Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[capt_oats]

No lie. The boy is jacked...

[Swello]

9 hours ago, welldaft said:

So the irony is that Celtic and Rangers will pay the most and will most likely be more adversely affected than other clubs

I'd need to see the working for this. I suspect the opposite will be the case, simply as Rangers and Celtic attack more and go down looking for more penalties, etc, so will get more where there is the smallest bit of contact where they might not today.

I think VAR will entrench rather than change the current situation with the OF and we will likely see more games where they get multiple penalties - but we will soon see, as I strongly suspect that people in favour of VAR will get their wish next week..

 

[Gianfranco]

Those one positive of KEEF leaving is that he won’t be interim manager when Alexander leaves.

[Busta Nut]

I will be gutted if/when Las leaves. Pure gent and always accommodating.




I think folk who think VAR is gonna be this saving grace are in for a shock, same folk in charge of the games. I agree refs don't bother me that much but IMO VAR doesn't really improve on much worth improving and detracts from the game in general.

[well fan for life]

9.20am and my day is completely fuckin ruined. 

[welldaft]

I accept VAR will be a pain and in many cases will not be an improvement. 

But if as mentioned above we also accept that standard of refereeing in Scotland is very poor and not improving any time soon. That and the fact that most top leagues in Europe use VAR then that is why I am for it being introduced.

Be sad to see Keith go if St Mirren rumours are true. However I wonder what he is bringing to the table at the moment. I believe he sits in the stand during games. But I would also expect he is on a decent wedge. Probably best for all if he moves on to a decent role. Certainly he would be earning more as CEO at St Mirren. Probably more than Flow

[thisGRAEME]

9 hours ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Came on to say this, I genuinely think the last time I was properly raging at a refereeing decision was Christian Panucci scoring at Hampden in 2007.  You'll get mistakes but it's a variable that affects both teams equally and 99.9% of the time you'll still end up getting what you deserve from a game.  Implementing VAR feels like suggesting we play every game in the Oriam in case a gust of wind catches a goalie out.

This is a much better way of phrasing it, tbh. May be wrong here, but was Ferguson not offside for our goal there?

9 hours ago, welldaft said:

Take the Ross County penalty at Fir Park. I was sitting in the East stand in line and I genuinely thought the ref was going to give a free kick. That is one where VAR might even struggle. But at the time I was raging. If after a couple of minutes of VAR it is / was awarded I would certainly be more accepting of the decision during the match. 

2 hours ago, AdamMFC said:

Kelly apparently being off his line for the St Mirren penalty are 2 that stand out to me off the top of my head that IMHO VAR would have overturned. 

On these as well, I kind of get the feeling that folk think decisions they don't like simply won't happen. The flip side is that I'm not entirely convinced the Kelly one would have been overturned, and the save he had against Boyce from the spot at Tynecastle would have been a re-take.

In addition; There's absolutely no danger the Carroll one would be overturned, and as Yassin says, it was fucking shite defending from Carroll, so we got 99.9% of what we deserved from it.

All in all, I've always been a subscriber to the idea that things even out, broadly, over a season. If the trade off of Kelly having a stud off the line is KVV throwing his whole body at Declan Gallagher and getting away with it then I'll take it.

[ropy]

1 hour ago, dezz said:

Seems to be a bit more traction in the rumours of Lasley leaving for the chief exec role at St Mirren. Report in the record today saying it’s just about a done deal.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/keith-lasley-set-motherwell-exit-26708191

The idea of sending Lasley down the leagues to learn his trade is a good one

[Desp]

27 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

This is a much better way of phrasing it, tbh. May be wrong here, but was Ferguson not offside for our goal there?

Aye, he definitely was.  The Panucci goal was irrelevant as well, as we needed to win to qualify.  That was our last game of the campaign, but Italy had the Faroes at home a few days after.

As for VAR, it's high cost and low (if any) reward.  What are Motherwell, St. Mirren, Dundee Utd, Kilmarnock etc going to gain from implementing this?  You know full well Rangers & Celtic will get more decisions (as Busta alluded to earlier) through this, but the fans will still claim some sort of conspiracy against them.  The same referees, who make the shitty decisions week in, week out just now are still going to be the ones in charge of the VAR calls.

We're not a major European league.  If 10% of match going fans chuck it after three seasons because they're fucked off with standing around for 2-3 minutes at a time to see if some c**t is 6mm offside, there isn't a big line of tourists waiting to take their place in the stands.  

I mentioned before that I've only been to one game as a fan with VAR on, and I didn't celebrate a goal fully because I thought it might be offside (I'd usually have a quick glance at the lino to see what he was up to).  I watched a little bit of Liverpool v Benfica last night and again, you can hear the crowd not fully celebrating some goals because they know there's every chance it'll be ruled out.  

I've been to plenty of games this season, and I've seen enough contentious decisions and tight offside calls.  Not once was I in the stand thinking, "ach, I wish we had VAR here".  

[Swello]

37 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

All in all, I've always been a subscriber to the idea that things even out, broadly, over a season. If the trade off of Kelly having a stud off the line is KVV throwing his whole body at Declan Gallagher and getting away with it then I'll take it.

This.

I wake up in a cold sweat thinking about what would have happened if Craig Reid's goal at Pittodrie happened in the VAR era

[dezz]

Aye that's exactly it.

A lot of fans think that their team are hard done by (or subject to a masonic/catholic refereeing conspiracy in certain cases) but of course people are going to better remember and focus on the incidents where they feel they've been wronged as opposed to those where they've had a bit of luck and got away with a decision or two. @thisGRAEME has mentioned a couple of examples above but we've also had Jordan Roberts get away with a potential red against Hibs in the cup and was someone (KVV?)not marginally offside in the build up to Watt's goal against Dundee Utd in that monsoon game?

You win some you lose some, and impacting the emotion and spontaneity of football isn't worth it to get the odd penalty against Rangers in a 4-1 defeat.

[Al B]

It reminds me of that sort of office/work situation where people moan at those who maybe take an extra 5 mins for lunch, an extra wee wander while they are off to the toilet etc. The moaners get their way when the guy says right...if that's how you want to be then I will do literally every single thing by the book.

It's only then that the moaners notice that the guy was regularly hanging on after 5 to maybe help someone out, or fix someones error, happily taking a quick phonecall in the evening or early morning in it was needed to help out etc etc. Turns out the moaners should have just left it as it was. You're fixing one small irritation but swapping it for soemthing that's actually detrimental overall.

"By the letter of the law" generally just removes the type of leeway that makes everyones day just a wee bit easier/more enjoyable.

Get VAR in the bin, my favourite thing about the football is impulsively reacting. Take that instinctive reaction away and I'm not sure what's left to enjoy, just another step further towards "it's only the result that matters", and so just checking the score in the evening.

[eliphas]

VAR operated correctly (i.e. not like it was when it was first brought in down south) works well I think. But people need to understand it won't solve everything and there will still be ambiguity...just less ambiguity. 

I'm fine with it coming in. It will mean more correct decisions across the board overall.

[Al B]

I think that's the point those on the no side are making though. I'd much rather have a scenario where a handful of final decisions were wrong at the time, than a scenario where all decisions were correct 30 seconds - 2 minutes later.

The thing that annoys me most about it (and something a lot of people don't realise), is that with VAR, it's not a case of "there might have been an offside there....let's check it". Every single goal gets checked. Every single one. If someone scores within 2 seconds directly from kick-off and no-one's even moved yet, it still gets a VAR check. Every penalty? VAR check. Every Freekick that someone spectacularly hits top bins and makes you want to dive about like a madman? VAR Check. Lovely, flowing passing move cutting the defence apart and a nice finish? VAR Check. That's just sucking the life out of a game that's already frequently boring as f**k in this country.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Al B

[welldaft]

10 minutes ago, Al B said:

I think that's the point those on the no side are making though. I'd much rather have a scenario where a handful of final decisions were wrong at the time, than a scenario where all decisions were correct 30 seconds later.

The whole point of VAR is that it is there to look at contentious decisions. Not every incident or goal will be reviewed. At most it should only be used once or twice in a game.

Will they still make a mess of things. Will it impact on the game. Absolutely. 

But I take comfort that when Willie Collum pulls out a red card within 2 milliseconds for a Motherwell player whilst Celtic/Rangers* player does not even get booked for similar challenge. Then there will be that safety net for such awful decisions. 

I am not for one minute believing their is a conspiracy, nor do I believe that we are not beneficiaries of poor decisions from time to time. The referees need help. They have proven time and again they are not capable or consistent enough. 

* delete as appropriate 

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by welldaft

[Al B]

2 minutes ago, welldaft said:

The whole point of VAR is that it is there to look at contentious decisions. Not every incident or goal will be reviewed. At most it should only be used once or twice in a game.

That's not correct I'm afraid (I added extra to my post as you were typing), and is exactly why detailed information of what we're being asked for our opinion on, should be provided (to both the clubs and the fans whose opinions are being sought.)

Edited April 14, 2022 by Al B

[ropy]

32 minutes ago, Swello said:

This.

I wake up in a cold sweat thinking about what would have happened if Craig Reid's goal at Pittodrie happened in the VAR era

We would have been awarded a penalty.  Too much went on to award the goal so bring it back to the first offence.  

[welldaft]

3 minutes ago, Al B said:

That's not correct I'm afraid.

Pedantics imho. The game will not be stopped every time to review every goal. 

The game will continue unless there are clear and obvious errors or serious missed incidents which necessitate a VAR check. 

[JamesP_81]

I'm in the camp of being in favour of the principle of VAR but don't have any confidence that it would be implemented well in our league. Taking last weekend as an example I can't help but feel that if VAR was there then the shine would have been completely taken off our celebrations . Perhaps fine if 99.9% of the people that are waiting on the result aren't in the stadium but that's not the case in our game.  

  Could it perhaps lead to an overall improvement in referee standards as it will be quickly highlighted what refs are making the most wrong initial calls ? Or will it lead to more heads gone moments when folk like Collum double down on poor decisions refusing to see that they'd made a mistake when they watch the replays back ? 

The only result I can see from this is that 2 teams will benefit while bizarrely simultaneously claiming that it reinforces the fact there are forces at work against them. Could you imagine if our goal last week was against say Celtic on the last day of the season to lose them the league ? Theres no way on earth that it wouldn't have been scrutinized untill someone saw that somebody's elbow was offside when the original shot was hit off the bar , or that Lamie was committing a foul by holding onto one of the 3 people that were holding him . 

[Swello]

Live, in-person Fitba thrives on a bit of chaos - take that away and we lose a lot of the fun. People that watch on screens might not notice.

Think of the great jumps you've been involved in (cup semi's and finals, crucial relegation deciders, playoffs, last minute winners) and then imagine that you had to pause 2 seconds into it and stand about for a few minutes while Kevin Clancy watched a replay of it in a caravan somewhere. Shite.