Game 21: Hamilton Accies (H) December 29th 2019

[mfc]

We started really positive,got the goal and then for whatever reason we just fell right out the game.the second half was a shambles,we looked like a team that had  never played together before and not one that's sitting 3rd in the league.too many had a serious off day,i love wee campbell but that was easily his worst game I've seen him play for us,scott looked like he had never seen a football before and the rest weren't any better.hopefully there's some scope to freshen things up a wee bit in january, a striker and another option in the middle of the park have to be the priorities.

[livivoice]

Desperately trying to take something from today I would say that every team each season has a stinker. Today was ours.

Also important to remember that we are 3 rd in the league and that the teams around us in the league ( other than Aberdeen) didn't eat into our points.

Dust ourselves down and learn.

[The African]

A wake up call for us. The one thing that our history tells all Motherwell fans is that hubris is followed by nemesis. Or to put it another way, as soon as we get ahead of ourselves, sure as eggs is eggs, we come a cropper.

The only upside from today, and this is clutching at more straws than someone doing a tandem parachute jump with Wurzel Gummidge, is that we may learn from this performance and not see another like it this season.

[AllyMax]

Robinson's team talk at half time must have been something along the lines of 'Job done lads, take the rest of the year off....'

[Andy_P]

Well that was a chastening experience.  I'm sure there have been plenty but off the top of my head I'm struggling to recollect a game that we were so far ahead of the opposition, in terms of dominance if not scorewise, and contrived to be so soundly beaten.

I thought we started brilliantly.  I've read one or two remarks saying we did nothing after scoring but I thought we could easily have been three or four to the good before 20 minutes had passed.  If we had managed to get the second during that twenty or so minutes of dominance then I doubt Hamilton would have come back, but we were made to pay for our failure to kill them off.

Understandable that we might not be able to maintain that intensity for the whole first half but we became increasingly sloppy and allowed them to come back into it. We did however seem to have withstood their period of pressure and created a further opportunity ourself. Over the piece they must have been pretty happy to have escaped at half-time just a goal behind.

But that second half.  Dear God...

A painful, but hopefully heeded reminder, that for all we are sitting third, have improved immensely over the calender year, have played some terrific football and have some very capable players, that if we aren't on it we can be very cruelly exposed.  It isn't something you can throw at the team too often but they didn't look like they wanted it as much as Hamilton as that second half grew on.  It frustrates that we didn't even need to be cut apart either. It was fairly basic, ball in the box stuff and watch us panic.

Thoughts will focus on the substitution.  A difficult one. A change was most certainly required but did the inclusion of another defender just illustrate our panic?  It certainly did nothing to make us less susceptible to their increasing attacks as it turned out but not unnatural to look to try to make yourself more difficult to break down if you are on the backfoot (regardless of opponent and position). What it did do in removing both Hylton and Scott was cripple us in terms of us returning to a more offensive outlook when they equalised and the game was completely up when they went ahead.

It's glass half empty, glass half full stuff about the other results. We've ridden our luck with Aberdeen dropping points and Hibs and Kilmarnock losing. But what an opportunity lost to strengthen our position.  But all things considered that doesn't really come into it when the pain of the defeat is still fresh.  We've turned in one of the worst halves of football in quite some time, lost a derby in front of one the healthiest home supports in some time and that stings pretty badly at this moment in time.

 

 

[Kmcalpin]

2 hours ago, fizoxy said:

We didn't have much in the way of midfield options on the bench, but that's where we needed the extra body when we brought Hartley on. Maguire for either Scott or Hylton at that point would have made more sense to me.

Without doubt our midfield was the root cause of our poor poor display. They couldn't protect the defence, couldn't give the strikers decent service and basically looked intimidated and hid.  Big faults elsewhere too of course.  Options weren't great but we did have some. They may have worked or they may not.  If as Robbo said he needed more physicality and height in the team, then Barry Maguire could have given that to us in midfield in place of Campbell or O'Hara. Semple or MacIver could have replaced a totally anonymous Polworth and Grimshaw could have been shunted forward into the midfield to give it some much needed bite.  By bringing on Hartley that only served to encourage Accies by showing them a glass jaw or more likely that we were utterly rattled and bricking it. Scott should have been hooked at half time, if not before. Changes ought to have been made at half time as by that point the writing was well and truly on the wall. 

We had very limited options up front but we needed to play more on the deck than we did. Aimless high balls to Long or Hylton was never going to work.

Almost the entire team looked complacent or s**t scared of Accies. Credit to Accies, they played very well off the ball and seemed to have 15 players on the pitch. Anytime and almost anywhere our player received the ball he was quickly closed down and bundled off the ball. Their long ball tactics worked a treat from the first minute to the last. Its ok having talent but you still have to work hard and get stuck in.  Too many of our lads had no stomach for a battle or as Robbo hinted were physically unsuited to it. If ever we missed David Turnbull it was today - a player who can mix it with the roughest but still play football.

Still, we continue to retain 3rd spot and the defeat has come at a perfect time for us, if there is such a thing. Hopefully management will have a better idea now of where personnel changes need to be made with the window opening shortly.   

[GazzyB]

We badly missed Donnelly today.

[Yorkyred]

22 minutes ago, GazzyB said:

We badly missed Donnelly today.

We just about always miss Donnelly.

[grizzlyg]

A bad day at the office but some fans need to get a grip.  We are sitting 3rd...14pts clear of 7th place...the booing at times unbelievable.  Aye it was a honking performance but you know what these things happen.  We had players badly off form , scott had a howler but I am sure he knew that himself. Let's just put today down to a bad day and recharge the batteries for cup tie...COYW

[texanwellfan]

45 minutes ago, Andy_P said:

Well that was a chastening experience.  I'm sure there have been plenty but off the top of my head I'm struggling to recollect a game that we were so far ahead of the opposition, in terms of dominance if not scorewise, and contrived to be so soundly beaten.

I thought we started brilliantly.  I've read one or two remarks saying we did nothing after scoring but I thought we could easily have been three or four to the good before 20 minutes had passed.  If we had managed to get the second during that twenty or so minutes of dominance then I doubt Hamilton would have come back, but we were made to pay for our failure to kill them off.

Understandable that we might not be able to maintain that intensity for the whole first half but we became increasingly sloppy and allowed them to come back into it. We did however seem to have withstood their period of pressure and created a further opportunity ourself. Over the piece they must have been pretty happy to have escaped at half-time just a goal behind.

But that second half.  Dear God...

A painful, but hopefully heeded reminder, that for all we are sitting third, have improved immensely over the calender year, have played some terrific football and have some very capable players, that if we aren't on it we can be very cruelly exposed.  It isn't something you can throw at the team too often but they didn't look like they wanted it as much as Hamilton as that second half grew on.  It frustrates that we didn't even need to be cut apart either. It was fairly basic, ball in the box stuff and watch us panic.

Thoughts will focus on the substitution.  A difficult one. A change was most certainly required but did the inclusion of another defender just illustrate our panic?  It certainly did nothing to make us less susceptible to their increasing attacks as it turned out but not unnatural to look to try to make yourself more difficult to break down if you are on the backfoot (regardless of opponent and position). What it did do in removing both Hylton and Scott was cripple us in terms of us returning to a more offensive outlook when they equalised and the game was completely up when they went ahead.

It's glass half empty, glass half full stuff about the other results. We've ridden our luck with Aberdeen dropping points and Hibs and Kilmarnock losing. But what an opportunity lost to strengthen our position.  But all things considered that doesn't really come into it when the pain of the defeat is still fresh.  We've turned in one of the worst halves of football in quite some time, lost a derby in front of one the healthiest home supports in some time and that stings pretty badly at this moment in time.

 

 

The second half was pretty much like us wandering about going “where’s the ball”? “Where’s the ball”?  “What does the ball look like”?  “ I can’t remember what the ball looks like. How will I find the ball if I don’t know what it looks like”?   
However still in a great position at this time of year and we know to expect glitches but still doesn’t make them any easier to bear. 

[BAZ]

That was one of the worst performances I've watched, with the exception of the first  20 minutes when we looked terrific. Then as usually happens when we have a decent crowd they served up crap.  Not one team member passed muster and the substitutions were abysmal. Told the opposition we were hoping to hold on, we just caved in. Second to every ball and so slow it was unbelievable. Please God the break helps to bring them down to earth and not the world beaters they seemed to think they  are!  Reading and listening to the media.

 

[fizoxy]

All things considered, this is one of the mildest post loss meltdowns I’ve seen in a while. We’ve come a long way in 2019 :-)

[Kmcalpin]

10 hours ago, fizoxy said:

All things considered, this is one of the mildest post loss meltdowns I’ve seen in a while. We’ve come a long way in 2019 :-)

Don't be misled. Posters have, in the main, been very restrained. The reaction I heard post match was considerably blunter and franker.

[Yorkyred]

56 minutes ago, fizoxy said:

All things considered, this is one of the mildest post loss meltdowns I’ve seen in a while. We’ve come a long way in 2019 :-)

Motherwell fans going at it with each other near me in the Hunter stand. Then a guy starts filming it on his phone which ended up with him nearly getting a doing from one of them. It all went very soap opera and was frankly more entertaining than watching the fare on offer on the pitch.

I’m still trying to block that second half out of my memory, even worse that it was against a team with one win in 13, then even more terrible given it was Accies. Their fans must be asking why they can’t play like that more often.

[Welldaft Mk1]

I was raging at FT. It was an awful performance bar the 1st 20 minutes. 

Oh so typical of Motherwell to conjur a defeat like that when we had a healthy home crowd and were on a high. 

It is hard to pick on any one player. They all had stinkers bar maybe Long and Gillespie. 

But the reaction should be restrained on account of the fact we are still 3rd and anyone who thought we would be higher than 6th would be lying. Of course it was a huge chance missed as we could have been 3 more points ahead of Hibs, Killie and Livi. I think we will finish top 6 but worry about top 4 based on today. 

The only hope is it serves as a HUGE wake up call to management and players we are not as good as we maybe think we are. 

We need a huge improvement on today to win against Dundee. I hope we can unearth a goalscorer and Donnelly is fit after the break. I think Campbell could do with a break. 

That hurt today big time !
 

[texanwellfan]

Best we can hope for is that it brings out a reaction from the players in our next league game at Aberdeen. 

[gaz7]

5 hours ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

I think if you are being completely honest our results have been better than our performances recently so I'm not that surprised about what happened but having said that it was our poorest performance  in a long while.

Started well and scored a good goal but almost immediately after scoring the goal we went into first gear, became withdrawn, got sluggish and sloppy.  Even then Accies should have still opened the scoring in the first couple of minutes but they too were poor in the first half so we kind of got away with it.

Second half was atrocious and Accies gave us a hosing.  7 or 8 players just didn't look interested and the truth is 1-2 defeat made us look better than we were, Accies should have scored more.  Could easily have been 1-4 or 1-5.  Gillespie has made a great save, Moyo has headed inches wide and there was plenty more chances beside those for Accies.

If we'd won today we would have gone into the Scottish Cup match with a lot of confidence, I think today's performance has got to put a little bit of doubt in there now because we were really so poor.

I've been saying for a while that our central midfield area is a concern and today didn't change that. 

Yep i agree ya bezzer.

Campbell whilst one of our own looking poor for a bit when we are off it .

However a huge decision today was our managers by going 352 when we were winning.

Yes accies were pressing us at that time but we were still winning and i thought if we weathered that storm we would go on from there.

Easy in hindsight i know but trying to console myself with we are still 3rd.

ps both accies full backs mcgowan and mcmann looked good and worth a look from our scouting department.

[Andy_P]

15 hours ago, Cedric Silkyshag said:

I'm looking at the size of the travelling support. Ridiculous. Here's an idea of what they used to bring not so long ago. (And a weel kent face getting his usual bit of assistance out of FP.)

Just as an aside, even though it doesn't matter much in truth, even that image isn't a true reflection of what they bring for derbies, that's from their Challenge Cup Final in early nineties against Dundee I think it was. 

I think in relatively recent times the biggest they'll have brought was for the Scottish Cup when they held us at Fir Park and the replay was at Broadwood. 

[Happy Dosser]

We started like Brazil and ended up like Burnbank Athletic.

That second half implosion was quite something and surpassed even  the embarrassing, panic-ridden meltdowns we  witnessed during McGhee's second tenure.

I can only hope that performance will prove a massive kick up the jacksy for every one connected to the club.

Of course, we had to reserve that performance for a) Accies and b) a larger crowd than normal with potential newbies who will probably never darken our door again.

What a boot in the Haw Maws...….

 

[Kmcalpin]

9 hours ago, gaz7 said:

both accies full backs mcgowan and mcmann looked good and worth a look from our scouting department.

Agree with most of your post, but this wasn't a game on which to judge them. One of our poorest performances in the last 3 or 4 years. They were given the freedom of Fir Park to do as they wanted.  Other Premiership teams haven't had the same welcome extended to them that Accies had yesterday.

Yes, our central midfield is certainly a concern. Alan Campbell is normally fine but he wasn't at the races yesterday.  He badly needs  a rest. Liam Donnelly is ok and yes we missed him but we have no other out and out decent defensive midfielder able to hold the line against bruising opponents. Take Donnelly out and we are soft as s**t in the engine room as we witnessed yesterday. I'm not 100% convinced of Polworth - ok at lower Premiership level but is anonymous when the going gets tough or when playing against better teams.  O'Hara has a lot of convincing to do. If Sloth can't get a sniff of first team action now then he never will. Young guns like Cornelius and Semple deserve their chance but need to be played carefully. 

Was I the only one who thought that, after our substitutions yesterday, we played a 5-3-2 formation or maybe even 5-4-1?

[Onthefringes]

I’m not having Accies fullbacks being worth a look from our scouting department at all.

[johnstone]

Brain Easton had the game of his life.  I agree we missed Donnely big time yesterday. 

Bad result, but can’t grumble too much as to be third half at the winter break is more than any of us would have hoped for at this stage.

Anyway hopefully a fully fit squad against Dundee in a few weeks is what we need as these run of games over the holidays is hard to manage when you have a small squad.

 

[joewarkfanclub]

Such a frustrating performance and result. Sitting 4 points clear in 3rd going into the break would have been incredible. Should have been all the motivation the players needed. 

Slightly concerned that in games that teams are getting the better of us, we rarely turn it around tactically.  The substitutions yesterday were baffling.

Still, would have bitten your hand off for tgis position at the start of the season and would have been happy with 5 points from 9 on this run, so it would be churlish to complain to much. The good thing is that despite our current position we know there is still plenty of room for improvement. 

Here's hoping for a good window and the return of David Turnbull over the winter break!

[Kmac]

Quite frankly pathetic yesterday. We were utter dross bar the first 20 minutes. 
Midfield was posted missing and whilst the following is going to require a tin helmet on here, Alan Campbell would be seriously struggling for a place if we had some effective competition in the middle of the park. 
Gallagher invited pressure yesterday too many times by dallying on the ball and it set the tone. 
Scott needs to find some level of consistency despite his young age and Polworth is 90% of the time, worse than a man short.

 

rant over

[Yorkyred]

3 hours ago, Kmcalpin said:

Agree with most of your post, but this wasn't a game on which to judge them. One of our poorest performances in the last 3 or 4 years. They were given the freedom of Fir Park to do as they wanted.  Other Premiership teams haven't had the same welcome extended to them that Accies had yesterday.

Yes, our central midfield is certainly a concern. Alan Campbell is normally fine but he wasn't at the races yesterday.  He badly needs  a rest. Liam Donnelly is ok and yes we missed him but we have no other out and out decent defensive midfielder able to hold the line against bruising opponents. Take Donnelly out and we are soft as s**t in the engine room as we witnessed yesterday. I'm not 100% convinced of Polworth - ok at lower Premiership level but is anonymous when the going gets tough or when playing against better teams.  O'Hara has a lot of convincing to do. If Sloth can't get a sniff of first team action now then he never will. Young guns like Cornelius and Semple deserve their chance but need to be played carefully. 

Was I the only one who thought that, after our substitutions yesterday, we played a 5-3-2 formation or maybe even 5-4-1?

It looked more like 5-4-1 at times to me. Regarding Campbell there was a particular challenge in the second half just in front of the Hunter stand where he just pulled out looking totally knackered, looked to have no energy at all and we wondered if he had been suffering with a virus.