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Agree with pretty much all of that except maybe your secomd item, Watt done that all season long although Welsh woukd also bring the ball out. I think JKL gives us a more Welsh like option. i also wonder how much we are missing Preistman. For me, he was our Watt replacement. Stepped in seamlessly for games last season and started off very well this season. regarding you last point, I think the effort level has dropped a wee bit which results in us not playing as a unit amd leads to some of the big gaps we are seeing. Need to attack as a team and get back to that high press but willing to put the work in to get back and defend should the other team beat the press.

Theres a few of things I noticed last night that on reflection Id like to see fixed. The first thing was our press. With no focal point of the attack, there didnt seem to be anyone to start the press to signal to the rest of the team to go. Not sure if that was by design or default, but Id like to see Seb start as our preferred option in the middle. He has pace and a bit of physicality, so can get to and at defenders/keeper. He needs supported with pace though for any press to work, so for me Maswanwhise and Said have to be either side. Cookie is too slow. Secondly, why were Fadinger and Hodge having to come so deep to pick up the ball? Having Moorman and Jake either side of them whilst doing so seemed mental, didnt work and caused us all sorts of difficulties. If we want to play out our centre halves have to be comfortable on the ball and able to pass out. If Fadinger or Hodge are dropping to play quarterback then the centre halves need to move into pockets to receive the ball instead of just standing and letting the midfield deal with it. Our style requires multiple options to receive a pass at all times. We cant afford passengers or players hiding. Everyone needs to be willing to show for the ball, that hasnt been the case this season and our midfield were very static last night. Finally, we are not winning the ball back high up the pitch the way we were last season. Not sure whether we just arent running as hard this season to get it back (Just was fantastic at it) or whether its something more structural, but its really apparent. Definitely plenty to work on out on the training pitch.

None of the goals last night were keepers fault

Also worth considering what we'd term "succeeding". For me, it's at least being in the race for top six and playing the kind of football that makes Motherwell worth watching.

Would you not have put Just in the lightweight category last season?

This is why we keep it a secret ballot. So you can all vote without fear of embarrassment. MOTM is a judgement free zone.

I think its also fair to point out that Alfred is only 35 and Rosenberg was his first job as a head coach. He is still learning and not the finished article.

Never seen last night which was a bonus but do think this w/ends a big game to see if we get a reaction I’ve got big doubts on the keeper ( I know people have been raving about him ) thought we needed a right back which was shot down…. & kanga looks far too lightweight for this league ( as does probably Vogt ) signings on a whole have been decent but there is some doubts if we’re considering the physicality of the league

Thank you kind sir........cant guarantee 2nd part though 🤣🤣

See who Hibs fans are calling for? Clarke, Lennon, Kevin Thompson, Alex Neil, Bartley, etc. All aboard the failure merry-go-round again. I'll happily give Johansson a full season and beyond. If he doesn't succeed, then we'll pick up another young and ambitious coach from the continent.

This is a very good and well worded post. Keep doing this and forget the comedy.

Sums it up for me. Judging the manager so soon after a summer of turmoil, both personal and professional, is misguided. The new players need time to gel to produce something like the kind of football we saw last year. Aberdeen had nothing but the long ball for the first half hour, kicked and niggled all the time and got a goal with their first shot on target. The second, a deflected one from a simple mistake was the killer. They could pick us off then when we went for broke and it worked. The much-criticised Vogt produced two excellent crosses which should have been more productive and Thor a couple of flick-ons and hold-up play which was an improvement on the performance of the front three which started, who offered little/nothing as a unit. The Dundee game is a test for the new manager and players to show a big reaction.

I am sure he will have learned a lot last night and hopefully can see the players that need dropped

Feels apt to say as an attacking force we wouldn’t worry sheep

I am sure he will have learned a lot last night and hopefully can see the players that need dropped

Just watched AJ’s pat match interview. Pretty much summarized it correctly. Didnt turn our first half domination into goals and stopped playing our normal game after second goal.

When are Preistman and Johnny K due back?

Well said pal. Alfred needs time and before last night everything had been moving along nicely. Players have off days and that happened last night. Looking at our squad i have every faith we will have a good season but fans need to realise that Jens was really unique so its unfair to put that pressure on AJ, especially in middle of September. He needs a full season minimum

👏👏👏👏

I think it's a mistake to assume that failing to meet expectations at Rosenborg tells us much about how Johansson will do with us. Rosenborg operate in a completely different footballing environment. They play in a 20,000 seat stadium, regularly spend millions of euros on players, have won a record 26 Norwegian league titles, have huge domestic support and have played more European matches than any other Norwegian club. Their expectation isn't simply to be competitive. It's to challenge for titles, qualify for Europe and play a recognisable brand of football while doing it. Our reality is almost the opposite. We work with a fraction of that budget, constantly rebuild squads, develop players, sell them on and try to outperform clubs with greater resources. Success at Motherwell isn't measured by whether you win the league. It's about organising a team properly, improving players, recruiting intelligently, competing consistently and maximising limited resources. That's why I don't think you can simply take Johansson's Rosenborg record and transpose it onto Motherwell. In fact, some of the things Rosenborg themselves credited him with - improving training standards, introducing stronger structure and methodology, developing young players and creating value from them, are potentially much more relevant to the job here than whether he was capable of satisfying the expectations of Norway's biggest club. Of course, there are questions about how his spell ended, particularly around adaptability and leadership when results got away from him. Those are worth discussing. But Rosenborg and Motherwell are two very different jobs, with very different expectations, resources and definitions of success. Another thing worth considering is Jens. Flip his career around for a second. Imagine we'd never had him at Motherwell and he was coming to us now from Toulouse. We'd look at his record there and see a manager sitting near the bottom of Ligue 1 without a win in his first four league games. If we applied the same logic being applied to Johansson, plenty of people would immediately conclude that Askou wasn't good enough. But we know that's bollocks because we've already seen Askou manage Motherwell. We know he was capable of coming into our particular environment, working with our budget and players, and being successful. That's the point. Managers don't operate in a vacuum. The club, expectations, budget, squad, league and the actual job they're being asked to do matter enormously. In the end, Alfred didn't meet Rosenborg's expectations, and they were entitled to sack him. But we're not asking him to do the Rosenborg job. We're asking him to organise and improve players, develop young talent, operate within a restricted budget, create value in the squad and make us competitive against clubs with greater resources. Askou is probably the perfect demonstration of why judging a manager purely on what happened at a completely different type of football club can be completely misleading.

Not as funny though as the person who thought Sparrow was our best player!

It’s blooming hard not to compare to last season - which I’m sure we all agree was simply fabulous . JBA was a level above anything I’ve seen before and some players very hard to replace aka Just . I loved watching pretty much every league game and although not finished article I really felt we’d win or certainly not lose . BUT that’s the past . if I compare to any other season I’d probably be reasonably happy, albeit I don’t like losing any game , particularly being pumped at home. I’ve no clue what to expect this season but probably fair to assume it won’t be 4th and that’s ok . What I do want is to enjoy my footy, be proud of performances and for that to happen we need to improve consistency

Very well said and the support are vital this season. Do all the glory hunters who started coming back suddenly stop attending because heaven forbid we had a bad game? Our style has had many admirers and just look at the attendances. There will be bumps along the way but jeez give me our style ahead of Robbo tactics any day. Aye they won but the play-acting etc would stop folk turning up. Fans need to stay with it, even stand up and sing for Motherwell was flat as a pancake last night. Keep the Faith folks.......grizzly jovi

Robinson was getting absolute pelters before killie cup game, now dons think he's the messiah. Fitba fans of all clubs really have no patience whatsoever

These are dangerous times to be a football manager. David Gray has just been sacked and MJC and wellfan have bumped the manager thread back to the top of the discussion board. So far this season these are the managers whose fans have been sticking the boot in, many calling for sacking: O'Neil at Celtic (he maybe has a little more goodwill in the bank) McIness at Rangers Robinson at Aberdeen McCann at Kilmarnock Goodwin at Utd Gray at Hibs ( now gone) 6 games in. It has been a long hard season!!!