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Motherwell v Hearts 20/11/2021


SteelmaninOZ
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29 minutes ago, sinjy said:

I have gone right off this forum recently. The negative comments aimed at many of our players and the management have been way over the top. I have supported the Well for over sixty years and will always give the club and whoever is in charge my backing. Today was one of the best performances in years. It gave me as much pleasure as the two recent semi final wins. Every player was up for it and there wasn't one failure. Disappointingly I am writing this on page five. The Rangers defeat got 13 pages. That says a lot about this forum. 

To be fair, and I think a lot of people have been well off it with criticism of Alexander, there is just more to discuss after a defeat.  That's the way it is, especially when it's a heavy defeat to a team we haven't beaten in the league for 20 years.

Loads of folk have been going on about how 4-3-3 doesn't work and how 'stubborn' the manager is for persisting with it.  I don't agree with that and I'll argue the case but at the same time I don't expect those other people to come on and say how wrong they got it off one, two results.  With football it's an ever evolving situation and as soon as we lose again you'll hear the same thing again.  Some people see it one way, others a different way.  That's just the way people are.

Personally I don't get the scale of the animosity against Alexander when only Rangers and Celtic have won more games this season than us.  We are also fourth top goal scorers and we've scored in 12 out of 14 league matches this season but whatever.  I get the standard of football played hasn't been great but again I don't think the standard has been good for quite a while going back at least a few managers, with maybe the Turnbull period as an exception.  

Still, I think the purpose of the forum is to give people a chance to express an opinion, not to agree with me personally.   It worries me, here and in society in general, that people would rather pull up the drawbridge than actually engage with a range of opinions.  We all need to be a bit more robust and less sensitive to different view points.

 

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50 minutes ago, sinjy said:

I have gone right off this forum recently. The negative comments aimed at many of our players and the management have been way over the top. I have supported the Well for over sixty years and will always give the club and whoever is in charge my backing. Today was one of the best performances in years. It gave me as much pleasure as the two recent semi final wins. Every player was up for it and there wasn't one failure. Disappointingly I am writing this on page five. The Rangers defeat got 13 pages. That says a lot about this forum. 

You've done well...I gave up a good few years before you...I still read but I don't bother posting now because of it...too many point scorers trying to retort to each comment...

It's not solely a Steelmen Online phenomenon...it's a Social Media thing nowadays...you can't unwanker a wanker, I'm afraid...

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I’m on here because this is where I get to talk about the games. No Saturday nights at the pub dissecting the games blow by blow. Luckily I can focus on the discussions I like and let the other stuff slide. But today’s game was such a joy to watch and every player deserves a pat on the back. Similarly though for some of the stuff served up this season there has been some flak. I did notice on one of the sound clips Alexander admitted he got a lot wrong in the Rangers game so fair do’s to him for that. He’s certainly fixed it over the last 2 games and especially today. 

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46 minutes ago, KirkySuperSub said:

You've done well...I gave up a good few years before you...I still read but I don't bother posting now because of it...too many point scorers trying to retort to each comment...

It's not solely a Steelmen Online phenomenon...it's a Social Media thing nowadays...you can't unwanker a wanker, I'm afraid...

Disappointing attitude a healthy debate needs every viewpoint positive and negative that's the nature of an online forum and classing posters as wankers purely on the basis of they don't happen to agree with something posted is out of order, try engaging in the discussions you might just enjoy it.

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Had a long think tonight before deciding how to respond to what was an incredibly satisfying performance and result.

Without going over the top, I thought the first half was more "effective football" than top class entertainment. We smothered Hearts and prevented them from playing with our intensity and workrate, without being particularly easy on the eye.

We limited them to very few real chances and defended very well whenever it looked like they were going to open us up.

We deserved to go in at half time in the lead purely down to our endeavour and the goal itself was probably the best bit of football we played all half.

2nd half we played a lot more football through the midfield and it was really enjoyable to see. Getting the 2nd goal and having the extra man allowed everyone to relax and it was really nice to see that we can actually play a bit when we choose to.

A really good day at the office. If Alexander and the players can continue to get the mix right between playing effective winning football and entertaimment, then there wont be many complaints on here or down Fir Park way.

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I've been bemoaning the 4-3-3 but wow did I enjoy yesterday. 

The difference was hunger and the high press. Not dissimilar to the Hibs match.  Playing the pressing game in the opponents half rather than defend our box bravely is night and day to watch.

As fans I think we all like to see the high energy, 100% effort , push the other team hard.  Appreciate it won't work every week but it was a joy and so damn good to beat Hearts. (a team I've despised for decades) 

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Overall an excellent performance by the whole team, our energy and application was superb and Hearts couldnt cope with it, 

Our players gelled today, and we deservedly won, and but for a super double save by Gordon would have won quite deservedly by more, more of that application and intensity please! 
Great game guys, keep it up!

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20 hours ago, Coatsy said:

Very quiet on here today, i'm usually a critic but come on boys our team has played great, everything i have wanted for weeks a good press. Hearts have not had a kick of the ball. Best performance this year no failures today

I've been more critical than I would normally be of a manager and was a bit of a doom monger after the St Mirren and h*n games and was very anti 4-3-3, but if you watch the difference yesterday, at the first goal for example, the midfield was pushed right up to the edge of their box and the strikers were in the box. That's a totally different kettle of fish to the team against St Midden where where the defence was in their own box, midfield at the edge of the box and strikers on the half way line. Defending in numbers is fine, but going forward in numbers is equally important.  So, I was prob OTT with my criticism and doom mongering and yesterday was an absolute bastard joy to watch :-)

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Tremendous performance yesterday, I actually feared the worst when I realised we were missing a few players. Each and every player were a credit, dominated the match from start to finish. BBC had them as having 6 attempts at goal, I can only remember two.  Great headache for Alexander to have with the team selection next week with everyone returning bar Donnelly. While it was great to see the Tommy McLean stand full of supporters from a club other than the Glasgow arse cheeks it was equally great seeing them bail out after Lamie netted the second.

Does anyone know why Gordon was upset with officials at full time, I know hes a torn faced wee fud most weeks but it was his side that got away with murder, that Devlin for instance had ten fouls without getting a booking not to mention running up to the fourth official then Collum for some reason after we scored the first. 

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33 minutes ago, FirParkCornerExile said:

Id rather be a contender for the Scottish Cup than that european pointless pish.

The "european pointless pish" is a side effect of consistent league results. Only Motherwell fans would be upset by that.

(And despite rumours to the contrary, it pulls in some additional cash for the club too).

Still, I suppose playing Queens Park, Morton and Edinburgh City for the 2,375th time in the League Cup group in July is much more exciting.

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19 hours ago, FirParkCornerExile said:

Id rather be a contender for the Scottish Cup than that european pointless pish.

They way the european leagues are set up now and our current co-efficient, its perfectly possible for a team like ourselves to qualify for a group stage. I wouldnt call that pointless, and financially it could be quite lucrative. Obviously Id be happier if we qualifued by winning the cup, but keeping in good form throughout the season would certainly assist with that particular dream.

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18 minutes ago, weeyin said:

The "european pointless pish" is a side effect of consistent league results. Only Motherwell fans would be upset by that.

(And despite rumours to the contrary, it pulls in some additional cash for the club too).

Still, I suppose playing Queens Park, Morton and Edinburgh City for the 2,375th time in the League Cup group in July is much more exciting.

who said I was upset by it Im just totally disinterested in it. 

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A great peformance and result yesterday. It was perhaps our best peformance for quite some time. I, and many others,  were expecting us to concede possession and sit back in our usual way inviting crosses.  However our up and at em style and high press caught us all by surprise and obviously Robbie Neilson too. I expected him to change things at half time but he didn't. The second half continued in the same vein as the first.  I'm surprised that our possession stat was clearly less than 50%.

It was a good all round team performance with no failures. I was esepcailly pleased for Mugabi, McGinley and Shields. The former's surging runs and high press caused Hearts continual problems and it was McGinley's best game for us. He made one crucial tackle to deny Hearts and didn't lose one header all day.  Great to see Shields get off the mark and he ran and ran all day, hassling the Hearts rearguard. He showed why we gave him a 3 year deal. I suspect he's less talented than Van Veen but quicker and more consistent. The defence in general was very solid and Lamie is now showing proving more reliable.  Midfield played a lot better and Goss's deliveries are proving very dangerous to opposing defences. Kelly had little to do, due to our defence. Boyce produced a good finish by anybody's standard  but Kelly's quick thinking save to deny him was even better.

Credit to GA for changing things and to the players for producing their best performance of the season.

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4 hours ago, pretzel said:

Does anyone know why Gordon was upset with officials at full time, I know hes a torn faced wee fud most weeks but it was his side that got away with murder, that Devlin for instance had ten fouls without getting a booking not to mention running up to the fourth official then Collum for some reason after we scored the first. 

Willie Collum had a poor game yesterday. Totally inconsistent from start to finish. Quite how he never carded Baninghime for hauling down rugby style one of our guys who was breaking forward I'll never know.  Cameron Devlin? Its been many many years since I've seen a player commit so many without being booked. He should have been sent off.  I counted 9 offences given against him. One bad tackle deserved a yellow in its own right. Persistent fouling Willie - have you heard of it?  He should also have been carded when  he venomously lashed the ball against a prostrate Goss well after play was stopped right under Collum's nose. Hearts were fortunate to finish with 10 men.  Perhaps Gordon and Neilson were protesting at the finish that Devlin should've gone for an early bath?  Probably not.

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We clearly screwed up their game plan and hurt their feelings because we dared to try and beat them. The way they played and their reaction afterwards suggested they expected to just turn up, get the three points, and go home and celebrate moving up to second. For a team that just got promoted, and are now only 3 points above us with the same number of wins, that's a bit rich.

They were whining about time wasting as soon as we scored, and once they were 2-0 down and realized they were toast, they started throwing the dummy when the real game management started. I think their league position has got to their head, which won't be a problem if they keep that attitude when playing the so called smaller teams.

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We also have to make sure we adopt the right attitude. We should be confident going into games but know that we need to perform like yesterday against every team. If we can beat Dundee away that sets us up for a cracker of a match at Home to Dundee utd. Similar to Hearts we gifted them them the points in the first game but again they didn’t look anything special and we should be looking for revenge. However, getting ahead of myself, let’s focus on Dundee game first and foremost. COYW 

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Was at the game yesterday n thought lamie was brilliant,after watching it again on alba i was even more impressed,it was as close to a 10 out of 10 performance as you'll see,won everything in both boxes,his positioning and distrubution were excellent..just a complete performance yesterday,also a word for mcginley and shields,superb show by both,shields pace is ridiculous..anyone know wot he does the 100m in.....all round just a fantastic effort

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18 hours ago, weeyin said:

The "european pointless pish" is a side effect of consistent league results. Only Motherwell fans would be upset by that.

(And despite rumours to the contrary, it pulls in some additional cash for the club too).

Still, I suppose playing Queens Park, Morton and Edinburgh City for the 2,375th time in the League Cup group in July is much more exciting.

Well said weeyin.

Some well fans are funny buggers right enough

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The idea of being bored with Europe when it'll be 8 years without a Euro game with fans present when the tournaments begin next summer is very strange.

Our target right now should be 3rd place. We don't have the most quality but we have been the most consistent non Old Firm team since Alexander came in and there is no reason why that can't continue. 

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I can count on one hand the amount of ‘European’ games we’ve played that I have actually enjoyed.

If you offered me a 7th placed finish with a Scottish Cup win this season then I’d take that before finishing 3rd any day of the week. That would of course get us ‘European football’ next season but I would take much, much more satisfaction in that knowing that it was achieved by winning tangible success rather than a high placed league finish whilst we whimpered out of the cup.

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