Ross County v Motherwell 03/08/20

[MP_MFC]

It was weird, it was a game that imo Motherwell dominated but done absolutely nothing with their vastly superior possession and barring the early save, Carson had nothing to do.

Robbo gets so much right but he got tonight's line up / formation so wrong.

I've no idea why Donnelly isn't just melting the ball for the penalty, do what you're good at man albeit Turnbull should have been taking it.

Long didn't convince me last year and done nothing tonight to make me think he'll be the long term answer up front for us, Seedforf was excellent when he came on, certainly a huge improvement on Hastie but that wouldn't be difficult.

Lang looked handy when he came on, looks like one of those players who doesn't actually know what he's going to do with the ball and therfore is a nightmare to play against but his red card was idiotic, just run through the man and its a yellow that you see 10 times a season, to tackle him knee high is always going to get a red.

[Derry Alli]

That penalty award to Motherwell was exceptionally soft so I am glad they missed it. 

I'd say Gallagher was lucky not to see red for his foul which gave County a penalty. Cracking tackle from Lang for his red. Superb.

[ropy]

Turnbull’s penalties weren’t impressive either, but he did take a run up

[ropy]

2 minutes ago, Mr. Alli said:

That penalty award to Motherwell was exceptionally soft so I am glad they missed it. 

I'd say Gallagher was lucky not to see red for his foul which gave County a penalty. Cracking tackle from Lang for his red. Superb.

Thought it was soft but on the replay the defender bumped him forward (which would have been extremely soft) then tugged his shirt back which is a penalty all day long although seldom seen.  I suspect the linesman saw it.

[Gianfranco]

I thought we were worth a point but if you miss the sitters Long, Lang and Donnelly from the penalty missed you can’t really complain. County were barely out their half in the second half.

Gallagher’s challenge for the penalty was daft and Carson’s save from Stewart was world class but pretty much the only thing he had to do.

I thought the red was slightly harsh. I expect we’ll get that reduced to a yellow depending on the wording in the referee’s report.

Seedorf was our man of the match by a mile. I didn’t expect to be typing that before kick off.

[ropy]

I doubt we will challenge the red, it’s a lottery

[thisGRAEME]

Turns out I was incorrect.

No further questions at this time.

[capt_oats]

As others have said that was a weird game. We were poor in part but you look at tactical decisions like sticking Turnbull out wide left for 45 mins and it's a massive foot shooting exercise. Colour me shocked that we took a grip of the game when we had players playing in their natural positions.

My main concern going into the game was how Carson and McGinley would get on. Both were fine IMO. Yay! for that.

The County penalty was a daft challenge as was Lang's red. The less said about Donnelly's pen the better.

That said the strip looks v. nice...so that's something.

[Busta Nut]

I am really quite shocked at the amount of folk who didn't think Lang deserved to red carded.

Hastie was utter dug shite.
Long missed another 1 on 1 sitter, misses a load of them. I doubt I will ever be fully convinced by him.
f**k knows why Turnbull was on the left wing. I mean really, f**k knows.
Polworth is like a man down 40% of the time, I like him but even in games where he is racking up set piece assists he can go missing in open play. If yer choosing it' David Turnbull everyday.
O'Hara shouldn't have went off at HT.
Stupid challenge from Gallagher, Donnelly should be shot for not hitting the target from 12 yards.


I really like Ross Stewart's big ugly awkwardness.

[thisGRAEME]

6 hours ago, Busta Nut said:

I am really quite shocked at the amount of folk who didn't think Lang deserved to red carded.

Hastie was utter dug shite.
Long missed another 1 on 1 sitter, misses a load of them. I doubt I will ever be fully convinced by him.
f**k knows why Turnbull was on the left wing. I mean really, f**k knows.
Polworth is like a man down 40% of the time, I like him but even in games where he is racking up set piece assists he can go missing in open play. If yer choosing it' David Turnbull everyday.
O'Hara shouldn't have went off at HT.
Stupid challenge from Gallagher, Donnelly should be shot for not hitting the target from 12 yards.


I really like Ross Stewart's big ugly awkwardness.

Agree with literally all of this. 

Sticking Turnbull on the wing to accommodate O'Hara and Donnelly is an absolute nonsense. 

[Antiochas III]

4 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

Agree with literally all of this. 

Sticking Turnbull on the wing to accommodate O'Hara and Donnelly is an absolute nonsense. 

It was to accommodate Polworth

Campbell on the bench was an absolute stupid decision.  

[RandomGuy.]

8 hours ago, Busta Nut said:

His only flaw

See usually you'd be right but yer talking baws here as Seedorf was pretty decent.
Hastie is shite though. Agree.

Tbf as soon as i said that he skelped in the cross that Lang shouldve scored from. Seemed to give him a wee boost.

[thisGRAEME]

1 hour ago, Antiochas III said:

It was to accommodate Polworth

Campbell on the bench was an absolute stupid decision.  

Fair enough, principle remains the same though. 

Only times we looked dangerous were with width through Seedorf or with Turnbull coming inside or in the obvious terms; when players were playing in their natural positions.

[Jacksgranda]

We're fair moving up the table...

[staggy1929]

what a stressful second half that was.  Ross Stewart was outstanding yet again and I can't see him being a county player for much longer I'm afraid.

Motherwell looked poor in the first half compared to what I was expecting, Hastie in particular looked like he'd never seen a football before. Seedorf actually seemed to cause Reid (who was very good) problems with his pace.

Paton was brilliant in the first half but seemed to slow down in the second before he was subbed. 

Motherwell should have probably equalised but credit to Laidlaw he made a great save to stop Lang's header before the latter had a heads gone and thought he was playing Tekken.

I have been saying that Charles-Cook is going to be a baller purely from looking at comments from Gillingham fans and the odd highlights video and he goes on to have the worst performance in top flight history, should have scored easily and it's robbed Midge of an unreal assist.

Still a great 3 points to start us off and hopefully another on Saturday!

[Pettigrew]

10 hours ago, capt_oats said:

As others have said that was a weird game. We were poor in part but you look at tactical decisions like sticking Turnbull out wide left for 45 mins and it's a massive foot shooting exercise. Colour me shocked that we took a grip of the game when we had players playing in their natural positions.

My main concern going into the game was how Carson and McGinley would get on. Both were fine IMO. Yay! for that.

The County penalty was a daft challenge as was Lang's red. The less said about Donnelly's pen the better.

That said the strip looks v. nice...so that's something.

Still not a fan of the white shorts but the top is immense.  Any sponsor chat?

Very early days, but slight shades of Rob McKinnon in McGinley last night I thought.  Equally, shades of Ally Graham (one for the teenagers there) in White...

[wastecoatwilly]

I get the impression Robinson didn't have a scooby what his best 11 was and it's gave him a sore heed thinking about it before the game.
Sometimes too many options can do that and he made a fecking mess of it,the staggies deserved to win the game.
Long was unlucky when he hit the post but so was Stewart when Carson saved onto the bar, decent game but motherwell still need 3 or 4 games to get up to speed.

[Casagolda]

10 hours ago, Busta Nut said:

Long missed another 1 on 1 sitter, misses a load of them. I doubt I will ever be fully convinced by him.

 

11 hours ago, MP_MFC said:

Long didn't convince me last year and done nothing tonight to make me think he'll be the long term answer up front for us, 

See I like Long but I kinda agree, the same flaws from last season were there to see again. He’s not a lone striker and never has been. 

He should really be the focal point of the attack but he’s not. He can’t play with his back to goal, doesn’t offer much at all in terms of link up play and he doesn’t even attack the ball when it’s put into the box.

At least when Lang and White came on, they gave us a bit more presence and were a bit more aggressive in terms of attacking the crosses that were being fired in. 

To be honest, I’d have hooked him for Watt or White long before Robinson did. 

[Luke92]

Where to begin

As soon as the line-up was released I don't think any of us could confidently say what system we were going to play. It feels like Robinson was trying to squeeze who he wanted to play into a team rather than going with our normal system and playing players in their correct positions.

Turnbull on the left is absolutely mental. He still managed to have some potentially game winning passes but for the most part this is when he drifted through the middle himself. I don't ever want to see DT on the side again, he is our best player play to his strengths please. Elsewhere in the midfield I thought Polworth and Donnelly were fairly shockng, ponderous on the ball and generally didn't do enough work. Hastie had another nightmare, looks like he is a bit one dimensional at the moment and trying a bit too hard to impress.

In defence, I thought Nathan McGinley was our best player by some distance, he looks physical, quick and can deliver a decent cross. Lamie looked decent at times as well. On the right hand side, the least said about Grimmy the better really. It was bad, I've reverted back to my pre-season opinion that we definitely do need a right back to atleast compete with him.

A bugbear from last season was Liam Polworth taking set pieces and last night it really tipped me over the edge. I sat and watched Polworth's corners all last season, they were on the whole shite. The success rate in which he manages to get a decent ball in is very low. It's pretty mental to me that you have David Turnbull on the park and you are letting someone else hit set pieces. DT on FKs and corners and get him or Long on penalties.

My biggest concern last night was sharpness/work rate. It looked like Ross County worked much harder than us and were much more match fit. Robinson behind closed doors will have been raging with that despite what he said on the post match interview.

[capt_oats]