A Place To Discuss A Sensible View Of What Happened Tonight

[steelboy]

i'm not actually that bothered about the result tonight. anyone with any sense would have seen that the way we started the match we were never going to win it. we were probably fortunate to only be one down at half time.

 

we scored 3 goals in the second half on saturday, did we start that with the succesful formation? no.

 

we started with a formation no one in our team had ever played played before and it showed right down to hutchy being clueless at taking shys, lukas being isolated, o'brien and murphy not knowing where to play and craigan being redundant in a sweeper position he's never had before.

 

on saturday sutton was gannon's best option to equalise off the bench, tonight he wasn't good enough to be a sub. on saturday according to gannon forbes was the better option for the second 45 but tonight coke started. where is the consistency?

 

we played a 3-4-2-1 formation which left reynolds on the left on his own but for some reason he spent the game manmarking ALAN JOHNSTON who was released by kilmarmock in the summer and who we wouldn't have manmarked ten years ago when he was in his prime.

 

gannon's done a great job so far building a team that can compete in the spl but beyond his motivational and organisational skills he's let us down several times by over thinking his tactics and over emphasising gimmicks. today the natural thing to do was do what we did in the second half on saturday and be confident that our players are better than there players and we'll win. instead we end up with a system that unsettles the full team and put them on the backfoot from the start.

[kingjulien]

Gannon will admit hisself he made a mistake with his formation tonight. But we just need to get up and on with it. Hes the type of manager that will make mistakes. Motherwell till i die!

[Motherwell Football Club]

See when we were pumping them for the last 15 minutes on saturday, playing a 4-4-2, I assumed thats how he would play tonight. I think anyone else there on saturday would have assumed the same.

[steelboy]

See when we were pumping them for the last 15 minutes on saturday, playing a 4-4-2, I assumed thats how he would play tonight. I think anyone else there on saturday would have assumed the same.

 

i honestly believe that gannon has done an incredible job.

 

players brought in, bringing on the young players, making us organised and generally turning the club around from a low ebb.

 

for some reason though he seems to continually over think his tactics and we've paid a price for that a number of times. he seems unwilling to say "our players are better than your players we're going to beat you straight up". instead we get 3 at the back, ultra deep lying midifelders, insane man marking and lone strikers against sides who we have better players than.

[kingjulien]

Well just need to go for the double now.

[Motherwell Football Club]

Undeniably, i don't think any of the other managers could have got anywhere close to how he has done.

 

There is just a point though, and I think its the difference between a good manager and a great manager, where he has to set out his team knowing he is going to dominate a game. I feel us playing a 4-4-2, even with Craigan playing, would have done a job against Midden.

[kingjulien]

I've been busy working and went straight to the game and didnt know any team news. But was hammell injured?

[mon_da_well]

I've been busy working and went straight to the game and didnt know any team news. But was hammel injured?

 

Aye.

[kingjulien]

He back for the weekend?

[mon_da_well]

2 secs, I'll give him a bell and find out...

[kingjulien]

Cheers mate your a star

[kmmfc]

Should have been a 4-4-2 after Saturday rather than trying to accommodate 4 centre-halves. St Mirren were hungrier and had that bit of quality in the final 3rd that we were lacking. Glad Gannon changed it at half-time however unfortunately Humphrey and McHugh were poor also. How many times do Moutaouakil and Humphrey hit the bye-line then sclaff the ball out the park?! Also, that was the first time for me that Gannon got his substitution wrong by taking off O'Brien. This is the guy that should be on for the full 90 mins as he is the most creative in our team. Being taken off at 2-0 down, having been going past (the booked) Jack Ross at will seemed crazy to me. Surely O'Brien should stay on and get the ball to him? In saying that, Ross should have seen his 2nd booking 5 mins prior to being substituted but I don't think that would have made any difference to the final outcome.

 

Now is the time for Gannon to earn his crust, by picking the players up for Saturday against Hearts and getting a result!

[fatcalf]

I think it's a measure of how far Jim Gannon has taken us until now that a lot of us consider it our right to be beating St Mirren. Not so long ago we were worried we'd be in the mire of a relegation struggle.

Shit happens, its how we deal with it that counts and on last night's evidence I'd say the fans have as much to answer as the players. A lot of sore losers in that travelling support.

I thought the first goal came off Hutchison which would mean we scored all 3 for them. Not saying we deserved anything cos St Mirren hassled us into mistakes all over the place and fair play to them for that but my biggest frustration was our failing to play even the simplest of passes under minimal pressure. They're no' really that good that we should be scared of them and it looked like that at times. Difficult conditions for our passing game but the players will know they can do better. Lukas should have scored, just dink it into the corner and Gallacher is left hanging in mid-air like a loon.

Ifs buts and maybes, move on and stuff Hearts now hopefully.

[Dodge]

we played a 3-4-2-1 formation which left reynolds on the left on his own but for some reason he spent the game manmarking ALAN JOHNSTON who was released by kilmarmock in the summer and who we wouldn't have manmarked ten years ago when he was in his prime.

 

I really couldn't figure out why Johnston was picked to be manmarked. Alan Johnston quickly realised this and went on runs to the other end of the park which took Reynolds totally out of position and left big gaps on our left hand side for them to exploit.

[well_legless_69]

I think it's a measure of how far Jim Gannon has taken us until now that a lot of us consider it our right to be beating St Mirren. Not so long ago we were worried we'd be in the mire of a relegation struggle.

Shit happens, its how we deal with it that counts and on last night's evidence I'd say the fans have as much to answer as the players. A lot of sore losers in that travelling support.

I thought the first goal came off Hutchison which would mean we scored all 3 for them. Not saying we deserved anything cos St Mirren hassled us into mistakes all over the place and fair play to them for that but my biggest frustration was our failing to play even the simplest of passes under minimal pressure. They're no' really that good that we should be scared of them and it looked like that at times. Difficult conditions for our passing game but the players will know they can do better. Lukas should have scored, just dink it into the corner and Gallacher is left hanging in mid-air like a loon.

Ifs buts and maybes, move on and stuff Hearts now hopefully.

[/quote

 

well said

[bigmcd]

i think it was just a case of a bad day at the office and jim gannon will know himself he made a mistake with the formation so lets just forget last night and move on and look forward to saturday and give the team our full support as with youngsters we are going to have up's and downs but everyone will learn from last night

['WellGall]

with a team of youngsters we are going to have up's and downs but so far its been all up's and last night was the down part of the season lets now focus on beating hearts and giving them a right hammering and back the youngsters and jim gannon people slating the young lads wont help them and if it keeps happening then the lads confidence will plumet and it will be hard to build it back up so lets stay positive and back the lads.

[Ya Bezzer!]

I wasn't at the game last night but I think a lot of people are confusing Gannon's very professional image in the media and our reasonably good start to the season in terms of not being beat too often with actually being a good football team.

 

We're not a good football team. I've been to 8 matches this season and we've played 180 minutes of good football - a half each against Kilmarnock and Steaua and the game against Flamurtari.

 

Basically we are an OK team with a small squad and inexperienced players.

 

As for our players being better than St. Mirren's.....put it this way, if St. Mirren signed our first team how many of them would start on Saturday? Craigan, Reynolds, O'Brien, that's about it. There is no gulf in class between the teams, so don't believe it for a second. If anything on paper they are stronger than us, which is how it played out last night.

 

Gannon deserves praise for taking a limited squad and eeking out results (you can't say its been anything more than that) but our squad just isn't good enough or experienced enough to be used as some sort of tactical experiment in formations. I think Gannon sometimes over thinks about the game.

 

Perhaps you can give Gannon the first quarter to try things out but teams play best to a set system, constantly swapping things around, in the long run is the wrong way to go.

[TAM]

As for our players being better than St. Mirren's.....put it this way, if St. Mirren signed our first team how many of them would start on Saturday? Craigan, Reynolds, O'Brien, that's about it. There is no gulf in class between the teams, so don't believe it for a second. If anything on paper they are stronger than us, which is how it played out last night.

 

You havin a laugh?? I wouldn't play Craigan in our first team!

 

I'm sure wee Gus would love to have Reynolds, Hammel, Forbes, Coke and Sutton in his team. Not much between the goalies, and apart from Dorman and Mehmet I don't rate anyone else in their team.

[MelvinBragg]

I wasn't at the game last night but I think a lot of people are confusing Gannon's very professional image in the media and our reasonably good start to the season in terms of not being beat too often with actually being a good football team.

 

We're not a good football team. I've been to 8 matches this season and we've played 180 minutes of good football - a half each against Kilmarnock and Steaua and the game against Flamurtari.

 

Basically we are an OK team with a small squad and inexperienced players.

 

As for our players being better than St. Mirren's.....put it this way, if St. Mirren signed our first team how many of them would start on Saturday? Craigan, Reynolds, O'Brien, that's about it. There is no gulf in class between the teams, so don't believe it for a second. If anything on paper they are stronger than us, which is how it played out last night.

 

Gannon deserves praise for taking a limited squad and eeking out results (you can't say its been anything more than that) but our squad just isn't good enough or experienced enough to be used as some sort of tactical experiment in formations. I think Gannon sometimes over thinks about the game.

 

Perhaps you can give Gannon the first quarter to try things out but teams play best to a set system, constantly swapping things around, in the long run is the wrong way to go.

Agree pretty much with most of this post perhaps with the exception of the part where you refer to how many of our team would definitely start for St Mirren. I'd probably say Reynolds and that's about it. Some of our players on their best form would walk into their team but I don't think that's been shown often enough. Hammell is possibly another you could argue would get in their team. I'd have their goalie over ours every day of the week. Jack Ross or Mouatouakil? Easy answer there. Given their midfield has apparently bossed ours over the last two games, why would they want any of our players? And up front they have far more strength in depth.

 

I cannot fathom how anyone was surprised by last night's result. We didn't help ourselves by how the team was set up (and by the sounds of it with our performances), but it was always going to be a big ask...

[numpty]

See when we were pumping them for the last 15 minutes on saturday, playing a 4-4-2, I assumed thats how he would play tonight. I think anyone else there on saturday would have assumed the same.

And you don't think Gus MacPherson would have been thinking "we got pumped for the last 15 minutes on Saturday, we'd better do something different tonight or they'll just do that again"?

 

Jim Gannon would certainly have assumed he was thinking that, and changed his formation to suit what he thought St Midden were going to do this time. It's clear JG is a "change formation to suit each match" type of manager, we're just going to have to like that or lump it.

[Trucks]

[Tweed]

Perhaps he did think McPherson would change but we should have asked the question.

 

As I said in the other thread our two failings were:

 

1. A lack of full backs that made crossing too easy for them.

2. They harried us at the back meaning we had to pass under pressure and our defenders are not good enough to do that.

 

A combination of these two things allowed them to have too much of the game and as a result of them having so much of the game they got three goals. To be fair goals 2 and 3 were lucky and all in our defending when not in possession was pretty good. We were second best last night and 3-0 sounds as if we were hopeless. We were disappointing but not hopeless in my view.

[steelboy]

I wasn't at the game last night but I think a lot of people are confusing Gannon's very professional image in the media and our reasonably good start to the season in terms of not being beat too often with actually being a good football team.

 

We're not a good football team. I've been to 8 matches this season and we've played 180 minutes of good football - a half each against Kilmarnock and Steaua and the game against Flamurtari.

 

Basically we are an OK team with a small squad and inexperienced players.

 

Perhaps you can give Gannon the first quarter to try things out but teams play best to a set system, constantly swapping things around, in the long run is the wrong way to go.

 

but the fact we're a young side with developing players makes last night even more frustrating. i've never seen any team line up in that formation before and i doubt that any of the players have ever played that way before. the team were at a disadvantage from the get go against a far more experienced team. the manager should sending the team out in a system they're confident with, instead we get a situation where no one knows what they're doing and we pretty much beat ourselves.

 

the most annoying thing was the fact that we actually had the game on saturday as a measure of what works and what doesn't. it was clear on saturday that we had zero penetration with one up front and that st mirren were capable of shutting down our passing game. surely it's just common sense to go with what worked on saturday? instead we try a system that addresses none of our flaws and actually weakens us in other areas. gannon seems to be more interested in forging a reputation as a master tactician than actually putting out a team to win games. naebody's going to think any less of you if you play a basic 4-4-2 jim.

 

gannon mentioned in an interview the other week that our 4-1-4-1 formation was designed to protect young players. basically we sacrifice an attacker to have tom hateley sitting spare and giving support to any area of the park that is under pressure when we don't have the ball. it's been effective in we're not conceding many with it but our goals for total while playing it consists of three from corners and a penalty. 4 goals, zero from open play, in what i'd put at a rough estimate 600 minutes of football, that can't continue.

[div]

I'm a St.Mirren fan and came on to read the thoughts of the Motherwell fans after the last couple of games.

 

I think three things stand out for me from the comments I've read;

 

1) Motherwell weren't that bad last night. The main turning point in the game was the miss by Jutkiewicz just a few minutes into the second half. He really should have scored and if he had I think we'd have seen a very different game. I think some of you are being a bit harsh on what is a young side that has effectively been completely rebuilt in a short space of time.

 

2) From what I saw on Saturday, and last night, Motherwell's main problem is their ability to lose possession. There seems to be far too much fannying around with the ball, particularly at the back, with no real purpose to it other than to inevitably losing possession. I haven't seen a team give the ball away as cheaply all season.

 

3) I think that there is a huge amount of disrespect on here for how far St.Mirren have progressed as a football team. We're not world beaters by any means, but some of you seem to have just thought 'Well would turn up and win. Saints are maturing into a decent side and Motherwell have no divine right to win games such as last night !