joewarkfanclub

Good to hear that Butcher, Obika and Biereth are not far away. Will certainly increase our options going forward. If we can cut out the odd mistake we are making at the back and be a little more clinical in front of goal we will be a hard team to beat.

I think if we had beat St Mirren or even got a point, there wouldnt have been anywhere near the reaction we have seen. The performances against Rangers and Celtic would have been seen as encouraging, rather than reinforcing a negative narrative.

Good post.

Im more than happy to give Shaw a run of games up front. I think there might be a decent player there, but he is short of match sharpness that can only be improved with gametime. My argument against the criticism of Bair is that isnt balanced and ignores the good work that he does. Anyway, its not the "happy clappers" you need to convince. Its the manager.

Potentially when Butcher comes back. I think he and Casey could be strong enough to play 4 at the back. But I dont think you could have SOD at left back. You would probably need the legs of Spencer and Gent to get up and down and we dont really know if Gent is good enough yet. Of course in that scenario you are also taking McGinn out the team and he has been one of our best players this season.

No point really responding to any of that. Ive given plenty of mitigation to my position which you seem happy to ignore. You obviously have no interest in finding the middle ground and seem determined just to win the debate. Thats fair enough and you are entiteld to your opinion. As I said before, its a matter of perspective. I will continue to look at the positives.

Nothing wrong with a lot of words, and its hard to argue with many of the points you make. I think the only huge difference between your position and mine is one of perspective. Mines is that Bair was never the plan. In fact I dont think 1 up top was even the plan. We have been forced into it because our other options have been injured. We just happen to have stumbled onto the 4 in midfield out of necessity and it has had some success. For me I think Obika could get 10 goals a season in this team. The big problem is will he ever be on the pitch long enough to do that? Given the discussion previously surrounding Moult, I think criticism of SK in that regard is fair game, particularly in light of the length of his contract. Ive no idea whether Ollie Shaw or Wilkinson can score 10 goals or not but they need a run of games for us to find out. Clearly our budget has been significantly reduced in recent seasons, so it stands to reason the quality of player available to us has gone down and our managers have to be more resourceful. I think thats where loans for players like Biereth can be useful. Looking around the league I dont see too many other clubs with our budget signing players of a calibre that Ive thought wow! Wish we had got him! So I think we need to modify our expectations a little and hope that going forward SK can find another gold nugget from somewhere.

I think that is definitely the current plan. As I said in the Celtic matchday thread, there are many different ways to play football now. Not comparing us to Man City, but look at the way Pep keeps re-inventing the way they play to gain an adavantage over the opposition. They may have the best striker in world football right nie, but look at the goals they get from midfield even when Haaland isnt scoring. Even at international level, look at the success Clarke has had with Scotland using Dykes up top and getting the likes of McGinn, McTominay and Christie into the box. Its often harder to defend against midfielders arriving into the box late. If you cant afford a quality striker, its definitely a good way of trying to redress the balance. Of course teams will eventually work out a way of stopping that and who knows that mught already have happened with us. But SK has shown he is prepared to change it up when necessary. Maybe not as quickly as I would like at times, but he certainly isnt as rigid as Alexander and Hammell were.

It beggars belief that anyone on here cant see the difference between the absolute gutless spankings we used to get regularly at the hands of the big two and what we have seen in the last two weeks. You'd have to be a real miserable barsteward not to accept that those two performances are as close as we have been to beating either of them in years. Yes its disappointing and frustrating not to have got anything to show for our efforts but surely folks are encouraged by the fact that we were finally competitive with them? It might also be worthy to consider how football has changed over the years and that the old ideas of playing 2 or 3 up top automatically give you more of a goal threat just isnt the case any more. There are many different ways to play. Some of which dont involve the use of out and out strikers at all. The injuries to our forwards have forced SK into adopting a style of play he may not have chosen otherwise. The extra man in midfield is giving us much more possession of the ball and more security for our defence. Before that we were much more effective as a counter attacking team and had to be as we had less possession with a man less in midfield. The last 3 games have been tough to take and naturally because we failed to score in 2 of them everyone looks at the strikers and is blaming Bair for not being good enough. But take a minute to look at the chances we have created. Who the chances have fallen to and who has had a part in creating them. Bair is offering plenty to the team. For all his good work he only had one chance on goal, hit the target and forced a good save from Bain. Other chances have fallen to Spittal, Slattery, Shaw etc. No one is criticising them for missing their chances and they still get plenty credit for the other parts of their game. I dont want to make out that Im some Theo Bair fanboy, because Im not. I can see his deficiencies the same as everyone else, but he is being measured by a different bar to everyone else in the team and that doesnt seem fair. Ive no doubt that when we have all our players back match fit he probably wont be near the first 11 as Biereth, Wilkinson and Obika will all be ahead of him, but until then, I think he is doing alright and if we start winning games again and he never scores another goal for us, no one will care as long as he is contributing towards the 3 points. The team has also been given a significant overhaul over the summer, so it wouldnt be unreasonable to think its still a work in progress and might take a couple more windows to address everything SK would like to fix. Rome wasnt built in a day, but the foundations are laid and Im quite excited to see what this team can become if SK isnt poached away and gets the opportunity to finish the job.

Wilkinson is just coming back from injury. I wouldnt have him near that pitch! He also isnt that mobile and I wouldnt suggest best suited to the lone striker role. If we are swapping Bair out for anyone, I would put Ollie Shaw in. But given SK has been very loyal to the players thus far, Id expect the same 11 to start again. Our record v Livvy is very good. I forecast a return to winning ways, but a more scrappy encounter with us winning 1-0.

I dont think thats generally the case. I think the majority of posters are reasonable enough to wait and see how a signing turns out before we judge them or jump to conclusions Most managers will lean towards signing players they know, or from leagues that they know. (See Postecoglu). It makes sense to take some of the variables out of the risk. It could be argued that assusming someone is a lazy signing because the manger previously worked with that player, is a lazy assessment of the players worth. 😉

Good luck to the lad. Best for both parties that he is able to move on and progress his career.

No failures again this week. The midfield all had good games but Paton was the pick of the bunch for me. Even in the first 30 minutes when we were generally poor in possession, he was the one snapping into tackles and leading by example. He is now an integral part of how we play. Not bad for someone that was considered a really "lazy signing" not so long ago......

As others have said, todays scoreline is very frustrating on a number of levels. I actually didnt think we were very good for the first 30 minutes. We were still organised and defended well, but we were poor in possession and didnt really create anything of note. However, we did eventually get a foothold in the game, finished the half strongly and probably had the 2 best chances of the game to that point. Second half was much better. A really enjoyable half of football with end to end stuff. We carried much more of a threat but the downside to that was we left ourselves a little bit more exposed at the back as a result, so it wasnt a surprise when we did eventually concede. The first goal looked to me like it was a cross, so disappointing to lose it that way, but we didnt let it effect us and thoroughly deserved the equaliser when it came. I felt sure we had secured a point and to lose it in the fashion that we did was an absolute sickener. Hard to criticise anyone after what was another excellent overall performance, but there were areas where we let ourselves down and we need to keep trying to improve and learn from those if we want to avoid becoming a perpetual hard luck story. Still with players starting to come back from injury and a much more winnable run of fixtures coming up, I think we should be able to put some more points on the board before the first quarter cones to an end.

Because he is a big battering ram that holds the ball up and occupies centre halves to allow our midfield to get into advanced positions. Neither Tierney or McKinstrey could do that.

I think they are targetting the Celtic support rather than our fans. They only get 5k tickets and have 60k home fans. Good business for us and they get the game played early in advance of a Champions League week......

Good move for the boy. Hopefully he gets plenty gametime and comes back ready for the first team.

I do agree that our awful record against both of the ugly sisters is in large part down to mentality. However, I dont agree that we showed that mentality last season at Celtic Park when we got a draw, and I dont agree that we saw that mentality on Sunday. These performances, and particularly Sunday were very different, and that has to be down to SK. He clearly sees EVERY game as a chance of 3 points and has the team approach it that way. On Sunday we were just unlucky. If we continue to show the same mentality against the big 2 going forward, our results against them will improve. They will still win more than us as they have bigger budgets which should dictate better players. But our win ratio should improve. Thats why I expect us to play well again on Saturday and not get rolled over. We still may not win, but we will be closer to it than we have been in manys a year.

I think he starts Bair and tries to keep the game tight and play them on the break. If we go behind and need a goal, I'd rather bring Shaw on instead of Bair than the other way around. Of course, he could start Shaw and try and get a goal in front and sub Bair on to see the game out once Shaw is done! 😉

Im gonna be bold and predict we will get something from this game. Heart says 2-1 Motherwell, head says 1-1. Spitz and Slatts to run the show and Ollie Shaw to break his duck and be the hero of the hour! 😆😆😆

I think thats a fair enough position. Add in Biereth who clearly has something about him to come through the Danish set up and be on Arsenals books, maybe we didnt do too badly and generally might be ok when they are all fit? 😉

Given that those 3 were probably our best players at Ibrox and 2 of them have been our best players all season (along with McGinn) I would concur!

Lots of good performances today. Slattery was excellent again, he is like a different player this season now that his troubles appear behind him. Hope we can get him signed on a new contract before the suitors come and take him for nothing. Spencer played very well and honorable mentions to Paton and Lennon Miller. For me MOTM was Mugabi. He won everything in the air and for once his headers all went in the direction of Motherwell players. His decision making and timing in the tackle were also excellent. Great job all round.

Great team performance today. We havent showed the mentality to win at Ibrox for such a long time and it was there for all to see in spades. We defended well as a unit, no cheap individual mistakes and the goal we did lose was a wicked deflection. Midfield passed it around for fun, got in some very good positions and but for a bit of luck or better finishing we would have had a couple of goals. For those having a go at the forward line again, its fair enough to point out the lack of quality up front, but can we not add a little perspective? I thought Bair did well enough again today. Won some headers held it up, laid it off. He never really had any clear cut chances, so not sure what folk are expecting of him. He isnt an out and out striker, but when we play someone else up top with him we tend to lose the control over the midfield we have been exhibiting. Shaw made a difference when he came on and for me he missed the best chance of the game, but Id also cut him some slack as he hasnt played a lot of football and is coming into games cold with very little gametime behind him. Going forward I'd like to see us build that up so he is fit enough to start instead of Theo. Although we havent seen anything to suggest Wilkinson is any good, he has been injured and has yet to settle so we have no idea if he is any good or not. We also have Biereth to come back, so its not all doom and gloom. We just controlled large parts of the game against the 2nd best team in the country on their own patch in a manner most of us have been desperate to see for years. Lets concentrate on the positives and take that into the Celtic game next week. This team isnt far away from where we want it to be.

UEFA are kinda powerless in the whole thing. If they dont do what the big clubs want, they will just threaten a breakaway league again, which is what got us to where we are. Unfortunately, UEFA have also realised the share of the TV revenue they can hoover up by going along for the ride is also quite lucrative for them as an organisation and individuals.