Motherwell v Celtic

[Archie McSquackle]

Weird how you can see a game completely differently to other folk. I thought Jullien looked excellent for Celtic yesterday and strolled the game whereas I thought Polworth was terrible for us despite the fact that I’ve liked the look of him right through the Betfred games, yet I’ve read the complete opposite viewpoints here. 

To be honest, I hardly noticed Julien which is probably a good thing for a defender. Until the end when, at a reported height of 6'7", he was easily outjumped by Gallagher for our consolation second. Ajer on the other hand was very impressive throughout and my man of the match. Brown and Campbell seemed to completely cancel each other out to the point neither really contributed much to the game.
I think Ilic might have something to offer but he really offered very little in the way of support or off the ball runs. Seedorf looked absolutely lost and out of his depth but we've had other players who've improved with coaching - we can only hope.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

I don't think that Mbombo was that bad either tbh. People have just already decided he is because he has a foreign name and isn't Kieran Tierney.

[Flybhoy]

[Romeo]

4 hours ago, Flybhoy said:

Right up there with "whits the goalie dain?"

[The Chief]

19 hours ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

I don't think that Mbombo was that bad either tbh. People have just already decided he is because he has a foreign name and isn't Kieran Tierney.

Have they?

I'm concerned by his apparent inability to defend more than I am by his name. Guess it must just be me.

[Geedub-MFC]

5 hours ago, Flybhoy said:

That is one of the most teuchter accents I've ever heard. 

[Poet of the Macabre]

It's fucking appalling that a side like Celtic have Scott Bain as their first choice keeper. They have plenty of really decent players and it's unfathomable they couldn't find a better goalie.

Edit- Thought Motherwell were the better side in the first half and was going to Fringe and missed the second. Assuming they just collapsed like a badly cooked pastry when Celtic went up a gear?

Edited August 12, 2019 by Poet of the Macabre

[welldaft]

1 hour ago, Poet of the Macabre said:

It's fucking appalling that a side like Celtic have Scott Bain as their first choice keeper. They have plenty of really decent players and it's unfathomable they couldn't find a better goalie.

Edit- Thought Motherwell were the better side in the first half and was going to Fringe and missed the second. Assuming they just collapsed like a badly cooked pastry when Celtic went up a gear?

We have too many players still capable of kamikaze defending. Not great at the best of times but even worse when the opposition have scored 7 the previous weekend. 

I am still confused as to what that performance means for Motherwell. I suspect it actually means we are not as good as the media and pundits and fans felt we might be after pre season and BetFred cup games.  I think we have added some decent players in Polworth and Gallagher. I think Donnelly will win the golden boot with 40 goals which is just as well as his defending on Saturday was average at best. 

A win v Jambos on Friday night and v Hamilton the following weekend and we are back on track. A defeat in either or both will start the panic merchants and Robbo out threads again...

Edit to add - Julien and Edouard cost £16m combined. 2 players = a mere 4-5 times our annual turnover. Maybe that is also why they won comfortably. In hindsight the media should hype up the fact we made a game of it 1st half rather than the mauling we took in the 2nd half. 

Edited August 12, 2019 by welldaft

[Romeo]

31 minutes ago, welldaft said:

 4-5 times our annual turnover.

Budget chat then?

[wellinwigan]

12 minutes ago, Romeo said:

Budget chat then?

Thank Christ we only play Celtic 3 maybe 4 times a season. Your doing my heid in the amount of pish you come out with. Your team of million pound players won is it not time you fucked off into a terrorist/Palestine thread now. 

[gannonball]

2 hours ago, welldaft said:

 

Edit to add - Julien and Edouard cost £16m combined. 2 players = a mere 4-5 times our annual turnover. Maybe that is also why they won comfortably. In hindsight the media should hype up the fact we made a game of it 1st half rather than the mauling we took in the 2nd half. 

I can accept the wages comparison but you cant just ignore that we have been running at a massive transfer budget surplus for years. We signed those players because we sold others for a load more and have arguably replaced them with inferior players. If you sold Turnbull this summer for a record fee then spent a few hundred grand on a player to replace him then People wouldn’t say you had a better squad.

Edited August 12, 2019 by gannonball

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Nazis, child abuse, the IRA and now budgets. Anyone up for arguing about attendances so I can win P&B bingo?

[Romeo]

9 hours ago, wellinwigan said:

Thank Christ we only play Celtic 3 maybe 4 times a season. Your doing my heid in the amount of pish you come out with. Your team of million pound players won is it not time you fucked off into a terrorist/Palestine thread now. 

Make your mind up was it the referee or Celtic's budget that cost you the game?

[welldaft]

9 hours ago, gannonball said:

I can accept the wages comparison but you cant just ignore that we have been running at a massive transfer budget surplus for years. We signed those players because we sold others for a load more and have arguably replaced them with inferior players. If you sold Turnbull this summer for a record fee then spent a few hundred grand on a player to replace him then People wouldn’t say you had a better squad.

I am not debating the fact that Celtics transfer dealings have been very successful.  In fact so has Motherwell’s just on a much lower scale than Celtic. In fact we have probably sold on or moved more of our Academy and youth payers than any other side in the top flight these past few years. 

My point has been and always will be that Celtic and Rangers scoring 6 goals should be the norm given the gulf in resources. It is just where we are. If we want to claim P&B bingo full house I will go on to state that if Celtic and Rangers fans from around Motherwell / Bellshill / Wishaw etc supported their local team then it would probably double our support and help us compete a little better. 

I cannot wait for Romeos inane response.  Actually I can wait.....

[Ya Bezzer!]

Everyone is on some kind of Celtic wankfest cos they have banged in some goals but when I read people saying Julien was excellent I have to step in.

Ajer is an excellent player and will be down south soon but Julian was shite and so was Bolingoli.

Not one of our starting front three players put in even an average performance and yet if you actually watched the game you'd know that Celtic scored three quarters of their chances and Motherwell missed three quarters of theirs.  If we had been as clinical as Celtic were we could have scored 3, 4 even 5.

The Celtic side that went out at Fir Park is pish at the back and if they send that side out in Europe against, you know, teams with more than 10% of their budget, they are going to get found out big time.

Fact.

[well fan for life]

36 minutes ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

Everyone is on some kind of Celtic wankfest cos they have banged in some goals but when I read people saying Julien was excellent I have to step in.

Ajer is an excellent player and will be down south soon but Julian was shite and so was Bolingoli.

Not one of our starting front three players put in even an average performance and yet if you actually watched the game you'd know that Celtic scored three quarters of their chances and Motherwell missed three quarters of theirs.  If we had been as clinical as Celtic were we could have scored 3, 4 even 5.

The Celtic side that went out at Fir Park is pish at the back and if they send that side out in Europe against, you know, teams with more than 10% of their budget, they are going to get found out big time.

Fact.

Julien is 6'7" apparently. Seems to be about 5'10" when he jumps. Gallagher won every header that came near him at set pieces. 

I take issue with some of the "5 star Celtic" headlines as, weird as it sounds after they won 5-2, I didn't actually think they were very good. The attempts to play it out from the back were absolutely hilarious at times, Bolingoli will do well going forward in the league but I can see him getting roasted in Europe. From kick off we were by miles the better team, scored a great goal then opted to commit defensive hari-kari for the rest of the game. 

[gannonball]

1 hour ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

Everyone is on some kind of Celtic wankfest cos they have banged in some goals but when I read people saying Julien was excellent I have to step in.

 

Yeah a very questionable performance for me, the fact he has been used so sparingly and not given more game time in Europe against lower end opposition had alarm bells ringing as how far off the pace do you need to be to not be fit enough to play.

26 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

Julien is 6'7" apparently. Seems to be about 5'10" when he jumps. Gallagher won every header that came near him at set pieces. 

 

That was the most  worrying for me. He was bought to replace Boyatas aerial ability mainly as he would win anything in the air. I don’t buy this pish either about getting up to the speed and physicality of the Scottish league either given that Ligue 1 has some absolute units like Dembele in it so I would expect him to handle the likes of Curtis Main etc pretty sharpish.

[well fan for life]

1 minute ago, gannonball said:

Yeah a very questionable performance for me, the fact he has been used so sparingly and not given more game time in Europe against lower end opposition had alarm bells ringing as how far off the pace do you need to be to not be fit enough to play.

That was the most  worrying for me. He was bought to replace Boyatas aerial ability mainly as he would win anything in the air. I don’t buy this pish either about getting up to the speed and physicality of the Scottish league either given that Ligue 1 has some absolute units like Dembele in it so I would expect him to handle the likes of Curtis Main etc pretty sharpish.

Tbf if you just leave Curtis Main to his own devices there's not much to worry about. 

[capt_oats]

56 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

I take issue with some of the "5 star Celtic" headlines as, weird as it sounds after they won 5-2, I didn't actually think they were very good. The attempts to play it out from the back were absolutely hilarious at times, Bolingoli will do well going forward in the league but I can see him getting roasted in Europe. From kick off we were by miles the better team, scored a great goal then opted to commit defensive hari-kari for the rest of the game. 

I'm kind of in the same place.

It's difficult to articulate without it sounding massively like sour grapes but we lost on Saturday because we defended like an absolute gang.

Nothing to do with budgets, players or, for that matter, Celtic being particularly good. The budget difference was the same when we've played them every other season and drawn 1-1 x2 and 0-0 (with 10 men) and that was with the £25m Bhoy, Rogic, Simunovic, Benkovic, Armstrong and Dembele on the park along with folk like McGregor, Brown, Ntcham, Griffiths, Ajer etc.

The difference? We actually defended competently.

There are fine margins but take the 1-1 at FP last season. Gillespie saves Griffiths' penalty and keeps us in the game at only 1-0 down. On Saturday he completely misjudges Griffiths' free kick and we go in 2-1 down rather than 1-1. Obviously Celtic fans can flip reverse it by pointing at Bain having a horror show for our first but it feels more like the score has been the headline rather than the performance.

Lifted from the BBC/PA stats if you didn't know the score you'd have said it looked a fairly even game. Even more so compared to the stats from the 3 draws in the spoiler.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda...

Spoiler

29/11/17: 1 - 1

18/03/18: 0-0

05/11/18: 1-1

 

Edited August 13, 2019 by capt_oats

[thisGRAEME]

18 minutes ago, gannonball said:

Yeah a very questionable performance for me, the fact he has been used so sparingly and not given more game time in Europe against lower end opposition had alarm bells ringing as how far off the pace do you need to be to not be fit enough to play.

There were moments in that first half he was so far off the pace he looked like he was wearing a CR Smith top and looking for a cross-field ping to Brian McLaughlin.