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Motherwell V St.johnstone 20/01/13


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Nice win today....the only suprise is for me was that it took St John 77 minutes to score.

 

I love this attacking formation with 4 forwards on the park, but sadly it leaves our midfield over run/thread bare .

 

Thye worrying thng at 3-0 is that McCall cant see we need to shut up shop and see out the the game.

 

Holding midfield player is still required to let Law do what he is good at ......attacking !!!!:nod:

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Aye we weren't very good but we still scored 3 and won, I've seen Motherwell teams of the past that when they don't play well they got thumped. Hell I've seen Motherwell teams who could play well and get thumped so you won't hear me complaining about a Motherwell team that can play below par and take the three points. Not pretty but we showed why we are where we are in the league.

 

Also that's now 10 points from a possible 12 at home in the last 4 SPL matches at Fir Park with us scoring 12 goals in the process, decent turnaround in home form.

 

You can't play well every week and I'm just glad we have a team who can roll up their sleeves and dig out the points when they aren't on top form. Well done to McCall and the team.

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Nice win today....the only suprise is for me was that it took St John 77 minutes to score.

 

I love this attacking formation with 4 forwards on the park, but sadly it leaves our midfield over run/thread bare .

 

Thye worrying thng at 3-0 is that McCall cant see we need to shut up shop and see out the the game.

 

Holding midfield player is still required to let Law do what he is good at ......attacking !!!!:nod:

 

 

Motherwell manager Stuart McCall says "a win's a win"

Motherwell manager Stuart McCall was relieved to get to the final whistle after hanging on to win against St Johnstone.

 

And he was keen to focus on the positives of their 10th Scottish Premier League win of the season.

 

"A win's a win. This season we've played a lot better and got nothing, so we're happy with what we've done today," McCall told BBC Scotland.

 

"It's been a cold winter's day but three points will warm us up."

 

Michael Higdon's hat-trick had Motherwell thinking they were home and dry after 70 minutes.

 

However, St Johnstone pulled two back through Nigel Hasselbaink and Liam Craig to set up a nervous final 10 minutes.

 

"We made hard work of it," said McCall.

 

"At 3-0 we should see it out but fair play to them [st Johnstone] who kept at it. :thumbup:

"It's three points and three goals again at home which is good."

 

It was a baptism of fire for Motherwell's substitute goalkeeper Lee Hollis, who replaced the injured Darren Randolph just before Saints scored twice.

 

But, crucially, he denied Hasselbaink in the closing minutes of the game to prevent a draw.

 

"He certainly had a vital save to get us all three points," said McCall.

 

"He had no chance with the two great strikes by them.

 

"With the underground heating having to be on, the pitch becomes really bumpy.

 

"We tried to over-run it a lot of the time and gave it away, but we've got to take the positives and the positives are three points."

 

Motherwell remain in third place in the SPL, but are now level on points with second-placed Inverness CT.

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Good win from a distinctly average performance , won't complain though , and would gladly accept similar from now 'til May as long as 3pts continues to be the outcome .

Big up to Higdon , it amazes me that the haters keep on hatin' even though the big man keeps delivering and is on course for one of the best goal returns from a Well striker in many a year .

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Big up to Higdon , it amazes me that the haters keep on hatin' even though the big man keeps delivering and is on course for one of the best goal returns from a Well striker in many a year .

According to Soccerbase, 66 starts and 32 goals. Even before you take into account his link up play, he's been frighteningly good for us. Frightening in that he's out of contract in the summer.

 

Aberdeen looking to replace Vernon or Dundee United looking to replace Daly would be my concern...

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Only watched the game online but didnt think we played as badly as some of the above posts. Looked to me like the tactic was to soak up their pressure and hit them on the break. Felt we looked pretty comfortable for the most and at 3-0 up I couldnt see any way back for them. Two lapses of concentration and we nearly undo all that good work. Good to see us hang on for the 3 points.

 

Thought big Hutch looked a lot more comfortable alongside Ramsden. Here's hoping the injury to Randy isnt that serious. With everyone fit I think we still have a real tilt at 2nd.

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not a great performance but when your up against a defence of mannus-mackay-davidson-mccracken-wright you are always going to get chances. good finishing from higdon, he's scoring enough this season to paper over his flaws. that's 16 goals now with 15 games to go, he should be looking for 22-25. it's been a good season for strikers with higdon, griffiths, mcginn, hooper, russell and mackay all certs to hit 20+ and thompson and daly being likely as well.

 

everything after the third goal was horrible. mccall's subs were terrible as ever and the team totally fell apart in the last ten minutes. we have the same problem all the time, we have effectively a two man midfield and las and law can't give 100% both ways for 90 mins. carswell should have been on after the 3rd goal and moving law forward made no sense. if we were able to see out games we'd be outright second, still in the scottish cup and a good deal less skint. it's a sign of a poorly coached team that we continually find ourselves utterly lost when a team who are chasing the game put pressure on. even when we were winning goal kicks, free kicks and shys we were doing nothing apart from giving them the ball back and it's a poor reflection on the coaching staff that a problem that first appeared in august is still with us in january.

 

gaining points on hibs and aberdeen has made this a productive weekend but we've a lot of hard work ahead of us.

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Bizarre game, Should always be happy with 3 points and pretty much am. Don't think though that most will be fooled into thinking that was a good performance. Infact I personally thought that was shocking at times.

 

Distribution from the back was poor, We couldn't keep hold of the ball for more than a few passes.

 

Thankfully St. Johnstone squandered umpteen chances and we took the few chances that came big Higgys way. good on him.

 

If we're not able to complete a few passes as was the case today, it wouldn't bother me if we went long more often. We just seemed to be camped in our own half for far too long today and in truth our defence is just not good enough to play like that.

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Was stuck at work so missed it seemed we were a wee bit lucky just from reading it on twitter

 

How was bob mchugh then?

 

I thought he was fairly neat and tidy between the halfway line and the edge of the box. but didn't really have much of an opportunity to impress when closer to goal. There was one attempt in the second where he attempted to turn at pace and get an effort in, but it went high, wide and handsome as they say.

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When we played Odense I remember saying we were as good if not better than them but they had a bit more quality in both boxes and I think this was more or less the case today. St Johnstone had more territory, they had more ball and they had more shots on goal but at 3-0 they had barely threatened, header off the bar and a lucky deflection off the bar apart we were entirely comfortable.

 

 

The biggest area of concern to me was the middle of midfield - Law and Lasley were completely overrun in there and that is partly why we struggled to get a stranglehold on the game. Ojamaa had one of those days when not much came off for him and McHugh was good in flashes but generally quiet.

 

The two goals we lost were absolute belters. I didn't think the actual defending for the goals was that bad. Ramsden did everything right to try and close Hasselbaink down and he curled it round him unsighting Hollis and the second one Hateley read the game well to get on the cross ball but it ended up a really irritating mid height and he couldn't quite get the purchase on the clearance but Craig's finish was superb. If we're being really picky we should maybe have stopped the cross at source.

 

But over the game I thought St Johnstone's attacking play was really poor and we defended better than we have for a while. I know its easy to say we shipped 2 again and our defence needs to improve but I thought we were unlucky to concede today.

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not a great performance but when your up against a defence of mannus-mackay-davidson-mccracken-wright you are always going to get chances. good finishing from higdon, he's scoring enough this season to paper over his flaws. that's 16 goals now with 15 games to go, he should be looking for 22-25. it's been a good season for strikers with higdon, griffiths, mcginn, hooper, russell and mackay all certs to hit 20+ and thompson and daly being likely as well.

 

everything after the third goal was horrible. mccall's subs were terrible as ever and the team totally fell apart in the last ten minutes. we have the same problem all the time, we have effectively a two man midfield and las and law can't give 100% both ways for 90 mins. carswell should have been on after the 3rd goal and moving law forward made no sense. if we were able to see out games we'd be outright second, still in the scottish cup and a good deal less skint. it's a sign of a poorly coached team that we continually find ourselves utterly lost when a team who are chasing the game put pressure on. even when we were winning goal kicks, free kicks and shys we were doing nothing apart from giving them the ball back and it's a poor reflection on the coaching staff that a problem that first appeared in august is still with us in january.

 

gaining points on hibs and aberdeen has made this a productive weekend but we've a lot of hard work ahead of us.

See if we finish second this season will you still be posting this drivel?

 

Every week it's the same and every week we get further away from the chasing pack.

 

Yes we leak goals, but also score shit loads. The strength in our team is to attack and McCall see that too. I am really enjoying the games at fir park because they are open and high scoring.

 

Also what flaws does Higdon have? The guy has been immense for us. Be gutted if he leaves

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Also what flaws does Higdon have? The guy has been immense for us. Be gutted if he leaves

 

Higdon is one of my favourite players but he is as slow as a week in the jail, he gives away a lot of cheap free kicks and is exceptionally predictable. But it is all worth putting up with because he is a super finish, a useful additional defender at set plays, can spray the ball wide, is an excellent target man. At our level we'll struggle to do better but he has flaws.

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not a great performance but when your up against a defence of mannus-mackay-davidson-mccracken-wright you are always going to get chances. good finishing from higdon, he's scoring enough this season to paper over his flaws.

You know, I was tempted to post that any Motherwell striker who can consistently get around 15 goals a season can have any flaws in his game he wants. But, as true as that is, to say something like that is to do Higdon a disservice. Are there areas of his game that aren't as strong? Certainly. But if he was quicker and slightly more mobile with the same scoring rate, he wouldn't be playing for Motherwell.

 

I think when we look back in a few years, we'll realise that his performances as a number nine stand comparison with many Motherwell strikers...

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The two goals we lost were absolute belters.

Good shout… first one was a great wee passing move, second one just a great opportunistic hit. Yes from a defensive point of view there are doubtless things we could have done to prevent them, but sometimes you just have to take it on the chin.

 

On a side note, we've conceded more good goals this season than I can remember for quite a while. Maybe that's just because we're conceding so many goals overall, but at least it makes the highlights a bit more entertaining.

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First was a great goal,second was yet another free shot from the edge of the box! The centre mids should've bn around putting pressure on that but were missing as usual.

 

1 thing that needs to happn is Ojamaa up top and Higginbotham/ZFA on the left if were going 4-4-2. Ojamaa was too far back when he picked the ball up to create properly and offered no defensive support,we need that with our centre mid as soft as it is

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I find it difficult so say anything good about today's performance other than we actually somehow unbelieveably in the biggest blag since the Great Train Robbery. WE WIN!!! Totally crap for the full 90 minutes. Defensively dodgy again midfield should have FOUR players in it not 2. So we were Totally dominated in that area. Probably the most annoyed i've EVER felt after a win. But hey we can take our Dick Turpin masks off now cos we're only just off second place. :thumbup:

Maybe it's just me but I'm never annoyed after a Motherwell win.

 

Higdon's finishing yesterday was class.

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1358761514[/url]' post='372468']Now if only Inverness would STOP WINNING! whistling.gif

 

Would I be right in saying that we were the last team to beat Inverness? It's an incredible unbeaten run that they are on and if both us and them keep up our recent form then the game against them at Fir Park on 16th February is going to be massive.

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Unfortunately I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if Higgy won't sign a contract extension with us given how he's treated like dog shite on yer shoe by a small, but very vocal, part of our support. Same goes for everyone else.

 

And the only thing I've seen from Hollis that makes me think we may struggle a little bit without Randolph is the accuracy of his kick outs. Randy hits higgy's head 9 times out of 10 whereas Hollis doesn't seem to be able to quite match that yet. Seems commanding enough in the air and made 2 or 3 vital stops for us yesterday.

 

Oh aye: and I think Higgy is our 2nd best centre half as well :whistling:

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