Motherwell v Rangers 31/10/2021

[SteelmaninOZ]

COYW

[Kmcalpin]

Who is the referee?

[Ya Bezzer!]

8 minutes ago, Kmcalpin said:

Who is the referee?

Nick Walsh.

[Haggischomper]

McGinley, Woolery and Grimshaw, possibly Goss or Doss or whatever his name is, to be dropped surely? Donnelly and Maguire must be terrible in training if they cannot force their way into this midfield. Would like to see Amaluzor get a run and see how he fares with his pace. I can't imagine he'd have less impact than Woolery.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[MJC]

I actually wouldn’t be surprised if we got a point from this one. 
 

0-0

[grizzlyg]

Team needs freshened up but no doubt stubborn Alexander will stick with same xi,  not confident at all but always go there in hope. COYW 

[mfc]

The recent celtic game at home should be fresh in alexander's mind,we didn't compete in midfield and the ball never stuck up front,two things we will need to happen in this game.we either need to bring in another centre half and make us harder to score against or an extra midfielder to try and make us more competitive in the middle of the park,it'll absolute madness if we stick with 433 for this.

[ohwulliewullie]

1 hour ago, mfc said:

it'll absolute madness if we stick with 433 for this.

100% agree

[Kat]

Domestically Rangers haven't been playing great in recent weeks but they have still managed to dig out points, they themselves were bailed out with a soft penalty late in the game last night as per. 

I think it has only been against Aberdeen where Alexander has changed formation this season, I would probably prefer a 352 over a 433 but I can see him persisting tbh. I'd probably prefer Carroll and O'Donnell as wing backs, with Mugabi, Solholm and Ojala (if fit) as centre backs, midfield of Goss, Slattery and O'Hara and Watt and Van Veen up top. 

Against a dodgy Celtic defence we rarely troubled them, and they got lots of joy swinging in cross after cross, I wouldn't be surprised to see this match go down a similar route. Alexander has managed to get two draws from his two matches against Rangers with them getting a few dodgy decisions in each. If we take any points from this then that would be most welcome. 

 

[Ya Bezzer!]

1 hour ago, mfc said:

The recent celtic game at home should be fresh in alexander's mind,we didn't compete in midfield and the ball never stuck up front,two things we will need to happen in this game.we either need to bring in another centre half and make us harder to score against or an extra midfielder to try and make us more competitive in the middle of the park,it'll absolute madness if we stick with 433 for this.

On paper we both play 4-3-3 so can match up although in reality Rangers play a 4-2-3 (with Lundstram effectively a man down) while we play a 4-0-3 (nuff said!)

[Ya Bezzer!]

24 minutes ago, Kat said:

Against a dodgy Celtic defence we rarely troubled them, and they got lots of joy swinging in cross after cross, I wouldn't be surprised to see this match go down a similar route. Alexander has managed to get two draws from his two matches against Rangers with them getting a few dodgy decisions in each. If we take any points from this then that would be most welcome. 

I'm going to agree and disagree with you here.  I don't think Celtic did get joy swinging in crosses.  We defended them and Celtic's goals didn't come from crosses.

On the other hand Rangers have the joint best record (with us) for headed goals this season and I think they are stronger in the air than Celtic.  Morelos gets a lot of headed goals and Goldson is a big danger as well.  

I think it is less advisable to let as many crosses come in against Rangers, they are stronger than Celtic in that department.

[David]

4 hours ago, MJC_mkII said:

I actually wouldn’t be surprised if we got a point from this one. 
 

0-0

[MJC]

17 minutes ago, David said:

From what I’ve seen and heard of them this season they have been struggling to create chances, much like ourselves. And when we played them at Ibrox we matched them up in the middle and they didn’t like it. 
 

I don’t see GA changing much, if anything, in the way of lineups, tactics etc but I actually think this is the type of game where his ‘trusted’ system might work for us.

It would be great to finally win a league match against them though, but as a wise poster on here once said “Motherwell do not beat Rangers”.

[David]

My opinion heading into any game against the cold firm is the same. For us to really have a chance of getting anything we need them to be off their game to an extent, while we're up for it and everything clicks.

It's always worth remembering that Rangers wage bill is reportedly over ten times the size of ours, and Celtic's is almost 13 times bigger. I also saw an interesting article a few years back that said that there is less of a resource gulf between Celtic and PSG than there is between Celtic and most of the clubs who sit in the bottom half of the SPL financial table. Think about that for a second.

And yes, I know that wages and money don't always win football games, but as we've seen in our game and throughout Europe, most of the time the team with the larger financial resources tends to win out, simply because they have more quality.

Throw in the fact that offside goals, penalty decisions and suchlike always seem to go against us in favour of those bigger teams and not only are we climbing a large mountain to begin with, but the match officials are continually causing avalanches to make our job even harder.

We live in hope, but as we saw last night, a team can be two goals up and outplaying Rangers and still come away with a draw. That avalanche at the end was sickening.

[MJC]

No one is disputing the differences in budgets and yes, because of that we will lose more often than not against them.

But we as a club and as a support seem to use this as a pre-made excuse every time before we play them and it’s no coincidence therefore that we haven’t won a league match against Rangers for almost twenty years and have lost our last nine straight games against Celtic without laying a glove on them. All at the same time as other sides of similar stature have beaten Rangers regularly and Ross County, to give an example, have knocked Celtic out of Cup competitions three times in the last 12 years. 
 

We need to stop focussing on budgets and just concentrate on what is in front of us on the park. FFS, I even remember some on here using the budget excuse when we went to Ibrox as league leaders in 2012 and they were in the third division and we duly bent over for them. It’s pathetic and it’s one of the biggest problems that we have as a club.

[MJC]

50 minutes ago, David said:

We live in hope, but as we saw last night, a team can be two goals up and outplaying Rangers and still come away with a draw. That avalanche at the end was sickening.

I have to add as well, that is absolute bullshit. This is another pre-made excuse that people have “the refs are all pro-Rangers/Old Firm”.

Yes we have suffered bad decisions against them both over the years but you appear to be suggesting that these are premeditated and/or personal by Rangers supporting officials or a wider conspiracy.

As we saw ourselves last night, refereeing standards in Scottish football are absolutely horrific. We were two goals up, albeit not outplaying St.Mirren, yet only came away with a draw and a lot of that was down to Madden making two poor calls regarding a penalty and a re-take. Are you describing that as an ‘avalanche’ as well? Or do you just accept, as I think the majority did that it was just another in a long line of dire decisions by an incompetent match official?

Had that been Rangers, or Celtic for that matter that we had been playing last night and conceded a penalty like that, our keeper then saved it only for the ref to order a re-take then half this board would be up in arms about conspiracies and “Brother Bobby won’t have to buy a pint down the lodge this week” and other such pish like that.

Bad decisions happen, the referees are largely useless but like the budget excuse it’s just another cop out for not getting results in games against Rangers or Celtic.

[joewarkfanclub]

A lot will depend on who is fit fot this.

If Ojala is fit, Id definitely go 3-5-2.

If we match their 4-3-3, they have better players, so you would expect them to come out on top more often than not.

We need to find another way to exert an advantage.

Best way to do that is to try and keep their fullbacks pinned back and have ours pushed further up the park to try and do that. In that scenario we definitely need the extra man at the back.

Id go with.....

                                          Kelly

             Mugabi          Sondre       Ojala

SOD    O' Hara    Grimshaw  Slattery  Carrol

                                KVV      Watt

[David]

15 minutes ago, MJC_mkII said:

I have to add as well, that is absolute bullshit. This is another pre-made excuse that people have “the refs are all pro-Rangers/Old Firm”.

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.

17 minutes ago, MJC_mkII said:

Bad decisions happen, the referees are largely useless but like the budget excuse it’s just another cop out for not getting results in games against Rangers or Celtic.

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.

[mfc]

8 minutes ago, joewarkfanclub said:

A lot will depend on who is fit fot this.

If Ojala is fit, Id definitely go 3-5-2.

If we match their 4-3-3, they have better players, so you would expect them to come out on top more often than not.

We need to find another way to exert an advantage.

Best way to do that is to try and keep their fullbacks pinned back and have ours pushed further up the park to try and do that. In that scenario we definitely need the extra man at the back.

Id go with.....

                                          Kelly

             Mugabi          Sondre       Ojala

SOD    O' Hara    Grimshaw  Slattery  Carrol

                                KVV      Watt

Good point about pinning there fullbacks back,we really have to find a way to make that happen.if we allow tavernier and barisic to just attack at will at constantly put balls into our box it will be a long 90 minutes.

[MJC]

1 minute 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.

Referees make mistakes in every single game. Every single game. They make bad calls on penalties, bookings, the lot. Having watched the highlights back it is clear to me that we ourselves suffered a couple of glaringly bad calls. 
 

Yet you are on here describing a decision in a match that had nothing to do with us as “an avalanche”.

And on the budget issue, again I accept that the sides with bigger budgets will always win the majority of games and thus, the trophies. That happens in every country all over the world.

However as I said we have some in our club and support who use this as a pre-made excuse for not getting results against them in one off games every time we play them. This is why, imo, other clubs have been able to beat both of them (in one off games, not to win the league title) all in the same time that we have failed miserably to do so.

[David]

3 minutes ago, MJC_mkII said:

Yet you are on here describing a decision in a match that had nothing to do with us as “an avalanche”.

It was a figure of speech. I'd hoped that would be clear, with me mentioning mountains and suchlike. Basically, what I'm saying is that it's hard enough to win these games against Rangers and Celtic without the inept officials being swayed by the crowd and the fact they're under the spotlight.

4 minutes ago, MJC_mkII said:

And on the budget issue, again I accept that the sides with bigger budgets will always win the majority of games and thus, the trophies. That happens in every country all over the world.

However as I said we have some in our club and support who use this as a pre-made excuse for not getting results against them in one off games every time we play them. This is why, imo, other clubs have been able to beat both of them (in one off games, not to win the league title) all in the same time that we have failed miserably to do so.

It's not an excuse, I already told you that. It's called going into a game with realism. I also said that for us to win we need Rangers or Celtic to be off their game, and for us to be switched on. However, let's be honest here, if either of those clubs come to play us and they're up for the game and firing on all cylinders it won't matter what we do.

As for failing to beat them? I'll take that if it means us having the sort of league record we've had the past ten years or so. It's only three points, after all. There's no bonus points for beating Celtic or Rangers.

[MJC]

You can call it whatever you like, it’s an excuse. 
 

Everyone knows and accepts that they have a bigger budget and therefore are more likely than not to beat us.

But we as a club always seem to look at these games as playing the name, or the budget if you prefer, rather than what is in front of us on the park. Yes they have better players, but in one off games if we are to have any hope of getting a result then we can’t just focus on budgets and basically write the game off beforehand. 
 

Dundee Utd have already beaten Rangers this season. Ourselves, Hearts and Aberdeen have taken points from them. Hearts and Livingston have beaten Celtic this season. None of these sides have anywhere near the budgets that the Old Firm do either.

[David]

17 minutes ago, MJC_mkII said:

But we as a club always seem to look at these games as playing the name, or the budget if you prefer, rather than what is in front of us on the park. Yes they have better players, but in one off games if we are to have any hope of getting a result then we can’t just focus on budgets and basically write the game off beforehand. 

I don't think for a second that the manager and players do that. Not at all. And that's what matters. The fans opinions on budgets, players, excuses etc matters not a jot.

I'm simply giving my own personal opinion. Which is, that we need to be on our game and hope that they're not. If that's the case then magical things can happen. 

Unless the ref fancies a few free pints down his local, of course 

[ropy]

Which reporter will start the interview with ‘well Stevie, you have only managed to scrape a point in the last two games against Motherwell because of being incorrectly awarded offside goals in both games, how will this one go?’

[Stuwell2]

I fear we’re in for an absolute pumping