Motherwell v Livingston Sat 6th October

[LiviLion]

Another team tries and fails to beat Gary Holt's Amber Machine.

Good result and takes us into the international break unbeaten in our last 7 games.

[Gianfranco]

Motherwell were 100% the worst I’ve ever seen a team on the ball today. We are pish.

[MJC]

That has got to be one of the worst games of football I have ever witnessed in thirty odd years and I have seen some utter dross in that time.

To be fair to Livingston they did actually try to play some football, scored an absolutely magnificent goal and were the better side overall but neither side deserved to win that game.

We were horrific. Absolutely fucking horrific and that performance would make your eyes bleed. We have nothing in us in terms of actually playing football, just dated tactics of hoofing it in the direction you are facing. We have no pace, no flair and no attacking quality in the team. Again, why is Main starting ahead of Johnson??? And what's the point in even having a midfield if we are insisting on thumping it aimlessly?

We actually finished that game today looking like the away side and were clinging on. Against Livingston at home, to be clinging on for dear life to a point is utterly pathetic and signals worrying times ahead.

We are in serious, serious trouble on that evidence.

[thisGRAEME]

Bad.

Got a point though, and I didn't have to watch Elliot Frear for twenty minutes either.

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

Absolute shite. One goal from kick and rush and nothing else. The Rose-McHugh-Campbell midfield offered nothing.

Robinson should hang his head. He had 2 subs ready to go when they scored but it still took him another 10 minutes to make a change. What were the first subs going to do, have us sit even deeper? Brutal.

Carl McHugh is a fucking arsehole. He could have been off for the elbow but then dived into 3 challenges before eventually succeeding in getting himself sent off.

[MJC]

McHugh's nativity is frightening. He was fortunate not to be on a card long before his reckless elbow yet didn't seem to heed the warnings. 

[RandomGuy.]

Quote

Motherwell boss Stephen Robinson took heart from his side's point against Livingston despite surrendering a lead and having Carl McHugh sent off.

"The positive to take out of it was we did stop our losing run," he told BBC Scotland: "You could see the lack of confidence from not winning matches, the crowd were getting on their backs and there was a lot of nervous tension.

"But the boys showed a lot of character and we hung on with 10 men against a team flying high.

"We lacked quality on the ball but the main thing was not to get beat today."

Seems odd to make those comments when youre only a man down for ten minutes

[Casagolda]

5 hours ago, Casagolda said:

 If I was a betting man and I am, reckon we’ll see ATS, Bigi and Grimshaw dropped today for Hartley, Rose and Campbell.

Absolutely terrifying that our manager is so predictable and one dimensional.

That was one of the worst displays of ‘football’ I’ve seen in some time. We had a very fortuitous half time lead and then we started the 2nd half with no intent other than to sit back and try to hold on to it for dear life. A Livingston equaliser was inevitable- cracking strike mind.

Bigi gets made the fall guy for not tracking his runner last week but we have guys who every week constantly fail to do the absolute basics such as control and pass a ball.  We constantly put ourselves under pressure today due to our failure to retain possession, at times it was genuinely embarrassing.

For that you have to point the finger at the manager who doesn’t seem to care what we do with the ball. He doesn’t seem to see the correlation between keeping a hold of the ball and relieving the pressure on his defence. 

McHugh’s red card looked nailed on, just absolutely brainless. Speaking of brainless, Liam Donnelly was absolutely hoaching again. If he’s genuinely better than Barry Maguire then you have to wonder why we even bothered offering the boy a new contract. 

[thisGRAEME]

6 minutes ago, Casagolda said:

Bigi gets made the fall guy for not tracking his runner last week but we have guys who every week constantly fail to do the absolute basics such as control and pass a ball.  We constantly put ourselves under pressure today due to our failure to retain possession, at times it was genuinely embarrassing.

McHugh’s red card looked nailed on, just absolutely brainless. Speaking of brainless, Liam Donnelly was absolutely hoaching again. If he’s genuinely better than Barry Maguire then you have to wonder why we even bothered offering the boy a new contract. 

See on these points; Bigi was poor last week, but was absolutely howling at Tynecastle as well, rightly dropped IMO. 

Donnelly is being hung out to dry a bit as well, he's the square peg at the moment. He's plainly right footed, and stuck out there because he's the only one with half a yard of pace and a left foot while Charlie Taxi is fucked. He was all over the place aye, but there's mitigating factors, imo. Is Maguire injured? He was in the stand, and I can't imagine we'd go into the game with so little defensive cover unless we had to.

McHugh is a fanny.

Jacobs was brilliant for Livi, as well, v impressed with pretty much all of his game.

[MJC]

Robinson's comments are concerning especially seeing as he basically told us yesterday that that was how he intended to play today. And to be 'hanging on' at home against Livingston isn't something to be taking positives from. 

Edit: Oh aye, and Liam Donnelly is the 2018 equivalent of Greig Denham... hopelessly out of his depth at this level.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Our goalie and defence are solid enough, despite their occasional aneurysm and consistently awful distribution.  I'm not overly enthused with our striking options but between them they do something of a job. That midfield is fucking abysmal outwith Campbell though.

[MJC]

8 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Our goalie and defence are solid enough, despite their occasional aneurysm and consistently awful distribution.  I'm not overly enthused with our striking options but between them they do something of a job. That midfield is fucking abysmal outwith Campbell though.

In fairness today we actually did look quite solid at the back and in Carson we have a very good goalkeeper. However we also have Liam Donnelly - enough said - and in the majority of games this season we have made some ridiculous defensive errors leading to goals conceded, albeit not all those errors were the fault of the defence themselves.

We just look so flat footed, so one paced right across the team and opponents are wise to it.

[Casagolda]

34 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

See on these points; Bigi was poor last week, but was absolutely howling at Tynecastle as well, rightly dropped IMO. 

Donnelly is being hung out to dry a bit as well, he's the square peg at the moment. He's plainly right footed, and stuck out there because he's the only one with half a yard of pace and a left foot while Charlie Taxi is fucked. He was all over the place aye, but there's mitigating factors, imo. Is Maguire injured? He was in the stand, and I can't imagine we'd go into the game with so little defensive cover unless we had to.

McHugh is a fanny.

Jacobs was brilliant for Livi, as well, v impressed with pretty much all of his game.

I should clarify I don’t necessarily have a problem with Bigi being dropped, I do have a problem with our manager having sly digs at him in the press every time he fails to perform.

Especially when you see our other midfielders get away with murder most weeks. As said above, our midfield was absolutely chronic today, Robinson won’t say a bad word about any of them.

As for Donnelly, we’ll have to wait and see I suppose. You might have a point though, being shoehorned into 3 different positions in the last 4 games certainly won’t have helped. For me though, the boy just looks out his depth at this moment in time.

[Gianfranco]

I’d agree that our defence did look more solid today but, our attempts to keep the ball were laughable almost the whole game.

Anytime livi got a throw in we had every player so deep inside our own half that we immediately gave them the ball back with our clearances to no one. I lost count how many times Aldred kicked or headed the ball out for a throw.

[Whitburn Vale]

Another solid perfomance from the lions.

Happy with a point as the middle third of the game didnt think we showed up.

Motherwell are the only team we've played so far that seem to match our workrate and commitment.

Super strike by keags and we nearly took all 3pts at the death.

But a draw was a fair result and we move onto Dundee at home in 2wks time.

[thisGRAEME]

5 minutes ago, Casagolda said:

Especially when you see our other midfielders get away with murder most weeks. As said above, our midfield was absolutely chronic today, Robinson won’t say a bad word about any of them.

As for Donnelly, we’ll have to wait and see I suppose. You might have a point though, being shoehorned into 3 different positions in the last 4 games certainly won’t have helped. For me though the boy just looks out his depth at this moment in time.

I actually fully agree with all of this as well. While I agree with Bigi being dropped, you know McHugh will be right back in, despite being a fucking fanny.

Happy to hold on for Donnelly, but he didn't have a good game. It's worth remembering that Cedric aside (who was a freak tbf) all of our defenders recently have been of the 'experienced' mould. Heneghan had ups and downs, and I reckon there's something there with Donnelly. He'll get there.

We have to get cadden higher up the park. So much of our clearance hoofs came straight back because there's not an hint of pace higher up. Interesting to see his crossing is genetic, tho.

[andylivi1]

I’d have taken a point before the game so I’m quite pleased and with teams around the bottom all losing it’s another point away from them. 

I actually thought Motherwell out Livingstoned us in the first half, allowed us to have the ball, drew us out and hit us on the break while we were high up the park, I thought Robinson got it spot on. 

In the 2nd half we dropped 5 yards deeper and looked much better, we didn’t look like conceding in the 2nd half. 

Be interesting to see our goal that was chalked off, didn’t see much at all, it didn’t even look like a Livi player touched the ball, it took an age for the free kick to even be given. 

Some hit from Keaghan, probably our best player today. 

Thought subbing Robinson for Lawson completely ended our chances of winning the game, was a strange sub at a time we were well on top and looking like going on to get a winner, think a more obvious sub would’ve been Sibbald. 

The draw keeps our unbeaten run going, and despite being below par compared to previous weeks we still managed to come away with a point, that’s exactly what we need to do to stay in this league. 

[Joey Jo Jo Junior Shabadoo]

1 hour ago, MJC said:

McHugh's nativity is frightening. 

The nightmare before Christmas. In October.

[Cptn Hooch]

Seen the goal that was disallowed again....still no idea what the foul was for...Menga stands still and is pushed out the way...somehow that's a foul on the keeper???

[orco]

1 hour ago, Cptn Hooch said:

Seen the goal that was disallowed again....still no idea what the foul was for...Menga stands still and is pushed out the way...somehow that's a foul on the keeper???

Likewise. Can't see what Collum thinks he saw. Cost us 2 points.