St Johnstone v Motherwell 7/4/18

[Jamie_B]

Bend it right up them. Another 4-1 with multiple red cards for Stephen Robinson’s hatchet men surely.

[Widge]

Main will score against us, but Cifti will cry. 0-0

[Desp]

Nobody gives a f**k.

21-21.

[Kyle]

High flying Motherwell take on lowly St Johnstone.... same number of points, league wins, draws and defeats, but that's certainly the perception given out in the media, on podcasts and by the respective clubs and their supporters.

Given that the 4 teams below us are playing against top 5 teams, this is a golden chance to knock any lingering relegation fears on the head, especially with Motherwell having half an eye on the cup semi final next week. Robinson has confirmed this morning that Ciftci, Campbell and Dunne will all miss out too.

We've still got Easton, Scougall, McMillan and now Alston out injured, with Clark suspended.

I'd be tempted to go;

Mannus

Kerr Shaughnessy Anderson

Foster Davidson Millar/Craig Tanser

Williams

Maclean Kane

Might as well have a go. Millar seems to have fallen out of contention a bit again recently with him back to warming the bench or being subbed off early in games he starts so, whilst I'd start him, I suspect Wright might go for Craig. Williams looks more than capable of being the link between the midfield and strikers. Willock perhaps a touch unfortunate to miss out given his goal against Aberdeen, but he really struggled in the game at Fir Park and looks a bit clueless positionally.

Hopefully an entertaining game.

 

[capt_oats]

Two teams with not a lot to play for. Motherwell with half an eye on the semi-final.

According to Robinson's press conference Ciftci's still out while Dunne and Campbell unlikely to be risked ahead of the semi-final. If you add that to Hartley, Tanner and Rose as longer term injuries then Craigan wasn't far off the other day when he said that we were likely to be short and would be drafting a few of the u20s into the matchday squad.

Given the 442 didn't really work against Aberdeen it'll be interesting to see if we stick with it or switch back to a more familiar back 3.

There are plenty of players who have been on the fringes of the side who it'd be worth us having a look at Bigi and MacLean in particular. Given we're missing a left sided centre half with Dunne being out we could drop McHugh back there I guess.

Carson
Kipré Aldred McHugh
Tait Cadden Bigirimana Frear
MacLean
Bowman Main

Ideally we'll have guys like Turnbull, Maguire and Scott on the bench. f**k it, let's get Alfie in there as well.

St Johnstone 2 - 1 Motherwell (with Motherwell scoring first of course).

[MJC]

The only thing that matters tomorrow for us is that we don't pick up any injuries, it's all about next Saturday now.

[Casagolda]

52 minutes ago, Kyle said:

High flying Motherwell take on lowly St Johnstone.... same number of points, league wins, draws and defeats, but that's certainly the perception given out in the media, on podcasts and by the respective clubs and their supporters.

We’ve been to a cup final already this season and are in the semi of another to be fair- knocking 6 top flight teams out in the process including Aberdeen, Hearts and Rangers. Meanwhile, you were papped out of both cups early doors. 

Plus folk were expecting us to be fighting relegation this season and for you lot to be top six, as such it’s not difficult to see why there’s a perception that we’re having the better season. 

Anyway, beset by injuries and with one eye on the cup semi next week I think I’ll stick Saints in the coupon and give this one a swerve. 

[Gianfranco]

When’s the last time we won in Perth? Probably 1-1.

[Kyle]

23 minutes ago, Casagolda said:

We’ve been to a cup final already this season and are in the semi of another to be fair, knocking 6 top flight teams out in the process including Aberdeen, Hearts and Rangers. Meanwhile, you were papped out of both cups early doors. 

Plus folk were expecting us to be fighting relegation this season and for you lot to be top six, as such it’s not difficult to see why there’s a perception that we’re having the better season. 

Anyway, beset by injuries and with one eye on the cup semi next week I think I’ll stick Saints in the coupon and give this one a swerve. 

Of course - we're below where most expected us to be, your above and had a great season in the cups. We do have a smaller budget, an aging side and had terrible luck with injuries all season though which mitigates some of that. Your media team and club generally have done a great job of putting positive spins on poor runs of form (I think you've won 4 league games in the last 21 (against Aberdeen, Dundee, St Johnstone and County) since the beginning of November, but you'd never believe that given the positivity emanating from your club, your support and the media generally about Motherwell.

This isn't meant to be a criticism of Motherwell at all, but it does reflect very well on how well your media team have done to smooth over what has undoubtedly been a difficult time in the league. There's an openness and freshness about how Motherwell operate off the pitch which I wish we could at least try and replicate. Your chairman, manager and players seem accessible and you get an insight into their personalities. All our chairman does, when he speaks at all, is complain about how hard things are for him, the manager seems to constantly moan about lack of money and the players are generally kept away from the supporters. Don't even get me started on the media output. The club were forced to apologise a week or two ago because it's been so shite recently and, as far as I can see, it hasn't improved since.

[welldaft]

All very fair comments in the post above.  But as has been argued at length over on Steelmen Online you can use stats to portray the picture you want.  In 2018 we have lost only 4 games from around 14games so it does paint a slightly better picture of our form.  That includes 2 draws v Old firm and one v Celtic when we were down to 10 men for a whole half.

The league does not lie however and Motherwell & Saints have had virtually identical stats. Most Well fans acknowledge that by in large St Johnstone are a decent side. Certainly you have had the better of us in Perth for some time.  I don't see that changing tomorrow. Would like to see us finish 7th but as the difference in league money is only £55k v 8th place we NEED to ensure we have the best and fittest / injury free team for the semi final next week.  We will be playing fringe players and I also expect that most if not all our team will be playing with the thought of avoiding injury uppermost in their minds. 

For those reasons I think a home win will be more of a certainty that the bookies odds. 

 

[Casagolda]

5 minutes ago, Kyle said:

Of course - we're below where most expected us to be, your above and had a great season in the cups. We do have a smaller budget, an aging side and had terrible luck with injuries all season though which mitigates some of that. Your media team and club generally have done a great job of putting positive spins on poor runs of form (I think you've won 4 league games in the last 21 (against Aberdeen, Dundee, St Johnstone and County) in league since the beginning of November, but you'd never believe that given the positivity emanating from your club, your support and the media generally about Motherwell.

This isn't meant to be a criticism of Motherwell at all, but it does reflect very well on how well your media team have done to smooth over what has undoubtedly been a difficult time in the league. There's an openness and freshness about how Motherwell operate off the pitch which I wish we could at least try and replicate. Your chairman, manager and players seem accessible and you get an insight into their personalities. All our chairman does, when he speaks at all, is complain about how hard things are for him, the manager seems to constantly moan about lack of money and the players are generally kept away from the supporters.

To be fair I wasn’t disagreeing with you and would agree with most of that- was just pointing out why lazy journalists etc could jump to such conclusions.

[Widge]

You’d argue that saints are playing a number of fringe players as well, but that’s purely down to our stupid luck with injuries. One thing that can’t be levelled at saints is a lack of professionalism really, and as we’re not safe yet, is firmly expect the players to be focussed for the remaining 6 games. Even if we’re not playing for anything, after the poor by our standards season we’ve had, they owe the fans at least some further commitment.

[Desp]

                                                Griffiths

                            Maguire  Aldred  McHugh

Grimshaw  Bigirimana Turnbull MacLean Hendrie

                                        Bowman  Newell

I care not a jot about the result.  Keep the first XI for next week nice and fresh and no further injuries please.  Scott & Agyeman on for the final 15 to cause havoc.

[SaintDougie]

Can't argue with any of the above regarding respective club media output and league form.  I'd like to think we will go for the jugular from the off as 7th is  as rewarding as this season is going to get. As much as I appreciate we as fans have had it good in recent times,  we certainly deserve to see a bit more from the team at home as the season comes to a close.  We've had some very good results (away) in what has been a very topsy turvy season but those of us that have been dragging ourselves to home games have seen very little in way of convincing us to opt for a renewal of season tickets, although there's no doubt I will anyway!

I must say though, what a well mannered and mature thread this is. Not sure if this is actually P&B or not.

[Kyle]

5 minutes ago, SaintDougie said:

Can't argue with any of the above regarding respective club media output and league form.  I'd like to think we will go for the jugular from the off as 7th is  as rewarding as this season is going to get. As much as I appreciate we as fans have had it good in recent times,  we certainly deserve to see a bit more from the team at home as the season comes to a close.  We've had some very good results (away) in what has been a very topsy turvy season but those of us that have been dragging ourselves to home games have seen very little in way of convincing us to opt for a renewal of season tickets, although there's no doubt I will anyway!

I must say though, what a well mannered and mature thread this is. Not sure if this is actually P&B or not.

We all had to work very hard to get the thread on that track after Beatson's childish and insulting opener. Shame on him.

The Motherwell fans are great on here and they wont take any shite bait easily anyway, so might as well be nice to them.  

 

[RandomGuy.]

I'm still wrecked with the flu so I'm struggling to give a single f**k about this game. 

[nsr]

I will also go for 1-1.

[Widge]

I'm still wrecked with the flu so I'm struggling to give a single f**k about this game. 

Funnily enough I’m the same. Feeling shite, on my own and really not in a fit state to drive. Think I’ll be giving this one a swerve. Shame as whenever I see saints alone we usually score 4 goals. [emoji23]

[capt_oats]

2 hours ago, Kyle said:

Of course - we're below where most expected us to be, your above and had a great season in the cups. We do have a smaller budget, an ageing side and had terrible luck with injuries all season though which mitigates some of that. Your media team and club generally have done a great job of putting positive spins on poor runs of form (I think you've won 4 league games in the last 21 (against Aberdeen, Dundee, St Johnstone and County) since the beginning of November, but you'd never believe that given the positivity emanating from your club, your support and the media generally about Motherwell.

It's been a pretty weird run from a Motherwell POV tbh.

It kind of feels like the December Slump has kind of been written off for what it was: a team coming off the back of 3 games against Celtic back to back (one of which we drew as a result of a contentious penalty), the heavy comedown along with the fall out from the LC final and then you had injuries to every key player in the side for a period that covered 5 away games in the space of a month.

As far as injuries go we had Carson, Hartley, Cadden, Tait, Moult and Frear all out or carrying visibly playing through injury. IIRC Allan Campbell missed a few games around then too. It was, not to put too fine a point on it, a pretty shite time and accounts for 7 of those 21 games, even if you extend it to Oct 28th it totals 11 games but you've still got a win against Aberdeen and a draw against Celtic in there. 

As welldaft says, since the winter break we've lost 4 games from 14 (vs Hibs, Killie, Accies and Aberdeen). On paper of those 4 the Accies game is probably the only one that we could legitimately be disappointed about. The other 3 have been against teams who are top 6. The fact that we came back from the winter break with only 1 loss in our first 7 games has probably meant that it's  been a bit easier to draw a line under the relatively poor form through November and December.

With wins in the cup against Accies and Hearts along with the draws against both Celtic and Rangers plus the fact we've had Main taking over Moult's mantle as #9 it's probably made spinning a bit of positivity that bit easier. I don't think there's anyone on here would argue that 4 wins in 21 isn't great but equally I think the form post-winter break has been enough to allow most fans to be comfortable enough with regards safety.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

7 hours ago, Kyle said:

High flying Motherwell take on lowly St Johnstone.... same number of points, league wins, draws and defeats, but that's certainly the perception given out in the media, on podcasts and by the respective clubs and their supporters.

 

We're off the back of 3 relegation battles in a row, have a young unknown manager that's completely overhauled our squad, became fan owned and made over a million in transfers/sell ons. Semis/final of both cups and comfortably mid table represents decent progress for us.

St Johnstone, meanwhile, are having their worst season in years after being perennial European qualifiers and have an aging squad that appears to be on the decline.  Obviously if you just base things off a quick glance at the league table then we're having similar seasons but if you take into account both club's recent histories and the trajectories we look to be on then it's clear why there's more positivity around Motherwell. 

There's also the fact that we're Scotland's establishment club.