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Motherwell v Celtic 02/02/2025


SteelmaninOZ
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33 minutes ago, Benson said:

Quite concerning that we don't have any young homegrown talent that's ready to step up.

Motherwell are no different to any other club, if you get 1 or two players making the step up from. Academy to the 1st team thats a great return. We've had Miller and Wilson so far this season that have the ability and have taken their chance. As for the others they are probably not ready and / or good enough to step up and may never be ready.

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56 minutes ago, Throughthelaces said:

Really what we seeing. Today doesn't mean much In the grand scheme of things. We will have a new manager next time we line up who's gonna have his way of playing and his system. Thought we were minimally better than we have been in recent weeks(not a high bar granted) it's just are we gonna carry it forward to play a bit better against likes of County and Dundee clubs. Time will tell. I think after week the club has had bridges need built between club,players and fans

Likewise there were some slight signs that we might get our act together without actually being good.................Armstrong looks like he could do a job for us. Kaletta is fuckin awful, slower than a week in jail and piss poor in the tackle. We need 6 points from our next 9 or we are in a serios dogfight for the bottom two places.

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1 hour ago, grizzlyg said:

Jota in tears after scoring a goal at Fir Park...feck Me get a life mate

Aye that was embarrassing and exactly the type of act that there brainless support will lap up.

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I expected to get a drubbing today so considering the start we made we did reasonably well to stay in the match.

I mean Celtic were in 2nd gear, had 2 goals disallowed and hit the post, so on another day it could have been a drubbing but we hung in there.

New players looked decent and I thought we looked threatening in the first half with Maswanhise and Armstrong up front but second half we've not really created anything at all.

It's a game we just needed to get out the way and now it is.

Hopefully have a new manager in place by the time the Ross County match comes round and we start again.

 

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Most people expected a bloodbath, it wasn't. Armstong pushing the celtic player for our goal was nice, that's the kind of shithouse we need. Thompson looked fine, and some nice touches for Dickson.  Hard to gauge the new ones against that mob, but good to have it out of the way after a shite week. 

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Strange game today, to still be in the game 2-1 down at 90 minutes hoping for just 1 chance, a bit of magic or luck or anything to get a draw was more than I expected and very welcoming but it still wasn’t a great performance so their 3rd goal didn’t leave me pissed off more meh, there you go. 
There were some good things about our performance that has me positive about the rest of the season but by feck the defence needs to get better at tracking players rather than passing them on to another player and moving away to cover another area. 

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13 minutes ago, Stuwell2 said:

Strange game today, to still be in the game 2-1 down at 90 minutes hoping for just 1 chance, a bit of magic or luck or anything to get a draw was more than I expected and very welcoming but it still wasn’t a great performance so their 3rd goal didn’t leave me pissed off more meh, there you go. 
There were some good things about our performance that has me positive about the rest of the season but by feck the defence needs to get better at tracking players rather than passing them on to another player and moving away to cover another area. 

We are also terrible at the first basic rule of defense, close down the player with the ball!!  Either that or we have decided that we start defending at the 18 yard line instead out around 30 yards. Similar issue with wide players where we give them too much space to fire balls into the box. 
we just look very disorganized defensively and don’t seem to go up and down the park as a team. 

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4 minutes ago, MelvinBragg said:

It would be useful if Maswanhise could last ninety minutes...

If we don’t task him with chasing a lost cause among multiple defenders and long hopeful balls from his defenders I’m pretty sure he’d last 90 mins or at least a lot closer to it 

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Our workrate and effort out of possession is commendable. We kept our shape for the most part and the score wasnt humiliating.

However, we have absolutely no quality and composure on the ball and provide virtually zero threat going forward.

You cant provide any threat to the opposition with 18% of the ball and I refuse to believe the players arent capable of more as they have proved otherwise albeit sporadically already this season.

I like Stevie Frail and he has spoken well this week. I also accept that ripping up the way we play against the best team in the league may have not been the smartest thing to do going into this game. But the result we got was so depressingly predictable and if he wont change things going forward he has no chance of being considered for the current vacancy.

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14 minutes ago, joewarkfanclub said:

Our workrate and effort out of possession is commendable. We kept our shape for the most part and the score wasnt humiliating.

However, we have absolutely no quality and composure on the ball and provide virtually zero threat going forward.

You cant provide any threat to the opposition with 18% of the ball and I refuse to believe the players arent capable of more as they have proved otherwise albeit sporadically already this season.

I like Stevie Frail and he has spoken well this week. I also accept that ripping up the way we play against the best team in the league may have not been the smartest thing to do going into this game. But the result we got was so depressingly predictable and if he wont change things going forward he has no chance of being considered for the current vacancy.

Agree that as a team we can offer a lot more . 

As a small example……..

we’ve lost our way defensively , early in season defensively we were strong with McGinn , Gordon and Casey.

The back 3 now are SOD, Gordon and Blaney . It may sound subtle but Gordon is now left out to dry .  

I’m not clear what Casey has done to be dropped or why SOD is preferred to Balmer as a central defender .

and that’s just in defence , wingbacks have a similar issue as does midfield .

Overall we have more than enough quality to remain in top 6 but we need to get back to basics. 

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2 minutes ago, wellsince75 said:

Agree that as a team we can offer a lot more . 

As a small example……..

we’ve lost our way defensively , early in season defensively we were strong with McGinn , Gordon and Casey.

The back 3 now are SOD, Gordon and Blaney . It may sound subtle but Gordon is now left out to dry .  

I’m not clear what Casey has done to be dropped or why SOD is preferred to Balmer as a central defender .

and that’s just in defence , wingbacks have a similar issue as does midfield .

Overall we have more than enough quality to remain in top 6 but we need to get back to basics. 

Casey was pish that why he was dropped , absolutely shocking in the Cup tie at Perth. He's a bloody bombscare. I'd pack him on his way. Thats not to say what is left is much better.

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10 minutes ago, FirParkCornerExile said:

Casey was pish that why he was dropped , absolutely shocking in the Cup tie at Perth. He's a bloody bombscare. I'd pack him on his way. Thats not to say what is left is much better.

Appreciate he’s had some poor games . Personal view is when he’s played in left side he’s decent , if central or right he’s not as strong .

add to that he and Blaney never pair up week .

 

overall though my thoughts are we started the year strong in defence but have now reverted to playing SOD as a central defender which for me doesn’t work

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A bit of an improvement today, but still hugely frustrating. We were, amazingly, still in the game at 90 minutes, but for some reason didn't seem to think that we should or could take a risk in the final 10 mins or so try to win the ball and push for an unlikely point. Once again, a very passive performance from the midfield and defensive areas. 

Good debuts by Thomson and Armstrong. The other debutants didn't really have enough time to show much. Sparrow was our most effective midfield player.

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1 hour ago, wellsince75 said:

overall though my thoughts are we started the year strong in defence but have now reverted to playing SOD as a central defender which for me doesn’t work

Yes, SOD is never a central defender and Balmer, who was signed on a 2 year deal, must be poor if he can't get a game. 

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Well, we fulfilled the fixture, didn't pick up any cards and avoided a bleaching. Thats about it really. 

I wasn't expecting wholesale change in tactics but the ghost of Stuart Kettlewell haunted Fir Park. Stephen Frail proved that he was part of the old regime. Our line up looked like a 5-2-2-1 to me, with the hard working Ragnar Lothbrok ploughing a lone furrow up front. Our midfield was largely non existent setting up camp about 30 yards from our goal and giving the defence no protection.  I'm not usually one to worry about possession stats but 19% really is low. A single shot on target on too.

SOD looks lost in central defence and Kaletta didn't impress. Maybe because of injury, he didn't give 100%. Apart from being more talented, which goes without saying, Celtic were harder working and more physical than us. Ragnar impressed up front and I was happy for him to notch his first goal. However he had little service. Of the others Tom Sparrow looked the part in midfield before he was moved back; Dom Thompson looked lively at LWB; and Manwhanise looked lively. Neither of the 2 new lads had much of chance to impress.  

We move on and the sooner a new broom arrives the better. A pair of fresh eyes is badly needed.    

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5 hours ago, texanwellfan said:

We are also terrible at the first basic rule of defense, close down the player with the ball!!  Either that or we have decided that we start defending at the 18 yard line instead out around 30 yards. Similar issue with wide players where we give them too much space to fire balls into the box. 
we just look very disorganized defensively and don’t seem to go up and down the park as a team. 

It would help if we had a midfield! Sure the defence isn’t great but they get zero help from the midfield, which should be our first line of defence when the opposition have the ball. I don’t think central defenders should be asked to make tackles 30 yards from their own goal. That task falls to the midfield players but far too often they just funnel back on top of the defenders offering no or little protection.

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2 hours ago, El Grew said:

It would help if we had a midfield! Sure the defence isn’t great but they get zero help from the midfield, which should be our first line of defence when the opposition have the ball. I don’t think central defenders should be asked to make tackles 30 yards from their own goal. That task falls to the midfield players but far too often they just funnel back on top of the defenders offering no or little protection.

Oh I totally agree. I wasn’t slagging the defenders. Our first line is the forwards to try and slow the opposition down while we organize defensive set up. Then if we decide to let them have space up ton30’yds from our goal then midfielders are the next line 

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1 hour ago, mio said:

Well it wasn’t great was it but it was a damn side better than I thought it would be.

at least we put up a fight without really laying a glove on them.

positives: Thompson did well, looks like a decent player and I was blown away how hard Armstrong worked all game and he put his only chance away really well.

oh well…. I still think we have enough to stay mid table/ish even with the injuries, but I have always thought that. 

Pretty well my thoughts, performance and score line better than I expected.
 

Thompson did well against Kuhn given he’s probably been the best player in the country so far this season. Armstrong worked his socks off and looks like he could be good for us when we get a bit more support to him. Midfield still a massive concern, not convinced any of our options bar Miller are good enough! Sparrow did well but looks like he might be more suited to that right wing back role. 

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