Scottish Premiership Motherwell V Kilmarnock Sat 10 Dec 15:00

[GazzyB]

 

Is it just me or is that a stonewall penalty?

[capt_oats]

I reckon Dom must be wondering how he's ended up so far behind the likes of Cadden, MacLean and now probably Hastie and Ferguson too. struggling to see a future for him.

For avoidance of doubt I'm not being 100% serious here but I think the following sequence of tweets from a couple of recent u20s games is quite illustrative;

 

vs St Mirren u20s

'67 | 1-1

Hastie links up with Thomas down the left, the latter charges at the defence, shimmies on to his left, strikes it, but it's saved.

 

'70 | 1-1

It's nearly brilliant from Thomas. He picks up the ball on edge of Saints box, beats his man with a cruyff turn but shoots over

 

'72 | 1-1

Thomas is at it again, beating his marker with ease & charging towards the box. His effort is better this time but Willison saves.

 

vs Falkirk u20s

'51 | 0-0

Nearly a wonder goal from Thomas. He beats his man, cuts in from the right and goes for power with his left, but it's inches over!

 

'63 | 1-0

'Well sub: McFadden is off and he's replaced by Hastie.

 

'66 | 2-1

'Well pull one back instantly! Campbell crosses towards Hastie who makes no mistake and fires it past Mehmet. Lively few minutes!

 

Invariably with Dom it's a case of "so close", "nearly brilliant", "nearly a wonder goal" etc. Whereas in the Falkirk game Hastie's on the park 3 mins and he's made an impact. Off the top of my head in recent games Hastie has had goals against Thistle u20s, Cumbernauld Colts u20s, and Falkirk u20s. He also won the 2 penalties against Morton u20s. Tellingly that record is from the same wide attacking role as Thomas has had in the past.

 

Now, part of that is unfair. You can almost certainly go through the Twitter feed and find plenty of "almost" and "nearly" re: Hastie and MacLean but you'll also find consistent goals and assists on their part. In Hastie's case even at 17 he looks more of an athlete than Thomas ever has but either way there's an end product to his and MacLean's game that you don't seem to get with Thomas, as fleet of foot as he may be. It'd actually be really interesting to know their scoring records for the 20s tbh.

[milo]

There's not much more I can add that hasn't been covered already. There are no guaranteed wins in this league but this was possibly our best chance to get 3 points for the rest of the year and we didn't manage it.

 

3 almost certain defeats in the next 3 games so as I think someone else said earlier, we're under real pressure to get points from the Inverness and Accies games.

 

What do folk think our points tally will be for the next 5 games before the break?

 

I think we'll get between 0 and 3. Can't see us getting anymore!

[stonehouse well]

I had a look at the stats on the way back from the game on the FlashScores app and taking them to be correct I was a little surprised to see that they had Killie with more goal attempts and more shots on target to us. Although those figures don't take into account how dangerous the opportunities were my perception on leaving the game was that they really hadn't threatened us much at all with us having spurned at least four good chances.

 

I thought Killie were easily the better side for much of the first half without really threatening. Arguably their best chance however was that attempted clearance from Lasley that almost rebounded into our own net. It was disappointing that we failed to take at least one of the two chances immediately before the break. MacLean at least made the Killie keeper work but it was pretty poor from Lionel with his chance, he's usually much more clinical from such situations.

 

I thought we dominated most of the second half although we did lose our way for a spell midway through the half and it got to a stage where with about 15/20 minutes to go you began to think maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing to get out of it without a defeat given the way it was delicately poised. But fair play we did actually make positive changes that gave us a freshness and we did get back on top and looked to win it.

 

Again with the chances you might have expected Louis to do better but credit to the Killie defender for getting in the block and McDonald's effort was perhaps deserving of better given it would have finished perhaps the best piece of play all afternoon.

 

It does however feel like a good opportunity missed, even more so that we would have picked up two points on practically everybody else about us with so many draws yesterday.

 

But still a few positives to take. A clean sheet for one thing. And as already stated by a few in earlier posts, the increasing number of youngsters becoming more and more involved in the first team is pleasing to see. And more so you can see a gradual increase in their confidence and belief that they do fully deserve to be there the more they are involved.

 

Much has been said about the contract offers to the more senior members of the squad and the dropping off of performances, particularly those of Lasley and Hammell. Whilst there is no question that sometimes this season it has left me with a heavy heart seeing how off the pace they have been on occasion (Las yesterday in the run up to his booking and before he got subbed for example) I'll repeat my view that a succession plan where they are gradually phased out as youngsters match and then surpass them was a much better idea than a complete cull. Take Ross MacLean for example who only this week cited McFadden as being a continuing positive influence on him. I don't doubt that McMillan, Chalmers, Ferguson and Campbell and so on won't feel the same about the benefits of having Hammell, McManus and Lasley around either as they seek to establish themselves.

 

So all in all could have better, could hav

 

So well said. The fact of the matter we give our youngsters with future potential and selling on possibility's one year contracts and give the over 30's 2-3 years must be changed.

[stonehouse well]

"Barring the keeper, if anyone comes off the pitch at full time without making a mistake

I will be very disappointed" - Stuart McCall.

[Lukemfc1]

Was hard to believe this was the same sport we watched a week prior. One of the worst games i've witnessed in a while.

Killie were pretty physical at times but the constant whistling from the ref combined with low quality made for a thoroughly horrendous watch. Pretty poor to average displays all over the park really. Thought Lasley in particular was shocking, sorely missed Chrissy Caden in the midfield. I really like Maclean, encouraged by his display. Was surprised to see him come off not sure if this was injury related? In any case, Lucas seemed to add a bit of quality to proceedings but not enough to have any baring on the scoreline. Moult and Ainsworth probably should have put away their chances however overall I didn't think our performance deserved much.

We are still very much part of this pack but my biggest worry is with our upcoming fixtures Saturday could have been an important 2 points dropped.

Not easy fixtures coming up. If we could get 6 points out of these we would be doing well.

 

Tue 13 19:45 A Aberdeen Aberdeen
Sat 17 15.00 A St Johnstone St Johnstone
Fri 23 19:45 H Aberdeen Aberdeen
Wed 28 19.45 A Inverness CT Inverness CT
Sat 31 13:00 A Hamilton Hamilon Accies

[Joeboy]

I've been a big critic of Thomas whenever he has come on of late but I actually thought Saturday was his most encouraging cameo for a while, albeit he still wasn't setting the world alight. Tait, Heneghan and McManus all had very good games and although Ferguson didn't particularly stand out, in an unfamiliar position he coped with everything that came at him. Tait seems to be a very good attacking outlet and seems to have the engine to get up and down and his defensive side does seem to be getting gradually better, one time on Saturday he lost the ball high up the pitch but made a great run to recover it.

 

The most guilt edged chance for me was Ainsworth's in the first half, particularly after watching back and seeing it on the highlights, I really think he should have done better. Moult and McDonald are undoubtedly our best front pairing, but I don't see why we didn't use Bowman for twenty minutes or so to try and change it up.

 

Can only echo what people have said about Lasley, his days of being effective seem to be drawing to a close, particularly in a midfield two. Clay put in an honest shift as always, but I don't think he has quality in abundance, which there's no shame in and that we can't expect every one of our players to have, but he may be put to better use if he wasn't playing alongside a 37 year old with limited ability. I think the main issue with Lasley is positional discipline, he still runs into the attacking areas he did five years ago, but his lack of legs to get back mean there is either a massive gap left, or he commits fouls, such as the one he got booked for on Saturday.

 

As much as McManus as had faults and mistakes over the past couple of years, I still think he is more than able bodied to do the job asked of him. It's unfortunate, but it seems it's getting to the stage where you can't say the same about Hammell or Lasley.

[Joeboy]

Decent game. Cancelled each other out. McManus hoofing it diagonally wide will never impress me, but the defending side of things was good today,

 

Wasn't so bad last week when Moult scored from it!

[Villageman]

 

Wasn't so bad last week when Moult scored from it!

Except that that wasn't diagonally wide, more diagonally centre.