Busta Nut Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 What actually happened to Carson? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
well fan for life Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 16 minutes ago, Busta Nut said: What actually happened to Carson? When he came out his box to header away a through ball he landed funny. Hopefully just a jarred knee or something like that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desp Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 If Carson ends up out long term that would be fucking horrendous. Obviously for us as a team, but for him personally would be awful. I really hope it's not a serious injury, he really doesn't deserve that after just getting back into our team and his national team's. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_oats Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 (edited) Dull post but given there were a few headlines after the opening matches along the lines of "worst start to a season in 20 years" or whatever, I was quite curious as to how things look after 10 games played compared with Robinson's previous seasons. 17/18 - P 10 -19 pts (3rd) (Final Position = 7th) 18/19 - P 10 - 5 pts (10th) (FP = 8th) 19/20 - P 10 - 16 pts (4th) (FP = 3rd*) 20/21 - P 10 - 11 pts (8th) The fact that we're 5 points off where we were last season after the same number of games was a surprise (albeit with Killie and St Mirren still outstanding from the first round of fixtures). Those 5 points you can attribute to the losses in opening game against County, United and Accies - a win and a couple of draws from those (which was entirely possible, we weren't outplayed in any of the 3) and we'd be pretty much on par with last season. As far as I can tell if the season was to be ended now in the same way as last season we'd be 6th on PPG. Incidentally seeing as Michael Stewart referenced McCall's final season in that BBC article - after 10 games in 14/15 we were 11th sitting on 7 points. Edited October 26, 2020 by capt_oats 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RandomGuy. Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 5 hours ago, capt_oats said: Dull post but given there were a few headlines after the opening matches along the lines of "worst start to a season in 20 years" or whatever, I was quite curious as to how things look after 10 games played compared with Robinson's previous seasons. 17/18 - P 10 -19 pts (3rd) (Final Position = 7th) 18/19 - P 10 - 5 pts (10th) (FP = 8th) 19/20 - P 10 - 16 pts (4th) (FP = 3rd*) 20/21 - P 10 - 11 pts (8th) The fact that we're 5 points off where we were last season after the same number of games was a surprise (albeit with Killie and St Mirren still outstanding from the first round of fixtures). Those 5 points you can attribute to the losses in opening game against County, United and Accies - a win and a couple of draws from those (which was entirely possible, we weren't outplayed in any of the 3) and we'd be pretty much on par with last season. Maybe the same for you, but finding this season a really weird one. First season it feels like there's no really brutal side you expect to be comfortably bottom, yet it feels like the weakest collection if sides battling for the top half too. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
well fan for life Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 1 minute ago, RandomGuy. said: Maybe the same for you, but finding this season a really weird one. First season it feels like there's no really brutal side you expect to be comfortably bottom, yet it feels like the weakest collection if sides battling for the top half too. It is a really odd season. Like you've got Celtic & Rangers who'll be top 2, Hibs & Aberdeen who look good for 3-4th and then 8 other rag tag bunches of average footballers. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welldaft Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 3 hours ago, well fan for life said: It is a really odd season. Like you've got Celtic & Rangers who'll be top 2, Hibs & Aberdeen who look good for 3-4th and then 8 other rag tag bunches of average footballers. Probably how it will turn out come end of the season. But I always felt we have / had a strong squad. A few too many injuries in defence have not helped allied to a slow start and then stop start season means it is hard to gauge. But I still feel it will be between us and Killie for 5th. Maybe a bit of a fluke that we won 3-0 in Aberdeen in that they had just sold McKenna, but we have been the better side in the two games v sides looking like finishing 3rd and 4th. If we can string some results and games together then I am still hopeful of a comfortable top 6 finish. To be fair I think Random Guy has said similar in a thread about likely league table a week or so back. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
santheman Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 I think Covid will have a major say in how the League placings work out. A bit of a cliche but those teams who manage to come through relatively unscathed and get their games played will have the advantage of getting points on the board and not having to play catch up. I would like to think that when we get all our injured players back we will have a big enough squad to cope with any outbreak that might happen to hit us between now and the end of the season. Pretty sure it will affect every team at some point. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steelmen Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 My fear is other teams having issues. We already have a fixture backlog, 1 or 2 more games cancelled due to Covid or weather and no matter the size of our squad having to play 3 games a week will take its toll 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_oats Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 (edited) I expected it to be a weird season on account of the 'rona (duh) and the reduced budgets, players having not kicked a ball for 6 months and no crowds. I've found fans in general who seem to be treating this season as normal in their expectations pretty fucking weird tbh. Having said that I didn't really expect the sort of season we're having generally. Depending on what happens with Carson we could be looking at signing our 3rd goalkeeper of the season. We had two players pick up serious injuries after the first game of the season. As it stands we've currently got 7 (SEVEN) defenders out injured or unavailable, there have been points where we've literally not had a left back available. We started off the season playing 433, switched to 352 because that wasn't working, have now switched back to 433. Our chief executive had a warrant issued for his arrest. I mean, it's a LOL and was sorted out but still...fucking hell. We've just come back from a month's hiatus before the first round of fixtures were even complete (with 2 of our defenders having started 3 games in a week for Scotland (and kept 3 clean sheets)). On top of that there's been the predictable stuff that everyone saw coming like Robinson interviewing for the NI job, Turnbull to Celtic. It's just felt like we've been fighting fires of various sizes. Relentlessly. Every day. Edited October 27, 2020 by capt_oats 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swello Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 I've got no real expectations for this season - I'll genuinely be happy at the end of it if we are (a) still in business and in a shape to resume "normal", whenever that is and (b) still have our place in the top flight. Anything other than that feels a bit irrelevant at the moment. My biggest concern is not our league placing - it's about how many people have got used to not going to games on a Saturday as that has a big effect on (a)... 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ropy Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 The mention of Turnbull above made me think of our performances with him v Polworth. You would argue Turnbull is the better player but does Polworth fit our game better? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
well fan for life Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 22 minutes ago, ropy said: The mention of Turnbull above made me think of our performances with him v Polworth. You would argue Turnbull is the better player but does Polworth fit our game better? I was wayyyyy less arsed about Turnbull leaving than I would have been if it had been Campbell. I think Turnbull is the most technically gifted player I've ever seen at Motherwell but ultimately he's far more replaceable than Campbell would have been. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazylegsjoe_mfc Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 For me, the main difference between Turnbull and Polworth is that what we grew to love Turnbull for was scoring great goals and doing outrageous stuff on the ball, but what makes Polworth more effective is his ability to do the simple thinsg, very well, over and over again. I noticed it in the Glentoran game (the first after Turnbull departed) and then I noticed it again on Saturday that Polworth can often play a good, first time, one touch pass without even thinking about it, that can speed up our play and get us up the park. Maybe that makes us tick a bit better. The defenders out statistics perhaps is a bit mad, but I'm wondering if these are skewed by Charles Dunne. I'm wondering if there's any real intent in him playing for us again, or if we are just doing the right thing a la Craig Tanner. The fact that he is still "TBC" for a return date, when even Scott Fox with his ACL has one. What I will say is that I'm willing to eat my words about our squad size that I made earlier than the window 100% when six of our nine subs on Saturday had 40 mins of appearances for the club between them. That is now making a bit more sense with the younger guys loaned out. Was any reason given why Lamie and Seedorf weren't playing on Saturday? I mean, I'm not complaining, but you'd think if they were injured, they'd have said so, so that there was no ambiguity if they were missing due to being contacts of the positive test. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swello Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 Playing Turnbull at the start of the season was a necessity - we had to prove he was fit so we could get the deal done - so I had no problems with it. The consequence was that Polworth, who was one of our most productive and important players last season got next to no game time, even though he would be a key player again. It's probably only now that Polworth is up to speed as a result. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welldaft Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 I am a HUGE fan of Polworth. Arguably he has made a difference over Turnbull as our results picked up but as mentioned above we needed to play Turnbull in order to get our circa £3m from Celtic. The key difference in my opinion is that Turnbull can create and finish. In general evidence Polworth continually creates but rarely finishes or scores goals. That effort on Saturday a case in point. Dribbles past several players and hits it narrowly wide. If he could finish then he would be elsewhere. I actually think we are lucky to have Polworth. His languid style has some of our fans frothing and maybe it has hindered his progression but he makes us tick and with so many assists is such a pivotal player for Motherwell FC. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_oats Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 (edited) Looking at our form in all competitions since Turnbull left we've lost 3 games out of 8: Celtic (a), Hapoel (a) and Rangers (h). 27/08/20 - (H) Glentoran 5-1 (W) 30/08/20 - (A) Celtic 3-0 (L) 12/09/20 - (H) St Johnstone 1-0 (W) 17/09/20 - (A) Coleraine 2-2 (X) - Motherwell win 0-3 on penalties 20/09/20 - (A) Aberdeen 0-3 (W) 24/09/20 - (A) Hapoel Be'er Sheva 3-0 (L) 27/09/20 - (H) Rangers 1-5 (L) 24/10/20 - (H) Ross County 4-0 (W) I mean, it's disingenuous to look at that and go down the "we were a worse side this season with Turnbull in it" route in fact it's probably just plain wrong as there were a number of factors at play when it came to our early (lack of) form but it's fair to say that we've had a softer landing after he's left than we might have. Edited October 27, 2020 by capt_oats 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gianfranco Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 Polworth definitely fits our system better than Turnbull did. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desp Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 (edited) Polworth is a very good player for our level. Turnbull was miles and miles ahead of anyone at our level, which bizarrely makes it difficult to get the very best out of them at times. Similarly to when Faddy left first time around, we'll be better as a team when the exceptional talent moves on. We got £3m plus for Turnbull and we brought back in the guy who was instrumental in our 3rd place finish to replace him. Win win all round. TL:DR version - what @Gianfranco just said... Edited October 27, 2020 by Desp 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ropy Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 59 minutes ago, welldaft said: I am a HUGE fan of Polworth. Arguably he has made a difference over Turnbull as our results picked up but as mentioned above we needed to play Turnbull in order to get our circa £3m from Celtic. The key difference in my opinion is that Turnbull can create and finish. In general evidence Polworth continually creates but rarely finishes or scores goals. That effort on Saturday a case in point. Dribbles past several players and hits it narrowly wide. If he could finish then he would be elsewhere. I actually think we are lucky to have Polworth. His languid style has some of our fans frothing and maybe it has hindered his progression but he makes us tick and with so many assists is such a pivotal player for Motherwell FC. Languid is the best description. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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