Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[well fan for life]

50 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

I thought your full backs were particularly poor on Saturday. Right back was a clumsy mess and the left back just didn't look like he knew the basics of football. I always like Grimshaw when he plays against us, but he was another that was completely anonymous. He'd have been better off in your RB position though IMO. 

If we didn't notch our 3rd, KVV looked like a man that could have easily dragged you back into the game. Criminal why he never started regardless of the other strikers' form.

The numbers don't lie. We've had much better results with Mugabi over SOD.

It's definitely been in the post for some time for Mugabi to look massively out of position and Saturday was that realisation. He looked so far off his man he'd have been as well taking a walk round the V&A all afternoon. The consensus on here is that we'd be quite well off playing a 3-5-2 to get the best out of SOD while having a solid central defence but Alexanderball forbids it. 

On Grimshaw, there's a section of our support who absolutely love him and think he's class. I am not in this section and I am really, really sick of him getting put in midfield when he can't pick a 10 yard pass. 

KVV is an enigma. He's unplayable when he fancies it, scored a couple of great goals at Pittodrie but was suspended last week. I can't argue that the front 3 deserved to keep their places but I hope to see KVV back tomorrow. 

Edited November 29, 2021 by well fan for life

[Neil86]

4 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

I thought your full backs were particularly poor on Saturday. Right back was a clumsy mess and the left back just didn't look like he knew the basics of football. I always like Grimshaw when he plays against us, but he was another that was completely anonymous. He'd have been better off in your RB position though IMO. 

If we didn't notch our 3rd, KVV looked like a man that could have easily dragged you back into the game. Criminal why he never started regardless of the other strikers' form.

Alexander shows a great deal of loyalty off the back of a win, I don't think any Motherwell fan expected KVV to start, I certainly didn't, he will almost certainly be back in for Dundee UTD tomorrow.

with regards to the result, outwith the top two, the other ten teams are all perfectly capable of getting results against each other, so i struggle to get too annoyed about a loss, the performance was very very poor though, Dundee were all over us the first half. As someone mentioned, We don't have enough quality to carry Maguire and Grimmy in midfield. Be interesting to see how we line up tomorrow.

KVV will almost certainly be back in, i'd like to see Carroll back. Ojala would be nice but he might not be ready yet, same with Goss.

[Busta Nut]

I like other opinions Seen us 3 times? geez yer scouting report.

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, Ludo*1 said:

I thought your full backs were particularly poor on Saturday. Right back was a clumsy mess and the left back just didn't look like he knew the basics of football. I always like Grimshaw when he plays against us, but he was another that was completely anonymous. He'd have been better off in your RB position though IMO. 

If we didn't notch our 3rd, KVV looked like a man that could have easily dragged you back into the game. Criminal why he never started regardless of the other strikers' form.

As @well fan for life says, prior to Saturday our league record with Bevis at right back was played 5 won 5 drawn 0, lost 0 and we'd conceded 1 goal (the games were Livi (a) 2-1, Dundee (h) 1-0, Aberdeen (h) 2-0, Aberdeen (a) 2-0, Hearts (h) 2-0) vs SOD's record of P 9 W 1 D 3 L 5 and up to the point he was sent off against Rangers we'd conceded 17 in those 9 and hadn't managed a clean sheet in any of them.

Ultimately there's always been a feeling that it's been a case of a centre back being played out of position but when you look at the numbers it's kind of hard to argue.

Equally on the point about KVV, as others have said, given the performance of the front 3 against Hearts and the big point that was made through the week about Shields (and others) having chapped the manager's door asking about getting more minutes it'd have felt a kick in the baws if he'd been dropped after scoring his first goal for the club against Hearts.

I'd guess that's why Alexander was especially seething post-match in so much as the team had set a benchmark against Hearts, players have been chapping him up asking him why they're not getting minutes and they turn in a completely passive display against a team who (no disrespect) are 2nd bottom of the league and hadn't beaten us in the league since 2017.

Edited November 29, 2021 by capt_oats

[Phillips455]

So the 4th round draw is later today after the Brechin game on BBC Scotland. I really hope we can make a run in the Scottish Cup this season as it will smooth out the ups and downs of the league and hopefully give a few coopers extra in the bank.

We are due a good cup run right?

[well fan for life]

Just now, Phillips455 said:

So the 4th round draw is later today after the Brechin game on BBC Scotland. I really hope we can make a run in the Scottish Cup this season as it will smooth out the ups and downs of the league and hopefully give a few coopers extra in the bank.

We are due a good cup run right?

I want a nonsense draw to somewhere that's a good laugh. Heartbreaking when we drew Formartine and I had to sit in my living room watching. Nearly burst into tears of jealousy when I clocked the folk sat on a shipping container drinking cans. 

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

You can now look at Polworth, Carroll, Van Veen and O'Donnell as examples of people that Alexander has let stew on the bench after a suspension.

We were very good against Hearts. Other than the enforced change, I don't think many people would've looked at the team on Saturday at 2pm and changed it. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Shields came in and done well for Van Veen, it looked finally like we had got a good tune out of Maguire and Woolery, McGinley was better last week than he had been in previous weeks, the stats with Mugabi spoke for themselves.

I probably sit somewhere between the two mindsets of rewarding previous good performances and having the balls to play the team you think has the best chance of winning the game. I.e. in the absence of Goss, decide you want Carroll in the team ahead of McGinley for his delivery or deciding that a natural right back might be more useful than a centre half playing narrowly out there.

I like the idea of 3-5-2 with the players. Looking at the squad on paper, we have four competent centre halves to pick three from, full-backs who are better going forward (O'Donnell, Carroll), the asbence of quality wingers and strikers who all look like they'd play better beside someone. 

I don't know who or what to blame primarily for it, but it's also a concern that only Dundee and Ross County have conceded more than us this season.

[capt_oats]

27 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

I probably sit somewhere between the two mindsets of rewarding previous good performances and having the balls to play the team you think has the best chance of winning the game. I.e. in the absence of Goss, decide you want Carroll in the team ahead of McGinley for his delivery or deciding that a natural right back might be more useful than a centre half playing narrowly out there.

I like the idea of 3-5-2 with the players. Looking at the squad on paper, we have four competent centre halves to pick three from, full-backs who are better going forward (O'Donnell, Carroll), the asbence of quality wingers and strikers who all look like they'd play better beside someone. 

I don't know who or what to blame primarily for it, but it's also a concern that only Dundee and Ross County have conceded more than us this season.

One of the weirder things with Carroll is that he's made 3 sub appearances since the Dundee sending off. 2 of them have seen him come on and play on the left of the back 3. St Mirren's the one where he played wing back and McGinley tucked inside.

Ross County - on for KVV
St Mirren - on for Slattery
Aberdeen - on for Watt

[capt_oats]

2 hours ago, Ron Aldo said:

I've never known my opinion on a manager to change so wildly on an almost weekly basis. When we win we're good, when we lose we're brutal. There's no in between and Alexander's apparent stubbornness when it comes to how the team is set up can be infuriating at times.

In fairness to Alexander, while a lot of his tactical stuff has been pretty marmite, in terms of Saturday his absolute seethe post-match seems to be in part that he pretty much asked the players to set up and play in exactly the same way as they did against Hearts and they just didn't do it.

It's broadly corroborated by Kelly that the instructions they were given weren't any different to the previous week:

Quote

'Well's aggression and intensity was not present from previous matches and Kelly says it was strange to see - as they didn't prepare any different.

He said: “We know what the manager expects from us as players. You’ve seen how he has set us up in the last couple of weeks and we’ve been really good and really hard to beat.

“This one’s a mystery because the manager asked for nothing different from us. He asked for better, he asked for more.

“That one is definitely on the players and only the players because every single one of us could have played better and put on a much better showing than that.”

Link

[Onthefringes]

32 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

In fairness to Alexander, while a lot of his tactical stuff has been pretty marmite, in terms of Saturday his absolute seethe post-match seems to be in part that he pretty much asked the players to set up and play in exactly the same way as they did against Hearts and they just didn't do it.

It's broadly corroborated by Kelly that the instructions they were given weren't any different to the previous week:

Therein lies the problem for me… learned little from two previous encounters. 
I can understand him asking the players to deliver same, there has to be cognisance of each opponent though - stands someone on Charlie Adam and we gain a foothold on that game.

[well fan for life]

2 minutes ago, Onthefringes said:

Therein lies the problem for me… learned little from two previous encounters. 
I can understand him asking the players to deliver same, there has to be cognisance of each opponent though - stands someone on Charlie Adam and we gain a foothold on that game.

Does this not also come back to us being completely unable to accommodate Grimshaw and Maguire in the same team? You'd hope if you have only one of them we can get a grip but with Slattery next to two empty jerseys on Saturday we gave Adam the whole of Dundee to roam about in. 

[Onthefringes]

6 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

Does this not also come back to us being completely unable to accommodate Grimshaw and Maguire in the same team? You'd hope if you have only one of them we can get a grip but with Slattery next to two empty jerseys on Saturday we gave Adam the whole of Dundee to roam about in. 

Completely unable? What were their instructions? Neither were told to man mark by the looks of it.

Grimshaw in all fairness was hung out to dry on the left of a 3.

Dundee doubled up in wide areas fed by Adams spraying the balls which exposed our narrow set up. Stop that at source? Suspect we’d have had a more positive outcome.

[well fan for life]

1 minute ago, Onthefringes said:

Completely unable? What were their instructions? Neither were told to man mark by the looks of it.

Grimshaw in all fairness was hung out to dry on the left of a 3.

Dundee doubled up in wide areas fed by Adams spraying the balls which exposed our narrow set up. Stop that at source? Suspect we’d have had a more positive outcome.

I absolutely stick to completely unable. Grimshaw is so painfully limited as a football player, Maguire isn't much better. We can probably carry one of them to cover some ground but to have them both hangs us out to dry. 

We also haven't stopped a cross all season so I'm unsurprised that we didn't do it on Saturday.

[Neil86]

3 hours ago, Phillips455 said:

So the 4th round draw is later today after the Brechin game on BBC Scotland. I really hope we can make a run in the Scottish Cup this season as it will smooth out the ups and downs of the league and hopefully give a few coopers extra in the bank.

We are due a good cup run right?

would be nice to draw one of the below teams, got a feeling we will end up with a stinker of a draw though;

20 Round Three winners: Partick Thistle, Alloa, Arbroath, Auchinleck Talbot, Ayr United, Banks O'Dee, Peterhead, Clydebank, Cove Rangers or Queen of the South, East Kilbride, Dumbarton, Raith Rovers, Annan, Inverness or Morton, Kelty Hearts or Montrose, Edinburgh City, Kilmarnock, Airdrie, Stirling Albion, Brechin City or Darvel.

[ropy]

4 hours ago, well fan for life said:

On Grimshaw, there's a section of our support who absolutely love him and think he's class. I am not in this section and I am really, really sick of him getting put in midfield when he can't pick a 10 yard pass. 

 

I love Grimshaw, he has boundless energy but I don’t think he is much of a footballer.

A different section for me?

[Phillips455]

8 minutes ago, Neil86 said:

would be nice to draw one of the below teams, got a feeling we will end up with a stinker of a draw though;

20 Round Three winners: Partick Thistle, Alloa, Arbroath, Auchinleck Talbot, Ayr United, Banks O'Dee, Peterhead, Clydebank, Cove Rangers or Queen of the South, East Kilbride, Dumbarton, Raith Rovers, Annan, Inverness or Morton, Kelty Hearts or Montrose, Edinburgh City, Kilmarnock, Airdrie, Stirling Albion, Brechin City or Darvel.

Would love East Kilbride away. Easy to get to and a potentially winnable tie!

[Ron Aldo]

would be nice to draw one of the below teams, got a feeling we will end up with a stinker of a draw though;
20 Round Three winners: Partick Thistle, Alloa, Arbroath, Auchinleck Talbot, Ayr United, Banks O'Dee, Peterhead, Clydebank, Cove Rangers or Queen of the South, East Kilbride, Dumbarton, Raith Rovers, Annan, Inverness or Morton, Kelty Hearts or Montrose, Edinburgh City, Kilmarnock, Airdrie, Stirling Albion, Brechin City or Darvel.

After THAT Albion Rovers result the thought of being drawn against anyone from League 1 and below always gives me massive fear.

I enjoy "the magic of the cup", just not when we're on the receiving end of it.

[well fan for life]

25 minutes ago, ropy said:

I love Grimshaw, he has boundless energy but I don’t think he is much of a footballer.

A different section for me?

If we ever start a competitive cross country running club he'll be the best in the world. 

[Kapowzer]

1 hour ago, Onthefringes said:

Dundee doubled up in wide areas fed by Adams spraying the balls which exposed our narrow set up. Stop that at source? Suspect we’d have had a more positive outcome.

Exactly this, at FP we were gifted stopping "that at source" with an injury, before that we were definitely the poorer team.

Adam gets 90 mins at Den's = shitshow for us

Question is, back at FP, if it wasn't for his injury would we have plugged the source? Only Grezza can answer that, there was no evidence of that instruction until Adam got injured.

[Ron Aldo]

If we ever start a competitive cross country running club he'll be the best in the world. 

On Companies House we're registered as Motherwell Football and Athletic Club. Can only assume that Grimshaw works in the wrong department.