Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[well fan for life]

I loved Ally Gorrín. But Donnelly was better in that role imo.

There's just a weird apathetic vibe off the team this season. I mean ffs the play off season we managed to occasionally get our shit together enough to pump a couple of teams despite us being largely shite. I wouldn't back us to comfortably beat anyone right now. There's been a training game look about us. I get that having no fans takes some of the adrenaline out of a game but we are so passive.

Right now it looks like about 80% of our team are happy to pick up a wage but they're all counting down the days until they can find a new club.

[ropy]

Eddie Nolan : does anyone have any evidence that he has arrived in Motherwell?  

[capt_oats]

23 minutes ago, ropy said:

Eddie Nolan : does anyone have any evidence that he has arrived in Motherwell?  

This is what I was wondering as well. I mean, looking at his IG he's only following Harry Smith from the squad. Normally you find there's a bunch of mutual follows when a player arrives at a new club. There's also no mention of Motherwell in his bio.

Not that who he follows on social media actually matters. Snooping at who's following who is all a bit teenage drama but given our media team have taken to not bothering doing the generic "new signing interview" and we've literally seen f**k all of him in ANY content other than the tweet/news story about his signing and he's not listed as being either injured, "injured" or ill, it's a fair question as to what the f**k is up.

Heavy Luka Belic vibes although at least he actually managed 45 mins of a Dev League game against Accies.

Edited February 21, 2021 by capt_oats

[Casagolda]

16 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

There's just a weird apathetic vibe off the team this season. I mean ffs the play off season we managed to occasionally get our shit together enough to pump a couple of teams despite us being largely shite. I wouldn't back us to comfortably beat anyone right now. There's been a training game look about us. I get that having no fans takes some of the adrenaline out of a game but we are so passive.

Right now it looks like about 80% of our team are happy to pick up a wage but they're all counting down the days until they can find a new club.

I think in the play off season, Baraclough just massively lucked out by being able to sign Pearson and McDonald mid-season. 

Two vastly experienced players, both of high quality and who had a genuine affinity for the club. They seemed to lift the whole team and raise the levels of those around them-just look at the difference McDonald made to Erwin. 

Without those two, there’s no doubt for me we were heading down that season. Unfortunately for Alexander, I don’t think Sam Foley and Eddie Nolan are going to have quite the same impact. 

[well fan for life]

Just now, Casagolda said:

I think in the play off season, Baraclough just massively lucked out by being able to sign Pearson and McDonald mid-season. 

Two vastly experienced players, both of high quality and who had a genuine affinity for the club. They seemed to lift the whole team and raise the levels of those around them-just look at the difference McDonald made to Erwin. 

Without those two, there’s no doubt for me we were heading down that season. Unfortunately for Alexander, I don’t think Sam Foley and Eddie Nolan are going to have quite the same impact. 

Absolutely agree. Erwin only really looked like a proper forward when he had McDonald screaming & shouting at him for 90 minutes.

I know they are of unknown quality by comparison but I think we all kind of assumed Nolan was going to be an experienced centre back to drop in, and there would maybe be some quality from elsewhere.

Who fucking knows though. Just get this godforsaken season so far to f**k already.

[ropy]

26 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

This is what I was wondering as well. I mean, looking at his IG he's only following Harry Smith from the squad. Normally you find there's a bunch of mutual follows when a player arrives at a new club. There's also no mention of Motherwell in his bio.

Not that who he follows on social media actually matters. Snooping at who's following who is all a bit teenage drama but given our media team have taken to not bothering doing the generic "new signing interview" and we've literally seen f**k all of him in ANY content other than the tweet/news story about his signing and he's not listed as being either injured, "injured" or ill, it's a fair question as to what the f**k is up.

Heavy Luka Belic vibes although at least he actually managed 45 mins of a Dev League game against Accies.

If I had to hazard a guess at the issue I would say Knee

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, well fan for life said:

I know they are of unknown quality by comparison but I think we all kind of assumed Nolan was going to be an experienced centre back to drop in, and there would maybe be some quality from elsewhere.

Who fucking knows though. Just get this godforsaken season so far to f**k already.

Tbh, my take on January was that Alexander's taken a look and thought we have an alright starting XI so we've improved in the obvious area where we could (Lawleff in for Hastie/Seedorf), moved on someone who wasn't going to play because another club wanted him (White) and the rest has been about padding the squad a bit so we weren't relying on weans off the bench.

In fairness, given the results under Alexander with our starting XI from: Kelly, O'Donnell, Gallagher, Mugabi, Carroll, Campbell, O'Hara, Crawford, Maguire, Long, Cole, Watt that's kind of been borne out. The problem has clearly been lifting a pile of those players out and the new signings either not being ready or fit or injured, it's pretty fucking unclear what the script is there.

I mean, given Foley can play centre half you'd have thought he'd have been an obvious choice to play ahead of Maglorie and I doubt we've patched him out the squad for a laugh but it would be quite nice to know why he isn't in the squad. Same goes with Nolan and Smith.

Again though, the complete failure to turn up against Accies is entirely predictable and says a lot about the (lack of) attitude of this shower of shite. You'll not convince me otherwise that their mindset in any of those games wasn't that all they had to do was turn up to roll Accies over. It's typical...on a wee run of form, corner turned, we should be aiming for top 6....before getting absolutely battered by a team who were willing to put in a bit of graft.

Either way this entire season has been one unrelenting shitshow from Day 1 in Dingwall and to be sitting with 11 (ELEVEN) first team players officially either ill, injured or "injured" is all sorts of LOL. I get that other teams have injuries and such but from Donnelly pretty much being out for the season after one game to Lawleff being ruled out after 20 minutes of his 2nd debut is some state to be in.

Edited February 21, 2021 by capt_oats

[Swello]

Have we actually played a genuine first choice team this season? It's been an unbelievable shit show and the only saving grace is that teams below us are not at this point winning (although the propensity in this league for teams going on winning streaks from nowhere is giving me the fear).  Given the injury list, I've been really patient with things so far but the past two weeks were shockingly bad.

I can imagine that Alexander coming in to a demoralised team isn't going to be chucking tea cups about and dropping people as he will want to lift the place a bit but I can't help think that there are a few that need a massive boot up the arse given the training pace we look to be playing at. I don't really think that the reality that we are right in a relegation fight has really hit home.

[capt_oats]

15 minutes ago, Swello said:

Have we actually played a genuine first choice team this season? It's been an unbelievable shit show and the only saving grace is that teams below us are not at this point winning (although the propensity in this league for teams going on winning streaks from nowhere is giving me the fear).  Given the injury list, I've been really patient with things so far but the past two weeks were shockingly bad.

I can imagine that Alexander coming in to a demoralised team isn't going to be chucking tea cups about and dropping people as he will want to lift the place a bit but I can't help think that there are a few that need a massive boot up the arse given the training pace we look to be playing at. I don't really think that the reality that we are right in a relegation fight has really hit home.

The starting XI against County was Carson; Grimshaw, Gallagher, Lamie, McGinley; O'Hara, Donnelly, Polworth; Turnbull, Long, Hastie

So no Campbell or Carroll. Donnelly was out after this game and McGinley was out for 6 weeks or so. Lang was suspended after his red card.

I mean, right now I'd say all things considered our genuine preferred starting XI would be:

Carson
O'Donnell, Mugabi, Gallagher, Carroll
Campbell, Donnelly, Maguire
Lawleff, Cole, Watt

Yesterday 7 of 11 those weren't available (personally I'd probably have O'Hara instead of Mugabi but he wasn't/isn't available either).

You could argue Kelly's a fine replacement for Carson and we could maybe get away with Long in place of Lawleff but our back up right back has some mystery illness and it seems none of our centre back options we brought in for cover are available apart from a 22 year old who prior to pitching up here had a total of 18 senior appearances to his name.

What an absolute shitshow.

Edited February 21, 2021 by capt_oats

[Swello]

7 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Carson
O'Donnell, Mugabi, Gallagher, Carroll
Campbell, Donnelly, Maguire
Lawleff, Cole, Watt

That looks like a very decent team - shame we'll not see it.

[Lobby Dossar]

11 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

The starting XI against County was Carson; Grimshaw, Gallagher, Lamie, McGinley; O'Hara, Donnelly, Polworth; Turnbull, Long, Hastie

So no Campbell or Carroll. Donnelly was out after this game and McGinley was out for 6 weeks or so. Lang was suspended after his red card.

I mean, right now I'd say all things considered our genuine preferred starting XI would be:

Carson
O'Donnell, Mugabi, Gallagher, Carroll
Campbell, Donnelly, Maguire
Lawleff, Cole, Watt

Yesterday 7 of 11 those weren't available (personally I'd probably have O'Hara instead of Mugabi but he wasn't/isn't available either).

What an absolute shitshow.

You still sticking with 4-3-3

Apart from us the only team that plays 4-3-3 in the league is Rangers … … but they have the players that can play that system … … we unfortunately don’t 

Edited February 21, 2021 by Lobby Dossar

[ropy]

What did Robinson see as his first choice centre half pairing at the start of the season, Gallagher and one of Lamie, Mugabi, McGinley? Was that how we started the season, have I missed someone?

[Gianfranco]

If everyone was fit I’d be going 352:

Kelly

O’Hara Gallagher McGinley

Sod Donnelly Carroll

Campbell. Polworth

Cole Long/Watt

[Bobby_F]

Battle of the Crocked Teams on Wednesday by the looks of things. 

[capt_oats]

24 minutes ago, ropy said:

What did Robinson see as his first choice centre half pairing at the start of the season, Gallagher and one of Lamie, Mugabi, McGinley? Was that how we started the season, have I missed someone?

I'd guess it'd have been one of Lamie and McGinley since Mugabi's a right sided player he'd have been intended to be back up for Gallagher.

IIRC the plan was to go with McGinley at LB until Carroll was back to fitness as he was originally scheduled for September but a delay with his rehab pushed it back.

I'd have thought McGinley would have been intended as the first choice since we brought him up from England while Lamie would be back up as he had a similar squad role at Livi. Which kind of makes his bit-part-ness all the stranger as tbh other than getting caught for that Hibs goal I don't think he's done much wrong. 

Edited February 21, 2021 by capt_oats

[ropy]

5 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

I'd guess it'd have been one of Lamie and McGinley since Mugabi's a right sided player he'd have been intended to be back up for Gallagher.

IIRC the plan was to go with McGinley at LB until Carroll was back to fitness as he was originally scheduled for September but a delay with his rehab pushed it back.

I'd have thought McGinley would have been intended as the first choice since we brought him up from England while Lamie would be back up as he had a similar squad role at Livi. Which kind of makes his bit-part-ness all the stranger as tbh other than getting caught for that Hibs goal I don't think he's done much wrong. 

Have we played Toby (I am trying here) in a back 2 at any point?

[18May1991]

1 hour ago, Gianfranco said:

If everyone was fit I’d be going 352:

Kelly

O’Hara Gallagher McGinley

Sod Donnelly Carroll

Campbell. Polworth

Cole Long/Watt

Looks half decent to me. Although maybe not Polworth 

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

1 hour ago, ropy said:

Have we played Toby (I am trying here) in a back 2 at any point?

Not from the start certainly anyway. The only game he has started at centre back whatsoever was against Hapoel Beer-Sheva, in the middle of a three, which was really only out of necessity as he wasn’t match fit and Bevis was suspended.

It beats me why he’s featured so little. Other than the Hibs game at home where he wasn’t too clever for one or two of the goals, I’ve rarely found issue in his performances. Especially when his competition has been Mugabi and Lamie. But that’s now Robinson, Lasley and Alexander who’ve neglected to play him.

['WellDel]

The whole McGinley situation is just another in a huge pile of wtf's this season.

Surely a guy with 50 or 60 plus first team appearances under his belt merits a go ahead of Magloire who, even accounting for his youth and inexperience, looked absolutely hopeless yesterday. 

In what we've seen of him, he is far from the worst defender on our books, and I would be far more inclined to give him a run in front of Lamie and Mugabi, never mind the young untested boys.

No idea what goes on behind the scenes or how he shows up week to week in training, but somethings obviously awry. 

Baffling situation. 

[Ron Aldo]

I genuinely have no idea what position McGinley plays. I'd always thought he was brought in as a left back to cover for and then compete with Carroll. All the chat on here seems to suggest he's a centre back?