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Scottish Premiership Motherwell V Partick Thistle Sat 19 Nov 15:00


Yabba's Turd
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Thistle normally bring a healthy support so I hope they're telling their fans. I'll just need to leave early but I'm always running about at the last minute so that doesn't seem likely.

 

I don't know why but I'm quietly optimistic about this one. Really depends on which Motherwell turn up.

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Must win. Quite simple. Fail to do so and McGhee should go.

At the risk of attracting CMWellfan's wrath, that is bollocks.

 

His brief is to not get relegated and to bring on young players. So far, he is doing both.

 

Not to say there isn't huge room for improvement, but ditching him at this stage would be mental.

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Not so much a 'must win', more a 'need a win'!

 

Performances have been shocking of late and these really are games when we should be picking up 3 points.

 

No more experimentation on the side, if McGhee doesnt know now, he'll never know and should move on.

 

More concerned with him wasting any January budget if he's still around!!

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With Tynecastle and Celtic up next and two Aberdeen games imminent, we do need a result here. If Moult, Skippy and Ainsworth are on form though we should be fine.

 

Hopefully McGhee isn't on too much of a downer; I presume he'll get punted by the SFA this week.

I'm with you with Hearts, Celtic, Aberdeen twice and St JOhnstone five of the next six after Saturday we need something here. I wouldn't advocate McGhee being removed/removing himself if it doesn't happen but it could become a belts and braces sort of December.

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Hopefully Lucas is fit and can come back in for Lasley and I hope we opt for McMillan at left back. I'd essentially just go for the same team that played against Ross County. Boost today hearing that Carl McHugh has returned to the club, I suspect it will still be some time before we see him back playing though.

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I might be a wee bit off with my dates but I remember on one of the occasions McGhee was asked about him recently he said something along the lines of even if he walked through the door today it would probably be January before he played.

 

I don't know if that was as a consequence of the head injury if there is some graduated return involved, waning fitness having not kicked a ball over the last three months or a combination of both.

 

You just know he's going reach the point where he's fit and able to return........just as we go into the three week break in January!

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I might be a wee bit off with my dates but I remember on one of the occasions McGhee was asked about him recently he said something along the lines of even if he walked through the door today it would probably be January before he played.

 

I don't know if that was as a consequence of the head injury if there is some graduated return involved, waning fitness having not kicked a ball over the last three months or a combination of both.

 

You just know he's going reach the point where he's fit and able to return........just as we go into the three week break in January!

 

I'm of the understanding that he's done no training whatsoever since he's been out. So he's went three months without doing a thing. On top of that, it's a head injury so he'll understandably be eased back in. The end of January will probably be a decent estimate for a potential return.

 

Great news that he's on his way back. It must have been an utterly horrible experience to go through.

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Hopefully Lucas is fit and can come back in for Lasley and I hope we opt for McMillan at left back. I'd essentially just go for the same team that played against Ross County. Boost today hearing that Carl McHugh has returned to the club, I suspect it will still be some time before we see him back playing though.

 

Definitely agree with this.

 

I think McGhee has a very real decision to make about the role of guys like Hammell and Lasley now. I had a feeling that the plan would be to reduce their involvement over the course of the season but it may be the case that it may have to be more immediate than that. Obviously Lucas starting against County was dictated by Lasley's injury but had Lasley been fit I'd have been surprised if Lucas would have started ahead of him. So far this season we've found ourselves having to sacrifice Lasley around 60-70mins as we've been losing and chasing the game (County, Thistle, Hearts, Dundee etc).

 

While I'm all for having "experience" around the squad it shouldn't be to the detriment of the side. Based on nothing other than a gut feeling I'd imagine that if both are fit then McGhee would go with Lasley as his first choice and we'd see Lucas on the bench. If he's not been willing to drop Samson for Brill then I'd be surprised if he'd be willing to drop not only a senior player but the captain. However, if those 'experienced' players are no longer the best option to start in their position then we absolutely need to be playing the players who give us the best balance. Up until this season there's always been a reasonable argument that we've looked a relatively better side with both Lasley and Hammell playing, I'm not sure that this is the case any more.

 

I suppose it's difficult to read too much into Lucas' performance against County. Who knows, it may just have been a one off against a side with a midfield that was worse than ours but given that game seems to have been our most complete showing thus far then it's difficult to argue against giving that side a run regardless of whether that might be inconvenient as far as our "perceived" best XI goes.

 

Delighted to hear that McHugh and Moore both seem to be on their way back too.

 

Edit: there's maybe a bit of confirmation bias at play on my part here but looking at it 8 of our 12 points thus far have been gained without Lasley on the park. He was suspended against Killie, injured vs County at FP and had been subbed off at 1-0 down against both Thistle and County at Dingwall. Obviously it's stretching things to make a direct correlation but equally it's quite a difference from last season where we seemed to fall apart without him there.

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3 or 4 points from 4 games (3 of which were at home) v Inverness, Ross County, Dundee and Thistle is an absolute disaster. 6 points isn't great either. Unless anyone disagrees? And that's on the back of the performances and results that went before.

 

It's poor. It's not an "absolute disaster" when a win could put us Top 6.

 

Get some perspective.

 

As for 'performances that went before' we've beaten Ross County 4-1 and Accies 4-2, in our last 4 home matches.

 

Cheer the fuck up.

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If, and it's a big if, everyone is fit then there are really strong arguments for it being the same starting 11 as v Ross County.

 

If it's the same starting 11 as Dens then we're taking nothing from this game.

 

It's only 1 of many issues but a centre mid pairing of Lasley and Clay isn't working.

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I watched Blyth in the 45mins (first half) of the 20s game at Firhill I managed to get along to the other week. It was the first I'd seen on him. He missed a sitter of a header, fell on his arse a few times, it was a really good team performance both Hastie and Thomas were excellent but Blyth was by no means a stand out. He was, by and large, as I expected him to be from the clips I'd seen online.

 

He held the ball up reasonably well, brought others into play but other than that he looked like the sort of striker you'd imagine someone with his stats to be.

 

Belic's tea's oot I'd think.

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I understand why the media treated the conference with McGhee in the way that they did but I felt he should have cut them short before he did. 9 minutes of Scotland chat and a minute of so of soft ball Motherwell questions. This 'my remit is to avoid relegation and bring on young players' is an absolute cope out. Guessing this is coming from the board. I understand these points to an extent but we must strive to be far more ambitious, there is absolutely no reason why we should not expect similar finishes to recent years. Granted we should be realistic but a club without any ambition is a pretty depressing sight.

Same team as against Ross County please. The only change I would consider is putting Lasley in for Clay. Other concern is the physical presence Partick have so Bowman may be an option but we can't go back to 3 up top

Samson

Tait Heneghan McManus McMillian

Cadden Clay Lucas Ainsworth
McDonald
Moult

 

Hopefully a better crowd this week after the horrendous international break

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