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Moving away from the XG chat, has there been a bigger turnaround from a Motherwell player in recent years than Rickie Lamie?

This time last year I wanted rid altogether. Now I have no worries over him stepping in when required, he’s hardly put a foot wrong this season and was my motm again yesterday. 

That’s now a goal and 2 assists in his last 4 games as well. 

Edited by Casagolda
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1 hour ago, JamesP_81 said:

On the xG thing the only time I've found it useful is as a retrospective stat after a game when it gives a bit of insight into whether one of the teams overperformed relative to the chances that they had on the day , ie if a game finished 2-1 and the xG was say 1.2-1.4 then the winning team have produced a better quality of finishing and the losers have squandered chances . Perhaps it gives a bit more of an insightful review of the game rather than just having to rely on shots on and off target , but beyond that I wouldn't give it a second glance.

Aye, This is me.

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Just rewatched the whole game, which I didn't realize I could do. Lamie's last ditch tackle on their guy is excellent, but his flat out sprint from their box to ours to make the tackle is immense.

You can notice these details when you already know the result and aren't waiting for the inevitable collapse.

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2 hours ago, JamesP_81 said:

On the xG thing the only time I've found it useful is as a retrospective stat after a game when it gives a bit of insight into whether one of the teams overperformed relative to the chances that they had on the day , ie if a game finished 2-1 and the xG was say 1.2-1.4 then the winning team have produced a better quality of finishing and the losers have squandered chances . Perhaps it gives a bit more of an insightful review of the game rather than just having to rely on shots on and off target , but beyond that I wouldn't give it a second glance.  As for predicting future results I'm in the 'yer da' camp on this one and am sure there's many other things that could show some kind of trend if extrapolated over a large enough period and calculated in just the right way.  

More importantly tho, Saturday's game was f*king brilliant. Tony Watt's shitehousery in particular deserves special praise.  

I wouldn’t know what 1.2 xG was.  I would understand shots at goals, shots on target, shots blocked and goals.

I don’t even know how they calculate possession.  Who sits and does that?

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2 hours ago, Casagolda said:

This time last year I wanted rid altogether. Now I have no worries over him stepping in when required, he’s hardly put a foot wrong this season and was my motm again yesterday. 

The biggest difference between this year and last is the competition for places. In defence and up front, pretty much any of our players can do a good job and there are no stick-on starters, which is really unusual for us and is definitely driving standards up. We've not played the same defence twice and I'm not worried by any combination that we might have to play.

The task now is to get a similar situation in midfield.

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50 minutes ago, Swello said:

The biggest difference between this year and last is the competition for places. In defence and up front, pretty much any of our players can do a good job and there are no stick-on starters, which is really unusual for us and is definitely driving standards up. We've not played the same defence twice and I'm not worried by any combination that we might have to play.

The task now is to get a similar situation in midfield.

I think it's probably worth considering just how much of a culture change this is compared with the 12-18 "strategy" and just generally how we've operated/built squads pre-Alexander. We won (comfortably) yesterday whilst still missing 2 international defenders and a centre forward who'd scored both our goals in our previous fixture before the international break. That's new.

This probably speaks to the point that @YassinMoutaouakil is making about being raging about the LC game at Dens but, to me at least, we still feel like a work in progress and rightly or wrongly the LC was used to give the squad a run out.

We pretty much played the reserves in that game at Dens (in fact it was enough for Lawless never to kick a baw for us again). The whole close/pre/early-season feels like it's been about work-in-progress and relative to the defence and forwards the midfield seems like it's the one area we haven't really touched save bringing Slattery and Goss in.

I had a daft long post drafted earlier in reply to @Casagolda's post that I ended up deleting as it was pretty fucking boring but presented without comment the long and the short is for all the criticism Alexander's taken about style yesterday was Alexander's 40th game in charge and he's currently sitting on a 45% win rate.

This season in our 14 league games we've scored at least 2 goals in 50% of them and failed to score in only 2 (Hearts at Tynecastle and Celtic at FP). Over the 40 games so far we've scored 2 or more in 17 (42.5%) and we've failed to score in only 7 (17.5%).

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Moving away from the XG chat, has there been a bigger turnaround from a Motherwell player in recent years than Rickie Lamie?
This time last year I wanted rid altogether. Now I have no worries over him stepping in when required, he’s hardly put a foot wrong this season and was my motm again yesterday. 
That’s now a goal and 2 assists in his last 4 games as well. 

Lamie and Mugabi are the new Jim Paterson and Steve McGarry.
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1 hour ago, ropy said:

Is there anywhere that lists how many yellow cards each player has?

There’s four places: There’s The Yellow Yard. That’s on Third. There’s Yellows R Us. That’s on Third too. There’s Put Your Cards There. That’s also on Third. And Flash High Sweet Yellow Card…

Matter of fact, they’re all in the same place: The Yellow Card complex down on Third.

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10 hours ago, Casagolda said:

Moving away from the XG chat, has there been a bigger turnaround from a Motherwell player in recent years than Rickie Lamie?

This time last year I wanted rid altogether. Now I have no worries over him stepping in when required, he’s hardly put a foot wrong this season and was my motm again yesterday. 

That’s now a goal and 2 assists in his last 4 games as well. 

I'd echo that, I rocked up at this with little expectations despite our smash in grab in Aberdeen. With VanVeen suspended, Roberts (parent club), O'Hara and Ojala injured and O'Donnell putting in a shift on Monday I wasn't confident either.

Massive change in tactics yesterday, short corners - gone, 2 men inside the box for goal kick - things of the past. I had figured if we were lethal in front of goal the "here have the ball" and invite crosses tactic would surely resurface. I never envisaged Hearts to be as ineffective however, that game could have went on for 5 hours and I doubt they would have came close to scoring which was a massive surprise. Kelly was troubled only once and easily dealt with the threat.

Ginnelly's pace is something, kinda what we were promised and alluded to with Woolery but only seen it in spurts and doesn't seem as rapid when we do. The penalty claim is massive clutching at straws, the advantage was lost by poor decision making/control and Lamie looked every bit night and day for the player we had a year ago. Goss while lacking at times in midfield qualities, you can't argue with what he offers with deliveries. 

Initially I thought it was a straight red card for last man/scoring opportunity, which I thought was harsh, then I recalled he was booked a few minutes before, so it was a probably right ...... just. If there are Hearts fans upset, temper that with your little shithouser Devlin managing to get through the game without one booking when there were at least three stonewall yellows and a borderline red.

I still don't rate McGinley, I'd have Carroll every day of the week but GA doesn't feel the same and Carroll evidently feels aggrieved by avoiding the final whistle fans visit at Pittodrie. I can only guess it's because he's perceived as not being able to finish a match without walking the red mist tightrope.

Alexander will have decisions to make when Ojala is fit, who does he drop, does the club captain come in and replace Bevis who has a remarkable record when playing right back?

Considering SOD's sterling performance used as a wingback for Scotland as pointed out earlier in the week, Carroll's pace and delivery, 3 centre backs from Ojala, Sondre, Bevis and Lamie, Slattery, Goss and A.N. Other (Irish fella), Van Veen and Tony up front a 5-3-2 would be an interesting prospect but one I doubt based on 40 games under GA's belt we will ever see.

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I've taken stick on this thread before for my opinion on Lamie, but he's been absolutely fine since Alexander came in. There are several people who would still like to use his early form under Robinson as a stick to beat him with and I guess some people's opinions never change. If we are using the stats with Bevis at right back, it's also relevant to say of the games Lamie has started this season, his record is P6 W4 D1 L1. That's a pretty impressive record and despite the fact I do feel he's not as good a player as our other centre backs, I still think with his form this season, it is harsh he's found himself a sub, or even out of the squad some weeks. I don't know if the pressure of having greater competition has brought out another level in him, but it's good to see.

Also on Saturday, I thought Woolery and Maguire had the best games I've seen them have for the club. Woolery was taking on men with confidence and his delivery and decision making were much improved. Maguire imposed himself on the game and made a few key forward movements as well. 

Hopefully we can build on it at Dens on Saturday.

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I think Lamie is playing better now even than the "improved" version from the 2nd half of last season and I think he deserves huge credit for that - but I think he is also playing in a more functional defence rather than the unmitigated shitshow we had at the end of Robinson's time. Ojala and Sol are both very professional, no nonsense defenders - compare that to the way that Gun to the Head was playing at the start of last season. Feels brutal to say it after Saturday's MOTM type performance but I still wouldn't have Lamie as part of a first choice 2 at the back - but I'm perfectly happy to see him in the team now and given the way our season is panning out with disruption at the back, he'll be getting plenty of minutes.

Woolery looks to me like someone that is beginning to settle/acclimatise to our league - his decision making has been getting better, he's lasting the pace better and he is sharper on the ball when he was looking a bit ponderous at first. Time will tell, but I'm still hopeful he'll be a really decent player for us.

Also - rewatched the game on Alba and the level of niggly stuff we did to put Hearts of their game was something else - I'd have been a seething mess if it was the other way round. For connoisseurs of the bitter sounding post match interview - some of the below from Neilson will be of interest (never heard of "ratting" before)

Spoiler

“It’s direct, it’s second balls and it’s 500 miles an hour,” said Neilson. “The game was touch, tackle, free-kick, touch, tackle, throw-in, touch, tackle, corner. We just didn’t get the ball down because Motherwell ratted us for fun.

“We have to be able to handle that better. We didn’t do it and we are disappointed. I’ll be surprised if the ball was in play for more than 35 minutes in total. There was no flow in the game – corners, free-kicks, time-wasting, referee stopping play.

“It just becomes about who takes their chances. Motherwell took theirs. If you don’t take your chances you aren’t going to get anywhere.”

“I thought it was harsh,” said Neilson. “The first one, there is no contact. The boy goes down, he makes a meal of it and he [Moore] gets booked. The second one, they go shoulder-to-shoulder. The boy [Shields] knows if he goes down then the ref has a decision to make.

“It wasn’t a tackle, the leg doesn’t go across. It’s shoulder-to-shoulder, the boy goes down. To be honest, that was the story of the game. I thought they did the dark arts very well. They made it very scrappy and made it difficult for us. It wasn’t a great game, put it that way.

 

 

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