Motherwell v Hearts - LC2 - Friday 16th August

[MJC 91]

And so the next round of the League Cup sees us inevitably paired with a Premiership side.

I don't see us progressing sadly, as we have neither the goals nor the defence to get through this one, but I don't think Hearts are up to much defensively either, so I suspect this one might go all the way to penalties, which we will inevitably lose. I expect Donnelly to be our main goal threat again, and Steven Naismith to run us ragged as he always does.

2-2, enough to give our more optimistic fans something to be positive about, (a good spectacle for the neutral, but unlucky bla, bla, bla) then Hearts win on penalties.

[Darren 945]

Hearts are complete shit. Home win.

[welldaft 363]

In all honesty we don’t know whether we are as shit. 

2 performances in and I am not sure what season lies ahead. 

Hearts have on paper a stronger squad and playing away under floodlights at Fir Park May suit them. 

How likely is that Naismith will start after being taken off as a precaution yesterday ? I hope the answer is unlikely. 

Anyway heading along and hoping we can kick start our season.

[Gianfranco 788]

There’s just something about Fir Park under the floodlights. I’m backing the wingers to come good. 3-1 Motherwell with Naismith scoring for the tarts.

[well fan for life 1,745]

Still fucking raging this is the TV game and it clashes with The Cure. 

[Archie McSquackle 134]

Still fucking raging this is the TV game and it clashes with The Cure. 

Yip, I'll be at The Cure that night and I know quite a few others going that would normally go to the game. As for our wingers potentially coming good, we'll need to hope the ref doesn't bother getting the teams back out for the second half.

[Desp 2,387]

Carson

Gallagher Hartley Dunne

Grimshaw Donnelly Campbell Polworth Tait

Long  Scott

 

4-0 Motherwell. 

[NJ2 3,587]

New goalie to play and be fucking class, is my main hope.
Pretty confident we’ll win 2-1. Pretty confident I’ll win the lottery soon as well. Pretty confident Brexit is actually going to be fine. You can see what I’m doing here now, right?

[Casagolda 1,248]

On 12/08/2019 at 12:30, Desp said:

Carson

Is there a genuine desire to see Gillespie dropped for Carson? 

It’s something I’ve seen a fair few folk mention since the weekend and was curious if it was a commonly held opinion.  

For me, I think 17/18 Carson shades it over Gillespie. However, the latter has barely put a foot wrong since replacing Carson and I’m not sure where the sudden desire to see him dropped has come from. 

[welldaft 363]

1 hour ago, Casagolda said:

Is there a genuine desire to see Gillespie dropped for Carson? 

It’s something I’ve seen a fair few folk mention since the weekend and was curious if it was a commonly held opinion.  

For me, I think 17/18 Carson shades it over Gillespie. However, the latter has barely put a foot wrong since replacing Carson and I’m not sure where the sudden desire to see him dropped has come from. 

It has come from him having a poor game by his standards on Saturday...that is all. 

For me unless Carson is fully fit and showing in training he can get back to where he was pre his blood clot scare then this is not the game to be experimenting and I expect Gillespie will start. 

That plus we don’t know what is going on in the background. Is Carson looking to exit before transfer window shuts. Can we afford the luxury of having 2 1st team goalkeepers. If he is moving towards the exit then he will not play. 

All in all a shame how it worked out for Trevor. Denied a move to Celtic because of their usual low ball transfer tactics. Maybe they could have done with him last night. Karma !!!

 

Edited August 14 by welldaft

[Swello 4,234]

1 hour ago, Casagolda said:

Is there a genuine desire to see Gillespie dropped for Carson?

No-one outside of our training knows what state Trevor is in - but to throw someone that's been out for as long as he has been into a one-off cup tie as a reaction to the most consistent player in our team having a mild off-day would be fucking lunacy. I'm not talking normal lunacy here - I'm talking dropping Louis Moult for the cup tie against ICT lunacy, playing Danny Johnson as lone striker against County lunacy - maybe even approaching McCall's team against Albion Rovers  levels of Lunacy. Not happening.

[YassinMoutaouakil 4,264]

4 hours ago, Swello said:

No-one outside of our training knows what state Trevor is in - but to throw someone that's been out for as long as he has been into a one-off cup tie as a reaction to the most consistent player in our team having a mild off-day would be fucking lunacy. I'm not talking normal lunacy here - I'm talking dropping Louis Moult for the cup tie against ICT lunacy, playing Danny Johnson as lone striker against County lunacy - maybe even approaching McCall's team against Albion Rovers  levels of Lunacy. Not happening.

Was that the McDonald/ Ainsworth strike duo debacle?

[capt_oats 3,417]

1 hour ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Was that the McDonald/ Ainsworth strike duo debacle?

Was it not McDonald playing as a lone striker in a 4231?

Here it is.

 

Edited August 14 by capt_oats

[MFC97 7]

Would change the team up a bit for this one tbh with Dunne making way due to the errors he has made recently and a few changes at the top end of the park too.

                                            Gillespie

               Grimshaw     Gallagher     Maguire     Tait

                      Polworth     Donnelly     Campbell

                      Cole              Scott        Hylton

 

Is the side I would go with , then Seedorf to come on near the end as he cant last the full match. Carroll again is going to be a big miss as for me I don't feel Tait is particularly great on the left hand side. However im going to go 3-1 to Motherwell. With Cole getting his first goal in a well jersey...

[capt_oats 3,417]

I'm definitely on the Hylton/Seedorf as 'impact' players until they're up to speed bus.

Tbh, with the players we've got who "know" the league/expectations then reverting to the 352 @Desp alluded to makes sense (though Gillespie starts IMO).

That said I see Robinson sticking with the 433 and looking to make it work. I wouldn't be surprised if the wingers were dropped and we tried something a bit different with the front 3 though:

Gillespie
Grimshaw Gallagher Dunne Tait
Campbell Donnelly Polworth
Semple
Cole Scott

I'll be at The Twilight Sad/Mogwai/The Cure as well so no fitba' for me...

[YassinMoutaouakil 4,264]

1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

Was it not McDonald playing as a lone striker in a 4231?

Here it is.

 

Aye probably tbh. I'm sure I definitely remember Ainsworth playing centrally either in a two or just off McDonald another time and it going equally badly. At home to Hearts maybe?

[capt_oats 3,417]

11 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Aye probably tbh. I'm sure I definitely remember Ainsworth playing centrally either in a two or just off McDonald another time and it going equally badly. At home to Hearts maybe?

Aye, I'm pretty sure it was on the telly and McGhee made a big play pre-match about playing Ainsworth centrally as he was too good a player to have just sitting on the fringes of the squad so we needed to find a way to get him into the starting line-up.

It didn't go well.

[YassinMoutaouakil 4,264]

19 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Aye, I'm pretty sure it was on the telly and McGhee made a big play pre-match about playing Ainsworth centrally as he was too good a player to have just sitting on the fringes of the squad so we needed to find a way to get him into the starting line-up.

It didn't go well.

Back to the Inverness thing, McGhee is obviously a deeply, deeply bizzare man but his mental adulation for John Hughes and insistence that we had to park the bus to have any chance against his Inverness side was one of the weirdest things from his second spell.

[Swello 4,234]

29 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Back to the Inverness thing, McGhee is obviously a deeply, deeply bizzare man but his mental adulation for John Hughes and insistence that we had to park the bus to have any chance against his Inverness side was one of the weirdest things from his second spell.

Exactly! - he treated Hughes' Inverness like they were some world beaters who played a sophisticated brand of football that we couldn't cope with. They were like 1 place above us in the league 😂

[YassinMoutaouakil 4,264]

To make it worse we ended up finishing 5th- two places above them 

I actually think we could have won the cup that year if McGhee wasn't a lunatic. We were the form team in the country from about February to April before patching the post split games, and the run of teams we would have had - Stubby's Hibs, Mixu's United and the Magic Hat's Rangers were all very beatable.

Oh well.