MJC

That seems to be happening more and more in football these days and not just with our own fans. No excuses for it to be honest, just support your team without that carry on.

What happened?

Our first home Scottish Cup tie win against Aberdeen in over 60 years!

It was yes. That has to be one of the most satisfying results we’ve had in recent years. When we went 1-0 down inside the first few minutes, in the manner we did, having just had an offside call, in those conditions, it looked like one of those frustrating Cup ties that we’ve seen all to often. However a superb strike by van Veen to level and to go 2-1 ahead on the stroke of half time was a real shot in the arm for us, and a real blow for them. Well done Motherwell

Beauty from KvV!! 1-1

So bad it’s almost funny.

Donnelly retains his place and O’Hara starts with Slattery benched. Alexander is taking the piss with that, it’s almost like that Only an Excuse sketch from years ago of Alex McLeish picking his Rangers team in the style of a Cup draw, except this is real. Old man Broon will have a field day in the middle of the park against Donnelly today.

Slattery should start, but needs to play in the middle, but we all know that there is little to no chance of GA dropping Donnelly. I would like to see van Veen starting up front with Roberts and Woolery/Tierney supporting but you just don’t know how the manager will line up. He needs to treat this as ‘must win’ and go with our best possible eleven, something he didn’t do in the previous round which almost cost us.

Yeah the Kampman era/months had a fair spattering of foreigners but he also brought in Brian McClair, Jered Stirling, Grieg Miller, Jamie McGowan and of course Derek Adams. Some of those names are enough to bring a shudder, though Adams did go on to be a solid player for us.

And Donnelly in the middle, no matter what.

Jeez, the omens for us tomorrow just keep looking worse. * I remember losing to them in the 3rd round in 95/96 at Fir Park. It was a midweek game live on SKY if I remember correctly and it was bang smack in the middle of a wretched run where we hadn’t scored in several matches. We lost 2-0 with Duncan Shearer getting one of the goals. Then in 2012 we went out of the Scottish Cup twice, albeit in different seasons, both times losing 2-1 after being 2-0 down and the aforementioned Rory Fallon scoring on both occasions. * and yes, I am well aware that these stats don’t mean anything in terms of the game tomorrow.

Us against any top flight side in a cup tie fills me with dread, our record in that regard is appalling.

Hastie joined Rangers on a pre-contract so we didn’t get any transfer fee for him after letting him run down his contract. Fortunately Turnbull did sign a new deal in early 2019 as he too was nearing the end of his contract that year. And Campbell, was his fee not ‘undisclosed’? Happy to be corrected on that one if I’m wrong.

There are shades of two years ago about us now. Like then we have lost our main front man (Scott then, now Watt) and have returned from the winter break in dismal form yet find ourselves in a lofty position thanks to being able to shitfest our way to results in the first half of the season. We were fortunate then (in a footballing sense of course) that the pandemic ended the season early and that created a sort of ‘false’ look to the season. Our transfer business in January was dreadful and totally baffling that we didn’t make any serious attempt to replace the only player capable of scoring regularly and we are paying the price for that.

I was meaning more that our scouting/transfer policies and youth development need seriously overhauled, but there certainly are times when there is, or at least seems to be, a lot of emphasis placed on the social media side of things.

0-0, beat on penalties.

Well I don’t think anyone has actually said that he “has become Mo Salah” but what cannot be disputed is that his goals in the first half of the season were a big factor in us winning the majority of games that we did and why we found ourselves sitting 4th at the winter break. Tonight he was playing against us and we struggled to create anything of note yet he managed to score the goal that killed us off. That is/was our top goalscorer this season scoring the goal tonight that finished us off while we failed to score…you can dress that up any way you want but that is a hammer blow and a half…

Fair enough. Granted he did ‘tear us a new arsehole’ but he showed us what we were missing by being there to grab the goal at the crucial moment.

Anyone saying that Watt wasn’t crucial for us is kidding themselves. As I said before, he is the only reason we are sitting where we currently are in the table at this stage. Without his goals we would be fighting relegation just now as we have nothing in the way of goal threat in that side of ours.

Exactly, and our only attempt to replace him was by signing yet another winger who has no track record of scoring goals but “can play anywhere across the front three”. It’s so depressing.

So, three months on, what’s the general opinion on Graham Alexander? I stand by my views that our problems run way beyond the first team manager, but his style of play and tactical approach has to raise questions surely? I personally do not see things improving under GA, either in terms of the team playing entertaining football or actually pushing for a European finish or Cup run. So, what if anything do we have to look forward to under this regime?

Funnily enough, I genuinely don’t think I’ve found a Motherwell side so awful to watch, without being a side fighting relegation, since Kampman’s time. We are absolutely devoid of any football and don’t look like scoring goals. edit: and that includes 18/19 under Robinson when Main & Sammon we’re our front two.

Well that just sums our season up that. The one player who was any sort of goal threat for us who leaves in January for another club scores his first goal for that club against us to bury us in his first match against us:

That’s pretty much my view on the way things are with the team and the remainder of the season. We have managed to get ourselves into a good position thanks to basically shitfest tactics, Aberdeen/Hibs/Dundee Utd being equally as pish and Tony Watt getting the goals at crucial times during the first half of the campaign. This group of players will achieve nothing of note going forward. Not a Cup run, not a strong finish to the league season and not providing any entertaining football for the support.