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Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons


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8 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

It was obviously quite a coup getting a 31 times capped Finland international that has played in the leagues he has, but that obviously comes with a catch. I was concerned about his injury record there. He’s only played 258 club games his entire career and he’s 32. The highest number of league games he’s played in a season is 24. The injuries probably are what the catch was (for context, Lamie has played 293 games and is four years younger).

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t researched how many games are played a season in the leagues he’s played in, but it still seems a small amount.

For me, he’s been great since he signed and the injuries might just need to be something we grin and bear. We have four centre backs this season who have all done a turn when they’ve played. Maybe being kept on his toes this season has helped Lamie improve. A lot better than having Magloire and Eddie Nolan (knee) as competition. 

The problem Ojala had seems to have been that he did his cruciate when he was in Russia (2013-16). Which in part explains why he's maybe not played as many games as you'd expect.

Quote

"After two seasons in Switzerland, Ojala moved to Russian Premier League side Terek Grozny for an undisclosed fee.

However, his time in Russia was disrupted by knee problems and a ruptured crucial ligament which ensured the Finnish international made only 24 appearances across three seasons.

In order to regain his fitness following a long-term injury layoff, Ojala returned to Helsinki for a second spell with HJK, this time on a short loan deal, where he made four appearances for the club, before he was released by parent club Terek Grozny.

He has spent time over the summer on trial with Kaiserslautern but is now in with the Sky Blues."

Link

If you look at his playing record in Denmark last season he seems to have been subbed off a few times but he had a decent run playing 90 mins. https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/juhani-ojala/leistungsdaten/spieler/88257/plus/0?saison=2020

 

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Guest superward

Just looking at the fixtures up to the split. Really does feel this season is basically split into blocks of essentially top 6/better teams then bottom 6/'not as good' teams for us. 

Currently in a 7 game run that includes Rangers, Aberdeen, Hearts, Dundee U, Celtic, Hibs. Then a few games against St J, Livi, Ross C, St Mirren before the winter break. 

Come back and a similar pattern resulting in a tough handful of games then very winnable end to the season run of 5 games against what will probably be bottom 6 teams. 

The way the fixture list has panned out - the season might be one that goes up and down like we've seen already.

Edited by superward
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14 hours ago, capt_oats said:

The problem Ojala had seems to have been that he did his cruciate when he was in Russia (2013-16). Which in part explains why he's maybe not played as many games as you'd expect.

I get that, but he seemed to make something of a comeback in the 2017 with BK Hacken in Sweden, playing 23 games in that season, but in the two seasons that followed he only managed six, then three league games. All while he's never gone a full calendar year without a Finland cap since he got his first.

He must just be very injury prone, but the quality he has outweighs the games he'll inevitably miss.

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2 hours ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

I get that, but he seemed to make something of a comeback in the 2017 with BK Hacken in Sweden, playing 23 games in that season, but in the two seasons that followed he only managed six, then three league games. All while he's never gone a full calendar year without a Finland cap since he got his first.

He must just be very injury prone, but the quality he has outweighs the games he'll inevitably miss.

Aye, I wasn't disagreeing with your general point. It's just that a cruciate injury will account for a chunk of those missed games in relation to his overall career. Similarly, it's worth pointing out that that injury was 5 or 6 years ago now.

To speak to the point @'WellDel made, last season before he joined us he made 25 appearances for Vejle BK (23 in the league) with 6 international appearances on top of that and 19/20 he made also made 25 club appearances and completed the 90 in the majority of them.

For context it looks like the Danish Superliga is a 32 game season to complete. Home and away then split after 22 games. So the bold Juhani missed 9 league games last season either through suspension or injury with a couple as an unused sub. That feels quite normal tbh but again, no disagreement with your broad point. I'd guess that there's a trade off somewhere.

There's also a positive conversation to be had about Ricki Lamie, I thought he was smashing when he came on at the weekend and it feels like this is actually the squad role he was meant to have when we signed him rather than having him as a starting centre back. Or perhaps more accurately it suits him better.

He seems to have become far more steady since Alexander came in compared to his form while Robinson was here.

Edited by capt_oats
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Sorry for the B2B posts from me on this page.

I know yer man @RandomGuy. mentioned this when we were first publicly linked with him but it's interesting to see where Tierney plays for Bohemians vs how we set up.

It mostly looks like he's slightly advanced in a midfield 3 but not quite a #10. You'd imagine that's a 433 with 2 sitters but not quite a 4231.

At the moment do we have anyone who plays in this sort of area? I don't think we do. Big ask for a 20 year old to come over and step in to run the show but still...

Anyway, these are the team lines from the most recent games he's played (more in the spoiler).

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Spoiler

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I know there's been a criticism about our midfield recruitment this summer but tbf there wasn't really any midfield recruitment beyond Slattery and Goss so it feels like a conscious decision not to just bring in randoms if we missed out on actual targets (and from Alexander's chat the other week Tierney was someone we were keen to bring in through the summer).

Looking at the contract expiries of all our current midfield options:

2022 - Grimshaw, Maguire, O'Hara, Crawford, Donnelly, Parker
2023 - Cornelius, Goss
2024 - Slattery

So 6 or our 9 midfielders are OOC in 22 (Parker's obvs in January at that). Hmmmmm...

Edited by capt_oats
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I am happy for Tierney to sit at the ‘D’ and slot 20 yarders home.  The goals are massive, the exact dimensions of my living room wall.  Ive never understood why so few goals are scored, if the keeper is standing at the wall unit it must be easy to slot the ball in at the TV.  (I realise my couch, and therefore my viewpoint, is inside the six yard box.)

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1 hour ago, ropy said:

I am happy for Tierney to sit at the ‘D’ and slot 20 yarders home.  The goals are massive, the exact dimensions of my living room wall.  Ive never understood why so few goals are scored, if the keeper is standing at the wall unit it must be easy to slot the ball in at the TV.  (I realise my couch, and therefore my viewpoint, is inside the six yard box.)

 I've always felt similar about players who miss the target with a penalty. If you're a professional footballer and you can't stand 10 yards from the side of a bus and hit it with a ball, that should be a week's wages.

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33 minutes ago, Al B said:

 I've always felt similar about players who miss the target with a penalty. If you're a professional footballer and you can't stand 10 yards from the side of a bus and hit it with a ball, that should be a week's wages.

My issue is with players who put balls over the bar, the goals are on the ground, you can’t score up there 

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 I've always felt similar about players who miss the target with a penalty. If you're a professional footballer and you can't stand 10 yards from the side of a bus and hit it with a ball, that should be a week's wages.
I've had a crappy day at work so excuse the pettiness but what if you were 12 yards away? [emoji848]

Anyway, can Tierney do a job when we bring him on at centre half?
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