Ya Bezzer! Posted November 5 Report Share Posted November 5 On 11/4/2024 at 10:36 AM, Stuwell2 said: 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? It will be anathema to most Motherwell supporters to give any praise to Rangers but I thought Rangers were actually pretty good off the ball. Their press was good and they won every aerial duel. They made it difficult to get any flow going and they took Miller out the game. On the ball they are still way below where you'd expect a team with Rangers resources to be but the ugly side of the game they did well. However a lot of Motherwell fans simply won't accept that the oppositions performance had something to do with our performance. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StAndrew7 Posted November 5 Report Share Posted November 5 7 minutes ago, Ya Bezzer! said: It will be anathema to most Motherwell supporters to give any praise to Rangers but I thought Rangers were actually pretty good off the ball. Their press was good and they won every aerial duel. They made it difficult to get any flow going and they took Miller out the game. On the ball they are still way below where you'd expect a team with Rangers resources to be but the ugly side of the game they did well. However a lot of Motherwell fans simply won't accept that the oppositions performance had something to do with our performance. I totally agree. I do think that's what is so frustrating about it; they were absolutely there for the taking and we stuck to a rigid counter-attacking style with a really ineffectual press on their defenders. They definitely went up a gear in the second half. They took Miller out the game completely by sticking Barron on him at all times and doubling up when he was on the ball. That completely nullified our game plan because we had no other creative outlet, particularly after Kettlewell's mind-boggling double sub. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfc88 Posted November 5 Report Share Posted November 5 4 hours ago, robsterwood said: 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. Yeah teams budget is an important point in the big picture. But its not as black and white as that, and had we given a good account of ourselves, I'd accept that point. But we didn't play in a way that made us test rangers as best we could to make them earn that game. That is our failing in my opinion, and we shouldn't use rangers' budget as an excuse for our failings, otherwise we we are beaten before a ball is kicked. I can totally respect a different view of the game, but that is how I see it. As i said, other recent finals/ semis I've seen us lose out on (thinking of the 2 celtic games in 17/18 as the freshest in mind), I have left the stadium with a totally different feeling of disappointment... not with the feeling that we fell short tactically. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robsterwood Posted November 5 Report Share Posted November 5 7 hours ago, mfc88 said: Yeah teams budget is an important point in the big picture. But its not as black and white as that, and had we given a good account of ourselves, I'd accept that point. But we didn't play in a way that made us test rangers as best we could to make them earn that game. That is our failing in my opinion, and we shouldn't use rangers' budget as an excuse for our failings, otherwise we we are beaten before a ball is kicked. I can totally respect a different view of the game, but that is how I see it. As i said, other recent finals/ semis I've seen us lose out on (thinking of the 2 celtic games in 17/18 as the freshest in mind), I have left the stadium with a totally different feeling of disappointment... not with the feeling that we fell short tactically. Agree. Your right we could have tested them more. Rather than let them have possession and space, we should have pressed them. Your right in that they didn't have to work hard for the win. Was very disappointed, knowing we can play better and should have set up differently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wellfan Posted November 5 Report Share Posted November 5 6 hours ago, mfc88 said: and we shouldn't use rangers' budget as an excuse for our failings, otherwise we we are beaten before a ball is kicked. Probably one of the most cogent points made in the aftermath of the game. A massive opportunity was wasted because of the predictably poor overall approach to the game and more crazy in-game decisions. We weren’t well beaten. We didn’t put up a valiant fight. We weren’t robbed. Yes, they had to work and have a bigger budget, but anything is possible in a knockout game yet we more or less gifted them the win before a ball was kicked. It was so predictable. To get knocked out of a domestic cup competition in that fashion is absolutely scunnering and I refuse to accept that a loss such as that is acceptable just because Joe Bloggs highlights that we’re currently 5th in the league in Autumn or that the manager helped to develop some players last season. The manager shat the bed, which we all seem to agree on, and the Club and fans deserve better when these opportunities come around. I’m sure that a manager without fear of the Old Firm and with a modicum of tactical nous about them would’ve produced a better showing against that Rangers team. Back to league business now, which is quite good at the moment, so let’s see how my favourite donkey does for the rest of the season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
santheman Posted November 5 Report Share Posted November 5 2 minutes ago, wellfan said: We weren’t well beaten. We didn’t put up a valiant fight. We weren’t robbed. Yes, they had to work and have a bigger budget, but anything is possible in a knockout game yet we more or less gifted them the win before a ball was kicked. It was so predictable. Not sure I'm getting your take on that. How did we gift them the win before a ball was kicked? Not having a go just interested in your thought process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wellfan Posted November 5 Report Share Posted November 5 1 hour ago, santheman said: Not sure I'm getting your take on that. How did we gift them the win before a ball was kicked? Not having a go just interested in your thought process. It’s probably already been done to a death by me and others, but simply our game plan was shit and one that generally always plays into the hands of the bigger/better team. And it didn’t have to be that way because that Rangers team are on the ropes these days, but we allowed them to dominate the game with our negative standoffish approach. We didn’t play to exploit our strengths; instead, we played to contain them and to feed off scraps. It obviously backfired because they eventually wore us down, which we could all see was coming, particularly after the baffling substitutions and tactical changes were implemented. It’s done now, though. Time to move on and hope that lessons have been learned. Again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
santheman Posted November 5 Report Share Posted November 5 1 hour ago, wellfan said: It’s probably already been done to a death by me and others, but simply our game plan was shit and one that generally always plays into the hands of the bigger/better team. And it didn’t have to be that way because that Rangers team are on the ropes these days, but we allowed them to dominate the game with our negative standoffish approach. We didn’t play to exploit our strengths; instead, we played to contain them and to feed off scraps. It obviously backfired because they eventually wore us down, which we could all see was coming, particularly after the baffling substitutions and tactical changes were implemented. It’s done now, though. Time to move on and hope that lessons have been learned. Again. Interesting Our game plan certainly fell apart during the match but still don't get why you think we gifted them the win before a ball was kicked. Anyway as you say all in the past and Saturday is another day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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