look at the youtube clips of the games against Accies, Killie (twice), St Mirren and Rangers and look at some of the fucking goals!That was by no means a great motherwell side (obviously) - but we were able to fall back on some real quality when needed and that simply does not exist in our current squad.

I'm not confident that we can bring in even a shadow of the type of attacking player we had available in a side that finished 11th - but this is probably what our season is going to hinge on...

Pretty much. I think this season (so far) has really confirmed what a lot of us suspected: that we fucked the summer window. Whether that was by design and Robinson has overestimated the squad he had or whether we were priced out of our preferred first choice targets and ended up having to make do, we are where we are.

Either way looking back at recent seasons where we've consolidated rather than strengthened following a relatively successful season it's generally not turned out well (McCall 14/15 - our summer signings were Josh Law, Ainsworth on a permanent and Dan Twardzik and McGhee 16/17 - summed up by us replacing Ripley by just handing the gloves to Samson and signing Jacob Blyth because he was tall).

It was interesting to hear Moult talk about McGhee's 2nd season in that interview with Si Ferry. He alluded to a sense of the squad being too comfortable and from the outside looking in there's echoes of the same thing this season. Key games we've lost (such as yesterday) just screams of complacency from the players and the change in mentality between this season and last is pronounced.

To extend the point in @Swello's post above, the precise issue shown yesterday (and in other games this season) we were showing last season but with even less attacking threat this time around. The 2-0 look at NDP springs to mind, as does the 1-0 against Killie at Fir Park. In games where there are fine margins then ultimately goals change games. I get that Robinson's still a relatively young manager (44) but for me the big challenge this season was to show he could bring a more expansive element to his team and learn how to break teams down. Based on what we've seen so far it's still something we're struggling with.

It was interesting to hear Lasley talk more bluntly about us simply not being able to break St Mirren down. It's not like this is a new thing, you can trace it back to last season yet we went into this season with 4 strikers (Main, Bowman, Sammon and Newell) with less than stellar goalscoring records (and Johnson was unproven in this league but has shown up reasonably well tbf). We also didn't bother bringing in a replacement for Tanner. Who knows maybe that was always going to be Turnbull but relying on a 19 year old for your creative spark is a big ask. I completely understand if Robinson thought that Main would kick on but it's proven to be a gamble that's (unsurprisingly) not paid off in terms of goals.

It's hard to ignore the margins we're talking about here. Yesterday was our 6th 1-0 loss this season. It's stating the obvious but one goal in each of those games changes the complexion of our season entirely. At least last season we were grinding out those 1-0 wins and 1-1 or 0-0 draws.

Whether it's just his public face and the emphasis on the free stuff and winning the battle but Robinson doesn't come across as the type of manager who is particularly comfortable with recruiting the more mercurial talent and profile players who will potentially change games and dominate them (Nadir aside). Which is problematic because they're the sort of players we're crying out for. I may be being unfair here but players fitting the profile of your Ainsworth, Johnson, Pearson and McDonald just don't seem like the sort of characters that he'd go for (acknowledging the fact he signed Erwin for Oldham).

Again, I understand why he wants players he can trust will do the free stuff but our lack of creativity (and pace) is painful. Given we're going into our 4th transfer window under Robinson there's no argument that this is anything other than his squad.

It does make me wonder to what extent the way the first half of the season has gone will influence our targets for January. Do we get a bit more spend-y than we'd perhaps planned? We were able to attract guys with quality and profile like Pearson and McDonald because of their previous association with the club it's difficult to think of options out there who'd have a similar impact who'd be up for signing on a relatively small wage because we're a great bunch of lads.

Edited by capt_oats
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What are the two against St Mirren?  As Johnson, Main and Forbes all had at least 1.  
 
I know we were absolutely dire but we certainly had more than 2 attempts on target, 3 of which brought good saves from the goalkeeper (Main header and 2 Turnbull shots). It was an absolutely turgid game though and we're not creating anywhere near enough and the tactics were baffling.
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Robinson reiterating in his pre-match that we're looking to bring in width in the January window and that we're in quite advanced talks with a couple of players:

Quote

"We lacked a creativity, we lacked a little bit of spark and quality in that final third and it's something I'm well aware of. Something that I need to change and I need to get to the January window to try and do that."

"I'm well aware we need more width in the team. We need pace, we need energy up the top end of the pitch and we haven't got it at this moment in time."

"The other boys here that we probably perceive as our creative players, they've been so inconsistent that I don't know what I'm getting maybe from one minute to the next never mind game to game and that's the disappointing bit because we've got boys with ability who just haven't quite performed this season. I'll take care of that in the window. It's a difficult window because people want more money and the availability is a little bit limited but we're well down the line with two or three things, especially in forward areas, a little bit more pace, a little bit more invention. I fully agree, I thought we deserved all the stick we got on Saturday. We hold our hands up, it wasn't good enough."

"I am [looking forward to addressing things in January]. I'm very well aware of what we need. We haven't got wide players, we haven't got people that go past people and maybe when you need that bit of brilliance, if you look at Kilmarnock with Jordan Jones and the boy Stewart as well. They're a handful and they win games sometimes when there's nothing in games and that's probably what we lack at the minute but the January window's a tough one and we've got options I do believe that we're well on our way down the line with a couple and a couple of people may have to go. There comes a stage where everyone needs a little freshness to things and that's what we intend doing I'm looking forward to doing that."

Pretty unambiguous that.

I'll not lie, I'm genuinely curious to find out who these players are now as based on that spiel it's not 12-18 players we're looking at. Also, you'd have to think that Frear's bags have been packed for him.

Edited by capt_oats
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5 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Robinson reiterating in his pre-match that we're looking to bring in width in the January window and that we're in quite advanced talks with a couple of players:

Pretty unambiguous that.

I'll not lie, I'm genuinely curious to find out who these players are now as based on that spiel it's not 12-18 players we're looking at. Also, you'd have to think that Frear's bags have been packed for him.

Just pure speculation, but I'm sure I read somewhere Peter Pawlett is on the move this January and has had "plenty of interest" from clubs up here.

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