Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[capt_oats]

I thought at least one of the more reliable ITK-ers had the Frear re-signing as having been on until something changed. I'm not 100% on my timeline but IIRC the Oxford trial happened after the Gretna friendly and the whole speculation he was taking the offer?

It'd be bold to patch a deal on the table in favour for a trial elsewhere but equally we brought him up here from Forest Green Rovers who are from that neck of the woods so it wouldn't be a massive surprise if his preference would have been to go back down south rather than stick around up here. He trial at Oxford was a couple of weeks and he played in a few friendlies (scored in one IIRC), I've not been paying particular attention but from the sound of things it seems United kept him hanging for a while.

Tbh, I don't really blame him for not fancying a new deal with us. 29 appearances last season, 20 of them off the bench and only 4 of his starts were in the league. It hardly screams "we see you as a key member of the squad" and I'm fairly sure our offer would have reflected that.

Like @Swello I'm a bit surprised no one's picked him up, Bowman and Fisher seem to be doing pretty well in League 2 with Exeter. I'd have thought he'd have been a viable option for teams at that level even more so if he's willing to drop down to the Championship up here (I suppose it's now the point in the season where he can't afford to be picky).

Edited September 16, 2019 by capt_oats

[dezz]

Nice to see that Casper Sloth does actually exist as he scores against Accies reserves this afternoon.

In other news, I spotted this on Twitter (Agent Scotland - I know, I know!) but it makes for some pretty positive reading, assuming it is actually correct. Can only assume we’ll jump to 2+ ppg when Turnbull is back fit. Passports out.

[Ron Aldo]

Regarding Elliot Frear, I work with a Dundee United fan and he'd heard that Frear failed a medical with them.

[capt_oats]

3 hours ago, dezz said:

In other news, I spotted this on Twitter (Agent Scotland - I know, I know!) but it makes for some pretty positive reading, assuming it is actually correct. Can only assume we’ll jump to 2+ ppg when Turnbull is back fit. Passports out.

It's something I had been thinking about the other day when I read @Casagolda's post below:

On 15/09/2019 at 11:50, Casagolda said:

I’m sure teams will eventually work out ways to stifle us but at the minute, we just seem to have too much pace and energy for teams to handle. At the very least, we look like we’ll be fun to watch this season though.

Fwiw: I fully agree that it seems natural that teams will work us out but at the moment IMO there are echoes of Robinson's first full season when the 352 clicked and we were winning games while kicking teams about like empty fag packets. Watching the post-match footage recently there seems to be a similar sort of buy in to what we're doing at the moment as there was back then. Obviously it's easier when results are going our way but they seem to be having a bloody lovely time.

Since we switched to 433 at the turn of the year (and yes there have been a couple of poor results and games where it hasn't worked) our record in all competitions is:

P 28 W 16 D 4 L 8

Early days and all that but considering we've effectively had 2 teams this calendar year it's not bad going and it seems a bit more sustained than when we were chucking hammers around.

Edited September 16, 2019 by capt_oats

[thisGRAEME]

Frear was garbage aside from about 8 games when Zak Jules was trying to hole us below the water line, and once against Accies last season, in what must be over 50 appearances.

Not for me.

[Luke92]

I missed the game on Saturday but judging by the highlights we ran riot at times, could have easily been 4 or 5 with the chances we had.

Must say, I was really down on Hylton and Seedorf after the first few games of the season but it looks like I was very wrong. Defo a bit of a snap judgement on my part.. Generally speaking I thought physically they were well short of what was required but they have proven in the last few games to have something about them.  Seedorf's strike in particular showed he has great ability. I was of the mind we were still short up front but I think our options are starting to shape up. We will probably be looking at a more varied number of forwards chipping in with goals this year rather than a single high scoring #9.

We have 3 very winnable games coming up, lets temper expectations until we are through these but the signs are encouraging.

[capt_oats]

17 minutes ago, Luke92 said:

I missed the game on Saturday but judging by the highlights we ran riot at times, could have easily been 4 or 5 with the chances we had.

Must say, I was really down on Hylton and Seedorf after the first few games of the season but it looks like I was very wrong. Defo a bit of a snap judgement on my part.. Generally speaking I thought physically they were well short of what was required but they have proven in the last few games to have something about them.  Seedorf's strike in particular showed he has great ability. I was of the mind we were still short up front but I think our options are starting to shape up. We will probably be looking at a more varied number of forwards chipping in with goals this year rather than a single high scoring #9.

We have 3 very winnable games coming up, lets temper expectations until we are through these but the signs are encouraging.

I thought it was interesting that in his post-match Robinson reiterated that there was a specific player we tried to get but...didn't. So we stuck with what we had.

For me the significant thing is that he's switched Scott out wide rather than trying to play him through the middle and gone with Cole through the centre rather than pushing him wide.

Quote

Previously everyone said we need a #9, we didn't get the one that we wanted so we believed in the players that we had and they're proving that. They're scoring goals, if I can get them even fitter with a better understanding then I think we can continue to improve.

I mean, some laugh given he was one of the ones banging on about us not having a #9 but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edited September 16, 2019 by capt_oats

[Swello]

7 minutes ago, Luke92 said:

I missed the game on Saturday but judging by the highlights we ran riot at times, could have easily been 4 or 5 with the chances we had.

Must say, I was really down on Hylton and Seedorf after the first few games of the season but it looks like I was very wrong. Defo a bit of a snap judgement on my part.. Generally speaking I thought physically they were well short of what was required but they have proven in the last few games to have something about them.  Seedorf's strike in particular showed he has great ability. I was of the mind we were still short up front but I think our options are starting to shape up. We will probably be looking at a more varied number of forwards chipping in with goals this year rather than a single high scoring #9.

We have 3 very winnable games coming up, lets temper expectations until we are through these but the signs are encouraging.

We've got a forward line that consists of people with zero experience at our level or - in the case of Scott - very inexperienced. This means that it's going to be a while before they are fully settled in and had a chance to get used to it - so we are ahead of where we should be really. I think - Ilic aside based on what I've seen - the other 4 main attacking signings all have a chance to be decent for us. I'd especially like to see Cole get a couple of goals and some confidence as I think he has something about him....

[capt_oats]

9 minutes ago, Swello said:

We've got a forward line that consists of people with zero experience at our level or - in the case of Scott - very inexperienced. This means that it's going to be a while before they are fully settled in and had a chance to get used to it - so we are ahead of where we should be really. I think - Ilic aside based on what I've seen - the other 4 main attacking signings all have a chance to be decent for us. I'd especially like to see Cole get a couple of goals and some confidence as I think he has something about him....

Strongly agree re: Cole.

Given he has a knack for running "in behind" then he strikes me as the sort of forward who would naturally complement Polworth's game and his range of passing.

[one m in Motherwell]

The exciting thing at the moment is that we seem to be playing well, playing some nice stuff, and that’s arguably without three or four players having really ‘clicked’ yet.

Cole looks like he could be a player, I think Long will also contribute, and that’s before we get to see what the likes of Sloth, Mugabi and Mazinga have to offer.

All in, it’s a very encouraging start...

[welldaft]

f**k it - we are doing a Leicester.......

In all seriousness I see the crap has started about the bold Mr Robinson. Only a matter of time if we continue current form. Rumours are that Hearts Board are interested as a replacement for Levein. 

Hilarious that a few weeks ago and last season a fair % of Well fans wanted shot of him. 

 

[dezz]

Agree that there’s definitely something there with Cole. He was unlucky with a couple of efforts on Saturday and expect him to get off the mark soon.

I also agree that it appears the players are ‘buying into it’ which kind of mirrors the the impression you got with the cup finals season. Not saying we’ll match that and it’s very early days but guys like Gallacher, Seedorf and Hylton seem to ‘get it’ despite only being here a short while. You’d maybe expect it with Gallacher given his experience in the league/country but it’s encouraging the other new guys seem to be embracing it all.

The one thing that stuck me about Saturday was the strength in depth of the squad. A bench including Tait, Carson, Mugabi, Long, Hylton and O’Hara is pretty impressive, and that’s before you consider Sloth, Turnbull, Dunne and Semple.

[capt_oats]

Corrigan talking about Foyle in The Record today. Tbh, it doesn't really say anything new about our recruitment it's the sort of thing that's been pretty well covered in previous seasons.

In other news, I know it's not really the done thing to keep an eye on players once they've left and that but I noticed that was McKinstry made his first start for Leeds u23s at Elland Road last night, they won 6-0 against Watford. He seemed to make an impact as 2 of their penalties came from him being brought down.

McAlear has been starting for Norwich's u23s as well from the look of things, he played against Portsmouth last week in their version of the Challenge Cup.

Edited September 17, 2019 by capt_oats

[Swello]

9 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Corrigan talking about Foyle in The Record today. Tbh, it doesn't really say anything new about our recruitment it's the sort of thing that's been pretty well covered in previous seasons.

I wish we would shut up about it  It's a surprise to me that peers of ours haven't tried to replicate what we've been doing for a few years now (or if they have, they are maybe not there yet)

The mix of a decent youth system and a well developed scouting operation based down south is a good way to operate a club like ours and I think, given that both these things are strategic choices that take a few years to get in place, we are a little ahead of the game. The thing that makes it attractive to me is that one part of this model can bail the other part out at times - as happened last year when a very mediocre summer in the transfer market was partially saved by what was available from the youth setup.  It's too early to really tell this season - but the early signs are that the mix of homegrown vs scouted is good...

[Archie McSquackle]

I didn't realise we had Corrigan involved in the scouting system.

No surprise to see the comments on an eye for pace. As others have said, you can coach a player to play a position but you can't coach pace. I think we've already seen improvement in Seedorf and Hylton and hopefully there's a lot more to come. They both still look a bit raw and it's interesting to see we're only playing one of them with Scott on the other side. Maybe they're too similar to be playing both at the same time at the moment and Scott brings something different to the attacking line-up.

[Casagolda]

I think the fact they both look burst after an hour is making it one or the other at this moment in time. 

Swapping a fresh Hylton on for a tiring Seedorf is working pretty well at the minute though. That’s them both equalled Gboly’s league goal tally from last season already. Was also nice to see both of them produce away from home on Saturday, which for all his quality, is something I’d say Ariyibi generally failed to do. 

Plus as you say, Scott’s playing well and giving us something a bit different. He’s looked a lot more comfortable out wide than he did through the middle. Actually seems to suit his natural game more, now he’s allowed to get the ball down and play instead of spending most of his time wrestling opposition centre backs. 

Edited September 17, 2019 by Casagolda

[capt_oats]

There's quite a good analysis of the Hibs game over on Modern Fitba (that's not all xG nonsense).

It addresses the point about pushing Scott out wide:

Quote

This is why I didn’t describe Motherwell’s attacking structure as ‘poor’ earlier on: Because while there was one time Polworth dropped deep into space to receive and got ignored by Hartley, this structure may well have been a deliberate ploy. Certainly the way in which they consistently played long diagonals out to James Scott on the right wing made it seem not an accident. And if it was deliberate, kudos to Robinson for exploiting a weakness in this Hibs side: namely a lack of physicality.

Scott is 6ft 2in tall. His opposite man, Hibs left-back Lewis Stevenson, is 5ft 7in. To put it kindly, aerial duels between these two weren’t really a fair contest. Scott frequently brought the ball down himself to allow Motherwell to attack from inside the Hibs half, but even if he didn’t Stevenson struggled to properly clear his lines in these situations due to the physical disadvantage.

Motherwell were then set up to fight for the second ball after the initial aerial non-contest. Donnelly was on Allan; Campbell was on Stevie Mallan; Grimshaw was on Middleton – all Hibs players around the ball were man-marked by a physically stronger Motherwell player. So, even if Hibs managed to pick up the loose ball, they were often immediately nudged off it or pressured into turnovers.

I thought Donnelly, Campbell and (surprisingly) Polworth were all pretty effective sweeping up 2nd balls on Saturday.

He may not be as direct as Hastie but Scott's a better technical footballer and on the face of it, it's a solution for getting us up the park without having the #9 Robinson had been talking about. We were getting caught out trying to play exclusively through the midfield and neither Seedorf or Hylton look (physically) effective holding the ball up at the moment and it's clear we're not going to get far launching balls to Long, Cole or Scott and putting them up against centre backs.

However Cole looks like he can be effective getting the ball into his feet and running at or behind a defence while Long utterly rinsing Halkett for pace in a foot race and leaving him on his arse was a genuine highlight of Saturday.

It's still early days at the moment and it'd be daft to get ahead of ourselves but I think one of the positives here is that Robinson looks like he's found a solution to the problem he had quickly as opposed to last season where we started out with the 352 and tried to replicate the previous season, we went 442 (Diamond) and shipped 7 at Ibrox before finally ripping it all up in January.

This season it seems to have been more of a tweak to fix things.

[Swami]

1 hour ago, Casagolda said:

I think the fact they both look burst after an hour is making it one or the other at this moment in time. 

Swapping a fresh Hylton on for a tiring Seedorf is working pretty well at the minute though. That’s them both equalled Gboly’s league goal tally from last season already. Was also nice to see both of them produce away from home on Saturday, which for all his quality, is something I’d say Ariyibi generally failed to do. 

Plus as you say, Scott’s playing well and giving us something a bit different. He’s looked a lot more comfortable out wide than he did through the middle. Actually seems to suit his natural game more, now he’s allowed to get the ball down and play instead of spending most of his time wrestling opposition centre backs. 

Who’s that now? 

[Swello]

2 hours ago, Swami said:

Who’s that now? 

I'd still have him back

[capt_oats]

There they are...a great bunch of lads.

Good to see Semple included there.

Edited September 17, 2019 by capt_oats