capt_oats

In truth I'm not actually sure he's known what his best XI has been. He's been trying to make his 433 work and just hasn't been happening. It's worth mentioning that in a general sense the disruption the LC group stages seem to have caused to pre-season has impacted on the fitness side of things, not just for Motherwell. If you bounce about other clubs forums there's been a recurring theme of fans commenting on the apparent lack of fitness of players.

Absolutely. However it depends what you're looking at. If you lump all the results together then it looks fine as that % obviously includes last season and league cup games so in the league he won 12 in 28 so 42.65%. This season though he's only 3 wins in 11 so 27% which is clearly less impressive. However in terms of points per game; PPG last season: 1.42 PPG this season: 1.09

41.30% according to Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_McGhee. (page updated on 29th October)

I'm slightly biased here since much like Al B, I'm a McGhee fan. I like him as a manager, I think he speaks well and over the piece feel he's done a decent job. Looking at it rationally I'd say in terms of his experience along with his current and past track record he's as good a manager as we're likely to attract right now. The fact that in recent weeks we've seen Cadden called up to the Scottish u21s along with Jack McMillan, Ross MacLean, Allan Campbell, Jake Hastie and David Ferguson all making appearances for the first team suggests he's on the right track regardless of the circumstances that got him there (as an example; would Cadden have got a shot if we'd signed Grimshaw?). As it stands McGhee has a win % of 40.29% in 134 games. Post-McLean the only two permanent managers with better win %s than him are McCall 41.95% in 174 games and Brown 46.67% in 45 matches (which, relatively, is such a small sample you can't really compare). Given McGhee took over a side that had finished 10th in the league the season prior and was parachuted in last season as things were going south then only someone who was particularly hard of thinking would suggest that his stats don't stand up well. FWIW, based solely on his current spell his win % is 41.30%. Put in a broader context Tommy Wright's win % at St Johnstone is 44.23%, Jim McIntyre 38.14%, Richie Foran 35.29%, Alan Archibald 35.03%, Paul Hartley 34.48%, Lee Clark 26.7%, Martin Canning 25.68% so he compares reasonably well against others in the league too. Neilson, McInnes, Warburton and Rodgers all have better win %s but given 2 of them had a season in the Championship added to the resources available it's understandable that their records will show up well. There are plenty of legitimate questions that can be levelled at McGhee and it can be easy for there to be a degree of snark. It'd be nice if he didn't do things like play Stevie Hammell at right back at Tynecastle but if it's the option of having a manager who has the occasional disaster and might rub some fans the wrong way but for the most part manages to navigate the side to anywhere between 3rd and 7th or a nice guy Bara-type manager then I'll go with the former. Questioning his team selections etc is all fair game he's a football manager after all and is to be expected but the moon howling, porridge dribbling, knee jerk #mcgheeout chat and latent seethe that greets a defeat on Facebook and Twitter is genuinely Brexit-level idiocy tbqh. As a few have said on the board recently if someone decides to stop going to games that's up to them, if they've stopped going to games because they've decided they "hate" the manager then it says far more about the individual in question than it does McGhee IMO. I get that people will try to rationalise their bias or prejudice by picking up on quotes, perceived mistakes or just a poor performance and result but it really is wearying. Managers leave clubs eventually it really doesn't need the villagers with pitchforks and flaming torches marching on Fir Park every time he says something that certain sections of the fanbase deign to be offended by. I'm generally not a fan of whataboutery but I do find the reactions to McGhee perplexing when stacked up against McCall, who, full disclosure: I didn't like and have never liked however I can't argue with the results he had at the club. For me, McCall's comments pre-LC against Sevco were worse than anything McGhee's ever said and been vilified for about Celtic; we were top of the league they were a new side in the 4th tier and he's banging on about how big a club they are and how we weren't favourites? Bitch please! The less said about the performance and result that night the better too. McCall oversaw some absolute capitulations home and away vs them and as Joeboy alludes to in another thread he spoke to another club about taking up a position and at various stages we put in some utterly dire performances (and not just in his ill-fated final few months), he made some absolutely brutal signings and youth development by and large stagnated during his time at the club yet broadly speaking the contrasting perceptions of the two couldn't be more marked. Ultimately McGhee's a manager who has his faults but then again in my 30 years of heading along to Fir Park so has every other manager the club has had.

Not a chance are we keeping a clean sheet but if Ainsworth, McDonald et al can pick up where they left off at the weekend I'd hope we'd be able to score ourselves. Agree with others, you'd hope that we'd go with the same set up as the weekend. The only mild concern is that we change things up to try and counter Dundee's 532. If we're looking to take heart from any performances against Dundee lately then the St Johnstone one is definitely the one to look at. They played their 442 and just kept the ball off them and ran out fairly comfortable winners.

This is definitely the case in my (work related) experience.

FWIW: The same fixture last season (match week 7) which followed a 1-0 win against Killie was 3545.

We're hardly lightning quick ourselves and given our recent performances against ICT i'm not exactly confident but watching ICT against Sevco the other week I thought their midfield just seemed slow and ponderous. Draper seemed to take forever to control the ball and in the event anyone came near him would just fall over looking for a free kick.

Genuinely no idea what to expect from this one. Our record against ICT at Fir Park was dismal last season, yet we won both away games. This season our two wins have come against sides we'd be expecting to beat (which is good), 2 of our 4 losses have been away from home at Ibrox and Parkhead, the former after a last minute winner. The other 2 losses were to sides expected to be around the top 4, as milo points out it took a howler from Samson to gift St Johnstone the 3 points and we shot ourselves in the foot to a degree against Hearts. Doesn't change the fact that we didn't take anything from them though. Even when it comes to the games we've drawn then in the case of the Thistle and County games we've managed to salvage a point away from home without playing particularly well. Which is all a bit happy-clappy, glass half full which isn't really my thing and it's not really intended that way. I just mean it as more of a general observation, they're games we've taken something from without playing well that there's a fair chance we'd have lost last season. Equally as ropy says we're still only 3 points off Dundee who are on a run of 5 losses in a row. Their form has gone off a cliff, ours is less so. Yet in terms of points there's not much between the sides. Even the injuries, departures plus the fact guys like McMillan and MacLean acquitted themselves well at Parkhead means that we don't have a particularly settled side or shape so it's not even clear how we're likely to set up. Does Hammell come straight back into the side, does MacLean keep his place? Do we go 442 or 433? Will we try and shoehorn Bowman, Moult and McDonald back into the side? If we actually turn up and play a side that has everyone playing in positions that suit and a shape they're familiar with then I'd hope we can win. With the run of games we've got coming up that'd be a great start. It's just all a bit up in the air at the moment when it comes to getting a handle on exactly where we stand. I'm not exactly confident but similarly I'm hardly looking at the fixture with the total fear either.

He's been there since the end of the transfer window: http://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2016/08/31/watt-signs-for-stranraer-on-loan/ Unless I'm being totally whooshed about something here.

They're surprisingly decent quality. I went with the medium and by all accounts matches their size guide. Shoulders and chest is fine though length wise it's maybe a wee bit short in comparison with a normal shirt. I'd normally have gone for a large but based on their sizing I'm glad I didn't as the v-neck on this one would probably have been halfway down my chest. Definitely happy with it. Still completely amazed Adidas haven't tried to shut them down though.

Mine arrived today btw.

On the point about Tait I think it just depends what you're looking for. From my point of view he's contributed to a fair number of goals, reads the game pretty well from that position and has an excellent delivery. It may well be the case that he's suspect in certain areas defensively but at the same time he's still clearly finding his feet at this level. There can be an element of confirmation bias at play I suppose, if there's the idea that say; "Tait doesn't block crosses", then it can be natural to notice and put more emphasis on the times he doesn't and overlook or explain away the times he does. He may not not do it as much as we'd like but he does block crosses and put in tackles in that position. As an example of him in a positive sense defensively our equaliser vs Thistle stemmed from his interception of a through ball in our box (it was also his cross we scored from). You could counter that with his poor header that led to Accies first goal but in his defence him dealing with the ball in the first place came from a terrible shout from another player who had a much better view of the game than Tait. Like any player we sign there will be positives and negatives to his game, if he was a new Zanetti or Maldini I doubt he'd be at Fir Park. There will absolutely be games he'll get roasted, equally though I'd say he seems to have enough about his game that could see him turn into a solid enough player, he's already chipped in with contributions for a number of our goals this season as it is. For what it's worth we've scored 11 goals in the league so far this season, 3 have come from crosses by Tait (Cadden vs St Johnstone, Moult vs Accies, McDonald vs Thistle), so just over a quarter. Small sample I'll grant you but still. Probably worth noting Moult's wrongly disallowed goal against Accies came from a ball by him too.

I understand the point about Ainsworth and I'll admit that I raised an eyebrow that he didn't get a run out but equally he was hooked at half time in the 7-0 and got the 2nd 45 in the 5-0 (where we conceded 3) as a counter I suppose you can point to his impact in the 2-1 win there last season. For all Hastie's 17 he's also a naturally left sided player Ainsworth's not (though in fairness neither is MacLean), he's also been in excellent form for the 20s playing wide left. Also with McMillan having been subbed off perhaps that used up one of the changes IDK. Ainsworth's contract's up at the end of the season, in the summer just there in order for him to have left one of two things would have had to have happened 1. we pay up part of his contract and reach a mutual agreement or 2. a club comes in and buys him off us. Ultimately it's difficult to see where Ainsworth fits in a McGhee side. That doesn't have to be a personal gripe between manager and player, it's just one of those things. He scored a superb goal against Killie but I think the general consensus has been that the wide 433 with 2 wingers didn't really work unless you drop McDonald and just go with either Bowman or Moult through the middle. Were we to stick to the same shape then at the moment would you drop Cadden or move him to play Ainsworth? The alternative is to take Lasley out and stick Cadden in the middle with Ainsworth wide right as we ended up against Thistle, that might work as on option in the future but McGhee's given him several chances tweaking the system to find a way to integrate him into the side. The brief flirtation with 4231 last season (vs Killie and ICT) seemed to be almost exclusively designed to give Lionel a platform. There's been enough chat about why doesn't McGhee give the younger guys who are playing well a shot. He gave a 17 year old who's been playing consistently well in that area of the park a run out and it's now "why didn't he throw Ainsworth on?".

As is mine.

Pearson sent off in Atlético de Kolkatas 1-1 draw with FC Goa. http://m.indiansuperleague.com/matchcentre/11783-atletico-de-kolkata-vs-fc-goa

That's more than fair. The ball's at most, 5 yards away from him. For him not to just deal with it is criminal.

Actually having watched the penalty incident back again it's occurred to me that it's something I've noticed fairly regularly this season with Samson in that he seems to get caught on his heels with back passes. He's often been slow to either read them and he's almost been caught out a few times with forwards closing him down. While it clearly wasn't a back pass yesterday and whether or not it's him or McManus that's at fault he's definitely caught out in terms of his starting position and seems slow to react. As I say without having been near the park to hear whether there was a shout or not it's difficult to say but you can go through almost every game this season and find similar instances that could have cost us. So the fact that it's a recurring theme and not just a one off should be enough to highlight that there's an issue there.

Again it's not the first time there's been a complete breakdown in communication between the defence and Samson. Neither of the possibilities look good. Either McManus has left it for the keeper not knowing his goalkeeper's position or Samson's given his defender (another) bad shout. Going purely on the highlights package the club posted I'd have to echo McGhee's post match comments on Samson too, penalty aside, though he did well the majority of those saves are ones you'd expect a keeper to make.

McMillan's actually a right back who can play left back. Am I correct in saying it's been Armstrong who's been left back for the 20s recently?

Maybe Cadden playing centrally with MacLean on the right with Clay on the left?

Both Hastie and MacLean have been in tremendous form for the 20s, definitely deserve their shot.

Can see us going 5 at the back or such. Chalmers being out probably limits McGhee's options to try out a tactical masterclass so I'd hope we'll just see players playing in their actual positions. Samson Tait Heneghan McManus Ferguson Hammell Cadden Lasley Clay McDonald Moult Fair play to anyone going along especially given how much of a shambles we've been at the back. Can't really see anything other than a comprehensive Celtic win tbh.

For what it's worth, here's another one from the programme vs St Johnstone game on 5th January 1991, which was (obviously) the Scottish Cup winning season. Highest by that point was 2-0 win vs Celtic - 17,652 Lowest 4-1 win vs Hibs - 4,121 On first look though beyond the 5 figure attendances at Celtic and Rangers games and one 8k+ game vs United you're looking at crowds between 4k - 7k. Aberdeen - 6,602 Dunfermline - 5,354 Dundee Utd - 8.117 Hearts - 6,780 St Johnstone - 5.069 St Mirren - 4,720 Interestingly there's a table there with other teams aggregates and averages too.

Here's a scan from the programme from the Dundee game 17th Feb 1990 so includes fixtures for Aug-December '89. You'll see much more of a variance in numbers than you do now. In terms of the league highest was 17,667 (vs Rangers) lowest was 4,463 vs Dundee while you had games against Aberdeen (6,491 & 7267) and Hearts (8,948 & 8,822). Worth noting that our attendances against both these sides last season were: 5,437 & 6,251 (Aberdeen) and 5,141 & 5,125 (Hearts). So in the case of Aberdeen it's down about 1k from the same fixtures 26 years ago, Hearts are down a fair bit more. The one that stands out and I think it's been mentioned before is the Dunfermline game on Weds 8th November which reports an attendance of 9,138 which is considerably more than games against Aberdeen, Hearts, Dundee United and Hibs. Also worth noting that a Tuesday night New Year game against St Mirren (02/01/1990) pulled 8,253. I think Desp is completely correct in pointing out the influence that travelling supports have on the averages. You're in a position where you're asking supporters of teams like Ross County and ICT, who have a small support anyway to pay £23 entry plus travel and associated costs. Again no disrespect to those clubs, they're in the league on merit etc but if we were playing against teams in the Central belt I'd be fairly sure that our averages would increase.