Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Casagolda]

Worrying that after 1 league game we’ve already reverted back to Cadden/Tait both playing out of position at wing back. Yesterday’s team had only 1 ‘new’ summer signing in it and as much as I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, he was probably the worst of a very bad bunch. 

I might well be proved wrong in time but I’ve said all summer I thought the whole improving 12-18 thing was a mistake and I genuinely think this summer will go down as a missed opportunity. We should have been looking to kick on and build on last season, if anything we actually look like we’ve regressed.

The thing that stuck out most for me yesterday was just the sheer lack of quality in that team- especially in the final third. No Moult to rescue us this season, no McDonald, no Johnson not even an Ainsworth. Just a team full of workers who could have played all day and not broken down an Accies side that had only picked up 10 points in 2018 before yesterday. 

Looking at us middle to front, you struggle to see where the goals are going to come from this season. Even defensively we look all over the shop and without Dunne(and Kipre) the back 3 looks very vulnerable to any sort of pace down the outside.

What a difference walking out the ground yesterday, compared to the feel good factor there was about the place after our last league game at Fir Park in May.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Casagolda

[Al B]

I absolutely detest the way everyone within the club uses the word battle like it's a positive thing, and we're all supposed to go YAAAASSSSSSSS!!

It's fine if you get something from it, but we've turned into that guy that thinks he's hard despite repeatedly getting a shoeing in a regular basis. Even interviews are getting embarrassing.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

 

More shite about passion and effort- are they fucking trying to wind me up? I'm almost starting to miss Ryan Murrant tbh.

[Casagolda]

See, that’s what gets me.

Our last League game at Fir Park in May we had a midfield 3 that included Bigi and Turnbull with a front 3 of Maclean, Frear and Ciftci- hardly a team full of battlers but it had a nice balance/blend and they battered Accies by playing them off the park in a footballing sense. 

Yet yesterday we reverted to a team full of workers, in order to ‘win the battle’ at home against a poor Hamilton team who had only 10 points to their name so far in 2018. You’d think the fact that 3 of Accies last 5 league wins have been against us would be a hint that trying to out battle them might not be the best approach to take.

A thoroughly soul destroying watch and @Al B is spot on, you can already till this week the interviews ahead of the Livingston game will be about working harder and winning the battle etc.  

I don’t question this group of players work rate nor their attitude, in that respect they’re light years ahead of some of the charlatans we’ve had in recent years. However eventually the penny has to drop, there’s more to football than working hard and getting stuck in.

[WellView]

I saw a tweet yesterday saying that the ball would be rushed to Wishaw General at halftime due to altitude sickness.  

[capt_oats]

5 hours ago, Al B said:

I absolutely detest the way everyone within the club uses the word battle like it's a positive thing, and we're all supposed to go YAAAASSSSSSSS!!

It's fine if you get something from it, but we've turned into that guy that thinks he's hard despite repeatedly getting a shoeing in a regular basis. Even interviews are getting embarrassing.

 

4 hours ago, Casagolda said:

See, that’s what gets me.

Our last League game at Fir Park in May we had a midfield 3 that included Bigi and Turnbull with a front 3 of Maclean, Frear and Ciftci- hardly a team full of battlers but it had a nice balance/blend and they battered Accies by playing them off the park in a footballing sense. 

Yet yesterday we reverted to a team full of workers, in order to ‘win the battle’ at home against a poor Hamilton team who had only 10 points to their name so far in 2018. You’d think the fact that 3 of Accies last 5 league wins have been against us would be a hint that trying to out battle them might not be the best approach to take.

A thoroughly soul destroying watch and @Al B is spot on, you can already tell this week the interviews ahead of the Livingston game will be about working harder and winning the battle etc.  

I don’t question this group of players work rate nor their attitude, in that respect they’re light years ahead of some of the charlatans we’ve had in recent years. However eventually the penny has to drop, there’s more to football than working hard and getting stuck in.

100% on both these posts.

I've loads of time for "winning the battle" and all that but it's at the point now where it's just so fucking one note. It's like there's zero confidence and belief that we can win a game of football by actually y'know...playing football. Which is unfortunate as despite everything there are decent footballers in that squad. 

If it's soul destroying hearing it from a fan's point of view then I'd imagine that from a player's perspective they must be bored to tears if that's the message they're getting day in, day out.

Edit: it's a cheap point but bloated squad arguments aside we're a team who are absolutely crying out out for a bit of creativity and spark in the attacking third but last week we were being linked with Ross Callachan. I mean...'sake.

Edited August 12, 2018 by capt_oats

[thisGRAEME]

I mean, I'll generally try and defend us, but goodness grief, yesterday was absolute garbage.

Buzzing to get binned off Livi on their 95% rubber pitch, before Stevie G's revolution rolls into town. Ultimately, we'll be fine, but yesterday we never looked like we were going to get a goal, even less so after we needed one to scrape a point.

[Swello]

I said multiple times last season that I've got no problem with the style of play that we've had as I really enjoyed myself last year so I'm not going to get into revisionist history and say that I disagreed with it. 

What I was expecting/hoping for this season was, from the base we had, developing to the point that against Rangers, Celtic, Aberdeen, etc that we can maintain that style as I believe it's pretty effective where we aren't going to see much of the ball - but against our peer teams, we get in the personnel and importantly have the confidence to break teams down when we are likely to dominate possession. That means adding pace and adding creativity, which no-one is going to argue that we've done at this point.

The fact that Bigi was starting yesterday after every impression that he was on the outer periphery of the first team is not in any way a statement of confidence in this summer's transfer business. I think the "12-18" strategy is a valid approach (and one I was fine with honestly) but surely some of that extra "fat" in the squad needs to be  used to give you options rather than always being a like-for-like replacement and that is where the main concern is.

Under McCall, we ran with a small, high-quality (and expensive!) squad and basically hoped for the best injury wise - and at this early stage in the season, I'm definitely wondering if (say) 2  genuine quality additions and relying on the likes of Maguire, Turnball and Scott to fill some of the 12-18 places wouldn't have been a better approach - time will definitely tell. 

 

[S Robbo FFC]

Right I’m here to find the p***k that released Petravicius which led to us taking him so I can punch him In the fucking throat! The guys dreadful!

[AndyRoss]

Cheery podcast online now.

http://www.mfc1886.com/mfc-podcast-2018-19-episode-5/

[YassinMoutaouakil]

I think the thing that fucks me off most is that half the time we don't even do hoofball particularly well.  If you think back to our most impressive Robinson performances - Aberdeen 3-0 x2, the first half of Rangers 2-2, Celtic 1-1 etc, we've done well by pressing the opposition into mistakes and chucking numbers forward at a high intensity. There's obviously still a lot of route one going on as well, but it's a lot more effective than ceding possesion by just shellacking the ball at Connor Sammon for 90 minutes.

Edited August 13, 2018 by YassinMoutaouakil

[Swello]

11 hours ago, S Robbo FFC said:

Right I’m here to find the p***k that released Petravicius which led to us taking him so I can punch him In the fucking throat! The guys dreadful!

Proof that there is always someone worse off than yourself

[Desp]

12 hours ago, S Robbo FFC said:

Right I’m here to find the p***k that released Petravicius which led to us taking him so I can punch him In the fucking throat! The guys dreadful!

Well, we released him because he was fucking dreadful.  You better speak to the boy that signed him. 

We did tell you...

[well fan for life]

It's the same as last year in that when a team sits in and we have to break them down we look completely bereft of ideas. We brought on Gorrín and Frear for creativity and the pair of them likely need treatment for whiplash from watching the ball get fired over their fucking heads.

Ultimately we'll be fine, but goodness me we were absolutely shite.

[thisGRAEME]

8 hours ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

I think the thing that fucks me off most is that half the time we don't even do hoofball particularly well.  If you think back to our most impressive Robinson performances - Aberdeen 3-0 x2, the first half of Rangers 2-2, Celtic 1-1 etc, we've done well by pressing the opposition into mistakes and chucking numbers forward at a high intensity. There's obviously still a lot of route one going on as well, but it's a lot more effective than ceding possesion by just shellacking the ball at Connor Sammon for 90 minutes.

Pretty much. The only point where we looked faintly dangerous on Saturday was the ten minutes following half-time, where we pressed and with an intensity that we haven't seen since roughly the semi-final last year. Shelling balls at centre-forwards was very reminiscent of Stephen McManus.

2 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

It's the same as last year in that when a team sits in and we have to break them down we look completely bereft of ideas. We brought on Gorrín and Frear for creativity and the pair of them likely need treatment for whiplash from watching the ball get fired over their fucking heads.

Ultimately we'll be fine, but goodness me we were absolutely shite.

 

Frear man. Like, don't get me wrong, he was great when he went on that wee run that kept us up, but when was his last good game that was against cannon fodder? Consistently not at the level required.

Edited August 13, 2018 by thisGRAEME

[well fan for life]

5 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

Frear man. Like, don't get me wrong, he was great when he went on that wee run that kept us up, but when was his last good game that was against cannon fodder? Consistently not at the level required.

I think he's looked like he's lost all confidence in the last few months. That run you're on about he would try and take on a defender and cross it. Now he's just not doing it. We really are lacking creativity between midfield and attack. Craig Tanner is a huge miss, but he's not kicked a ball in months so I'd expect him to take while to get back to anything approaching sharp.

[thisGRAEME]

2 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

I think he's looked like he's lost all confidence in the last few months. That run you're on about he would try and take on a defender and cross it. Now he's just not doing it. We really are lacking creativity between midfield and attack. Craig Tanner is a huge miss, but he's not kicked a ball in months so I'd expect him to take while to get back to anything approaching sharp.

I get that, and I dunno if it's just me, but even when Cadden is having a shiter of a game at wingback, he's still barging into people and giving wingers and full-backs something to think about, even if the cross goes out for a throw-in. Frear is just an empty jersey just now, which is a real shame. 

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, well fan for life said:

It's the same as last year in that when a team sits in and we have to break them down we look completely bereft of ideas. We brought on Gorrín and Frear for creativity and the pair of them likely need treatment for whiplash from watching the ball get fired over their fucking heads.

Ultimately we'll be fine, but goodness me we were absolutely shite.

This is kind of it. I have absolutely zero issues with us being a "physical", "direct" team. Fully embracing of it. Similarly I'm no purist who's demanding that we "play the ball out from the back" or what not but the problem for me is that these are issues that were clearly there last season (Killie at Fir Park, Accies at NDP etc, etc). 

Put a team out that's going to  sit in in front of us then give us the ball and we have absolutely no idea what to do with it.

We still haven't addressed it. In fact, we seem to have doubled down by bringing in Sammon for Ciftci () and just launching balls at him despite him evidently not being a target man.

Edited August 13, 2018 by capt_oats

[AndyRoss]

I get that, and I dunno if it's just me, but even when Cadden is having a shiter of a game at wingback, he's still barging into people and giving wingers and full-backs something to think about, even if the cross goes out for a throw-in. Frear is just an empty jersey just now, which is a real shame. 

I think he’s been unfortunate that when he’s had a good game he then drops out the following game, the Edinburgh City game to Stranraer a good example there. That being said, when he’s failed to beat his man first time, it looks like that’s his confidence shot to pieces from that point forward.

[well fan for life]

1 minute ago, AndyRoss said:

 

I think he’s been unfortunate that when he’s had a good game he then drops out the following game, the Edinburgh City game to Stranraer a good example there. That being said, when he’s failed to beat his man first time, it looks like that’s his confidence shot to pieces from that point forward.

 

Aye pretty much. If the full back tackles him in the first 5 minutes we'd be as well hooking him because he looks scunnered. 

Still. Be interesting to see how the cup game goes on Saturday. The pitch shouldn't prove any problem for us as the ball will never be fucking on it.