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Dundee vs. Motherwell


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Motherwell are in good form currently with big wins over Aberdeen and Hearts, and despite their seeming up-and-down nature they find themselves not undeservedly in 5th. We meanwhile are needing to get some points quickly, and our form has similarly been pretty anomalous as of late. We've conceded 9 goals in our last 2 home games, and have not defeated Motherwell in the last 10 league meetings. I do reckon both teams are inconsistent enough to flip form, and hopefully our 3 weeks off have been put to good use tactically.

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After our pumping by Rangers a few weeks ago I think most ‘Well fans had earmarked this one as a high pressure game, and the one to hopefully pull us out a rut after (an expected) no wins in 6 following losses to Aberdeen and Hearts, and games against Utd, Hibs and Celtic coming up before Christmas.
As it turns out we’re actually after our 3rd win a row after dispatching the Dons and the JT’s and aiming to push towards the European places…very weird. That brings a different type of pressure though.
Hopefully we’ll have KVV, O’Hara and Ojala back to provide some more depth but it’d very harsh to drop anyone after our best performance of the season last weekend.
Not sure what to expect from the Dees after a few weeks off. Strong looking forward line but they’ve conceded the most in the league.
Shields to get on the scoresheet again in a narrow 1-2 win to keep the run going.

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I thought Dundee looked very decent until Adam went off at Fir Park and obviously we got beat at Dens in the cup - so my main concern here is that anyone thinks it's "only" Dundee after the last two wins.

I think we've scored in a stupidly high proportion of games under Alexander and so it often comes down to how well we defend - and based on the last two games, that part has been a lot better than was the case during our recent bad run.

We've got it in us to win this, no question - but I've got a nagging doubt. Looking forward to it in any case.

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1 hour ago, Swello said:

I thought Dundee looked very decent until Adam went off at Fir Park and obviously we got beat at Dens in the cup - so my main concern here is that anyone thinks it's "only" Dundee after the last two wins.

I think we've scored in a stupidly high proportion of games under Alexander and so it often comes down to how well we defend - and based on the last two games, that part has been a lot better than was the case during our recent bad run.

We've got it in us to win this, no question - but I've got a nagging doubt. Looking forward to it in any case.

Pretty much. I think the nagging doubt with me is that we're complacent or do something daft.

The game at Dens feels like a different scenario as rightly or wrongly it increasingly looks like we were using the League Cup as pre-season or an opportunity to give the "squad" a run out. It was the last time Lawless kicked a baw for us which says a lot about that line up.

On your point about our scoring record. In the league we've failed to score in 2 of our 14 games (Hearts at Tynecastle and Celtic at FP) and it's a trend that's borne out over Alexander's tenure so far. In his 40 games we've scored in 33 of them (82.5%).

Even the recent bad run feels like a part of it was a quirk of how the fixtures have fallen. Like, of the 5 without a win 4 were against the current top 4 and we were 2-1 up against St Mirren until Madden decided to get involved. So, of the 5 league games we've lost 4 have been against the current top 4 and the other was against Hibs on the opening day (3 at home Hibs, Celtic and Rangers, 2 away Hearts and United).

That's not to dive into this thread like we're all that but it's more that we seems to have had blocks of games that's led to us looking inconsistent. As I said in our thread, I don't actually think there was that much difference between the United, St Mirren and Aberdeen games other than the results.

Battering Hearts in the way we did on Saturday though, that was definitely an entirely different performance.

Having said all that I wouldn't be surprised if Dundee won here. Nagging doubt indeed.

Edited by capt_oats
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I think the hope for Dundee fans (and indeed McPake) is that Griffiths looks a bit more like his normal self. We've seen it in very limited flashes and with Charlie Adam on the pitch, if he makes the runs, he'll get the chances. We bounced back well after the Ross County mauling dispatching of St Mirren with relative comfort having dropped Griffiths to undergo a mini pre-season. I've said many times that I think the 2 games against Motherwell was the worst I've seen from top flight opposition this season even though Motherwell won the second time round.  The run you're on flies in the face of what I witnessed so hard to wrap my head around the turnaround they've been on.

If we're not confident in picking up points in home games against teams outwith Celtic & Rangers then there's little point in us being in this league. It really is the wrong time to be playing Motherwell though and this is another one that has the potential to get really extremely poisonous very quickly if we make a slow start. The knives are being sharpened for McPake even in the stadium. He was allowed to have the Celtic defeat after saving some grace with the St Mirren win but this is really a pressure game for us.

Our defensive woes are considerably worse than when Motherwell faced us last time round as without Shaun Byrne we've zero protection for what is two very limited CH's. If you have someone that can run at them (or indeed any of our back line) then you will probably get a lot of joy.

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44 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

I think the hope for Dundee fans (and indeed McPake) is that Griffiths looks a bit more like his normal self. We've seen it in very limited flashes and with Charlie Adam on the pitch, if he makes the runs, he'll get the chances. We bounced back well after the Ross County mauling dispatching of St Mirren with relative comfort having dropped Griffiths to undergo a mini pre-season. I've said many times that I think the 2 games against Motherwell was the worst I've seen from top flight opposition this season even though Motherwell won the second time round.  The run you're on flies in the face of what I witnessed so hard to wrap my head around the turnaround they've been on.

If we're not confident in picking up points in home games against teams outwith Celtic & Rangers then there's little point in us being in this league. It really is the wrong time to be playing Motherwell though and this is another one that has the potential to get really extremely poisonous very quickly if we make a slow start. The knives are being sharpened for McPake even in the stadium. He was allowed to have the Celtic defeat after saving some grace with the St Mirren win but this is really a pressure game for us.

Our defensive woes are considerably worse than when Motherwell faced us last time round as without Shaun Byrne we've zero protection for what is two very limited CH's. If you have someone that can run at them (or indeed any of our back line) then you will probably get a lot of joy.

You don't need to worry too much about a slow start. We've not scored a first half league goal away from home all season. :lol:

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22 minutes ago, Mr. Alli said:

Does Mark o'Haha still get a game for you lot? 

Aye. Sort of.

He's played a fair bit but midfield's been an issue for us this season. Arguably the Hearts game on Saturday was the first time it's looked vaguely functional and I don't think there would be any argument that it was one of our best performances of the season. That was with Slattery, Maguire and Goss as the midfield 3. O'Hara wasn't in the squad (not that the two things are linked we've won our fair share with him starting and playing the 90).

I'm not sure whether that performance and the boy we're signing from Bohemians will have a knock on in terms of how much O'Hara plays. If that makes sense?

He started the season with an injury so missed most of pre-season but pretty much went straight into the team when he was fit.

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Edited by capt_oats
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