2018’19 Game 14: Livingston (A) Saturday 1st December 2018

[Toxteth O'Grady]

3 minutes ago, GazzyB said:

Sounds like we were honking today, Robinson sounds incredibly frustrated in his post match interview. Think it's a really good interview to be honest.

Yup, I thought his comments were spot on

Quote

Motherwell manager Stephen Robinson: "We got what we deserved out of the game. Players can make you look silly at times. All we've worked on all week is long throws and set plays. For the first goal a player runs off [his marker] from the long throw and scores. The second one a players runs off again a scores.

"It's so frustrating. When players think they've cracked it and don't need to do the free stuff, you get a performance like that. When they have something to prove, you get a performance like the Aberdeen one. Perhaps that's why some players are where they are here at Motherwell, they are up and down."

 

[grizzlyg]

Robinson blameless as always...never his fault. ( In his opinion).....end of rant..........make amends and beat Sellik 2-0 with 2 own goals from that tit Lustig

[1991]

Elliot Frear is terrible only winger who can't beat a man or cross the ball, he wasn't the only failure today but he brings nothing to the team especially when we have a fight on our hands. I also can't see why Johnson stayed on for 90mins it just wasn't his day today strange why Robbo took Main off 

[Yorkyred]

 So  difficult to understand how the same players can be so good one week and so bad the next. Forget formations some of our players just never turned up and no formation in the world was going to change that fact. They turned over Aberdeen and did exactly the same as they did last season after terrific performances and felt they were better than they were and let themselves down. If you want a perfect example of why Grimshaw is not playing for Man Utd today you had it, terrific last week and absolutely anonymous today. This one is not down to Robinson, the players need to hold their hands up and apologise.

[steelboy]

Another dig at Bigi. I'd back the wee man to do a Lionel on Robinson if it comes to it.

 

[steelboy]

Quote

All we've worked on all week is long throws and set plays.

What a surprise.

It's pretty obvious we don't work on attacking and now we have it confirmed.

[Yodo]

Think the game today showed the level of the players we have at the club right now some of them couldn't trap a bag of cement . Can anybody tell me what our game plan was apart from hoofball and getting everybody back in our box to defend leaving nobody up the park . Moving on to the Celtic game I really fear for us on Wednesday night could be another doing and with the games we have coming up we really need a performance 

[MFCL84]

Having just heard Robinson's interview I do agree with him when he said that Gillespie and Gorrin were the only pass marks. I have no idea where this idea comes from that this team can bounce back. If they could bounce back they wouldn't be where they are in the league and they wouldn't lose 7 (seven) to anyone.

The player reaction is same old same old. Nobody ever really looks beat up about results like this. All very flat media sound bites. Where is the passion?

[Ya Bezzer!]

33 minutes ago, steelboy said:

Another dig at Bigi. I'd back the wee man to do a Lionel on Robinson if it comes to it.

 

Bigi has probably been our best regular starter this season but you'd have to be one of the great fiction writers to come up with a story to justify him getting on in the 2nd half today.

Robinson was quite right to hook him, even if others could consider themselves lucky to not join him in the dressing room for the second 45.

The more experienced players should be stepping up to the plate and guiding the younger players but they aren't.   It's the younger players that are showing the more experienced players what to do, whether it be Turnbull against Dundee, or Maguire today, and that's unforgivable.

Imagine going to your job, absolutely knocking your pan in and then realising that guys that don't bother their backsides are earning way more than you?  That's our club right now.  Senior players just aren't earning their wages  - end of story.

We've been pandering lower and lower standards for a few years now and this is the result.  Bar needs raised big time and the senior members of the squad need told that pretty forcibly.

 

[Kmcalpin]

11 hours ago, Yorkyred said:

 This one is not down to Robinson, the players need to hold their hands up and apologise.

Sorry don't agree Yorky. Yes players didn't cover themselves in glory but the game was lost at 2.30. Wrong team wrong tactics wrong substitutions. We seemed totally unprepared for how Livvy were going to play and didn't even have a Plan A.

[steelboy]

1 hour ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

Bigi has probably been our best regular starter this season but you'd have to be one of the great fiction writers to come up with a story to justify him getting on in the 2nd half today.

 

  

I thought he was better than Campbell and Grimshaw (and Maguire's first 45). It's not so much the subbing as the comments at one player. Bigi has definitely took over from Ainsworth.

We didn't have many experienced players today. Bigi was poor but not the worst, Aldred was ok, Tait is out of position and Main was much better than Johnson.  The bigger issue is playing without a proper rightback and leftback and not having quality up front. That is down to the manager.

[Ya Bezzer!]

1 minute ago, steelboy said:

I thought he was better than Campbell and Grimshaw (and Maguire's first 45). It's not so much the subbing as the comments at one player. Bigi has definitely took over from Ainsworth.

We didn't have many experienced players today. Bigi was poor but not the worst, Aldred was ok, Tait is out of position and Main was much better than Johnson.  The bigger issue is playing without a proper rightback and leftback and not having quality up front. That is down to the manager.

The midfield was completely non existent today - that was the biggest problem.

You could have fired the lot of them off at half time. 

And I thought Aldred was poor, Tait got a pumping and Main did his headless chicken act.

In a nutshell it was our poorest performance of the season.

[Toxteth O'Grady]

26 minutes ago, Kmcalpin said:

Yes players didn't cover themselves in glory but the game was lost at 2.30. Wrong team wrong tactics wrong substitutions. 

The subs I could possibly give you, but would you really have changed the team and tactics following by far our best showing of the season? What would you have done differently?

[mfc]

We've had some poor performances this season but that today was the worst of the lot,it was beyond farcical.this group of players as well as the management,really leave me scratching my head at times,thinking wtf was it we were actually trying too achieve,not for the first time this season was there any game plan and we couldn't even do the basics with any degree of professionilism,the goals we lost were school boy stuff.

[wellwell91]

4 minutes ago, Toxteth O'Grady said:

The subs I could possibly give you, but would you really have changed the team and tactics following by far our best showing of the season? What would you have done differently?

Sorry … … … But it’s got to be horses for courses 

Livii had about 5 or 6 guys who were 6ft+

They play for set pieces so they can fire in free kicks, corners or long throws 

We play a midfield of midgets !!!! So what do you expect … … they score from a long throw and a corner

If ever there was a time to play hoof ball this was it there is no way you can play football on that surface and no way you can run with the ball so the surface took away everything that Bigi and Grimshaw brought to the party last week.

[Kmcalpin]

10 hours ago, wellwell91 said:

Sorry … … … But it’s got to be horses for courses 

Livii had about 5 or 6 guys who were 6ft+

They play for set pieces so they can fire in free kicks, corners or long throws 

We play a midfield of midgets !!!! So what do you expect … … they score from a long throw and a corner

If ever there was a time to play hoof ball this was it there is no way you can play football on that surface and no way you can run with the ball so the surface took away everything that Bigi and Grimshaw brought to the party last week.

You've answered Toxteth's post for me. Spot on. 

[couttsy]

9 minutes ago, Kmcalpin said:

You've answered Toxteth's post for me. Spot on. 

 

[Toxteth O'Grady]

Hard to disagree with any of that, although obviously it's easier in hindsight.

However, if Robinson had completely changed the team around today after beating Aberdeen 3-0 and we'd lost, he'd have been absolutely slaughtered.

Incidentally, that must be the first top flight Scottish game I've been to where the crowd was below 2,000.

[kmmfc]

Bigi being booked probably meant he was the one being subbed at half time but in truth no-one could have any complaints about being subbed.

[Pepper]

1 hour ago, kmmfc said:

Bigi being booked probably meant he was the one being subbed at half time but in truth no-one could have any complaints about being subbed.

If  anyone's in doubt why Bigi was subbed I suggest they watch the highlights. Lawless is his man for both the long throws that lead to Livi's first chance then the goal. 

He's they type of player who must drive manager's bonkers!

[GazzyB]

21 minutes ago, Pepper said:

If  anyone's in doubt why Bigi was subbed I suggest they watch the highlights. Lawless is his man for both the long throws that lead to Livi's first chance then the goal. 

He's they type of player who must drive manager's bonkers!

Also special mention for Mbulu's dire attempts to win the header at both goals.

[Welldaft Mk1]

6 hours ago, GazzyB said:

Also special mention for Mbulu's dire attempts to win the header at both goals.

Just watched the lowlights. Said after last week we may have another Kipre on our hands. He is a young lad but the attempts to defend /win both headers were very poor. 

Livi has not scored in past 4 games. Probably because they played teams that could defend set pieces.  

We lost yesterday because we were poor in defence, lacked a cohesive and battling midfield and were powder puff up front. Everything else was ok.....

I think I have reached the conclusion that it is not worth watching Motherwell play on plastic pitches. They can be bad on grass but I have rarely if ever seen a good game even in the rare occasions when we have won. We are not great and we played v poorly yesterday, but I got a sense they were just not comfortable on that surface. 

[star sail]

10 hours ago, wellwell91 said:

Sorry … … … But it’s got to be horses for courses 

Livii had about 5 or 6 guys who were 6ft+

They play for set pieces so they can fire in free kicks, corners or long throws 

We play a midfield of midgets !!!! So what do you expect … … they score from a long throw and a corner

If ever there was a time to play hoof ball this was it there is no way you can play football on that surface and no way you can run with the ball so the surface took away everything that Bigi and Grimshaw brought to the party last week.

Can't agree with this. This sounds like a quote from the Gordon Strachan book of how to regress the National game by 40 years. If Messi, Modric and his band of fellow midgets had been playing yesterday would Livingston have won? It comes down to quality not height. 

I don't think there is a single Motherwell fan was thinking at 2.30pm yesterday that Robinson had it all wrong. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Who would be a football manager? 

[Ya Bezzer!]

1 hour ago, star sail said:

Can't agree with this. This sounds like a quote from the Gordon Strachan book of how to regress the National game by 40 years. If Messi, Modric and his band of fellow midgets had been playing yesterday would Livingston have won? It comes down to quality not height. 

I don't think there is a single Motherwell fan was thinking at 2.30pm yesterday that Robinson had it all wrong. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Who would be a football manager? 

Absolutely.

Aberdeen are the tallest team in the league.  Wasn't a problem last week.

For me there is an attitude out there that winning 1 in 4 is 'good enough'.   The attitude of the players was shocking from the start of the match.  Just didn't fancy playing on a gloomy day in front of a small crowd on a bad pitch.

It's excuses, excuses, excuses with this team.  We've got injuries, we can't play on artificial grass, we can't compete against teams  with bigger budgets.  I'm fucking sick of it.

It's £28 for a ticket at Tynecastle next week, if any of the players are reading this can you let me know if you feel like extending yourselves outside of your 'finish 10th' comfort zone?

[Yorkyred]

2 minutes ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

Absolutely.

Aberdeen are the tallest team in the league.  Wasn't a problem last week.

For me there is an attitude out there that winning 1 in 4 is 'good enough'.   The attitude of the players was shocking from the start of the match.  Just didn't fancy playing on a gloomy day in front of a small crowd on a bad pitch.

It's excuses, excuses, excuses with this team.  We've got injuries, we can't play on artificial grass, we can't compete against teams  with bigger budgets.  I'm fucking sick of it.

It's £28 for a ticket at Tynecastle next week, if any of the players are reading can you let me know if you feel if you feel like extending yourselves outside of your 'finish 10th' comfort zone?

Yep, as stated midfield was absolutely none existent yesterday, Biggi another one who stated only a week ago he came here to use us a stepping stone back to the English premier league, keep dreaming. Yesterday was down to the attitude of the majority of players on the pitch. I will say though that Livi have a pitch that should never be allowed    in top flight football but don’t want to use that as an excuse for the shambles that followed.