fizoxy

We handled the second half well, making sure they didn’t get back into the game easily. We had a couple of breaks but were way more conservative overall, which is probably the professional thing to do. Thought Gorrin had a really good game, keeping things calm and collected in the middle and breaking things up. He and Campbell are giving the attacking mids the license to push on. Hastie, Turnbull and Campbell are players you pay to watch, hopefully we secure hastie for a couple more years soon. I think we need to consider extending Gorrin. Great to see main with the neat finish at the end of a good move, and I thought that Tait and grimmy were solid. James Scott is a unit. I’m looking forward to him rag dolling defenders for the rest of the season.

Gillespie has made some good saves, we were up against it for 2 minutes after the second.

Tanner is on commentary today, he was talking about his injury but I missed the start of it, but he talked about him and Cadden hopefully coming back in this season.

I think this must have been extended at some point, as I’m sure it was a 2 year deal when he signed.

https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/player/craig-tanner/

I think it means we’re doing a better job of enticing local talent to sign with us rather than the ugly sisters or anyone else. As per the article listed earlier, a lot of the players coming through now have been with the club for 10 years or so. So there’s a lot of folk to credit, starting with who spotted them at the age of 9, through to who signed them, then who developed them at each age level. We should keep this in mind when evaluating changes to the club structure, it could be a decade before we see the fruits of it.

He has another year on his contract and is unlikely to play this season.

There’s accommodating your Coopers and Russels, then there’s accommodating your Ainsworths, then there’s accommodating your Bigi’s. He had plenty of chances to show what he can do, and while he was a decent enough player he didn’t offer enough of anything to overcome his defensive shortcomings. He’s a great character but far from the best player we’ve let go in my time.

we made two good signings, and the players that have left would have made no bearing on the rest of our season (3 of whom were probably on decent money by our standards). I think everyone would feel more fuzzy if we had made the two signings at 11pm today though, but that’s the hype of deadline day. I’m happy they came in earlier and had some part in us getting those two big wins. With that freed up cash we should hopefully be able to offer contracts to all the young players on the fringe of the team, since it looks like hastie, Scott and maguire are all up at the end of this season. McHugh, Cadden, Grimshaw, Gorrin, Main and Frear are all going to be out of contract too (and all the loanees going back) so will be another busy summer.

Difference is he was probably playing for Dundee and they wanted to keep him.

Most likely we’ve saved on wages and no more, which is still good for us. Our attackers know his weaknesses* so it will be interesting how he does against us. * you can run right past him.

If I remember correctly the manager said that we needed someone to step up to the role of the lone striker, and didn’t explicitly say that we were going to sign a big target man. Even if he did, we’ve won two games since then and we’re almost certainly safe, so it may be that the club don’t want to spend money someone when there’s nothing to be gained for it financially.

I’m not really fussed what other clubs do. Our lineup is pretty set, save a striker and a left back (and even those could prob wait until the summer). We’re not really chasing for anything so don’t see the point of throwing money around.

Is he going to right the wrongs of the May/Kirk/McGrillen farce?

Aldred is only on loan, and Hartley has barely had a run of games since being injured and is only 30, and our captain. We can’t just punt everyone who isn’t in the first XI at the moment, injuries, suspensions and loss of form are things that happen, especially to us.

They’ll have to show us the money

I’d vote for Dougie Imrie. His playing career is ending, so this would continue the pantomime.

They’ve sent a scout to the Royal Rumble tonight. I’m not impressed though, cos with Wrestlemania on the horizon I just can’t see them getting up for Killie away. If they come back with Zack Ryder I’ll be furious, it would be a shambles. I think burrows should resign.

Motherwell won, so they just stuck a random player from us in there? They might have remembered his name from last season.

I thought that was good situational awareness by Campbell. We were winning and only seconds were left on the clock. If he runs straight for goal he gets caught, and gives them possession in the middle of the park and he’s out of position, if he waits and plays someone in there is no guarantee of a goal. He took the less selfish option and knocked a bunch of time off the clock, and it worked. The only argument I can see for pushin gforba goal there is to boost our goal difference, but let’s face it, if this season comes down tongo difference we’ve royally fucked up. I see that some have taken to having a go at the chief exec again for some reason (I’m guessing it’s just hard for some folk to be happy). Say what you want about individual decisions he might have made, but to say he’s out of his depth is just daft. He didn’t achieve his position in a vaccum, and he seems to have a great reputation with our board and his peers, never mind the whole improvement in our financials whilst till making long needed improvements to the pitch and the stadium.

Ace.

Dundee pressed us the whole game, and really should have had more than a shot on target, but that is why they are shite. Frear coming on gave us that little extra width and opened it up enough for us to make our one chance of the game, and we took it. Main’s excellent trap and attempted lob from the edge of the box, followed closely by his long ranger for a throw in summed up his game, but I’d rather he tried these things than totally hide. Can’t really fault his work rate right now. Ariyibi never got into the game, nothing worked for him at all, but that’s the life of a winger, good thing we have a spare one. not sure what the deal was with our defense, but we looked shaky all game. The Dundee fans and commentators are the whiniest of all. Everything was a foul and a yellow, and apparently they had a bunch of penalty shouts. One of their shite strikers was throwing himself around all game, and collum wasn’t buying it, but their fans were all over that. At one point they accused Gillespie of time wasting for going down after being punted in the knackers. They seem to feed off the dourness of Paul mcgowans face. His hair is just a travesty.

Dundee have wasted 3 or 4 decent chances to at least get something on target when pretty much clean through. The defense looks shaky today. The wingers haven’t been in the game, and the high balls aren’t even being sent in the general direction of main. Turnbull and Gorrin are trying to keep it down, but the movement of the front 3 isn’t good enough so far.

Yep yep

Any additions will be contingent on someone leaving (with bigi, main and Sammon being the rumored ones), and you’ve got to wonder that if we were able to get a win tomorrow would the club decide that more signings aren’t necessary? Would the money we spend on a couple more new guys cancel out what we’d get if we finished 8th instead of 9th? On the other hand, we may not want to risk being complacent then Dundee and St Mirren pull a couple of big signings out the bag on the last day. The next week is shaping up to be a very interesting one for the league, with so much still in play and plenty of banter to be had.