Motherwell v Rangers League Cup Semi final Nov 2/3

[joewarkfanclub]

Yesterday was just a load of chickens coming home to roost.

As KMcAlpin correctly identifies, we just dont have a lone striker capable of feeding off the scraps currently being served up.

You could say that is a failure of recruitment, but I dont think SK started the season intending to play that way. 

The injury to Vale has been a big loss for me as I think he is the one player we had that could properly support a loan striker and connect the play.

The injuries to Nicholson, Paton and Callachan have clearly impacted our midfield and we were getting by with McGinn and/or SOD distributing from the back.

Now both of them are injured the balls out of defence are not of the quality required to keep possession.

Sparrow and Wilson have done well when called upon but they offer legs and energy more than great quality.

The only real footballer we have left in midfield is Lennon and he spent most of yesterday seeing the ball fly over his head.

Some will say its all on SK due to poor recruitment, but we have had a lot of injuries to contend with and are already carrying quite a big squad. He would have to have had 100% success in recruitment to cover every eventuality and thats just not possible.

Personally, I think we have over achieved so far this season. Im hoping it will improve as players return to fitness, although I accept, it doesnt always work out that way.

 

[steelboy]

22 minutes ago, joewarkfanclub said:

 

The injuries to Nicholson, Paton and Callachan have clearly impacted our midfield and we were getting by with McGinn and/or SOD distributing from the back.

 

 

It was completely predictable that Callachan and Nicholson would be crocks. Paton is on his third significant injury since he arrived. McGinn is 34. The manager is to blame for wasting so much of our budget on these guys. 

[joewarkfanclub]

15 minutes ago, steelboy said:

It was completely predictable that Callachan and Nicholson would be crocks. Paton is on his third significant injury since he arrived. McGinn is 34. The manager is to blame for wasting so much of our budget on these guys. 

Nicholson had one serious injury before he signed for us. Should we never sign any player who has been previously injured?

Paton literally got studs raked down the back of his achilles v Clyde. So how do you prevent that?

Mcginn is 34. But has played over 400 senior games. He is an experienced pro with no significant injury history and most would agree he has been one of our best players for the past 2 seasons and we missed him big time on Sunday.

I will give you Callachan, but Im thinking he was a stocking filler and therefore a cheap option as we knew Nicholson and Slattery wouldnt be back in the short term.

Players also undergo medicals and are monitored by our medical team on a weekly basis. Are they shite too? Or is it just the stresses and strains put on professional players these days due to fixture schedules result in increasing numbers of injuries due to the pace of the modern game?

[Stuwell2]

Not going to bother reading all the comments from yesterday as I’ve no doubt most will be along the same lines as my view which is 

Given our injuries it was probably the correct line up. 
Given how poor Rangers have been sitting back was the wrong tactics. Was expecting us to try and run at their defence especially Tavenier, not punt long balls that the two central defenders lapped up leaving our forwards useless - totally pissed off. 
As usual with us when  we are involved in big games our youth and inexperienced squad don’t handle it well. 
Substitutions - WTF?

[steelboy]

I would have released SOD but I get the arguments for keeping him and McGinn. But then adding in Halliday, Nicholson and Callachan who are all over the hill was crazy. 

I'd very surprised if Kettlewell wasn't expecting Davor, Stuparevic, Kourotoumbis and Stama to all be more athletic before he saw them in person. I think we probably do as much work assessing players physically prior to signing them as we do in practicing attacking from open play. 

[Spiderpig]

42 minutes ago, joewarkfanclub said:

Nicholson had one serious injury before he signed for us. Should we never sign any player who has been previously injured?

Paton literally got studs raked down the back of his achilles v Clyde. So how do you prevent that?

Mcginn is 34. But has played over 400 senior games. He is an experienced pro with no significant injury history and most would agree he has been one of our best players for the past 2 seasons and we missed him big time on Sunday.

I will give you Callachan, but Im thinking he was a stocking filler and therefore a cheap option as we knew Nicholson and Slattery wouldnt be back in the short term.

Players also undergo medicals and are monitored by our medical team on a weekly basis. Are they shite too? Or is it just the stresses and strains put on professional players these days due to fixture schedules result in increasing numbers of injuries due to the pace of the modern game?

No point in explaining the obvious to steelboy if it does not fit his narrative it's ignored.

[joewarkfanclub]

32 minutes ago, steelboy said:

I would have released SOD but I get the arguments for keeping him and McGinn. But then adding in Halliday, Nicholson and Callachan who are all over the hill was crazy. 

I'd very surprised if Kettlewell wasn't expecting Davor, Stuparevic, Kourotoumbis and Stama to all be more athletic before he saw them in person. I think we probably do as much work assessing players physically prior to signing them as we do in practicing attacking from open play. 

Im not saying for a minute that our recruitment has been flawless. Obviously you need a strategic plan for your squad, but sometimes circumstances are fluid at a football club and what seemed like a good decision at one point might not later on. 

I was fine with Halliday on loan last year but I wouldnt have given him a 1 year option. Without it, he may not have come, personally, I dont think that would have been any big loss, but I can see why the manager signed off on it. I wouldnt want to see him getting a further extension past the end of this season.

Nicholson was already in the building and looked like he was being prepared as the Spittal replacement in case he went last January.

Again Callachan is the outlier as he was the one we had the opportunity to not sign at the time. But Paton and Nicholson had just been injured and Slattery was a long termer.

Would have made more sense to go for someone else, I think Gorrin was available, but again, he has had a serious injury as well, so do we know what kind of Gorrin we would be getting?

[grizzlyg]

Yesterday was disappointing as we didn't perform but I can't go fact any time we lose a game it's poor recruitment,  manager is clueless etc etc.  We are sitting 5th and had a great midweek win against team nearest us in table.

Kettlewell blundered big time with subs Yesterday which I think we all agree on. I also don't see point in having koutrombis on the bench and then don't bring him on when kaleta came off, Casey was so uncomfortable in that role.

Our next run of fixtures looks not bad so fingers crossed....COYW 

[Lobey_Dosser]

Vale is a bit of a forgotten man but he would have a key player in linking us middle to front. The injuries to Nicholson and Callaghan though were entirely predictable and we seemingly haven’t done our due diligence on Watt. Long way to go in the season but at the moment recruitment isn’t looking great. 

My main frustration yesterday was the substitution of the front two but we really chucked the game by replacing Kaleta with Blaney. That signalled we had little intent on attacking. There were multiple better options to have made in that moment. 

[steelboy]

I honestly think he fucked up the subs and didn't realise Blaney was the last one. It would explain why he was a bit over animated after the game even by his own standards. 

[MJC]

I can only echo what has already been said, yesterday was a poor performance and a big missed opportunity to reach a Cup Final.
 

Again our poor recruitment and Kettlewell’s inability to spot a proper forward player came back to bite us. The defence had absolutely no protection from the midfield and there was nothing working between the middle and the front. 
 

Robinson is gash, Stam looks out of his depth and you wonder why we brought Watt back on loan if he’s not going to play or isn’t fit enough to contribute. As I said, poor recruitment.

The only upside to yesterday was the support we had at Hampden. 7.5-8k and vocal from start to finish and shows that our core support does have the potential to be a lot better than it is. Unfortunately though over half of them won’t be near another game until we reach a Semi Final again*. Talk about Glory Hunters.
 

*And for clarity, I am not referring to people who can’t go to games regularly for whatever reason. I know these games are special and you will get a bigger support than normal with people travelling from greater distances etc. I am referring to people who absolutely could go to the games but choose not to go.

[David]

8 minutes ago, MJC said:

And for clarity, I am not referring to people who can’t go to games regularly for whatever reason. I know these games are special and you will get a bigger support than normal with people travelling from greater distances etc. I am referring to people who absolutely could go to the games but choose not to go.

The bigger issue for me is finding out why they choose not to go. Obviously, for some, it'll be price, and that's fair enough. Football isn't a cheap pastime anymore. But if there's other reasons, we can hopefully do something as a club to help solve those issues for some people anyway.

[scoojy]

13 hours ago, Kmcalpin said:

Spot on San. Week after week we see aerial balls shelled up to a 6' striker on his own up against towering 6'3" central defenders with the inevitable outcome. Nothing sticks. Despite signing a plethora of strikers in the summer they just don't fit together. Some just aren't good enough. Poor recruitment. If we must play a lone striker then surely we should have recruited someone who can play in that role. 

No matter the height of the striker, a ball that he is expected to hold up needs to come in to him below head height in order for him to be able to make it stick. If you're playing it above head height the defender will almost always have the advantage.

Firing aerial balls head height and above is an almost impossible task to control and/or hold up. That only works when there is someone to flick the ball on to.

We possibly should have recruited players who can play passes lower than 7 feet in the air.

[0Neils40yarder]

21 minutes ago, David said:

The bigger issue for me is finding out why they choose not to go. Obviously, for some, it'll be price, and that's fair enough. Football isn't a cheap pastime anymore. But if there's other reasons, we can hopefully do something as a club to help solve those issues for some people anyway.

I've only been to a handful of games over the past 3 seasons due to personal circumstances...I nearly went yesterday but didn't want anyone calling me a gloryhunter so I sat in the boozer instead

[grizzlyg]

39 minutes ago, MJC said:

I can only echo what has already been said, yesterday was a poor performance and a big missed opportunity to reach a Cup Final.
 

Again our poor recruitment and Kettlewell’s inability to spot a proper forward player came back to bite us. The defence had absolutely no protection from the midfield and there was nothing working between the middle and the front. 
 

Robinson is gash, Stam looks out of his depth and you wonder why we brought Watt back on loan if he’s not going to play or isn’t fit enough to contribute. As I said, poor recruitment.

The only upside to yesterday was the support we had at Hampden. 7.5-8k and vocal from start to finish and shows that our core support does have the potential to be a lot better than it is. Unfortunately though over half of them won’t be near another game until we reach a Semi Final again*. Talk about Glory Hunters.
 

*And for clarity, I am not referring to people who can’t go to games regularly for whatever reason. I know these games are special and you will get a bigger support than normal with people travelling from greater distances etc. I am referring to people who absolutely could go to the games but choose not to go.

I think Stama will come good, problem is he isn't getting good service and getting high balls pumped to him all the time

[steelman1991]

16 minutes ago, 0Neils40yarder said:

I've only been to a handful of games over the past 3 seasons due to personal circumstances...I nearly went yesterday but didn't want anyone calling me a gloryhunter so I sat in the boozer instead

Glory Hunter 🤣

[andalg]

Just like to point out we're sitting joint fourth in the league and got knocked out in the semi final of the league cup by a team with probably 50 times our  budget.  Its not all bad 

[mfc88]

Not posted on here in a while but needed a bit of a vent.

Overriding feeling is total disappointment and disillusionment. Have seen us play at hampden several times now. Win and nothing else matters. Lose and I've come away with several emotions - annoyed with refs, individual errors, or in the case of the 2018 SC final, just that we lost to a better team. But yesterday was the first time I've come away thinking what is the f**king point.

Rangers didn't win that game, we lost it. Say what you like about budgets, this, that the next... valid if rangers play in a way that merits a final spot. Did they?? Continually use these excuses and we are there to make up the numbers, not compete.

Can't fault the players for effort, but instructions given to them and the way we set out to compete was pathetic.

Out of possession, we stood off and let them have the ball. Rangers are not operating as a good team just now, so we needed to get on top of them. Don't do that, and they still have good individual players who will eventually carve something out given time and space.

In possession there was no strategy for ball retention. It was almost always a lump up the park and hope something happens. Bread and butter for souttar and balogun, who dealt with it all day with absolutely nothing else to think about - I don't even remember us winning a header in their half and no one near our strikers to compete for the second ball or shut rangers down when they won it, and it just ended up coming back at us.

I wasn't best pleased with our approach first half, but somehow find ourselves 1 up, fans are on their back, they are low in confidence - all boxes ticked so far. Now, a 15 min break for a calm down, reset, recharge and we had 45 mins to simply not let certain individuals play, but it was more of the same and the managers strategy of riding our luck ran out.

I do like Kettlewell on the whole, but the way we set out was all wrong and once our luck ran out we needed a change in approach to win that game and it never happened. I can't help thinking had stephen robinson been in charge, the way he sets up to play the OF, we win yesterday.

Mentions for kaleta who was excellent and wilson who conducted himself admirably for a young lad playing out of position. Wilson has gone under the radar IMO with the hype around lennon, but hoping he continues to progress and apply himself the way he has been.

[joewarkfanclub]

2 hours ago, mfc88 said:

Not posted on here in a while but needed a bit of a vent.

Overriding feeling is total disappointment and disillusionment. Have seen us play at hampden several times now. Win and nothing else matters. Lose and I've come away with several emotions - annoyed with refs, individual errors, or in the case of the 2018 SC final, just that we lost to a better team. But yesterday was the first time I've come away thinking what is the f**king point.

Rangers didn't win that game, we lost it. Say what you like about budgets, this, that the next... valid if rangers play in a way that merits a final spot. Did they?? Continually use these excuses and we are there to make up the numbers, not compete.

Can't fault the players for effort, but instructions given to them and the way we set out to compete was pathetic.

Out of possession, we stood off and let them have the ball. Rangers are not operating as a good team just now, so we needed to get on top of them. Don't do that, and they still have good individual players who will eventually carve something out given time and space.

In possession there was no strategy for ball retention. It was almost always a lump up the park and hope something happens. Bread and butter for souttar and balogun, who dealt with it all day with absolutely nothing else to think about - I don't even remember us winning a header in their half and no one near our strikers to compete for the second ball or shut rangers down when they won it, and it just ended up coming back at us.

I wasn't best pleased with our approach first half, but somehow find ourselves 1 up, fans are on their back, they are low in confidence - all boxes ticked so far. Now, a 15 min break for a calm down, reset, recharge and we had 45 mins to simply not let certain individuals play, but it was more of the same and the managers strategy of riding our luck ran out.

I do like Kettlewell on the whole, but the way we set out was all wrong and once our luck ran out we needed a change in approach to win that game and it never happened. I can't help thinking had stephen robinson been in charge, the way he sets up to play the OF, we win yesterday.

Mentions for kaleta who was excellent and wilson who conducted himself admirably for a young lad playing out of position. Wilson has gone under the radar IMO with the hype around lennon, but hoping he continues to progress and apply himself the way he has been.

Good post.

I think the manager did get it tactically wrong yesterday.

He also got the subs wrong.

He would never admit that in public but hopefully he knows himself.

Very disappointing but not a sacking offence.

The reaction to the disappointment will be important.

[AllyMax]

Taken me till now to get over how fucking gutted I am at the result, and to a certain extent, the performance. Would certainly be the first to say that Ketts got the subs totally wrong. I think a lot of people would have liked to see us go toe to toe with them early, like we did against Celtic. First though, it has to be acknowledged that they simply have better players than us. You could probably take the income of their two top earners and float our entire club on it. FFS they lost the equivalent of more than three years of our turnover last year, and thats taking into account ther fact that their income is huge compared to ours. They just have the money (temporarily maybe 🙂 ) to have better players than us. Add to that the expanse of the pitch at Hampden and teams who try to match the Glasgow Arse Cheeks can easily come unstuck pretty quick. This is exactly the same reason that Rangers get pumped every time they play Celtic these days, cause they've got the pace and ability to tear them apart on a big pitch. 

I'm not saying the manager got it right, far from it, but a right into them, press high approach could have seen us turn into Aberdeen in their semi, so I can understand the approach to a certain extent. However, the subs were just bizarre.

It's basically just gutting, especially after getting our noses ahead with the first decent attack we had. 

[stv]

11 hours ago, steelboy said:

It was completely predictable that Callachan and Nicholson would be crocks. Paton is on his third significant injury since he arrived. McGinn is 34. The manager is to blame for wasting so much of our budget on these guys. 

As opposed to what. Finding ever fit, skilful younger players and injury free old heads within our budget.   Get real.
 Hes doing his best with a poxy budget . Taking a chance on players paying off sometime , sometimes not.   I would bet  St Brendon would struggle with our budget.    
  Is it down to injurys or bad management you decide. Seems to me he takes a while to learn from his mistakes as well.

[wellgirl]

We didn't win when we played cup finals when Stephen Robinson was in charge. That's not me slating him - it was fabulous that he got us there but even if Kettlewell got it wrong yesterday it's completely correct that it's hard to compete against Celtic and Rangers - even if it's an off form Rangers. I've seen posts tonight on Facebook suggesting that Kettlewell should get the sack - ridiculous 

Im also totally gutted at the result by the way. Devastated isn't the word. 

[SteelmaninOZ]

Up the Well! 

[robsterwood]

14 hours ago, mfc88 said:

Not posted on here in a while but needed a bit of a vent.

Overriding feeling is total disappointment and disillusionment. Have seen us play at hampden several times now. Win and nothing else matters. Lose and I've come away with several emotions - annoyed with refs, individual errors, or in the case of the 2018 SC final, just that we lost to a better team. But yesterday was the first time I've come away thinking what is the f**king point.

Rangers didn't win that game, we lost it. Say what you like about budgets, this, that the next... valid if rangers play in a way that merits a final spot. Did they?? Continually use these excuses and we are there to make up the numbers, not compete.

Can't fault the players for effort, but instructions given to them and the way we set out to compete was pathetic.

Out of possession, we stood off and let them have the ball. Rangers are not operating as a good team just now, so we needed to get on top of them. Don't do that, and they still have good individual players who will eventually carve something out given time and space.

In possession there was no strategy for ball retention. It was almost always a lump up the park and hope something happens. Bread and butter for souttar and balogun, who dealt with it all day with absolutely nothing else to think about - I don't even remember us winning a header in their half and no one near our strikers to compete for the second ball or shut rangers down when they won it, and it just ended up coming back at us.

I wasn't best pleased with our approach first half, but somehow find ourselves 1 up, fans are on their back, they are low in confidence - all boxes ticked so far. Now, a 15 min break for a calm down, reset, recharge and we had 45 mins to simply not let certain individuals play, but it was more of the same and the managers strategy of riding our luck ran out.

I do like Kettlewell on the whole, but the way we set out was all wrong and once our luck ran out we needed a change in approach to win that game and it never happened. I can't help thinking had stephen robinson been in charge, the way he sets up to play the OF, we win yesterday.

Mentions for kaleta who was excellent and wilson who conducted himself admirably for a young lad playing out of position. Wilson has gone under the radar IMO with the hype around lennon, but hoping he continues to progress and apply himself the way he has been.

Budgets matter significantly. A higher ranked and higher budget generally wins statistics show it. One of Thier players was on bench and cost 6 mil. We rely on free transfers. Loans and budget buys. Speculate rather than buy known quality that they can afford. I do however think we could have got closer to them. Technique showed on the day also. 

[gaz7]

After lot of thoughts and reading a lot of opinions. I do feel that up to now in the season we have over achieved. Our defence is OK but without mcginn we have no defender to help out in attacking phases and this hurt us on Sunday.  Our midfield as most know is very poor and I don't recall 1 game this season where we have dominated. Strikers then have no ammunition but anytime moses is on he looks Our most dangerous and why he wasn't brought on Sunday is really a mystery. 

We are still in every game that we play apart from celtic other week so if we can somehow remedy midfield with our injured players returning or additions in jan then certainly we can have a gd season.