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Motherwell V Partick Thistle Sat 27 Feb 15:00


Yabba's Turd
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I agree. Things can change, however, I reckon Thistle’s win tonight + their 3 games in hand will see them safe for another year.

 

Not sure I agree with that - they now going to have a spell of Saturday Tuesday Saturday Tuesday Saturday Tuesday - lose a couple they might find that tough going and still be in it. I would say they are favourites to be top of the current bottom five but they are still very much in the battle.

 

We need to grind a win, any win, out on Saturday. We also need to be not booing players when they make an arse of things however frustrating it is as it really only causes them to tighten up and make more mistakes. We want to be all in it together, no matter if you like or dislike McGhee, McManus, stewards, Stephen Finnie or anyone in between the team need encouragement to do the right things and you never know it might just click.

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Not sure I agree with that - they now going to have a spell of Saturday Tuesday Saturday Tuesday Saturday Tuesday - lose a couple they might find that tough going and still be in it. I would say they are favourites to be top of the current bottom five but they are still very much in the battle.

They are still in the play-off battle, however, I would rather be in their position than ours.

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Management and players have got to view our situation as a 4 team league now. It's us, Hamilton, Kilmarnock and United. 3 wins from our next 6 should see us relatively safe going into the split.

Definitely identified the worst 4 teams in the league, but I genuinely believe we have the best squad of this lot.

 

On a different perspective (what the manager gets paid to do...give belief) view it as 6 games to make the top 6, then relegation would not be an issue. Dont think the team have the bottle, but 3 wins from 6 games would be great.

 

Game at a time tho without getting carried away. Partick at home is winnable. Given their game tonight on a heavy pitch, we could catch Thistle cold with a strong fast paced start.

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I thought I'd post this in here seeing as it's the a bit more current. Following on from a general point Busta made re: Johnston and his role as a creative player in the team over in the St Johnstone match thread in a fit of boredom (and morbid curiosity) I had a look at how our goals have actually been "created". I don't keep a running spreadsheet of this sort of thing but on the off chance it's of interest to anyone here's the info for league and cup games:

 

Goals Scored:

Louis Moult 14

Scott McDonald 11

Stephen Pearson 7

Marvin Johnson 3

Wes Fletcher 1

Ben Hall 1

Chris Cadden 1

Stephen McManus 1

Lionel Ainsworth 1

Own goal 1

 

Total: 41

 

Assists: (caveat, I've taken initial saved shots as assists ie: Pearson's shot vs ICT led to Fletcher's goal, McDonald's shot vs Aberdeen led to Johnson's goal etc)

 

Scott McDonald 7

Lionel Ainsworth 7

Josh Law 5

Louis Moult 4

Stephen Pearson 4

Marvin Johnson 3

Steven Hammell 3

James McFadden 2

Jack Leitch 2

Liam Grimshaw 1

David Clarkson 1

Connor Ripley 1

 

Total: 40* (Pearson's goal vs Dundee he was played in by an attempted defensive clearance, hence the discrepancy)

 

Area of assist:

Right wing/side: 8

Corner (right): 3

Free kick (right): 2

 

Total (right): 13

 

Left wing/side: 8

Corner (left): 3

Free kick (left): 0

 

Total (left): 11

 

Centre/through ball: 10

 

Shot saved/rebound: 5

 

Foul (Penalty): 2

 

Direct Free Kick: 0

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I thought I'd post this in here seeing as it's the a bit more current. Following on from a general point Busta made re: Johnston and his role as a creative player in the team over in the St Johnstone match thread in a fit of boredom (and morbid curiosity) I had a look at how our goals have actually been "created". I don't keep a running spreadsheet of this sort of thing but on the off chance it's of interest to anyone here's the info for league and cup games:

 

Goals Scored:

Louis Moult 14

Scott McDonald 11

Stephen Pearson 7

Marvin Johnson 3

Wes Fletcher 1

Ben Hall 1

Chris Cadden 1

Stephen McManus 1

Lionel Ainsworth 1

Own goal 1

 

Total: 41

 

Assists: (caveat, I've taken initial saved shots as assists ie: Pearson's shot vs ICT led to Fletcher's goal, McDonald's shot vs Aberdeen led to Johnson's goal etc)

 

Scott McDonald 7

Lionel Ainsworth 7

Josh Law 5

Louis Moult 4

Stephen Pearson 4

Marvin Johnson 3

Steven Hammell 3

James McFadden 2

Jack Leitch 2

Liam Grimshaw 1

David Clarkson 1

Connor Ripley 1

 

Total: 40* (Pearson's goal vs Dundee he was played in by an attempted defensive clearance, hence the discrepancy)

 

Area of assist:

Right wing/side: 8

Corner (right): 3

Free kick (right): 2

 

Total (right): 13

 

Left wing/side: 8

Corner (left): 3

Free kick (left): 0

 

Total (left): 11

 

Centre/through ball: 10

 

Shot saved/rebound: 5

 

Foul (Penalty): 2

 

Direct Free Kick: 0

Thing that leaps out at me straight away (and you can make stats prove anything you want, I know) is the assists provided by Ainsworth, Leitch and McFadden despite their limited game time. Three players who have at various times this season been described as a waste of a wage...
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Thing that leaps out at me straight away (and you can make stats prove anything you want, I know) is the assists provided by Ainsworth, Leitch and McFadden despite their limited game time. Three players who have at various times this season been described as a waste of a wage...

 

You can also chuck in an additional point that some of those were against East Fife and Cove Rangers as well but still...

 

In the case of McFadden he's started 2 games and contributed to 2 goals

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So Ainsworth has been involved in 8 Motherwell goals so far this season, as opposed to 6 for Johnson. Very interesting.

 

What's the stats regarding appearences made (starts/sub appearences) for both?

 

According to wiki:

 

Ainsworth - 25 total (League: 13+9, LC: 1+1, SC: 0+1)

Johnson - 31 total (League: 23+4, LC: 2, SC: 2)

 

For what it's worth here's the breakdown:

Ainsworth:

Assist - St Johnstone 11' (scorer Louis Moult)

Goal - East Fife 107'

Assist - Greenock Morton 90'+1 (scorer Scott McDonald)

Assist - Partick Thistle 22' (scorer Frans o.g)

Assist - Partick Thistle 69' (scorer Scott McDonald)

Assist - Aberdeen 73' (scorer Scott McDonald)

Assist - ICT 58' (scorer Louis Moult)

Assist - Cove Rangers 61' (scorer Stephen Pearson)

 

Johnson:

Goal - Aberdeen 5'

Assist - Ross County 90'+1 (scorer Louis Moult)

Goal - Hearts 65'

Assist - Celtic 53' (scorer Louis Moult)

Goal - Cove Rangers 54'

Assist - Dundee 4' (scorer Chris Cadden)

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Thing that leaps out at me straight away (and you can make stats prove anything you want, I know) is the assists provided by Ainsworth, Leitch and McFadden despite their limited game time. Three players who have at various times this season been described as a waste of a wage...

A point worth investigating Greg, but we should also take into account the strength of the opposition.

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A point worth investigating Greg, but we should also take into account the strength of the opposition.

 

Ainsworth as above in my reply to Desp

 

Leitch:

Assist - East Fife 80' (scorer Louis Moult)

Assist - Greenock Morton 116' (scorer Louis Moult)

 

McFadden:

Assist - Dundee United 45'+1 (scorer Stephen McManus)

Assist - St Johnstone 33' (scorer Louis Moult)

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27 starts for Marvin Johnson this season has only yielded 3 goals and 3 assists. For me, that return is nowhere near good enough.

 

He seems to be the player who the board/management have pinned their hopes on for getting the big transfer fee, but it won't be happening anytime soon if this form continues.

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27 starts for Marvin Johnson this season has only yielded 3 goals and 3 assists. For me, that return is nowhere near good enough.

 

He seems to be the player who the board/management have pinned their hopes on for getting the big transfer fee, but it won't be happening anytime soon if this form continues.

 

Obviously what I've posted above is really just bare numbers, you can take whatever you want from that to fit a specific narrative. It's also quite reductive in the sense that it only addresses a final pass and finish rather than a full passage of play. Johnson does have hugely positive attributes (pace mostly) however I'm inclined to agree that the return we've seen really doesn't warrant his apparent status as one of the first names on the team sheet.

 

For what it's worth the reason I wanted to look into it wasn't to necessarily knock or have a dig at Johnson but rather the suspicion that Johnson isn't actually that "creative" a player, as I said in the St Johnstone thread he's not going to be the guy to pick a pass or split a defence and that's kind of borne out by the above. He absolutely has it in him to roast a full back but equally based on assists and goals (which tbf is what he should be judged on) we don't actually see much by way of end product that creates goals from him. Which is actually quite ironic given it's seemingly Dom Thomas' lack of a final ball that's been presented as the reason that he isn't getting games in the first team.

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Obviously what I've posted above is really just bare numbers, you can take whatever you want from that to fit a specific narrative. It's also quite reductive in the sense that it only addresses a final pass and finish rather than a full passage of play. Johnson does have hugely positive attributes (pace mostly) however I'm inclined to agree that the return we've seen really doesn't warrant his apparent status a one of the first names on the team sheet.

 

For what it's worth the reason I wanted to look into it wasn't to necessarily knock or have a dig at Johnson but rather the suspicion that Johnson isn't actually that "creative" a player, as I said in the St Johnstone thread he's not going to be the guy to pick a pass or split a defence and that's kind of borne out by the above. He absolutely has it in him to roast a full back but equally based on assists and goals (which tbf is what he should be judged on) we don't actually see much by way of end product that creates goals from him. Which is actually quite ironic given it's seemingly Dom Thomas' lack of a final ball that's been presented as the reason that he isn't getting games in the first team.

Good post Captain. This is an interesting thread but a complex one. As far as Marvin Johnson is concerned, I suppose to some extent it depends on what his role actually is. I agree he's not a creative player. By the same token he's not an out and out striker. Anecdotally however, I would say that the quality of service to him is generally poor in that its incompatible with his style of play. Perhaps his style of play is simply not suited to the current team and vice versa?

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