Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

['WellDel]

After Sunday's showing against a distinctly average Rangers side my expectation for tonight was an absolute drubbing, and lo it came to pass. Celtic are head and shoulders above the entire league tbf, their horrible counterparts included, and sliced us open at will from the get go. My god we made it easy for them though.

We also have absolutely zero goal threat against anyone with a semblance of an organised defence, and Moult's continued absence doesn't give much hope of that improving much any time soon. We do though, somehow, have to muster a performance in at least one of the upcoming fixtures or we could end up going into the World Cup break in a fairly precarious position and put ourselves under pressure to hit the ground running at the restart, whereas only a couple of weeks ago we had a nice wee cushion over the couple of sides at the bottom. 

I'm still fairly confident we will be safe enough come the business end of the season, but we need to get back to the same levels of promise we showed in Hammell's first couple of games in charge. One or two quality additions in the window could be key.

[ropy]

Every time we move forward we give territory away by passing it back, take a chance and go toward goal.

A defender 35 yards out turning the ball back to Kelly must lack real confidence that his own punt forward is going to be more accurate than the ‘keeper’s from 20 yards further back.

In short we play negative football and don’t take chances.

I guess it is meant to be possession football but we inevitably loose possession anyway.

[Lex]

14 losses in a row again Celtic now.
Why do Motherwell fans think their team consistently rolls over and gets their tummy tickled by the Old Firm?
I know budgets etc, but other similarly funded sides have much better records. What’s going wrong at Fir Park? Big team sympathy or something else?

[ropy]

2 minutes ago, Lex said:

14 losses in a row again Celtic now.
Why do Motherwell fans think their team consistently rolls over and gets their tummy tickled by the Old Firm?
I know budgets etc, but other similarly funded sides have much better records. What’s going wrong at Fir Park? Big team sympathy or something else?

I think Celtic have upped their game in recent years, the ‘90s were littered with ‘Well successes.

[boozyBJ]

One win against either of them would be nice though

[Jonnylosqualo]

Some of the loosest passing I can remember seeing from us. Lost count of the number of times we played it straight out of the park.

+1 on the Shields shout. He is muck.

[Ron Aldo]

14 losses in a row again Celtic now.
Why do Motherwell fans think their team consistently rolls over and gets their tummy tickled by the Old Firm?
I know budgets etc, but other similarly funded sides have much better records. What’s going wrong at Fir Park? Big team sympathy or something else?

I know this post is probably meant as a wind up but it's spot on. Our record against either of the Old Firm over the past decade or so is pathetic.

There's been the odd draw or narrow defeat in there but never at any point have we really laid a glove or looked like beating either of them.

[ropy]

On 16/10/2022 at 16:51, ropy said:

Remember Shields will be back midweek

I don’t think this was the game changer it could have been.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

26 minutes ago, Lex said:

14 losses in a row again Celtic now.
Why do Motherwell fans think their team consistently rolls over and gets their tummy tickled by the Old Firm?
I know budgets etc, but other similarly funded sides have much better records. What’s going wrong at Fir Park? Big team sympathy or something else?

To be fair we do play them a lot more often, by virtue of Top Six finishes and not going out in the League Cup group stages.

[welldaft]

1 hour ago, Handsome_Devil said:

I think the saddest thing about our record against the Old Firm is in my mind it's effectively a free week now where I just don't care any more. At least in the old days you turned up with the wee buzz of an upset in the air.

On the bright side it makes getting over it a right dawdle, I'd moved on from this before the net stopped moving at the second goal.

Saturday a biggie right enough though. Lose that one and were under massive pressure.

This. I decided this season to stop going to Old firm games at home. Took me the best part of 30+ years of being a season ticket holder for this to happen. Was not that long ago we would give them a game at least. Now it is a Q of whether they win by a barrow load or a dodge decision. Generally the former. Absolutely no joy anymore. 

A total mismatch. We know what happens when the Old Firm play teams with 10 times their resources. They lose 7-1 to Liverpool. Or lose every game they play (this season anyway). So no surprise at all. 

St Mirren managed it. A total fluke however. 20% possession and 4 shots at goal. That happens once in a blue moon, 

Aberdeen at home is massive though. Their away record has been dismal. 

We need out players to be 100% at it. Defenders defending. Attackers scoring. A novel plan and idea and sadly unlikely to come to fruition. .

Hey ho. I will b there however to witness what transpires

[YassinMoutaouakil]

We were wide open at the back for the whole game (or the 70 odd minutes that I saw) but I was somewhat happy with our attacking intent in the first 45. If Mckinstry or Goss take one of their chances then its maybe a different game. Second half Celtic scored two chances that they would have missed in the first half and it was a nonevent from that point. Shields is useless. 

['WellDel]

1 hour ago, Lex said:

Big team sympathy or something else?

b) something else...

That something else being that, when we come up against either of these despicable chunts, we are invariably spineless shitebags with not an ounce of self belief. It's chronic, it's embarrassing, and it's not going to change any time soon.

[Lukovic]

The McKinstry chance wouldn't have counted, assistant ref had already raised his flag for the ball going out of play before the cross.

[Swami]

1 hour ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

To be fair we do play them a lot more often, by virtue of Top Six finishes and not going out in the League Cup group stages.

And all that not-getting-relegated that we keep doing. 

[Dosser2014]

A lot of negativity on here tonight but, not quite, a meltdown.

This was always going to be a really tough game and, given our record against them, and current form, the result was unsurprising.  What was disappointing was our nervous approach to the game, but thats nothing new, and stretches back years. Tonight won't make or break our season.

Saturday will be more important for us and we need to get back on track and quickly.  

[ropy]

Regardless of how it came about that third goal was a smart finish. 

[Kapowzer]

3 hours ago, Lex said:

14 losses in a row again Celtic now.
Why do Motherwell fans think their team consistently rolls over and gets their tummy tickled by the Old Firm?
I know budgets etc, but other similarly funded sides have much better records. What’s going wrong at Fir Park? Big team sympathy or something else?

2 points from 6 at Ibrox last season but that's the only highlight in a pretty poor record of late. I think in recent memory we must have among the worst records in the league against them. We never seem to get the fire in our belly and the odd time they have an off day we don't capitalise (Playoffs in 2015 and 2017 League Cup Semi apart).

Our home form this season isn't great (Sligo, St Johnstone, Livi was a chore, Dundee United on a bad run, Hearts only away win in 8, Sevco. When you have a solid defender now in charge, our defensive lapses are starting to be in worthy of criticism territory after the first round of fixtures.

If we're continually being exposed at the back, time for a back 5? Certainly got the personnel to do it.

[Handsome_Devil]

9 hours ago, Ron Aldo said:

I know this post is probably meant as a wind up but it's spot on. Our record against either of the Old Firm over the past decade or so is pathetic.

There's been the odd draw or narrow defeat in there but never at any point have we really laid a glove or looked like beating either of them.

Well we had two 1-1 draws with Rangers under Alexander when their goals were offside. So we've not always been miles away.

Funnily enough I can't remember the last time Celtic had an off day against us like they did v St Mirren the other week but Rangers do it lots and we still fail to take advantage.

There's a mixture of normal results, poor play and bad luck but I don't think there's much doubt we (and others at times) get into a vicious cycle against the OF which affects confidence.

That said, the only season we've not taken at least a point from the OF since rangers returned was the abandoned 19/20. So we do, somehow, usually snatch something and coming from 0-2 down at Ibrox for example suggests we're not permanently without character.

[Reidy]

I never thought I’d say this even just a month or so ago but we’ve really missed Joe Efford the last couple of games. We struggle to progress with the ball when we have it or stretch teams when there’s very little pace in the team.  

I know injury prognosis’ are a lot more top-secret these days, but has there been any word on Efford, Moult and/or Aarons likely lay-off times?

Season-defining is probably an exaggeration but the remaining games prior to the WC are certainly massive now and the fact the squad is crumbling is a concern. 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Reidy

[Dosser1886]

Far better team, deserved their win, difference in resources , blah, blah, blah...all true but fck me we do manage to conspire to give away the most amateur dug meat goals, especially in the last two games. All the effort and good stuff gets lost when this keeps on happening.

Up front when we do get a chance we sh1te the bed.

Edited October 20, 2022 by Dosser1886