Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

I would wonder if he’d want it.

I think Bara was on a hiding to nothing. O’Neill had struck it lucky with having 6 or 7 guys playing at a decent EPL level or thereabouts, which they’ve never had before or since. 

[CoF]

2 hours ago, Kapowzer said:

@CoF I understood it is don't be too cute and think you're Zidane or try and get the pundits talking about you at half time as its inevitably been picked up for a live game. Against them our players don't have the time afforded by others so with that in mind, play accordingly.

Ah, fair enough. 

IMO, trying to be too fancy is pretty far down on the list of reasons we always get beat. In fact, it's never even entered my head. 

[capt_oats]

35 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

I would wonder if he’d want it.

I think Bara was on a hiding to nothing. O’Neill had struck it lucky with having 6 or 7 guys playing at a decent EPL level or thereabouts, which they’ve never had before or since. 

He's consistently said it's a job he wants "at some point".

The vibe he gave when he interviewed when he was with us was basically that it wasn't the right time for him. Which suggests they might have offered him it but he's true to his word in saying he wanted to speak to them but it wasn't right. Equally there's a strong "didn't fancy her anyway" angle.

I've mentioned this before but he did a lengthy interview with a Bournemouth podcast while he was between jobs after he resigned here and he was quite open about the fact that he felt that in hindsight he should have left that summer but he'd decided to stick around for Europe and the like.

The interesting part IMO was his admission that he'd applied for the Bournemouth job while he was at Motherwell but (clearly) didn't get it. To which his point was that he felt he had misjudged the level of currency that 2 Cup Finals and a 3rd place finish with Motherwell gave him.

By the time he was doing that interview he'd taken us from 3rd to the bottom of the league and subsequently resigned which meant he was slightly less in demand.

Reading between the lines I don't think he'd make that mistake again if he got a crack of a job he really wanted.

Edited October 21, 2022 by capt_oats

[YassinMoutaouakil]

He finished 9th with St Mirren last season. Taken a club that size as far as they can go?

[Al B]

6 hours ago, CoF said:

Ah, fair enough. 

IMO, trying to be too fancy is pretty far down on the list of reasons we always get beat. In fact, it's never even entered my head. 

Nope, that's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking about speed of thought and doing things autonomously.

When we're playing anyone else in the league, and you're say...a full back, you have time to consider your options when you receive the ball. Look up the line....is there a crossfield ball on, should I play it short to a dropping midfield player, have I space to carry the ball forward.

When you're playing the Old Firm (particularly Celtic at the moment it has to be said), you don't get that time to assess your options and choose one, because by the time you get to the end of "is there a crossfield ball on", you've already been closed down and tackled. The frustrating thing for me though, is that individually we constantly still expect to have that time, continually play as if we have, and individually we get punished for it, closed down, caught in posession, and forced into mistakes.

In games like that, as a player your game needs to be brought back to what you can do without cognative or associative thought. The biggest thing that makes one player better than another isn't the ability to execute a cross-field ball, or a weighted pass down the line, or drive forward into space. It's the ability to see all those options at once and decide which is the best one in a split second, often before they have received the ball. Taking David Turnbull as an example again, the main thing that made him stand out head and shoulders above any other player we had, wasn't so much the ability to do the things he was doing, but the fact that he didn't need time to assess his options after he got the ball. He already knew what the best option was before the ball even reached him and could do it in a split second once it did.

If you're Bevis Mugabe and you get to a loose ball in your own box against St Johnstone (no disrespect to St Johnstone, I just picked a team), and you have time to control it, take a couple of touches and see if there's a pass on to a fullback pushing up, then go for it because you have the time to think and assess. If you're in that exact same scenario against Celtic, you aren't getting that time to think so unless you know for a fact that you can pull that off without thinking, and you know for a fact that the full back is going to be there without looking, then the only thing in your mind should be smashing your foot through that loose ball and getting it as far as you possibly can from a danger area, because you absolutely do not need time to think about executing that.

That's not to say the default has to be a frantic, or backs to the wall, or long ball approach. If you're Michael Higdon and you know that you can bully a centre half without thinking about it regardless of whether he plays for Partick or Celtic...then do that. If you're Chris Humphrey and you know you can tie someones legs in knots without thinking about it whether it's Danny Grainger or Emilio Izzaguire, do that. If you're Lionel Ainsworth and you know you can hit top bins regardless of who's in goal, brilliant. But if you're Rickie Lamie and the only thing you can do without needing time to think about it is get the ball to f**k, then against teams that don't give you any time, just do that.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Al B

[YassinMoutaouakil]

We should bring back these Turnbull, Higdon, Humphrey, Ainsworth guys

Edited October 21, 2022 by YassinMoutaouakil

[boozyBJ]

Who’s the Bulgarian guy (Vadoc?), bring him back

[Kapowzer]

@Al B your memory of Chris Humphrey is much better than mine.

[18May1991]

3 hours ago, Kapowzer said:

@Al B your memory of Chris Humphrey is much better than mine.

Humphreys, surely? 

[Gianfranco]

It’s not as bad as people putting one l on Hammell. He was here for 20 odd years.

[CoF]

8 minutes ago, Gianfranco said:

It’s not as bad as people putting one l on Hammell. He was here for 20 odd years.

Stephen Hammel

 

[Dosser2014]

54 minutes ago, Gianfranco said:

It’s not as bad as people putting one l on Hammell. He was here for 20 odd years.

Surely the subject for Bois banner? Anyone mispelling the name of our esteemed leader should be forced to watch, in person, every home game against the OF for the next 15 years, with no time off for good conduct. Oh, and stick them in the South Stand.  

[CoF]

10 hours ago, Al B said:

Nope, that's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking about speed of thought and doing things autonomously.

 

I get what you mean, I suppose it’s a back to basics approach? Totally on board with you there - I think you’re right that particularly around our own box we’ve played ourselves into danger when it just needs punted up the park.

It’s a fine line though, and finding that balance is much easier said than done. We’ve all sat through games where it’s wave after wave of attack because we just keep blootering it to the opposition and all we ask for is a wee bit of composure and thought. 

I dare say every single pre-match team talk over the last 20 years has focussed at least in part on doing the basics well. 

[Al B]

28 minutes ago, CoF said:

I get what you mean, I suppose it’s a back to basics approach? Totally on board with you there - I think you’re right that particularly around our own box we’ve played ourselves into danger when it just needs punted up the park.

It’s a fine line though, and finding that balance is much easier said than done. We’ve all sat through games where it’s wave after wave of attack because we just keep blootering it to the opposition and all we ask for is a wee bit of composure and thought. 

I dare say every single pre-match team talk over the last 20 years has focussed at least in part on doing the basics well. 

Totally agree. That's essentially where I'm coming from, that "basic" isn't the same for every player, and the higher the quality of opposition, the more each individual player needs to be honest with themselves about what their baseline ability is. I don't mean overlooking composure and resorting to punting it, but leaving it to players who naturally have that instinct and don't need 10/20 seconds to assess and execute, as you say - doing it in areas of the pitch where risk is minimised further, and also each individual realising that what they can execute effectively against St Johnstone, isn't the same as against Celtic, and adjusting their game accordingly.

It just infuriates me when we go up against the Old Firm and you continually see players who overlook and obvious and simple option, in favour of a drop the shoulder/drag back/turn that 99% of the time ends up with them not being able to work out why they are lying on the grass and don't have the ball anymore. If you need 30 seconds to do it, don't do it in games where you don't get that.

Edited October 22, 2022 by Al B

[welldaft]

Oh well. The season is starting to look very different.
We were not awful today we just were not that good.
Van Veen starting to piss me off now. He misses a LOT more than he scored.
He should have put us 2-1 up. It was so much easier than the Aberdeen 2nd goal.
Shields is an imposter. His body language when he came on was abysmal. Get the ball - pass back. He took the easy option each and every time.
We need the World Cup break to regroup and try and get a decent attacker on board.
Otherwise we will be in the bottom 2 or 3 come the end of the season.

[thisGRAEME]

We remain in the shit due to Alexander decisions, coupled with injuries, tbh. The squad is paper thin and there's f**k all else we can do with the bodies we've got. Sol is fine in the main but a hint of pace and he's done. Lamie is mainly fine but at least once a game does a Lamie thing. 

Chucking on O'Donnell to do something in an attempt to change it highlights the state of the squad.

Kev... I dunno mate. Not his day on one of the 3/4 days a season you truly expect a performance. A cynic would suggest he's dropped a yard off since Moult disappeared. 

I appreciate we were scrabbling around for fucking anything at the end of the window but Moult and Aarons have been colossal busts, which was always the risk.

We're stuck in either playing Tierney and being completely one paced all over the park, or playing Shields and being able to stretch the game, but without any end product from it. 

That we're conceding at least one calamitous goal a game atm also isn't the most useful as we're trying to win 1-0.

[Handsome_Devil]

KVV has never been a perfect solution and his finishing has always been iffy. And while you can't put today's loss down to his misses (our defending not great obviously) you can say Aberdeen had three top chances and scored two, he had two in which he missed an open goal and dollied one back to the keeper. In a marginal game like today, that's why they're happy and we're worried basically.

The general points about the squad are correct. Tierney remains a potential player but essentially hasn't progressed at all in 10 months. He should be an impact player from the bench with - in the absence of other options - Cornelius being an extra up and downer.

I remain utterly baffled by our approach to finding another striker though. Going in for Rudden and Hendry shows we know it was needed, I find it remarkable there wasn't one single guy we felt worth finding some cash for or compromising on as a punt other than the chronically injured Moult across two whole windows. It's one thing saying don't waste money if you're not convinced but eventually the best you can get is the best you can get and I still find it impossible to believe there wasn't somone somewhere who'd be a better option than our current arrangement.

Our four to the WC are Tannadice, Tynecastle, Celtic at home, St J in Perth. The middle two are nailed on losses, take less than two points from the other pair and I'm calling panic stations.

Edited October 22, 2022 by Handsome_Devil

[Lukovic]

We'll be fine once Bazooka Joe is back

[capt_oats]

In fairness to Kev it's another instance where we're asking him to play through an injury as we did last season. Which again goes back to Alexander's decisions.

Although how much of that is a consequence of the weird stand off that seemed to be happening between the club and GA idk?

As @Handsome_Devil says, we were in for Rudden and Hendry so we were at the very least aware of the issue.

There's a heavy caught in the headlights vibe around things at the moment. Like, for all the squad is paper thin part of Hammell's pitch was that we'd offer a pathway to the Young Team - which is fine but it also suggests that he wasn't against running with a trimmed squad.

If that's Moult and Aarons both broken (which was always the risk) then surely it means we have to do *something* to address things. We can't just sit on our hands as it's still 2.5 months until the window opens again.

Either way, that's our 12th league game and we've conceded at least 2 in 7 of them. Dunno, but that feels like a problem we should probably look at tbh.

[Handsome_Devil]

4 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Either way, that's our 12th league game and we've conceded at least 2 in 7 of them. Dunno, but that feels like a problem we should probably look at tbh.

We're not going to drop Kelly and we only have one left back. I'd be tempted to roll the dice on SOD as McGinn has sold goals in each of the last weeks but the bigger issue we remain without a first pick CB. You don't look at Bevis and think 'solution!' but Lamie is on the brink of returning to his JC days...the status quo isn't an option so that's where you change it.

They're clearly not helped but our failure to secure a proper six over summer but similarly nobody will be suggesting Barry Maguire is going to fix our problems here. I do think Cornelius might be a little more solid than Tierney as part of the central three but a phrase about bald men and a comb springs to mind.