capt_oats

Not u20s but that's 2 Motherwell affiliated players in the Scotland u16 squad; Adam Kettings & Jamie Semple https://twitter.com/ScottishFA/status/831922613148610560

It was the cup game against Thistle at Firhill.

Given our record against the top 4 sides this season I can't really beyond a home win. I'm no fan of Moult playing as a lone striker but without McDonald and the experiment with Ainsworth as a second striker hardly a stunning success I wouldn't be surprised if that's what we went with. Samson Tait Heneghan McManus Hammell Cadden Lucas Lasley Pearson Frear Moult Subs: Bowman, Griffiths, Ainsworth, Jules, Campbell, McMillan, Clay

I've seen him play there a couple of times and he's done OK. He's clearly not a right back and I'd say he's been playing there out of necessity and a way to give him minutes rather than as any sort of long term "project". Watt's out injured and they've had a couple of first team players drop down for a game in the middle of the park recently; Lucas a couple of weeks ago, Pearson against Killie and McHugh last night. I'm not sure if Fry's played RB in all those games but he did reasonably well considering.

Only managed along for the first 60 or so minutes as I was playing 7s over at Toryglen but saw the first two goals. Fairly inexplicable shove on Blyth and a tidy, composed finish from Turnbull. Thought Gordon did OK he kind of reminded me of Cadden, looks a strong runner and seems a lot more physical than I was expecting. Looked awkward on the right side of midfield, it wasn't a surprise to hear Craigan say post-match that he's more a central player. Took his goal well going by the highlights though. Difficult to judge Blyth given how long he's been out for. He did a few things well, held the ball up and it was a good penalty but for someone his size you kind of expect him to dominate centre halfs a bit more and show a bit more presence. The 60 mins or so that I saw was a weird game they were doing OK but didnt really looked as fluid as I've seen them before it's a credit to him that even with McHugh coming in they looked like they really missed Allan Campbell in midfield to keep the ball moving.

McHugh and Blyth both start tonight. Motherwell U20s: Pain, Fry, Livingstone, Armstrong, Maguire, McHugh, Blyth, Turnbull, Mackin, Hastie, Gordon Motherwell U20s: Pettigrew, Scott, Agyemang, Semple, McDonald

Speaking of Ross Forbes, that was quite the performance from him yesterday. Oh my!

Avg attendance 2006/07 - 5877 (finished 10th under Malpas) Avg attendance 2011/12 - 5946 (finished 3rd under McCall) The 2011/12 season was before Rangers went under as well so there's not even an argument that them not being in the league had a knock on effect on attendances. So basically a season that saw a 3rd place finish resulted in an average figure of 69 more people through the gate than a season with one of the worst managers I've seen at Fir Park in charge. Puts things into a bit of context tbh.

Aye, having just read the spiel on the WS I'll bump up my DD off the back of this as well.

In fairness to Laing that Notts County side were/are an absolute shambles. They've since sacked Sheridan (who took over from Robinson at Oldham), replaced him with Kevin Nolan and there's a takeover gone through as well. There was probably more at play than just him not being very good, I think their entire team was pretty awful. Curiously he seemed to have been shunted out to right back for a spell down there as well. Having read some of the comments from their fans there seemed to be a disbelief that he was the same player that had been there on loan the first time round. I don't know if it was mentioned on this thread or not, indeed I'm not sure whether or not McGhee's just being evasive or deflective with the player having left but this interview is really quite revealing: "He looks like a centre half but is not a centre half. He is not a great defender or header of the ball. But technically he has a lot of ability at his feet and he's a great athlete." http://www.motherwelltimes.co.uk/sport/football/motherwell-fc/louis-laing-s-away-to-forge-a-career-in-midfield-1-4356450

Nah he was subbed off for Bowman towards the end of the Sevco game. He'd have 6 assists if Moult's first header hadn't been incorrectly ruled offside in the Accies game as well. I'm telling you stuff you already know here but I'm in complete agreement, he's an absolutely huge part of our play going forward. The diagonal balls he stands up to the back post are consistent and one of our most productive attacking outlets.

Forest Green Rovers, who we signed Frear from, have their new 5000 capacity stadium plans here (made of wood apparently). Pretty much exactly the same as Pollok IMO. https://www.forestgreenroversfc.com/news/first-team-news/2016/winning-stadium-design-announced http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/18/football/forest-green-rovers-worlds-first-wooden-stadium/

^^^ Pretty much this. Caveating with the point "if we stay up" then..."if we stay up" McGhee's 2nd stint has seen him come in at a point we were on a downward spiral and finish 5th in his first season back, we're sitting 6th at the moment. If Alan Burrows' comments on the "Project Brave" edition of the MFC podcast are anything to go by we've got cash in the bank and there are no financial gaps to plug until at least the end of next season so given McGhee was having to offload Baraclough's dead wood in the last January window his tenure thus far has brought a bit of stability back to the club off the park as well. Which is something considering where we were in McCall's last days and the Baraclough period. While there's been a lack of consistency on the park this season we seem to have slowly getting a bit of stability back off it and I think the infrastructure of the club, of which McGhee's a part of, is significant to that. The Johnson sale (combined) was, going by Flow's tweet, the highest income from a transfer since 2009 https://twitter.com/Alan_Burrows/status/806872501854867456 so that's decent and beyond that Cadden's come through, Hall broke into the side and players like MacLean, McMillan Campbell, Hastie and Turnbull are all signed up. Again whether or not Cadden would have got his chance had we signed Grimshaw who knows, either way he's a fixture in the team now and with Craigan & Lasley doing well with the u20s there seems a clear pathway from that level to first team and an experienced manager heading the coaching staff up. We were haemorrhaging money under McCall & Baraclough; - 2011/12: -£600,000 - 2012/13: -£184,500 - 2013/14: -£184,854 - 2014/15: -£1,150,000 - 2015/16: -£412,500 So it's clear why a restructure of budget was necessary during the Summer and fair play to McGhee, he's gone along with it. By and large he absolutely hammered it in the press to talk Johnson up and try to get a decent bit of money for him. I've no doubt we'll see the same happen regarding Moult between now and the summer. Indeed, it's already happening going by McGhee's interviews since the window shut. Ultimately it depends on what McGhee's remit/objectives are: - work to an established budget - keep us in the league - develop and play young players - develop and promote "sellable assets" For me he's doing all that. Yes, I'd very much like to see us hand Rangers their arse on a plate every season but overall he's ticking most of the boxes you'd want him to. For all we've been inconsistent we've also seen a 4-2 win against Accies, 4-1 against Ross County and had a couple of decent results up in the highlands. Yes we've struggled against the top 4 sides but on the flip of that 3-0 against ICT and 2-0 against Dundee aside our record against those from 5th down around us is pretty passable. I've said before that while he has the BT gig Craigan would have to be mental to want to take a first team management job, he's got a pretty decent situation going with the telly work and is demonstrably doing a good job with the u20s. Going by his interviews McFadden would still rather be playing than having an assistant's role so forcing him into the manager's job just because he's Faddy seems a bit unfair. So by extension you have to ask who'd replace McGhee. The idea that Stubbs, John Hughes or any of the usual names that are bandied about would be markedly better than McGhee given the resources available seems a bit optimistic. Also, the idea that people who lose their mind about McGhee talking about Celtic would welcome with someone like John Hughes with open arms, a manager who whilst at ICT waxed lyrical about how proud he was to see Ryan Christie pull on the Hoops, is pretty hilarious. Edit: Just so we're clear about those Hughes comments: "I was thrilled to see Ryan come on for Celtic on Saturday. I take great pride in seeing him wear the Hoops." "That was just his second appearance for Celtic at Parkhead and it brought a smile to my face. Hopefully, after starting for Celtic it won't be long before he's in the full Scotland squad. You must have high aspirations and he will have at Celtic." http://www.highland-news.co.uk/Sport/Football/Inverness-Caley-Thistle/Inverness-CT-boss-John-Hughes-tips-Celtics-Ryan-Christie-for-Scotland-call-24022016.htm

Oh, they're absolutely missing the point. There's no doubt about that! In the case of a couple of the sports media pieces, wilfully so.

For what it's worth I think the club (presumably Flow) deserves a bit of credit for, again, standing up for themselves & fighting their corner on this one. Looking at some of the responses from fans of other clubs it's not been a particularly popular step i.e.: "it was a nailed on, obvious red card, how very dare Motherwell complain". With that in mind they definitely deserve a bit of acknowledgement for putting forward a coherent and, in my opinion, rational argument that sets out their case and highlights the very obvious inconsistencies with the application of this rule.

I'd agree with that. I'm genuinely not a fan of whataboutery but I'd be really interested to hear how the Head of Refereeing Operations would differentiate between McHugh & McDonald's tackles and that 2nd one to justify the latter being a yellow card offence compared to the Motherwell players red cards.

Was just watching the QotS v Morton highlights there. Higgins the QotS #6 challenge on Gary Oliver btw...clean through the back of him, nowhere near the ball the Morton boy is subbed off and it's a yellow card from Bobby Madden. Incident here: https://youtu.be/V7iCSa6csFE?t=3m38s Presumably because he doesn't exactly fly in it's not viewed as "excessive force"? This one's even worse!!! https://youtu.be/V7iCSa6csFE?t=7m7s (cracking ball in from Dom Thomas for Queens opener incidentally)

This is quite interesting (well, not really interesting) but still... https://www.statbunker.com/competitions/ClubBookings?comp_id=566 Motherwell have the joint lowest number of yellow cards issued this season alongside Celtic. It kind of puts those 3 straight red cards into a much sharper focus.

Thought it was a sensible statement from the club in so much as they're lodging their objection and making it known to the fanbase without wasting time and money appealing on something they know from recent experience won't be overturned. The fact they've indicated that they've requested and are getting time with the Head of Refereeing Operations means that this serves a bit of a broader purpose than a "it's not fair" whinge and moan. It also ties in quite well with McDonald's assertion on Sportsound that the players hadn't been advised on any change in approach from the referee's point of view. I'm interested to see what sort of groundwork this is laying though, the point about the rule being consistently applied is something that would benefit the whole of Scottish football however is Motherwell making this case going to facilitate that? If Willie Collum's in the same situation in another fixture will he send a Rangers player making a similar challenge to Rob Kiernan's off and reduce them to 9 men with 80 mins still to play? I'd be surprised if that happened. Is it likely that the club initiating a meeting and opening a dialogue with the SFA/refereeing body is likely to be helpful for any future appeal? I suppose if nothing else it'd save further waste of time, money and resources. Ultimately we know why some decisions are given and some aren't, it's down to inconsistency with refereeing. Chances are that if the club show the Head of Refereeing Operations examples of red card offences that have only been given yellow cards then all that can be said is "the referee has made a mistake there, it should have been a red card." that can't be appealed retrospectively and a result will still stand, regardless of the fact we won ICT should have been down to 10 after Cole's challenge but weren't, Rangers should have been down to 9 vs 11 but weren't, Bob Malcolm was able to stamp on Said Chiba's head and stay on the park to score a winning goal. After the fact it can be pointed out that a ref got a decision wrong, fair enough, but that mistake still has an effect on the potential outcome of a game. I'm genuinely curious as to where the argument goes if there's no real distinction between examples of tackles using "excessive force" and, as I'd suspect is the case, the difference between yellow and red card awards is simply subjective and/or down to an individual referee's interpretation. I think it was steelboy who said in the Hearts thread that it seemed to be the case that the point of this is to make it more difficult to appeal and overturn refereeing decisions, for me there's definitely something in that.

They still exist, they're just unlisted for some reason.

Here are the highlights from Alloa's game at the weekend. Tidy finish from Mackin. and the highlights from East Fife's game with Watt at right back

I know this is the 'McGhee Out' thread but since there's a bit of chat about Bowman I thought I'd just stick this point in here. I'm in complete agreement with Desp re: him seeming like a longer term replacement for Moult etc however one thing that I do find quite odd is that we've not given him a run of games in the u20s. Blyth's popped up a couple of times, presumably to try and get him some sort of fitness but it seems curious that Bowman's not had a run out there to give him some minutes and at least try to get him in the habit of getting some goals which he's managed to do at his previous clubs; 23 in 54 games wasn't a bad return for Gateshead or 18 in 44 for Torquay. I get that Mackin's been in really good form for the 20s this season but Bowman just seems to have been in a weird sort of limbo. There's no chance he's going to start ahead of Moult and McDonald given their form and goals so the only level that you'd think he'd be able to get game time is with the 20s, where Mackin, Hastie and Falconer have also been in form and showing signs of development. Who knows, with Mackin being out on loan maybe Bowman may be able to drop down and get some minutes. Without wanting to veer into cliche I'd have thought that confidence would be a big part of a striker's make-up and I can't really see that being sat on the bench and chucked on with 15 minutes to go if we're chasing a game is conducive to a player being able to make an impact if he's had zero game time outwith training.

A key point here is that the rule itself hasn't actually changed, there's been no amendment. It's still worded in exactly the same way as it was before. What does appear to have altered is how referees are being asked to interpret the rule. As such you have a scenario now where a contentious challenge that in December may have got away with a yellow card (for arguments sake Lucas against Killie or ICT's Cole on Lucas) is now apparently being strictly punished. I'm speculating here but when you hear that the SFA have had referees away on a sojourn in January then all of a sudden they come back and there's a spate of "controversial" incidents that are quite similar then it becomes difficult not to start to join the dots. There are echoes of the summer where refs were issued with guidance on shirt tugs and "grappling" and Bobby Madden races straight out the blocks and gives St Johnstone 2 of 3 pens inside 40 minutes in their league cup group game against Falkirk for that specific infringement. While I'd acknowledge that McDonald's clearly going to give a personally biased account, what was telling from his bit on the radio last night was the implication that both he and Alan Burrows only found that there had been a shift in emphasis in terms of referees interpretation of the rule when they were actually in front of the appeal panel.

It's easy to start getting precious about it and indulge in whataboutery or lame conspiracy theories but ultimately it just comes down to inconsistencies from referees and that will continue regardless such is the nature of the game. Lucas could easily have been sent off against Killie when he flew into a tackle, but he only received a yellow card so it's not as if Motherwell haven't benefitted from lenient refereeing this season while Lasley's made a career from making tackles like that. What McDonald's explanation illustrates is why there's no chance of winning an appeal on that sort of challenge as "winning the ball" is, putting it bluntly, irrelevant when it comes to the disciplinary panel. How the referee interprets the challenge is a completely different matter. We had gone 28 fixtures without a straight red being shown in any of our games, yet that's now 3 in 4 league games. Something that Charlie Richmond highlighted on the radio was that the certain selected referees had been away on their annual winter "training camp" in La Manga recently http://www.scottishfa.co.uk/scottish_fa_news.cfm?page=1962&newsCategoryID=2&newsID=16731 it looks to me that this is an area they've been instructed on and have come back and are enthusiastically implementing and enforcing what they've learned. Equally it's surely not a coincidence that 2 of the 3 reds have come in higher profile, live TV games post-winter break. As McDonald said, you could go through every game over the weekend and find tackles and challenges that would tick every box in terms of "excessive force" and "endangering the opponent" that wouldn't even have had a foul given for them. A player will, more than likely, instinctively go to win the ball McDonald highlighted himself that he had to change his thought process in-game against County following his experience with the panel. I pointed to Gary Harkins discussion on Twitter with Michael Stewart and Steven Thompson yesterday https://twitter.com/garyharkins1985/status/828308039119810560 and he's adamant that McHugh's challenge was never a red card, I'm sure many other pros feel exactly the same so it's not just MFC players who aren't aware of a change of emphasis. In that respect there's a complete disconnect between how players are expecting the games to be refereed and how refs are actually handling the fixtures.

Was listening to Skippy & Derek Ferguson on the radio on the way in to 5s. Genuinely a really interesting listen, thought Charlie Richmond was good too. The whole thing should be up on Sportsound's podcast later this evening.