MJC

Not confident atall for this one. 0-3 Hearts

I know, and whatever my views I reckon you’d see us or any other club do the same for any non-Old Firm club should they reach a major European final again. But a pre-match announcement for three players, two of whom playing against us for their part in a match which secured Scotland a playoff place? That’s right, a playoff place, not qualification for the World Cup. Nah, not for me. What happens if we do a nice wee pre-match acknowledgment of the Scotland three then O’Donnell reverts to his Motherwell type form, Gordon plays a blinder, saves a penalty and Souttar scores the winner? It would generate a lot of likes on social media mind you, once again showing what a smashing wee club we are so the social media dept would enjoy it. Probably make a video of it for Twitter.

Whit???? Why don’t we just get the rest of the players from both sides to form a guard of honour for the three of them as they walk on to the park separately while we’re at it?

Not a former player but a former manager….Tommy McLean. We have named the South Stand after him.

Close one… Went for van Veen for two very well taken goals. That is just what we need from our No.9 striker and it shows that if you give him the proper service he is capable of delivering. Kelly was a close second though for his ridiculous double save from point blank range.

Well that was as brilliant a result as it was unexpected. The least said about the first half the better but in the second half we actually looked like a team that could compete and two very well taken goals by the big man. We always seem to get big results against Aberdeen when we need them, that has been a bit of a trademark of ours over the past few years. As ever get it RIGHT up Aberdeen, their dour pussed followers and their army of cheerleaders on Radio Scotland. I’m away to pour a G&T and listen to Richard Gordon’s crestfallen dulcet tones.

Beautiful finish from KvV. Now don’t sit on our own 18 yard line for the remainder of the half!!

McGinley must have something on Alexander to be starting every single week.

I’d like to think that by “defending better” GA means actually competing in the middle of the park and not standing off wide players allowing them to rain cross after cross into our box which we have proved time and again that we aren’t capable of defending. But I won’t hold my breath sadly.

O’Donnell being out gives me confidence. 1-1 with Watt on the scoresheet again.

I can completely understand why Zander Clark has been picked over Liam Kelly, going by both their recent form. O’Donnell has been dismal for us but looks a different player in a Scotland jersey. And, most importantly, Tony Watt isn’t selected

Agree with the above post, I think there is a lot of apathy within the fan base just now and it’s been growing during the last five or six years. In my view there is too many within the club that are within a comfort zone, on and off the park. It seems like we are putting more and more emphasis on the social media side of the club rather than the most important area of the club - the field of play. Result of that is that our recruitment is poor, our youth development isn’t producing and we see certain players merely going through the motions because they know they won’t be dropped, but at the same time they clearly don’t give a fuck about the club. And yet that appears to be tolerated. I’ve seen it argued many times that what happens in the boardroom doesn’t have an effect on the manager and the players but I disagree with that. If players, coaches and managers are working for a club where it is deemed acceptable to simply avoid relegation without entertaining the fans with good football or cup runs because “we’re just a wee club” then it is no surprise that they drop their guard and their effort. Like I said, our problems run far deeper than the man sitting in the dugout.

That reminds me of the Malpas season when he was telling everyone about the Irish trio of Danny Murphy, Paul Keegan and Trevor Molloy who were joining in the January and they were going to save our season. Come to think of it Alexander is about as inspiring to listen to as Malpas was.

Has any of the reaction been genuinely ‘hysterical’? We’re on a bad run, lost four out of our last five and our only point in that time came in a game we threw away a 2-0 lead in. Add to that the football is absolutely turgid and the manager seems unwilling to change anything. I think the reaction has been perfectly understandable. We could of course all just spout the clichéd party lines that would make certain people in the club and the media dept very proud. “I remember worse times as a Well fan. This is what following a wee provincial team is all about, people need to remember we were in the 1st division in the 1980s and in administration twenty years ago and we’re punching above our weight. If you don’t like it away and support the Old Firm, I’m staying a Motherwell fan and proud to be. Can’t wait til January when we make more signings and welcome a few more English lower league players to our great wee club. Proudly riding the Motherwell rollercoaster as ever”

I know the point has been made that you don’t get any bonus points for beating the Old Firm and that’s obviously true. But for a club that doesn’t win trophies, big results against Celtic and/or Rangers are something that was always looked back upon and remembered fondly by Motherwell fans. Why do we still refer to winning a dead rubber 16 years ago as ‘Skippy Sunday’? Why do we sing about walking down the “Copland Road and hearing a mighty clamour”? Or Jamie Dolan day? Or winning a relegation playoff at the end of one of our worst ever seasons? Getting wins over the Old Firm are special to our fans, yet nowadays we barely give them a game of it and it’s pathetic. To think we have supporters in their late teens, early twenties who have never seen us beat Rangers in the league. It’s mental.

Except it happens to us many times, at Fir Park or Ibrox/Parkhead. Our record against the Old Firm is absolutely disgusting. No league win against Rangers for almost nineteen years, no win against Celtic for almost six and we’ve lost our last nine straight meetings with them. And outright hammerings against both of them are becoming more and more common. We lost 6-1 today, 5-1 last season v. Rangers and 3-0 and 4-1 v Celtic in 20/21. The season before that we lost 5-2 and 4-0 against Celtic and in 18/19 we lost 7-1 and 3-0 against Rangers. We are more often than not beaten before a ball is kicked against them nowadays and it is mostly just shrugged off by the club and support with “ah well, big teams, big budgets, oor wee club can’t compete, bring on the diddy teams”. When you think back to the good old 1990s when we used to fancy ourselves against them both and very often got results. Nowadays we’re lucky to just lose by three.

We have issues that run beyond the manager, I’ve said that before and I’ll say it again. I don’t care how many times we ‘overhaul’ our recruitment team, we are still incapable of making signings that make a difference. That said Alexanders pig headed stubbornness when it comes to line ups and tactics is doing him no favours whatsoever.

Alex Neil has a fair bit of pedigree, there’s no way we could afford him. Pointless discussion anyway as GA is going nowhere anytime soon.

Six ffs

Someone said it further up the thread, we are absolutely awful to watch. Perhaps that’s one of the hardest things to take especially when we are ineffective at defending. We are slow, boring and unimaginative. Robinson was rightly slated for eye bleeding football like this especially during 2018/19 but this is no better. and there’s the fifth. Stinking stuff.

O’Donnell can keep walking down that tunnel and out the door. Offers us nothing.

Game over. Utterly dismal stuff.

Again, what is the point in having every single player inside our penalty box when defending a corner? We have zero outball and are just inviting pressure back onto ourselves. And again we can’t deal with crosses into the box so why sit in and wait for them? If GA doesn’t see that this just isn’t working then questions need to start being asked of him.

Utter fucking bottle job of a first half that. Go 1-0, sit back invite them onto us for the rest of the half then duly concede two in the last two minutes of the half. Pathetic Motherwell.

As I said the last time this topic came up on here, VAR would cause more problems than it would solve in Scottish football. I wouldn’t trust those running the game one inch to get the proper equipment and the right people in place to actually make it effective. And you’d still have the silly wee boys chat about how the VAR refs are cheats and will favour the Old Firm etc.