Lobey_Dosser

I’m not one to moan about refs but that should have been red with the reaction. Big fan of Long but what a stupid foul to concede. Then O’Donnell shouldn’t be losing his man, hopefully he can make amends in the 2nd half. Intae them Motherwell, nothing to fear here.

I’m not sure what the official line is on travel but when Scotland were playing in Czech Rep, it was a quick in and out with no trip to the stadium prior to the match.

That was beautiful to watch today. A clinical first 25 mins, fully capitalising on Aberdeen’s inept defending, followed by a thoroughly professional and hard working performance for the remainder of the 90. Campbell was immense while Mugabi, Long and Watt all impressed. Most pleasing though is the work ethic and togetherness of the team, we’ve responded very well to the criticism and given Aberdeen a bloody nose in the process. Thoughts go out to Willie Miller who was waxing lyrical about Aberdeen’s resolute defence pre-match. The trip to Israel is going to be incredibly challenging for a variety of reasons but hopefully we can do ourselves proud.

Campbell really is at the top of his game just now, head and shoulders above everyone in that Aberdeen midfield today. Mentions for Watt and Long, the latter looking the part again while Watt has put in a power of work between Thursday and today.

Just on Jamie Semple, I struggle to recall the last time I seen him play after QotS away but is he definitely the no8 we seemingly transformed him into? Or could he return to a forward role at Cove?

So the issue there is with compliance rather than the system. No doubt those individuals and businesses that disregard the rules will be the first to grumble if lockdown is tightened and/or the death rate shoots up. The only way we get out of this any time soon, and contemplate a return to sport stadiums, is with widespread compliance. As for digital accessibility, the app is one piece of the jigsaw that will have 1,000,000 downloads by tomorrow. That’s not bad in a week. The bread and butter for now though remains the telephone calls, something Scotland appears to have worked better than England, with a localised in-house service.

Quarantine aside, is Track and Trace not working in Scotland? I think it’ll take time to prove but if you are suggesting France have a better system, they are approaching 10k cases a day and reported 46 deaths in the last 24 hours.

Other than no audio during the Dundee Utd game and the highlighted outages yesterday, I’ve had no complaints and I’m impressed with the quality of stream and commentary. As a PPV customer, it provides good value for money.

Job done, the result is all that mattered today. Great to see Campbell looking so fresh after international duty, Lang getting 90 mins another positive. Lamie’s recurring blunders an obvious concern.

Hopefully Gallagher can find his form in the coming weeks. If he does, he’ll have a fair chance of playing his part in the 3 Scotland games scheduled for October. He obviously missed some of preseason due to injury and has never looked fully up to speed since.

It was mentioned on Radio Scotland weeks ago that Motherwell hasn’t been in discussions with the JRG on a pilot game for this weekend. Don’t know if that was down to us being hesitant due to cost. Will be interesting to see how things pan out over the next few months as the transmission rate increases. I do think socially distanced crowds should be returning but it’ll become more difficult for Government to approve if we start to see significant increases in hospitalisations. I tend to keep an eye on horse racing and the jist seems to be that courses will be running at 25-40% capacity a year from now unless there has been a significant breakthrough (vaccine or digital passport linked to daily saliva testing for all).

Regardless of any possible change in Scottish or rUK guidelines, I think UEFA stated from the outset that there will be no crowds at any champions league, Europa league or international games during August/September to ensure fairness across Europe. Hopefully that rule is relaxed in time for the Israel playoff...

Some have been drawing parallels with our 2014/15 season. We managed to get a 1-1 at Parkhead around the same stage.

Thanks for clarifying. That is most welcome news. I’m sure we were earning closer to £70/80k per round 10 year ago.

Mugabi is the most improved player so far this season but it was good to see Christopher Long smiling tonight. He looks to be finding his fitness and benefited from having a strike partner. Motm for me.

Is that definitely how it work? I was thinking there was a base figure of 220k followed by 20k increments up until you dropped out the qualifiers.

Yeah, too young to see McAllister at Motherwell but followed him from his Leeds days onwards. Like Melvin, Turnbull reminds my very much of McAllister. A joy to watch.

With Lennon and McGregor openly talking about Turnbull in the media, you’d expect this to be signed and sealed in the next day or so. Good luck to him, he’s head and shoulders above anyone Motherwell have produced in my lifetime, McFadden included. And credit to him for signing a contract extension on two occasions to ensure we are financially rewarded for his development. His style of play with fit well at Celtic and all going well, he’ll win a few medals and move to a bigger league in a couple of years, netting Motherwell another few million (assuming sell-on clause). I look forward to seeing him in a Scotland jersey.

Just caught up with Robinson’s post match interview with the BBC. His concluding comment to Jane Lewis, regarding finding someone to instil desire in his forwards, would suggest to me that he is contemplating his future. Not the ideal prep for a European game.

It’s a shame Robinson didn’t get one of the many jobs he’s been linked with. He’s put his heart and soul into the club but it seems apparent that the spark has gone. I’m coming to the conclusion that Robinson is a good manager in need of a new challenge while we have a relatively good squad in need of a new voice.

There is a number of overrated players in the squad but I’d say the 4 you mention in addition to two internationals, Gallagher and, O’Donnell, two proven performers, Long & Polworth and in time Lang, should be winning games comfortably. Obviously we have issues at the top end of the park but we should be capable of beating most of the teams we’ve played so far this season. Everything has just went a little flat unfortunately since the turn of the year. Robinson has put his heart and soul into managing Motherwell but the end of the road feels close.

Credit to Accies, they hung in with a team of kids and smelt blood the longer the game went. Robinson has a habit of bullishly stating he won’t alter his style of play. That’s an issue in itself. Despite the talent at our disposal we are incredibly predictable and the possession football is pointless if you have no end product.

If the front 3 doesn’t click soon, we surely have to consider perming 2 from Lang, Long, White and Watt with Turnbull in behind? The likes of Long and Lang could peel to the left while O’Donnell will provide the width from the right. That would leave a midfield 3 of Campbell, O’Hara and either Polworth or Grimshaw depending on the opposition.

Well that was the first enjoyable Motherwell performance for a while with the pieces of the jigsaw gradually coming together. As has been said, O’Donnell was excellent after 6 months off and had a huge impact on the team. Lamie meanwhile made a good recovery from Wednesday with a really solid performance. Gallagher also had his best game of the season while Mugabi continues to improve. In midfield, I just love to see Campbell and Turnbull on song alongside eachother. Hopefully they can put a few teams to the sword before one or both move on by October. Completing the midfield, O’Hara returned to form tonight, providing a good foil for the other two. The front three is where the concern lies. To date, we’ve offered no cutting edge and within our plethora of attacking options, it’s difficult to know who our leading contributors are going to be. White is raw for a player his age while Lang will need to prove he has an end product once he’s up to speed. For now though, I’d stick with the same front three as the subs offered little. Hopefully we can bang in a few goals soon and the confidence grows.

Our defence needs to be on it or we could be in for a long night. Hibs are one of few teams to play with two proper strikers and Boyle’s pace from wide tends to give us issues. However, with two in central midfield there is an opportunity for us to dominate if Turnbull and O’Hara can match Campbell’s effort. Will be interesting to see how the players respond to Robinson’s scathing assessment on Wed. Loss of form and confidence is acceptable. Loss of commitment and desire far less so, particularly at a time when the club and many fans are going to great lengths to keep the show on the road.