Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[capt_oats]

3 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Boring answer but imo it's All of the Above. There's a wider trend amongst world football that wealth and good players are being concentrated in a few clubs who dominate their respective leagues to unprecedented levels, we've also recently played a style of football that leaves us quite open against the Old Firm, we've made individual mistakes leading to conceding stupid goals in tight games, been unlucky not to catch them on off days and also suffer from an inferiority complex. I also think if we'd held Rangers to 2 draws at FP instead of Ibrox last season it would stick in people's memories a lot more.

Aye, to be clear;

Does the financial disparity mean one of only 2 teams are going to win the league? Yes.

Is that a bit shite? Also yes.

Does that mean we don't have at least a puncher's chance of winning against either team? No IMO (In My Opinion).

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Maybe Celtic would go easier on us if we let them set up a club shop in the Main Stand.

[eliphas]

 

2 hours ago, capt_oats said:

The "financial disparity" thing is just such a weak sauce argument. Like, yeah it exists and you obviously can't ignore it but leaning heavily on it is a bit of a cop out IMO. Certainly in our case when we're talking about not having a league win against Rangers in 20 years.

It might stand scrutiny if Killie (a team with as relatively modest resources as us) hadn't had a fairly decent record against both Rangers and Celtic not that long ago while Steve Clarke was their manager. By my count his league record against them was something like P 15 W 6 D 5 L 4.

As I said on the previous page, to me the financial disparity between us and them isn't markedly worse now than it was when Rangers were chucking their money at players like Boli, Laudrup, Gascoigne and the like.

I mean, the £4,300,000 Rangers spent on Gascoigne in 1995 is the equivalent of £78,812,862.70 in today's money. The £2,300,000 they spent on Laudrup comes in at £43,264,441.38.

I rarely disagree with what you post but I do here, respectfully. The financial clout they have grows year on year. It's a fact, a huge and heavy fact, and absolutely not a cop out. In my opinion it's a larger part of the argument than saying players and managers essentially don't have the mental attitude for it. If that's the case then 20 years worth of squads and managers have suddenly pitched up in Lanarkshire and been brainwashed by immediately into not winning against the old firm. 

The answer, as others have said too is its a bit if everything.

I should say, I still go to every game v them expecting something. But I'm not surprised when we don't get anything

I still wish they'd f**k off. It would be much more pleasant. 

 

 

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by eliphas

[AnderooMFC]

I think the thing about financial disparity is that after the last two games, I genuinely don't feel like we've been played off the park. It's not like they've blown everyone away and you can sit there thinking "Wow, that was truly a team worth £18-20 million a year!" Nope, it's more they looked average and we were shyte. None of the goals from this week have looked particularly world class strikes. Premier Sports might go on about Abada's footwork for the 2nd but really Lamie should've done better.

The OF have players that can step it up a gear sure, but they never had to. And they can have an off day and make mistakes but we never are able to capitalise on them. Instead it's Kelly that has an off day or four defenders that surround a player and don't put a foot in. We can't be the only top-flight team to have not won against them for so long, but it feels like it when one of our wage-peers do get more than a draw. We might need luck, but others get it and we seemingly don't.

Optimistically I am always hopeful. Realistically I know most of our support has written these games off. Pessimistically, it seems as though most of our players have written these games off too.

[eliphas]

Anyway, we can revisit this whole conversation again when we play Celtic in a few weeks. Yay.

To tomorrow and Aberdeen. Strap Moult together. Give Aarons some ibuprofen and let's go!

Edited October 21, 2022 by eliphas

[Rod]

Aberdeen you say?

[Pepper]

Get the home games against the OF off TV - easier said than done I know, but get them back to Saturday or Sunday (when European games are a factor) at 3pm.

Encourage stay away fans (and most importantly stay away ST fans) back to these games. The club are on record as saying turnout amongst ST holders is at its lowest for games against the OF.

Make Fir Park as inhospitable for the OF and their fans as possible. Currently they must have fixtures against us market on their calendar as a Jolly Boys' Outing. 

Get back to treating humiliating defeats as they should be - unacceptable.  Getting pumped by the OF should be treated as an embarrassment and nothing else. The media team, management and everyone at the club can help shape the narrative here. We shouldn't accept it as fans and neither should they.

[well fan for life]

Just realised I'll miss the Motherwell - Celtic game in a couple of weeks because I'm away to see Confidence Man. A real victory in my life tbh. 

[dezz]

Seems like the Louis Moult gamble isn’t one that’s going to pay off. 

[Casagolda]

Who’d have thought a guy that’d only played 17 games in the last 3 years might be a bit injury prone? 

To be fair to Hammell, I don’t really blame him. The club and Alexander seemed to waste the entire summer in some bizarre stand off and Hammell was left to pick up the pieces when things inevitably came to a head. 

Any players we were talking to or deals that were in the pipeline would have went tits up when we got papped out by Sligo and Alexander left. We were left scrambling about towards the end of the window and it’s probably not a surprise that Hammell took a punt on a few players he knows.

As feared though, the signings of Aarons and Moult have backfired spectacularly with both crocked already and neither contributing a thing of note so far. 

[capt_oats]

17 hours ago, eliphas said:

I rarely disagree with what you post but I do here, respectfully. The financial clout they have grows year on year. It's a fact, a huge and heavy fact, and absolutely not a cop out. In my opinion it's a larger part of the argument than saying players and managers essentially don't have the mental attitude for it. If that's the case then 20 years worth of squads and managers have suddenly pitched up in Lanarkshire and been brainwashed by immediately into not winning against the old firm. 

The answer, as others have said too is its a bit if everything.

I should say, I still go to every game v them expecting something. But I'm not surprised when we don't get anything

I still wish they'd f**k off. It would be much more pleasant. 

That's fine, you don't have to agree with me .

Again, for clarity, I'm not disputing that there is a wild financial disparity and it means that they can afford better players than us which in turn means that they'll beat us more often than not and yes...it's all a bit shite.

To be absolutely clear, I'm not one of those oddballs who's sat having an aneurysm because we've lost to the OF. I don't expect us to beat them - I'd like us to all the same.

I suppose my point (if I actually have one) is that for all that financial disparity I don't believe the current gap means there's any greater a difference in terms of the players on the park than there has been at other times over the past 20 odd years or more?

Ultimately for all the money they have there's a ceiling on the level of player they can attract because of the league they play in and wages they can pay. You see that when they're getting their arses handed to them across Europe.

For example, is this current Celtic team materially better than the Brendan Rodgers side (that we were within 3 mins of beating and drew with while playing with 10 men for an hour) or O'Neill's side? For me, not really.

Is this Rangers side better than the one they had when they were chucking their EBTs about or when they were signing the likes of Gascoigne and Laudrup? Again, I don't think so.

I suppose the reason I think that leaning on the financial stuff heavily as a reason is a cop out is that in the 20 years since we last beat Rangers in the league there have been plenty of peer group clubs who have managed to beat them whereas we consistently fall short. Of course it's a factor but to place all of the blame on it is really just excusing our own failings.

I used Killie as an example, they had a team including Jamie McDonald, Kirk Broadfoot, Rory McKenzie and our very own Stephen O'Donnell. Then again, they had hired an exceptional manager for this level in Steve Clarke when they were bottom of the league - which brings us back to the point that there's probably more to it than there being a gap in quality on the park.

I lean towards the Rangers issue not least because I detest them and everything they stand for but also it's hard not to look at the 20 years and think that there's just something weird about that. To paraphrase McCall's resignation letter he sent out - at least we've beat Celtic a couple of times.

I'm not looking at it from the POV of the here and now but rather over the the period of 20 years where we've had legitimately good teams yet haven't been able to beat Rangers when other clubs in our peer group have at least been able to take a puncher's chance.

As @YassinMoutaouakil says in a previous post the correct answer is "all of the above".

Edited October 21, 2022 by capt_oats

[Swello]

Thinking back - the teams that have tended to beat the OF (and give them a hard game consistently) have unsurprisingly been our better/most effective teams - and it would be slightly hard to argue that our current team could be mentioned in the same breath as McLean/McGhee/McCall/Robinson's best teams.

The money is a massive factor but I'm also sure that the OF much prefer to play against our current jobbing team on a bowling green pitch than being beaten to a bloody pulp by Bowman, Hartley & Kipre, chasing Humphrey and Ojamaa about the place or dreading seeing Coyne and Arnott lining up against them in the old days. We can't lay a glove on them as the quality/effectiveness of our team is currently a lot lower relatively speaking than it has been at times in the past. 

Watching the game the other night for example, I was thinking that the Celtic team that they put out would not have been suited to a high tempo, physical game that you relate with big cup ties - but we played it with all the passion of a group stages game against Annan. When you call to mind the cup QF's against Utd and Aberdeen at Fir Park and compare it to the meek acceptance that we saw the other night - that's not a money based thing just a statement of the squad as it is post Alexander.

I don't expect us to beat the OF regularly or consistently but I 100% do expect us to pick up "some points" every season out of 7 or 8 games against them - and I expect us to make them uncomfortable at the least when it's our home game.

[CoF]

1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

I suppose the reason I think that leaning on the financial stuff heavily as a reason is a cop out is that in the 20 years since we last beat Rangers in the league there have been plenty of peer group clubs who have managed to beat them whereas we consistently fall short. Of course it's a factor but to place all of the blame on it is really just excusing our own failings.

 

I think you’re right that there’s a case to make that they’re not any better or worse than they have been over the last few decades, but I’m inclined to think the quality of player we attract isn’t what it was through the 90s - that’s the most recent era folk look back all misty eyed on because we gave them a game. Looking at those squads, we had some shite but we were also paying fees for players which are fantasy now and that’s before you even put them through a football inflation calculator. In that sense the quality gap has probably grown. 

 

it’s all kinda irrelevant though, as you say - everyone else has managed to do it over the last twenty years when we haven’t. 

[YassinMoutaouakil]

The Rangers thing doesn't really bother me, ngl. I'd rather we'd beat them more than 3 times in two decades but I don't particularly care if its the league or the cup that we do it in. In fact, I definitely look back on the playoffs and 2017 semi more than I do beating Celtic in random league games.

[Al B]

The thing that frustrates the life out of me, and has for as long as I remember, is that there there absolutely needs to be a change of mentality when you come up against the old firm.

What I mean by that is, ordinarily against another side...even a decent Hearts/Hibs/Aberdeen side....our players are often comparitively decent and they will get the ball and be like "have a touch, compose, look up...play a nice pass/decide to beat a man/have an effort on goal". And that's all well and good.

Where the change in mentality is needed, is that against the Old Firm (particularly Celtic at the moment), that process gets about as far as "get the ball, have a tou...FUCKING WHACKKKKKK!!!!!" and then we don't have the ball anymore, everyone's caught on the back foot and having their own "oh shit" moment. Celtic don't really defend in Scotland....their focus is on not allowing the other team to attack in the first place, and that's most definitely not the same thing.

You don't have time to be cute against the old firm. Attempting to play football is fine, but you must do it quickly, and that's where we get caught out. Having footballing ability is one thing, but having the ability to combine that ability with speed of thought and instinct, is a completely different bag of spanners.

Stop thinking you have time to turn, take a look and play a cute ball. You don't. By all means play that cute ball...but only if you can do it without needing the first 2 stages of that.

I'm not saying there isn't a difference in ability, but it's not as big as most people think. The main difference is the speed of thought required to carry something out. For example....David Turnbull wasn't doing things at Motherwell that the other players couldn't do. It was that he could do them instinctively in a split-second without thinking, which the other players couldn't do.

tl;dr - In games like this, only do things that you can do without having to think, and be honest with yourself about where that point lies in your ability.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Al B

[CoF]

33 minutes ago, Al B said:

tl;dr - In games like this, only do things that you can do without having to think, and be honest with yourself about where that point lies in your ability.

I read the long and short version there and I’ll be honest, I’ve absolutely no idea what you mean. 
 

I don’t have the answers, but you seem to be suggesting players should just pass without thinking. Sounds like a recipe for misplaced passes all over the shop. I get they don’t have the time to think, but thats the conundrum. 

[Kapowzer]

The fans, press, turnover and record books are all realistic as to the size of the task. 

What I don't want to see, read or hear is the manager or players publically making excuses or apologies in advance of a competitive sporting fixture. What they may think privately is a different matter but it's a bit of a kick in the baws to someone paying 1/19th of a season ticket or £25 quid on the gate to have a towel effectively thrown in advance. And you want us to get fired up and be your 12th man? Taking what meager wind there is out any sails is not the way.

Similar to Al B, what really makes the fixture spicy is when an event happens (usually a tasty challenge), gets a "yassss", "intae them" so do it early. And has the double effect of rattling them and firing the game up. It immediately raises the atmosphere and God forbid give the illusion we're actually up for it. Someone like Blair Spittal should be instructed to just clatter someone in the yellow but not quite red category. Can't be Slattery as he will pick up a yellow later or Goss as he may have to take one for the team like McGregor did at Parkhead.

Then play clever and streetwise, eliminate errors and don't scramble clearances to let them start again without any respite.

@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.

[RostokMcSpoons]

I'm a little sad to see everyone's favourite Stegasaurus fan lost his job earlier today.    But not a great surprise tbh

 

[capt_oats]

34 minutes ago, RostokMcSpoons said:

I'm a little sad to see everyone's favourite Stegasaurus fan lost his job earlier today.    But not a great surprise tbh

How quickly do we think Robinson got his CV in? 

Edited October 21, 2022 by capt_oats

[RostokMcSpoons]

It was either measured in nano seconds, or do you think he might not go for it at all (this time around, at least)?