wellfan

The fact is that performances have declined the more time the manager has had to implement his ideas. We saw that with the 10-day break between the Rangers and Aberdeen games, so the concern is that this slide continues over the next three-week break. In other words, he takes the team even further away from where they were last season, which is exactly what he says he isn’t doing. The evidence to date, however, suggests otherwise.

But it’s not panic, is it? And the forum would be pretty dull without a bit of fan speculation.

There’s a huge difference between panic and fair criticism, and what we’re seeing on the forum at the moment is clearly the latter.

I agree. I said before the Dundee game that the performance was more important than the result.

Like clockwork, the “pant wetter” chat comes out as soon as anyone dares to fairly criticise what they’re seeing.

Time will tell, but while there were some positive signs early on, things seem to be getting worse the more time he’s had to implement his ideas on the training pitch. I’m not sure where our next win is coming from.

It’s probably a reductive view, but I do wonder what the players make of being coached/managed by someone who’s never actually done their job. Respect has to be earned, not demanded,

I don’t think anyone here is calling for Alfred to be sacked. People are rightly calling out what they see, and the reality is that performances have fallen off a cliff. If he can’t arrest the decline and deliver the continuity of style he’s talked about, then the writing will be on the wall soon enough, if it isn’t already. The early signs are increasingly suggesting to me that he talks a good game but can’t implement it.

He’ll be back in Scandinavia coaching schoolboys soon enough.

No. It’s his job to save. Tick-tock.

Garbage. The manager doesn’t know what he’s doing.

The penalty is utterly ridiculous. That’s the result of the SFA being run by wee guys who have power without consequence. The rest is shite.

I’ve been pretty confident going into every game this season, even after the Stenny debacle, but I have to admit I’ve got the fear today. Alfred’s pre-match presser also felt like the most downbeat of his Motherwell career, which hasn’t helped lift me after the Aberdeen embarrassment. Today is huge. The performance probably matters more than the result, but we really can’t be going into the long international break on a downer.

Aye, what we’re seeing, and what you’re describing here, are largely tactical and coaching issues. The players have to take some responsibility, but ultimately it’s on the manager. It’s his team now, his selection and his setup, with a lot of his own signings in there. Can he fix it? Let’s hope so.

He deserves a fair crack of the whip, so it’s far too early to be making any resounding judgements on him. That said, it’s his team now, and I still think it’s fair to say a few alarm bells have started ringing for me and others. It’s now down to him to silence those concerns by getting a more coherent and improved performance out of the team on Saturday.

Unless the manager sorts out the starting XI and gets the team playing with some sort of coherent tactical plan, I expect more of what we saw against Rangers and Aberdeen. The plan seems to be to retain possession, which is fine and what we want, but beyond that I can see zero effective attacking plan, loads of possession with no end product, weakness in the turnovers, a pathetic press, and a complete lack of ability as a team to win and compete for second balls. The complete opposite of last season. It does make me wonder what he spent the 10 days between those two games drilling into them.

That’s not what I said though, was it? For all that went wrong last night, I’ve said that the buck stops with the manager. I’ve also said that he needs to turn it around for the Dundee game, otherwise I think it could be the beginning of the end for him. That’s not me calling for him to be sacked, nor is it me suggesting we should revert to Kettleball.

Aye, I’m absolutely delighted with that last night. We worryingly looked poorly coached, cluelessly set up and seemingly devoid of any idea what we were actually trying to do, other than pass the ball about in front of Aberdeen.

Lowry. Until his free kick.

The coach.

Utterly horrendous tonight. No press. No urgency. No second balls. No idea. And that’s entirely on the manager. Lose against Dundee and it’s the beginning of the end.

As long as the SFA and SPFL are run by this current mob of inept incompetents, nothing will improve. Anything they propose will only make things worse and somehow manage to make an already stupid situation even more stupid.

A very disappointing day at the office today.

We need to calm down and smarten up, or they’ll keep picking us off every time we make a mistake.

Absolute howler from Paulsen. He had 3 or 4 easy passes on, or could’ve just punted it, yet he chose to do that.