MJC

Technology is a wonderful thing. It lets you comment on events wherever you are in the world, which includes contributing to match thread discussions on the game you are watching. Ahh, weeyin’s standard ‘go-to’ whenever he is losing the argument. Not heard that for a while but nice to see you still resort to that when you’ve got nothing else. I don’t think I’m a better supporter than anyone, but I’ve still been at more Motherwell games than you can even dream of in the last decade. Back to the game, 0-3 now and a matter of how many Celtic want to score.

Pretty much as expected from that first half. We’ve been outplayed and could/should be at least four nil down. Bar from McKinstry’s chance from a defensive mistake from them we haven’t threatened. Had we got to HT at 0-0 then we might have had some kind of foothold but losing that goal when we did has killed us and it’s a question of ‘how many’ now sadly.

I doubt that to be honest. I’m at Fir Park supporting my team and you…aren’t. You probably give your dentist the same snidey feedback that you give posters on here. I genuinely doubt you take any joy from anything.

Game over. (hiya weeyin, hiya pal, how’s the game on yer laptop?)

Jeezo what a sitter from McKinstry. Cannot afford to miss chances like that in these types of games

They are the absolute worst. The feeling of so near yet so far then all the patronising bullshit afterwards about “how well we played, how unlucky we were and how with our budget our great wee team shouldn’t be competing with them bla, bla, bla fuck”!

And also had a goal wrongly disallowed. We were awful that night but getting that late equaliser was a bit of payback for the game a year earlier.

That bulgy eyed prick Callum McGregor with a swan dive for the penalty. We drew 1-1 with them a year later, Danny Johnson late equaliser on a foggy midweek game. That was the last time we didn’t lose to them. Team just been announced and Spittal & Shields start with Morris and Tierney dropping to the bench. Still no Moult even among the subs.

I genuinely don’t think we’ll ever beat either of them again, sad as that sounds. As for tonight although a hammering is the most likely outcome, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s going to be an absolute sickening heartbreaker. I think I’d actually prefer to see us get pumped 5-0 than run them close and lose a close game or on penalties, it would certainly be easier to stomach.

Getting back to Sunday. I see a 15 year old has been charged for throwing an object onto the park during the Rangers game. This is becoming all too frequent from that particular area of the ground and it especially seems to be games against Rangers that bring the worst out in that ‘group’. A couple of years ago stuff was thrown at Morelos and the same thing happened the previous season at that very same section. Hammell has felt the need to comment saying “conduct yourselves in a respectful manner while you’re here” ahead of the game tonight. This is the same area of the ground and I’d wager the same group that frequently bleat on about over zealous stewarding and policing but nonsense like this keeps happening from them.

Most players can be made to look good, or at least not shite, from YouTube clips and indeed in the clips I saw of Morris when we signed him he looked decent. Unfortunately any time I have actually seen him play in the flesh in a Motherwell jersey he has been absolutely rank rotten. Andy Roddie-esq almost.

In the first half of last season we had a player who could get goals to turn draws into wins, losses into draws. If you think about Livingston away (2-1), Dundee, Ross County, Dundee Utd(H) all won by the odd goal and the common denominator was Tony Watt scoring goals. Without him in the 2nd half of the season we weren’t winning those corresponding fixtures and, without wanting to sound like a broken record, failed to record a league win until APRIL and only managed another two before the end of the season. And in that time I think I could count on one hand, barely, how many times we actually played well. We were lucky to finish top six and qualify for Europe last season, no two ways about it. And when we got our arses handed to us by a LOI side losing 0-3 over two legs we were shown up for how poor a side we were and how lucky, spawny, jammy, call it what you like, we were to be in that competition.

The point being that when Watt left in January our form nosedived and we didn’t win a league match until April. We hadn’t been playing particularly well pre Christmas but how many times did we win by a the odd goal thanks to Watt? He leaves and potential narrow wins become draws and draws become losses. And whether I or anyone else ‘liked’ Alexander or not is irrelevant. Our form from the turn of the year and the end of the season was dreadful and almost certainly would have seen us right in the fight to avoid the drop if hadn’t been for the aforementioned Watt’s goals in the first half of the season. The football we played in that same time was terrible and the luck came from sides around us cutting their own throats and a last minute equaliser against Livingston which got us top six. Any team who wins three matches in five months yet qualifies for Europe is lucky. And only Ross County not holding on to a 1-0 lead against Dundee Utd while we getting royally pumped at Celtic Park on the final day prevented us from being even luckier and finishing 4th.

I agree and as you say both Robinson and Alexander came in and turned things around at the time but both outstayed their shelf life with us, particularly Robinson. In Alexander’s case we and him were merely ‘going through the motions’ from the start of 2022, possibly longer and only Watts goals in the first half of last season and a lot of luck got us the finish we got. There was clearly no plan, no vision other than just shitfesting it every week by chopping and changing the team and hoping for their best.

Absolutely spot on. And whatever happens this season we are well shot of Alexander as the guy was taking us absolutely nowhere and he thought Josh Morris was an acceptable addition to the squad he finished last season with.

I was referring to Robinson’s record against Celtic. But yes that SF against Rangers was a superb result, though it was also the last time we got such a big win and we’re almost five years to the day since then. I don’t see us getting anything like that against either of them any time soon, if ever.

You’ll more likely than not be right about that, but Celtic haven’t been convincing by their standards over the past month and us at home in a Cup tie might level things up a bit. However… …As much as this is true, we just don’t get results like that against Celtic (or Rangers) nowadays. Robinson was with us for almost four years and had several of the players that he managed to get a win against Celtic last month with St.Mirren, but he never really got near that with us. Putting it simply, if Celtic ‘turn up’ on Wednesday night then we’ll be lucky to only lose by five goals. If they are off their game by any stretch then we won’t have the quality, the luck or the bottle to take advantage of it.

I don’t think we’ll be relegated this season but there is no chance of us getting top six IMO. We just don’t have goals in us and lack forward options as was all to evident today.

I’ve never liked that prick. A perma-raging moaning arsehole who frequently gets away with snidey kicks and elbows on opponents. The fact that he’s also never been on the losing side at Fir Park, even when he was on loan at Dunfermline in 2006 makes it all the more annoying.

To be fair to Hammell he was thrown in at the deep end with the season already underway and without the benefit of a full close season/transfer window to work with. By the time he was officially appointed most potential targets for us would have already been snapped up whilst we were left with Josh Morris as our main summer signing. That said brining in an injury prone Moult, a youngster on loan from Leeds and a player who did absolutely nothing to impress during his previous spell with us represented some big gambles which so far don’t appear to be paying off.

If he can’t get fit then he’s not. We knew signing him was a gamble but he’s got nowhere near the required fitness level yet and that’s why he’s yet to start a game or and make a meaningful contribution.

2-2 after 90 minutes. Celtic will go 1-0 up early on and look as though they will run up a cricket score. Then from nowhere we will equalise with an own goal. The second half will be dominated by Celtic but we’ll hang in somehow and then amazingly we’ll go 2-1 up thanks to another own goal. Then Celtic will equalise in the 9th minute of the 6 allotted injury time minutes and go on to win it either after extra time or penalties. Heartbreak.

Well that was depressingly familiar. I’ve seen that type of game over and over against Rangers over the years. We lack quality and belief going forward and defensive mistakes are our undoing. I’m not a fan of Efford but compared to Morris he is a clear upgrade. Morris simply won’t do, we would be as well starting the game with a man down. I’m pleased to see McKinstry get off the mark today but overall he was poor and ineffective. Looking ahead to our next few league fixtures it’s hard to see where our next points are coming from.

A nothing game so far to be honest. ”They’re there for the taking” is a phrase that has been said many, many times on here about games against this lot over the past twenty years but today I think they really are there for the taking. But do we have what it takes to ‘take’ them? Unfortunately we just haven’t looked sharp enough up front and our use of the ball is dreadful. At the moment this has 0-0 written all over it.

I get we’re light in options due to injuries but I’ve seen nothing of Morris yet to suggest he is anywhere near good enough at this level. Its good to see McKinstry starting though, hopefully today is the day he can show what he can do. Despite the lineup I’m still strangely confident we’ll get something here.