star sail

Today was always going to be tough. 4 games in 10 days (three of which, a fair distance away) was always going to leave the team a little leggy today. The opponents could not have been worse but maybe in a fixture we never win anyway this was the the best possible team to play today. The 18 year league record does grate. Interestingly the only managers to break the monotony have been the much maligned Baraclough and Robinson himself. You could argue that their victories came against a weakened Rangers but anybody that watched McCall's team put in a subservient display in a League Cup display at Ibrox against a Championship Rangers will know that the Scottish managers record in the last 18 years have been dire. That said if financial doping applies to Man City against top European sides then by ratio of revenue (if not legal definition) Rangers and Celtic have been getting a doping advantage over every other team in Scotland for a long time. As it is we sit 9th approaching the end of the first quarter. We matched Aberdeen and Hibs for performance and in Europe we beat the teams ranked below us and lost to the team ranked above us. Not scintillating by any means but no Armageddon either. I think we will find a consistency in the second quarter that will take the team up the table rather than down.

Madden was the ref when we beat Rangers 3-1 in the play-off. We played really well so beat them. Our poor start to the game has cost us so far today.

Despite history telling me otherwise, there is always that what if? thought comes into my head on game day. Our record in almost supernaturally poor against Rangers but the sun is shining and miracles do happen. It is the hope that kills us!!!

I think you are doing the Israelis a disservice comparing them to Killie, Hearts or St Johnstone. They beat us comfortably last night without having to play well themselves. I can buy the idea that a team can be unlucky in a one of game but Scottish teams both at club level and at International level have made an art form of gallant defeats over the last 30-40 years. We read and listen to the hard luck story over and over again. If only....... The truth is that HBS scored three goals last night because they have the technical ability to turn it on when it matters. Sadly Gallachers performance last night is a snap shot in minature of performance after performance we have had to enduree from Scottish players in recent decades. It is no coincidence that we struggle to beat part time teams and it is no coincidence that a team like HBS beat us without getting out of first gear. Scottish football is a long, long way off the pace. Progress has been made in recent years. The professionalism has improved as has the fitness thanks to managers like Robinson. Sadly however we have years of neglect to make up for. We may never catch up but at least we are taking steps in the right direction.

I am almost NEVER right so I am going to take this opportunity to pretend I know what I am talking about. I am also going to take the opportunity of a great result to make a couple of points about some negative comments over this last month. 1. 'We are favourites to be relegated' We were no more favourites to be relegated in 12 place after 7 games than we are to favourites to finish 8th now after 8 games. We should try looking at the bigger picture. 2. 'Robinson should be sacked now because after Hibs and Aberdeen beat us we will only have 4pts.' Let's try to make statements about sacking managers based on the facts of what has happened, rather than negative speculation of what might. 3. 'Motherwell were not really 3rd last season because Aberdeen would have finished 3rd' Can we be absolutely certain about that based on today's result? They might have but like point 2, I would rather base judgement on the fact that Motherwell did finish third, rather than that Aberdeen may have in some mythical end to the season. Great result today. Let's give our team the benifits of the doubt and give them some proper backing.

I think we will win this. We have a good record against Aberdeen. Aberdeen have had a good start to the season but they are not thumping teams. I was reading in the transfer thread that we have no quality in the side. At the start of the season, I think we all felt that we did. Nothing had really changed (loss of Turnbull apart which was inevitable) so for me it is a lack of confidence rather than a lack of quality. Our best performance by some way was against Hibs. I think we may do the same again. 0-1 Motherwell and our season kicking on from there.

I get that. I would have preferred anybody else too (except Rangers) but the decision is made now. Sadly I suspect he will play well against us and on those days any goodwill will go out the window.

The £10 million is a direct result of the quality on the park so you must be delighted.

Congratulations to DT. He has the makings of a great player and I don't think it will be long before he is outperforming some of the Celtic first team regulars. Celtic have a bargain but this is not to say that I think the club could have held out for more. I will be following his career with interest and I hope he does really well at Celtic (except when they play us) and moves on to bigger things sooner rather than later. If he ends up anything like the player Gary McAllister was he has a bright future ahead.

A Cup Final is success for every team in Scotland except the OF and maybe Aberdeen. Nobody in Scotland has been able to get close to Celtic for several seasons now. If Celtic were to lose in a Champions League Final to Barcelona would that been seen in Celtics history as success or failure? You mention the lucky cup run. Others mention the lucky 3rd place. Why is it that when teams allow us to dominate and hit us with the sucker punch, they are streetwise/ have us sussed, but when we do it to other teams we are lucky? I do not understand the determination to undermine our clubs success?

Neither am I so it interesting to read about this particular formation. Being someone who knows little about formation it is maybe naive to suggest that Turnbull and Polworth play in the same team but this is what I would like to see. They are our two most creative players. It would take someone more knowledge than me to know how to build a team around the two of them. Did England not have that problem (with better players) in Lampard and Gerrard?

I liked Dave McCabe!!! You are absolutely right in what you say however. People forget the rougher spells under Tommy McLean. The cup final victory and a third place finish are the headlines (and great headlines they are) but not every performance under Tommy McLean was a cup winning performance. The same can be said for every manager we have had spanning the last 5 decades, some good, some bad (that we have been in the top flight since the 80's in itself is a minor miracle). It is a very dangerous game as a Motherwell fan not to enjoy the rarity of two cup finals in one year or a third place finish. Anybody undermining those achievements, or not getting joy from these achievements, may need to consider if Motherwell is really the team for them. Bigger clubs than ours in Scotland have not enjoyed this kind of success in recent times. Fans of Hearts, Hibs, Dundee Utd to name just a few, would love to have had the success Motherwell have enjoyed during Robinsons time at the club. The start to the season has been very disappointing. The performance against Hibs last week matched pre-season expectation and we need to hold onto the positives of that game for now. Like a few others have said, a few minor adjustments and a favourable wind may just be enough to ignite the season. I still believe this is a good squad of players and I very much believe that Robinson is a good manager. I would be hugely disappointed if we lost to Glentorran and maybe if we did my resolve would waver a little but teams like Stjarnan and Albion Rovers remind us that these kind of results are in our DNA . I believe it will come good but not before a difficult and possibly painful trip to Celtic Park.

The goals will come. It has been a slow (and disappointing) start to the season no doubt but it is a good squad of players that matched a Hibs side on form. I wonder if Robinson maybe slightly misjudged pre-season but I think match fitness is returning and the strikers will benefit as the games go on. Let's just enjoy an improved performance for now. I still have high hopes for the coming season.

Motherwell victory to get the season back on track. I think it is going to be a 'where did that performance come from' kind of a night. 0-3 Well.

Let's say for arguments sake that the season had lasted from Jan 19 to the finish in March 20. Motherwell would have still finished third in that case. They proved to be the 3rd best team for over a year. Belt and braces, 3rd best in the league. Something to celebrate. That the context should be that the achievement be judged on the games that had still to be played (and we will never know the result of) suggests to me that a certain spin is being applied to the context. I understand that in a certain context (there it is again) one win in eleven would indeed end in sacking and in modern football more often than not, managers do get sacked but I think it is something for Well fans to celebrate that our board tend to buck that trend and back their man. It also comes after a 3rd place finish which in any context is an achievement for a team like ours. We have been here before during the sticky spell in the second half of 2018, with some of the support wanting Robinson sacked then. His team then went on a great run in 2019. I know that again some will say that was luck but to be lucky over a 12-14 month period stretches that argument a little. You might be right this time. The poor run may continue but only two games into a new season I think he has earned the right for us to back him. I think he will turn it round again but I am one of those happy clappers.

I was going to reply making a similar point but you have made it far better than I could. The beauty of undermining the current Spfl teams is that before a ball is kicked anything short of a 2nd place finish or a Cup Final victory renders any other success in the season short off this as failure. Must be hard to know as a Motherwell manager that before a ball is kicked, a 3rd place finish is not going to cut it with a minority of the support.

Interesting to read a few people putting a negative spin on a 3rd place finish. Like all statistics you can focus on any particular timeframe if you want to make a particular point, good or bad. Is it not the case that if you look at the season from Jan 1st 2019- Dec 31st 2019 we were second (or a very strong 3rd). Looking at the here and now, it is a disappointing start. A week ago, I was very hopeful of taking six points from the first two games. This was based on the strength of the squad alone. Maybe we should have taken the pre season friendly form a little more seriously. Hindsight as always is a wonderful thing. Some stats are difficult to hide from and the one win in eleven is not one I had picked up on. To put a positive spin on things, if that ten game stretch represents a temporary bad spell than we can still come out the other side (perhaps fortunately) with little lasting damage. I am confident that it will come good. We have the same squad that we had a week ago and I believe the manager is good enough to turn it round.

The midfield situation reminds me of the year Vigurs and Lawson arrived. The resources were plentiful but McCall could not find the balance in the team. It made the squad seem somehow lop-sided. I can understand the issue. To leave Turnbull or Polworth on the bench seems like a luxury, a team like Motherwell can not afford so the desire to play them both is understandable. Campbell on the bench also seems like a waste of resource. The challenge of a strong squad for the manager is that tough decisions have to be made. Will be interesting to see who is ultimately favoured and how they are deployed. It is a good headache to have but I wonder if it comes as a result of the fact that Turnbull was not supposed to be with us. Robinson will earn is salt working out the best combination.

I really liked Grimshaw as a player when he first arrived from Man Utd. Did the simple things well and his attitude was without question. He reminded me a bit of a Neil Lennon type player (in playing style only) and would have fitted nicely as a holding midfielder. He does not look like a natural right back to me but I can see why Robinson would want to have him in the team. If he is indeed the first name on the team sheet, I would imagine it is for his attitude and work ethic as much as anything else. He is a player that I prefer to see in the team than not. That he would be the first name on the team sheet is very interesting.

One thing I have noticed about Steven Gerrard's Rangers is that there pre-season record is very good. He seems to treat them like competitive games insisting that the team plays with intensity. I find it difficult to understand the dynamics of pre-season games. Whilst the results can be unpredictable, this particular result has gone to regular season form. If the team are not yet fully fit they should be fairly close. In athletics a general rule of thumb is that you need six weeks to notice performance benefits from training. Also in athletics, the principle of doing training sessions and sometimes races fatigued from previous work is not uncommon. The danger of this approach is that if not managed carefully it can increase the chance of injury. Football is not athletics but there must be some overlapping principles. My theory in this particular instance is that Rangers were mentally up for the game (because Gerrard seems to demand that in friendles) and Rangers are simply a better side and it showed. I would like to think that we would do the same to lesser opposition in pre season friendlies but it rarely seems to work out that way and hence we get the arguments every pre-season about just how much we can read into these results.

This was my first thought. Larkhall is not known for its tolerance and multicultural diversity.

These games happen. I have sat through 'the worst humiliation I've ever seen as a Well fan' about 100 times under ever manager we have had since the mid 1980's. I have watched turgid dross under Davie Hay, Tommy McLean, Alex McLeish, Terry Butcher, Maurice Malpas, Harri Kampman, Jim Gannon, Mark McGhee, Billy Davis, Craig Brown, Stevie Robinson (I am sure I am missed one or two). I suspect that you will put the failings that night squarely at the door of the manager. You have to remember that many of those same players had been playing just as poorly a year prior under Stuart McCall. Ainsworth, McManus, McDonald to name a few. I tend to have a soft spot for managers more than I do for players. I think the job of a football manager at a club like Motherwell is a very difficult one. I also think that players get off very lightly at times for not doing their job properly. My opinion (as one who has absolutely no inside track to the goings on at FP) is that there were a few players at the time that were doing a lot of talking and disrupting behind the scenes and not performing on the park. Les Hutchison suggested as much when Baraclough left. My overriding feeling is that fans are very good at coming to a conclusion very early on about managers and then building the facts that back that conclusion up round about that argument. As an example a fan of Baraclough might look at his overall record with NI U21's and come to the conclusion that he has done a good job. A critic might just look at the last half dozen matches where the stats don't look as good. A fan might praise a win over Spain, a critic might think it was just luck. Who is right? The fan or the critic. The beauty of football is that nobody really knows. Baraclough might be a superstar or he might be a dud. He may also just simply be an average manager doing the best he can.

Wes Fletcher made a decent start scoring in the first game away at ICT. Moult's debut was not as impressive. I am sure if you asked many Well fans in the month of August who was going to be the better of the two, many would have gone with Fletcher. Hindsight ofcourse makes a mockery of that. You made the point about the East Fife game and yes he did suffer abuse that night. To me it backs up the opinion that some Well fans were never going to give him time. It is no crime to not know your best 11 in the month of August. Baraclough was not given the time to get it right maybe rightly so maybe not. I don't remember McCall receiving the same flack for losing to Icelandic part-timers in the early part of the season. Infact many Well fans used it as an example of why you cannot expect consistency when bedding in new players and getting up to speed physically. I would not hang my hat on the argument that sacking Baraclough was wrong (it may have been) but I am confident in my view that there were a good proportion of the support that were not keen to give him the benefit of the doubt.

What brings you to the conclusion he was out his depth? Ultimately it did not work out but if he had been out his depth we would have been relegated. I think we were heading for relegation when Baraclough arrived early December and he kept us up. It was a notable achievement. The team under Stuart McCall was dead on its feet. I don't believe any Scottish Manager would have got us through the play-offs. They would have had us beat before a ball was kicked (McCall proved this in a League Cup shambles a few years prior). I have felt over the years that certain managers have been judged more harshly than others. Baraclough was judged harder than most. Good luck to him. The best news of all is that we keep our man (for the time being anyway).

Indeed. I was making the point in relation to Robinson also being well prepared. In a NI interview I think both men would be thoroughly prepared. My hunch is that Robinson may well get the NI job with Baraclough his assistant. They seem to have a strong relationship so it would be a good fit. I would prefer however that Robinson stay with us.