Leaderboard

There is just as much chance of us winning the ECL as there is the league cup 🤣 I appreciate the game is just finished but some of the overreaction here today is a bit mad given the last 12 months we have had!

We’re not going to win the league and we’re not going to go any further in Europe, so the domestic cups are our best hope for tangible success. So to treat it with such disrespect by not fielding the strongest eleven is blindly arrogant and downright stupid. We have a history of treating the cups as if they’re not all that important. Jens did it last season and paid the price, McCall was notorious for it, Kettlewell and Robinson were guilty of it too. And all the while we have to watch on as St.Mirren and St.Johnstone get to lift the league cup trophy in recent years. It’s just not good enough and a slap in the face to the support.

Apart from you maybe, nobody ever remembers or cares how much cash the club earned in a season, but win a trophy or a title etc and its remembered and discussed for generations, especially at s club of our size as has been said earlier " thats our cake" a run in Europe is the reward for the team being the star bakers and producing a great cake over the season.

A positive balance sheet allows us to invest in the team and infrastructure in a way that a league Cup trophy never will

We fluked a result there last season so I'm not hugely surprised. It's a bad pitch and not an inspiring place to play. Scape goating young players is totally out of order, we weren't good enough as a team and Stenhousemuir were just better than us. If we know anything about football coming off a European match is always dangerous and that's something you just have to deal with if we are in Europe. We were poor against Falkirk as well. You have to believe in the system and there is no point going ape shit at the first set back, that's the 'old' Motherwell coming out there.

I’ll be forever grateful that 1991 happened in my lifetime because I just don’t see us ever winning silverware ever again.

Not an ideal result, but the harsh truth is we're playing games on a lot of fronts at the moment with a fairly small squad available to us. If the manager has to rank the League Cup, League, and European football in order of priority, I know which I would have at the bottom of the list. Europe and the league are more important at the moment. Just how it is.

On plus side I might make it to freiburg away now as flight prices probably dropped massively

His body language suggests he doesn't know he's on the pitch.

Appreciate a few players needed to be given a chance throughout the game + huge opportunity in Europe. To play Connelly, Wilson, Ross, Whyte and Booth from the start. Add to that it's Hodges first game and Vogt has been poor. For me it's over reaching in terms of changes and no surprise that we've been poor.

It’s one of the only two trophys we can realistically win. That kind of outlook might work in England for the top sides but we aren’t going to win the league title and we’re never going to do anything of note in Europe. Just dismissing it as “it’s only the league cup, let’s just rest players” is an incredibly arrogant and naive take on it.

Typing girdwood-reich...knight-lebel and charles-cooke takes ages 🤣🤣

I was coming from the perspective that we get to compete in the league cup every season, we get to compete in Europe maybe every 5 years or so. So for me I would take a Euro run over a league cup run. Each to their own.

You pick a team to win a game we’ve got no divine right to beat stenhousemuir & results like that can happen….it’s the way it happened though we offered absolutely zero for 120 minutes & that’s the issue….people are looking it as a league cup or Europe….we should have been good enough regardless to cause them problems

I do not believe at all there is any bad reaction at all to todays result . Everyone who is supporting Alfred and all the players still will be on Thursday night , that is guaranteed My personal take I wanted to see us get to Hampden , and win any cup . Other fans will say it is more important to win and get through in Europe Nobody is right or wrong , I want to win every game me personally , don't believe any genuine Well fan doesn't 💯

As Im fed up saying if looking at the balance sheet is what motivates some in their support thats fine. In 30 years you can all get copies of the clubs accounts to show the grandweans.

Agree. The load on faddinger priestman is massive Lowry hodge just in the door Williams is out. SOD McGinn out need a fresh MM for Thursday. We haven’t been able to really work on patterns of play due to the weekend and mid-week games. Could we have performed better? Yes but with the psychology of Thursday we have lost today. Learn from it. First loss of the season. Now we need a performance on Thursday. The team owe us. The team need us. we knew there would be a drop from last year with the players we lost we are still in the process of rebuilding, let’s see where we are at the end of the window.

Nae c**t

We need to agree to differ. I don't support Motherwell to watch the balance sheet, I watch Motherwell in the hope one day Ill live long enough to see us win a trophy again. We will lose over two legs to Freiburg , yes we will pocket £1.2 million from the European run. But if I had to choose between the League Cup in the Fir Park Trophy Cabinet and £500,000 or £1.2 million from 3 round in Europe Ill take the League Cup every day of the week.

Absolutely not. We've already earned twice as much financially in Europe as we would if we actually won the League Cup. In a season where we aren't in Europe, I'd absolutely agree that the League Cup is a priority, but when we have more lucrative European games, and we currently sit two games away from the actual group stages and the chance to earn millions? It's not even comparable.

Correct. We need to realise Europe is the icing on the cake. The League Cup and the Scottish cup are the fucking cake. The perennial fuck ups in the cups is depressing. We get to a position where we avoid the group stages and we fuck up against the easiest team left in the draw. That is entirely on the manager today. Disgraceful.

My final point before I focus on Thursday. I think Scottish cup at Aberdeen was worse than today. We had genuine chance last season but JBA rested players thinking we still had league chances ( which was never happening). AJ is juggling europe with domestic fixtures. Also we have 6 out injured and now priestman so I fully understand the line up which also I dont think was that bad. If we had lost to helsinki....won today then drawn away to sellik in quarters would that be better? For me its no. We have earned good money so far un Europe and Thursday is a fixture we don't get to experience much abd we should all make the most of it . COYW

Someone on the grizzly songsheet......not a phrase heard often 🤣🤣

What i will add also is beating helsinki probably has earned us more money than a good league cup run. I sm desperate to see us win a trophy but I would happily take a glamour freiburg tie ahead of a league cup semi defeat to sellik. That's just my view and of course we all have opinions. We move onto a rocking fir park on Thursday and get right behind AJ and the lads

Hearts hibs and Celtic through and rangers winning so unlikely we would have got further on this form.

I am mainly glass half-full guy. Think some of the reaction a bit OTT. no one is denying its a bad result but that starting line up was still strong. Longelo missed a few games early in so was maybe fatigued to start this one. In midfield Hodge started and up front we had almost strongest line-up. I would expect AJ to be raging with that performance but I understand the changes. Transfer window shuts in a few weeks so hopefully get a few in and I think we will be fine.

Not normally one to go on a mad incoherent rant, but I'm ready for one right now. As other's have already said, a domestic cup is the best chance of silverware/finals for teams like us. To treat it like that is a terrible piece of management. We have a tie coming up in Europe, yes, but seriously, we're not going to beat Freiburg over two legs, no matter how rusty they are. Fuckin' raging right now !

I did say before the game I’d rather get beat and have no injuries. I have a Hard time getting worked up about the league cup, ao I’m over it already. Having said that, it was a dreadful performance on a dreadful pitch but might have brought us back to earth with a bang and help us realise we still have a lot of work to do to be. Good team. With everything rolling along smoothly we might have been getting ahead of our station. This is a stark reminder. So hopefully gives us a kick in the arse to be up amd at it on Thursday night.

Lost the chance of getting to Hampden in a competition we could have done well in, unfortunately we have “previous” for doing this that’s what hurts, club just lost a lot of cash due to that performance. 😩

The worst thing about the game itself is having to play ET on that pitch. Hopefully no further injuries. Not a great performance but may work in Alfred’s favour - can now push the board for a few more signings as we don’t really have any squad depth. hopefully forgotten about by the time they get on the bus and full focus on Thursday.

Yeah, again, we have pretended that we are a big club, playing our 2nd string and they are not good enough. We have been dreadful today and AJ has to learn from it. We've thrown away a competition in which we would have a great chance of winning. Lack of respect for the competition and the opposition. Fuming about that.

Absolutely disgusted but not surprised in the slightest. Motherwell FC just cannot be trusted to win cup ties. And blame has to go to the manager today for arrogantly dropping half the first team. He’s not the first manager to do this and unless we as a club start making it crystal clear to managers then he won’t be the last. And spare me “Ach it’s only the league cup, we’ve got bigger fish to fry” because quite frankly I don’t give a toss right now. And fuck Europe while we’re at it. Unacceptable Motherwell.

There we go. Heding out of the cup. Unacceptable

On the plus side, Freiburg will learn F all about us from this game.

Ba dum tssss

We've seen it all before. Lower league opposition on their own patch, full of energy, enthusiasm and a desire to do well in these competitions against the big boys. If this goes the distance to 90 it's anyone's game.

Matthew Connolly looks good tbf

Crap pitch or not now we need to use rested first team players to try get this over the line. If anything it proves our bench quality for the season might not be good enough as folk think.

It is and don't call me Shirly

Young boys struggling with the surface. Don’t they train on plastic?

Well you can just do your Arthur montford on here for us 😂😂

Prem Sports Day pass at a tenner.

Doubtful for cup game, don't think it will even be on the dodgy stick

I’m supportive of giving players time and also conscious of not pushing g players who were getting up to speed . im less convinced about changing the keeper - it doesn’t have the same argument for fatigue and I honestly don’t believe connelly to be as strong. Here’s hoping we don’t make a pigs ear of today

I've just emailed both the club and Society about this problem. Something does need to be done, but as Denny says, the first step would be an acknowledgement that this has gone badly wrong.

Yes and no. We need to move on but we absolutely should not forget or stop highlighting the scandalous officiating at the end of this game.

I have no issues with Connolly playing, he has played a number of times and done well. He had one mis kick at Pittodrie but otherwise his games have been good, a clean sheet in the last game of last season.

His cross to pick out Maswanhise in the six yard box was outstanding. I know what you mean about the misplaced passes but, to be fair, they weren't necessarily the wrong pass. There was one that he played out to the right wing that would have taken out a couple of defenders but Johnny checked back rather than make the run. Went out for a throw, so looked like a bad pass. The players will get to know what he is capable of over the season.

Hilarious last night at end of game. Guy in front of me on stairs was carrying his seat and handed it into the Director's box on way out. From what I saw it was held in place by one giant screw which had come loose. Maybe we should all try that. Never got a chance to ask him what the reaction was.

That was one for the ages. A very professional performance against the biggest club in Finland. Ok they are not Barcelona, but this is a team who qualify for Europe most seasons and have reached the group stages only a few years ago. We schooled them. Thought Lowry and Said were superb. Moorman is a step up on Welsh, he is that good and was delighted to see Olly Whyte stroll about the park like a veteran midfielder. Whats brilliant about being a Motherwell fan these days is that this is not just a flash in the pan, this is it now. We are a football club who has grasped the fact you need to modernise and play football the right way and the rewards will come.