Motherwell v Rangers 31/10/2021

[The African]

Get the major things right - tactics, formation, attitude - and we have a chance of taking something from the game. Get them wrong and we will get nothing. In that sense it really isn't much different from any other game we play. Concentrate on the things we can control and influence and, if we give it our best shot and it still doesn't go our way then that is football and we move on to the next game. It is only when we have done all we can to achieve a positive outcome that the piece of misfortune or a dodgy refereeing decision or two cease to be an "excuse" and become a " reason".

[pretzel]

I can't say I'm too optimistic for the match, Rangers haven't been playing great as of late but you kinda get that feeling we'll make them look like Brazil as we made a ropey Celtic side look more than decent. If we do find a performance you just know Mr Walsh will be on hand to help them out in some manner. Any points here would be most welcome. I agree with other posters, 352 sounds good in terms of set up but I honestly won't be surprised to see us line up 433 to match them. Assuming Ojala is fit I'd bet Alexander will go for pretty much the same lineup as Wednesday with Van Veen in for Shields being the only change. I would prefer to see Carroll in for McGinley as I feel his set pieces could be pivotal here.

[Yabba's Turd]

16 hours ago, David said:

No, the refs are inept and they tend to give decisions based on what would be the easiest outcome to deal with. Deny Rangers or Celtic a last minute penalty in their title race and scrutiny follows from all sides. Give the penalty and all he'll have to deal with is the opposition manager raging.

It's not a budget "excuse," it's simply fact. Why do you think, 99% of the time the league titles in most leagues are won by the teams who have the largest budgets? When was the last time a non-old firm side won the Scottish league? 

Money buys quality, and quality more often than not wins games. You may not like it, but that's how it is.

It's not the money you spend on buying, it's the money you spend on wages

[Spiderpig]

5 hours ago, Yabba's Turd said:

It's not the money you spend on buying, it's the money you spend on wages

You can't have one without the other, the top players all command large transfer fees with large wage demands to match. 

[Well Well]

I have absolutely no confidence we will get anything from this game. Watching the players so disorganised and completely inept v St Mirren this will be a doing. We played Rangers when we were high on confidence a few weeks back, this time we look lost and their midfield will over run ours as has every team we have played so far. I am going for possession stats in the 20%s at home against them with 0 shots on goal and 0 corners ( though that may be a blessing with those ridiculous short corner routines).

If we are still drawing after 80 minutes I will be astonished and almost resigned that they will get their usual penalty and/or one of our players sent off.

[Yodo]

Referee for this is Mr Nick Walsh won't bother posting all his stats when refereeing Sevco but here is one of them .He is yet to send off a Sevco player in his 24 games in charge of them ,sent off four opposition players awarded 3 penalties to them and 1 to their opponents . Think I'll have a long lie on Sunday 

[Spiderpig]

16 minutes ago, Yodo said:

Referee for this is Mr Nick Walsh won't bother posting all his stats when refereeing Sevco but here is one of them .He is yet to send off a Sevco player in his 24 games in charge of them ,sent off four opposition players awarded 3 penalties to them and 1 to their opponents . Think I'll have a long lie on Sunday 

It's an absolute certainty that if we are a goal up late in the game, or Rangers are only 1 up they will get their usual dodgy penalty to ensure their win or rescue a point.

[middleeastdave]

No idea when GA’s presss conference is but are there any injury news yet, I take it Ojala will be out and I also thought that Solhom is also an injury doubt?

[Well Well]

I saw Ojala pull up with a groin injury about 5 minutes before he went off. He tried to stretch it off a few times but obviously got worse. One guy I cannot criticise I thought he has done his job well since coming in

[Big Stall]

12 minutes ago, Spiderpig said:

It's an absolute certainty that if we are a goal up late in the game, or Rangers are only 1 up they will get their usual dodgy penalty to ensure their win or rescue a point.

I really don't subscribe to the nonsense that the refs are here to help Rangers at the expense of everyone else.

Look at Wednesday night at Fir Park, Motherwell v St Mirren, horrific decisions, none of which had anything to do with Rangers.

Yes, they get their fair share of help, as do Celtic but that is probably down to being in the box more than other teams and having tens of thousands of wanks screaming at them. The reality is that refs up here, across the board, really are not very good at their job.

VAR would be excellent, I can't see it happening myself. The biggest losers from VAR would be both arse cheeks as the soft decisions they get would be lost.

 

To go back to your point, if for some reason that we are actually winning the game - on Sunday or any other game, we should maybe try to keep playing football right up to the final whistle. Not sit back and invite teams onto us which seems to be GA's strategy. The more opportunities we give any opposition late in the game to pepper our box, the higher the chances of giving away a penalty, soft or stonewall.

 

 

 

[MJC]

Correct. This nonsensical theory that match officials are out to help Rangers and will invent a decision in their favour should they need one is schoolboy patter and doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny whatsoever.

I remember the same chat on forums before the playoff, that there was “absolutely no chance we would be allowed to win and the referees will do everything in their power to ensure Rangers were promoted.” If there was ever going to be a time where the referees and the authorities were going to go out of their way to help Rangers, this was it surely? 

And over the two games, despite having Madden for the 1st leg and Craig Thomson for the 2nd, we weren’t done over by any dodgy decisions. Indeed they had a goal disallowed (correctly, I know) at Ibrox when the score was 3-1, surely a perfect opportunity for Madden to ‘help’ Rangers get back in the game? And then Thomson actually denied them what looked like a decent penalty shout at 0-0 at Fir Park. Again, a referee ‘out to help Rangers’ wouldn’t pass up on such an opportunity to point to the spot and get them back in the tie?

Maybe, just maybe the world isn’t out to get us and if we maybe didn’t make rash challenges in and around the box then the referee won’t have the chance to give them penalties or free kicks.

 

[ohwulliewullie]

58 minutes ago, Big Stall said:

VAR would be excellent, I can't see it happening myself. The biggest losers from VAR would be both arse cheeks as the soft decisions they get would be lost.

 

 

 

I have an alternative theory on the impact VAR will have on this… I actually think it will help the gruesome twosome to get even more soft decisions in their favour than they already get… “that confirms there is contact in the box” or “that confirms it hit his hand”. I think it’ll actually make it easier for refs to give them such decisions. All it will rule out is the really obscene ones. 
Example to illustrate my point: the Kipre penalty and sending off decision against Scott Sinclair in the League Cup final. If he doesn’t give the penalty he’d have to book Sinclair for diving. Even with VAR, I don’t think this would have happened. The decision would have stood, as is…. Even though we all know it was a dive 

[Spiderpig]

1 hour ago, Big Stall said:

I really don't subscribe to the nonsense that the refs are here to help Rangers at the expense of everyone else.

 

Have a look at the "alleged penalty" they got to rescue a point on Wednesday night against Aberdeen you know when Stevie G was on the radio defending it that it was never a pen.

There are numerous examples in recent years, of similar incidents, they get more than their fair share.

[MJC]

12 minutes ago, Spiderpig said:

Have a look at the "alleged penalty" they got to rescue a point on Wednesday night against Aberdeen you know when Stevie G was on the radio defending it that it was never a pen.

There are numerous examples in recent years, of similar incidents, they get more than their fair share.

It was a penalty. It was soft but under the laws of the game it was a penalty. The defender was holding the attacking players jersey inside the box so if the rules are applied then a penalty has to be awarded in that scenario. 

[SteelmaninOZ]

And the gaffer says 

 

[Kmcalpin]

1 hour ago, MJC_mkII said:

It was a penalty. It was soft but under the laws of the game it was a penalty. The defender was holding the attacking players jersey inside the box so if the rules are applied then a penalty has to be awarded in that scenario. 

Correct but I can't recall the last game I watched in which jerseys were not pulled in the penalty box. Like foul throws and booting the ball away they happen all the time but are rarely punished.

[Spiderpig]

2 hours ago, MJC_mkII said:

It was a penalty. It was soft but under the laws of the game it was a penalty. The defender was holding the attacking players jersey inside the box so if the rules are applied then a penalty has to be awarded in that scenario. 

So every time there is a corner in a game and the defenders have handfuls of shirts etc right in front of the referee who does nothing he should be awarding a pen..OK then.

Stevie G is on TV just now defending it his words were " there was a shirt pull but whether it was enough for a pen is the refs decision " so even he was not convinced.  It must have been a serious shirt pull right enough as it affected Sakala's balance judging by the way he fell down

It was a bullshit decision just like ours not the first and won't be the last.

 

[MJC]

For as long as I’ve been watching football, not just Scottish football, defending teams will get the benefit of the doubt nine times out of ten when there is shirt pulling by both attackers and defenders at corners and free kicks into the box. I don’t like it and I don’t think it’s fair but that’s been the case, at least up until where VAR has been introduced in certain countries.

However on the flip side of that, going by the rules of the game, if there is any contact on an attacking player by a defender inside the box - out with a corner/free kick - then that will result in a penalty kick - Scott Sinclair in the 2017 LCF being the obvious example -. Likewise with any situation where a defender “has his hand in an unnatural position” as we saw when we played Rangers at FP last September will more often than not result in a penalty award.

I’m not saying that I think it’s right or even that I agree with it, but it is in the rules so if you want to blame anyone then blame those who make these ridiculous rules.

I think the ‘issue’ that alot of people are taking with the Rangers penalty on Wednesday night isn’t whether it was justified or not, it is simply that Rangers got a penalty, full stop. For as long as I can remember, any decision that goes Rangers way, especially a penalty, seems to result in 10x more hysteria and media scrutiny than a similar decision that goes the way of any other side (even Celtic) goes.

As has already been said, we ourselves were on the wrong side of a very harsh penalty decision on Wednesday night. And if that wasn’t enough our keeper saved the penalty only for the referee to - again very harshly - order a re-take. But I don’t see anyone claiming that that was down to some sort of cheating or broader conspiracies. Would that have been the case had it been Rangers, or even Celtic, that had benefited of such decisions???

[Kmcalpin]

1 hour ago, MJC_mkII said:

However on the flip side of that, going by the rules of the game, if there is any contact on an attacking player by a defender inside the box - out with a corner/free kick - then that will result in a penalty kick - Scott Sinclair in the 2017 LCF being the obvious example -. Likewise with any situation where a defender “has his hand in an unnatural position” as we saw when we played Rangers at FP last September will more often than not result in a penalty award.

I usually agree with you MJC but not about this. For as long as I can remember generations of Well fans have said that referees give the gruesome twosome advantages and I don't doubt it. I don't know why but they do. You cite in that cup final Scott "I felt a touch so I went down" Sinclair. In the exact same game Louis Moult was impeded, more than  Sinclair was, as he raced towards goal in open play in the penalty box.......no penalty. That says it all for me.

[gaz7]

2 hours ago, MJC_mkII said:

 

However on the flip side of that, going by the rules of the game, if there is any contact on an attacking player by a defender inside the box - out with a corner/free kick - then that will result in a penalty kick - Scott Sinclair in the 2017 LCF being the obvious example -. Likewise with any situation where a defender “has his hand in an unnatural position” as we saw when we played Rangers at FP last September will more often than not result in a penalty award.

I’m not saying that I think it’s right or even that I agree with it, but it is in the rules so if you want to blame anyone then blame those who make these ridiculous rules.

Mic that is not the rules though that if theres any contact in box it's a penalty. This season it has been that there needs to be enough contact to impede player. Sinclair was ridiculous decision as was rangers one on Wednesday as although yes Aberdeen player looked like he was holding shirt it wasnt enough to go down as he went down as if pushed.

The 2 Glasgow teams get the decisions not imo through blatant cheating but because the referees are humans and get swayed by in most cases by big crowd claiming for it plus the reputation of their players and managers and also the media. Referees will talk to all the aforementioned and steven gerrard or callum McGregor for example moaning about something to them will be remembered by them more than say grimmy having a go at them.

They do get more of the big decisions awarded and that's facts  not paranoia or easy cop out. 

Everyone on here can I'd imagine remember loads of decisions against us when playing either of them.

Anyway onto Sunday and theres always a chance. COYW

[pretzel]

6 hours ago, MJC_mkII said:

It was a penalty. It was soft but under the laws of the game it was a penalty. The defender was holding the attacking players jersey inside the box so if the rules are applied then a penalty has to be awarded in that scenario. 

There was an incident in the Rangers box where an Aberdeen player was clearly pinned at a corner and in great view of Beaton but it's just waved away and then they get that pen near the end that is as soft as that where the ref can't point to the spot quick enough, not to mention the foul on the lead up to it.

I don't care what anyone says but they (alongside the other arse cheeks) absolutely get the benefit of the doubt every single time, I'm actually struggling to think of a time where a ref has cost Rangers a single point against us or even just given a ludicrous decision which has impacted them in someway. Whether it's pitch invasions when they're getting pumped to Derek Johnston doing a Tom Daley impression in the box or Bob Malcolm stamping on a players head in front of the ref only to go on to score a 90th min winner or Bobby Madden's performance last season where he is giving them a bundle of penalties but ignored Campbell's stonewaller, you could go on and on, the more things change the more they stay the same. What I find interesting is its almost two years since they have had a domestic sending off but in Europe this year alone they have had four.

I know our refs are shite and probably the worst they have ever been, I have come to terms with that now but I just wish they applied consistent rules to both sides, 

 

[Yabba's Turd]

12 hours ago, Spiderpig said:

You can't have one without the other, the top players all command large transfer fees with large wage demands to match. 

You can, but I'd bore you and the rest of the forum with it. 

[Kmcalpin]

9 hours ago, Yodo said:

Referee for this is Mr Nick Walsh won't bother posting all his stats when refereeing Sevco but here is one of them .He is yet to send off a Sevco player in his 24 games in charge of them ,sent off four opposition players awarded 3 penalties to them and 1 to their opponents .

Some other interesting articles for those prepared to google him and not be too hung up on the source.

[Yassin]

I liked the part of the institutional pro-Rangers corruption where they were voted out of the top flight, into the Third Division and Celtic won a quadruple treble.

[weeyin]

14 minutes ago, Yassin said:

I liked the part of the institutional pro-Rangers corruption where they were voted out of the top flight, into the Third Division and Celtic won a quadruple treble.

To be fair, the institution wanted them to stay in the top league, and it was only pressure from the fans of the other clubs that stopped that from happening.

Also, they shouldn't have been in the Third Division as the rules say when you are liquidated, you get punted. But the institution conveniently ignored that one too.