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I think there's a ton of hindsight being presented as objective analysis in this post. The first problem is this idea that under JBA there was a "clear identity from day one", whereas under Johansson we're apparently seeing "absolutely none". Unless my memory isn't what it used to be, Askou's first competitive game was a 2-2 draw with Clyde. We then needed a stoppage-time winner to beat Peterhead at Fir Park. His first FIVE league games were all draws, and we didn't win a league match until the sixth attempt against Aberdeen. After eight league games, Askou had eight points. Johansson currently has eight points after eight league games. Nobody remembers Askou's start that way now because we know what happened afterwards. And during those results and performances, the usual characters were moaning like fuck early doors. I remember talk about us being "basically all fur coat and no knickers, and we’ve so far been unable to show that we can win games" and even the now incredible patter of "It’s still early(ish) days but so far JBA hasn’t shown any evidence of good game management so far." That's why the points comparison matters. It isn't being used to say Johansson will therefore be as successful as Askou. It's illustrating how ridiculously early it is to declare that one manager was clearly building something while another is obviously heading nowhere. And saying there have been "absolutely no signs" of anything under Johansson is just simply isn't true. We've already won away at Hibs, gone through HB 5-0 on aggregate in Europe, eliminated HJK 3-1, produced an excellent 2-0 home performance against them, beaten Dundee United 3-0 and competed very well with a good Freiburg side until a red card and penalty changed that game. We were also unbeaten through our first four league matches. There's absolutely an argument that things have regressed since then. That's completely fair. What you can't reasonably argue is that there has never been any evidence of a functioning team or any indication of what Johansson is trying to build. We've literally already seen it. The other claim I don't understand is that we've become "increasingly clueless the longer Alfred's had the players on the training pitch". At one stage we had played 11 competitive games in 37 days, including European travel. That's recovery sessions, preparation sessions, matches, flights, injuries, rotation and trying to integrate new players. It isn't six uninterrupted weeks at Dalziel Park drilling tactical patterns. Calendar time and coaching time aren't even close to being the same thing. Throw in the ridiculous international break that we just had and you compound the problem even further. We had key players on international duty, and other players were away visiting family and on holiday. That matters when you're asking a manager to change how a team plays. People talk about "identity" as though a manager installs a formation on a tactics board and suddenly eleven players simply just understand it. A possession structure, pressing system or set of attacking rotations involves spacing, body orientation, triggers, passing angles, rest defence, movement off the ball and players reacting automatically to what ten teammates and eleven opponents are doing. Those behaviours take repetition. And sometimes a team actually looks WORSE for periods while learning them because players are consciously thinking about movements that eventually need to become automatic. That obviously can't be used as an excuse indefinitely. If we're still seeing the same structural failures months down the line, then absolutely question the coaching. But eight league games or so is a stupidly small sample from which to conclude that a manager is "incapable" or "too stubborn". If something isn't working, it doesn't follow that the manager either cannot see it or stubbornly refuses to change it. He might believe changing it creates a bigger weakness elsewhere. He might think the execution is wrong rather than the structure. He might be trying to establish rehearsed patterns rather than changing the system every time it produces a poor performance. He might have limitations in the squad. Or, he might simply be wrong. All of those possibilities are there and exist. That's the complexity of management that most of the time gets completely ignored when analysis becomes "I can see this isn't working, therefore the manager can't". as I said in the Celtic thread, identifying a symptom isn't the same as diagnosing its cause. If Hodge is being overrun, is Hodge the problem? Or is the press in front of him being bypassed? Is the defensive line too deep? Is the full-back pinned? Has the opposition created an overload? Are the distances between units wrong? Change Hodge, and you might solve absolutely nothing. Or it might solve everything. That's not saying fans can't criticise. We absolutely can. But there is a huge difference between observing that something isn't working and knowing why it isn't working. There's a reason why we're not in the job, and he is. As I've mentioned elsewhere too, the Rosenborg criticism of Johansson is relevant here to a point. One of the genuine questions I had about him when I saw we'd hired him was about his adaptability. I'm not a fan of Norwegian football by any stretch, but from what I could see, his first Rosenborg team improved enormously, finished fourth after they'd been ninth the previous year and ended 2024 with 10 wins in their last 13 league games. The concern is that when that team later stopped functioning, he struggled to construct the next version of it. That's a legit criticism and something I'd watch closely at Motherwell. But that's very different from deciding after eight league games that he's "out of his depth". And then we get to the strangest part of the post: "A defeat to Killie... will only accelerate what is increasingly starting to feel inevitable." Inevitable? After eight league games? That's not analysis. That's you deciding where the story ends and then interpreting everything that happens through that conclusion. If we'd applied that standard to Askou after eight games, we'd have been looking at a manager with exactly eight league points, one league victory and consecutive defeats to Celtic and Falkirk and asking where this supposed progress was leading us. Fortunately we didn't know the ending at the time. In fact, after skimming the matchday threads from that early period I'm sure that absolutely not one of us would have guessed how it would end in reality. We do now, which makes his early period look much more obviously progressive when looking back than it probably felt while we were actually living through it. AJ might fail. He might prove unable to adapt. The current four-game losing run is concerning, and performances need to improve. No one is debating that. But there is a massive difference between saying that and constructing a narrative where Askou arrived with a fully functioning identity from day one, Alfred has shown absolutely nothing, more training has somehow made us progressively worse, he appears incapable of recognising obvious problems, and his departure is already becoming "inevitable". That's interpretation presented as fact. And less than ten league games into a fairly sizeable change in playing philosophy where AJ is following one of the best managers we've had in decades, I'd rather judge whether the problems are still there after he's actually had a meaningful amount of time to coach them than pretend we already know how the story ends.

AJ has had to totally rebuild the team over the summer, losing players of the quality of Just, Watt and Slattery, with all their goals from midfield, Welsh and McGinn( long term injury) from defence. Add to that Maswhanise having a once in a career (Bair / Higdon )season and the ongoing 1st pick. Players like JK and priestman still out wiith long term injury no wonder we are struggling. It will take time to get a settled team, and all the 1st pick players back available, so why dont we cut AJ some slack. We are no worse off than last season at this stage in this league 3 or 4 wins and its suddenly top 6 etc as we saw last year. Judging and condeming the manager after a 4 game poor run is nonsense, coyw.

I agree 100% that fans can criticise a manager without claiming they know better than him. Sunday was poor, and there were obvious things that didn't work. Where I'd maybe look at things differently, though, is assuming that because the problem looked obvious, the solution was obvious too. Take intensity, which I've heard a lot of people talking about. That isn't just about players running harder. The truth is, a press only works if the first player goes at the right moment, the next player blocks the correct passing lane, the midfield squeezes up, and the defensive line follows. One player being half a second late can make the whole thing look passive, which happens a lot at our level of the game. Same goes with movement and rotations. They may have worked on specific patterns all week, but if Celtic changed their press, blocked the first pass or forced players to receive facing their own goal, those rotations can disappear in a hurry. That doesn't mean the initial plan was good, by the way, but "I didn't see it" doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't drilled during training sessions and worked on. The midfield is similar. For example, if Hodge looks exposed, the problem might be Hodge. But it might also be the forwards not stopping Celtic playing through the first line, the defence dropping too deep, a full-back being pinned, or Celtic creating an overload elsewhere or something like that. What looks like an individual problem can actually be structural. That's why I'm not really keen on saying stuff like "the midfield was being overrun, so change the midfield" as though that automatically fixes the issue. The same applies to substitutions. Taking Vogt off at half-time might have helped, but AJ also has to consider whether the problem is actually Vogt or the structure around him, what the player replacing him changes tactically, what substitutions he may need later, and even the effect of publicly hooking a player after 45 minutes when he's trying to rebuild his confidence. Making a move like that also tells the wider squad a lot about you and the trust you have in them. None of that means AJ got it right on the day. Managers make bad selections and bad tactical decisions all the time. There's a reason the ones who make less mistakes and bad decisions get paid an absolute fortune. But there's a big difference between identifying a symptom and correctly diagnosing the cause, I think. I'm far from an expert, but for me that's really what professional coaching is. Working out why something isn't functioning, deciding which part of an interconnected system to change, and anticipating what the opposition will do in response. I'm also not particularly bothered by him saying afterwards that he thought the starting lineup was correct. Managers aren't giving us a full internal debrief in press conferences. He's still managing the dressing room and isn't likely to come out and effectively say certain players shouldn't have been selected. You start doing that and things can turn really quickly. If anything, he should have given the interviews he did, then went back to the dressing room and made it clear internally that some players need to live up to the faith and responsibility he's showing in them. But that needs to be done behind closed doors, not through the BBC or on YouTube. Where I will start to be more critical is if the same problems keep happening. If we're sitting here in December and the midfield is repeatedly overrun in the same way, the press repeatedly lacks coordination, the rotations continually fail, or players are consistently used in roles that don't suit them, then it becomes a coaching issue rather than one bad afternoon. And that's the bit I'm personally interested in watching closely with Johansson, because adaptability was one of the legitimate criticisms of how things eventually unravelled at Rosenborg. So, fans can absolutely question Sunday's decisions. I just don't think "we could all see what was wrong" automatically means the corrective decision was as straightforward as it looked from the stand. Seeing the symptom is often easy. Correctly identifying the cause is the hard part.

If i ever done a stand up gig at fir park the booing would be 10 times worse ( minimum) 🤣🤣

What I find slightly depressing about this situation is just how quickly the mood changes. A month ago most Motherwell fans thought we were heading to Ibrox to beat Rangers. In hindsight that was a poor call. As fans, we misjudged the situation on the basis that we had a relatively positive European campaign and Rangers a relatively poor one. The key word is relatively and as fans we judged the situation on an emotional basis rather than a pragmatic basis. In reality Motherwell's performance did not suddenly dive off a cliff that weekend. The expectation was unrealistic based on flimsy evidence. A month later and the same fans who misjudged a situation then are starting to consider a change of manager based on the same flimsy hunches and armchair football philosophy. What is worse is that we are no better as a collective than OF fans. Before that game at Ibrox a month ago, there was a significant voice growing from the Rangers support to sack Derek McIness. A month later and McIness is manager of the month and Rangers fans are dreaming of winning the league. The only thing this really tells us is that those fans calling for McIness to go got it wrong a month back. Celtic are no better. Wanting to sack one of the best managers in Celtics history at the first sign of trouble ( trouble being losing to Rangers twice). It is pathetic to watch from afar when we see it in the OF fans. Lose to Kilmarnock next week and I think we could genuinely be back to Kettlewell levels of toxicity within certain sections of the support. We saw it with Kettlewell, Alexander, Hammell, Robinson, Baraclough and on and on. It is easy to buy into the new way when things are going well, to laugh at all the dinosaurs in Scottish football but let's see the commitment to the new way now that we have entered rough waters.

Next 5 games are absolutely massive for him don’t expect us to take anything from hearts but the rest are absolutely winnable like others have said we need to start seeing some style of football whatever that is & a clear plan for me I’m not comparing him to last year ( it’s an impossible task & was never going to be the same ) I’m judging him based on what I’m watching, time will tell

I think its possible for fans to point out things they thought the manager got wrong without necessarily thinking they know better than the manager or could do a better job than him. Alfred clearly has way more coaching experience and knowledge than your average fan. But when he talks about certain things pre-match and you see none of it during the game, and then he comes out post match and says he got the starting line up correct, then eye brows will be raised. If you go down that route, I think you need to add a little flesh to the bones to back up why you think that. Otherwise, fans will quite rightly question your methods/thought process. If the manager talks about intensity, I expect to see intensity. If he talks about movement and rotations, I expect to see movement & rotations. He talked about lack of experience in the side, so I wasnt surprised to see SOD start especially when he talked up the senior pro's contribution in training. Whether we think it worked or not is another matter, but at least I can understand why he did that. Putting Willy in after a 3 week break where he has had time to work with him was a surprise. But given JT's recent form and the fact he has been away on his travels, I could understand it. However, he had another poor 45 minutes and he should have protected the player at half time. Similarly with Hodge. Playing him on the left, you intitially give him the benefit of the doubt as tactically you think he has seen something in Celtic that requires it. However, with the entire midfield being overun in the first 45, you expect to see a change for the second half. These arent highly technical tactical observations. Just very obvious things that may have improved our fate before the game was gone.

More importantly, if we bin him any time soon, how easy will it be to find a replacement of JBA's quality? One thing you notice about clubs that have a quick trigger finger when it comes to managers is that it becomes progressively more difficult to convince high-quality candidates to fill the role. Let's say we lose to Killie and the board send him packing, as I've seen a few on here saying could happen (it obviously won't, but let's play along for now). What does the board say to potential new managers when they rightfully ask, "You brought the last guy in and gave him ten games to get up to speed before binning him. He came to Scotland from Europe, uprooted his life and that of his family, tried to implement a way of playing, and he got zero time to really do that. Why would I risk my reputation on that kind of approach and job?" There's a reason why we are now attracting players like Jardell Kanga, Lukas Fadinger, and Elijah Just instead of Conor Wilkinson, Josh Morris & Rolando Aarons. And it's not because they're coming here with the expectations of playing under a manager who played the game for lower-league English teams, or who set up to be "formidable" and hard to beat. It's because of our entire approach, which includes being known as a club that gives managers the time required to show they can either do the job, or they can't. I can't recall the last manager we sacked who could reasonably have said they didn't get time. Our track record there is good. Alfred Johansson might not be the guy for the job. Or he might be. But ten games in is absolutely too early to make that decision. He'll get until after Christmas for sure, then we'll take a look. For me, I'm looking for us to be playing some decent football and in the discussion for top six around that time. If not, then we'll need to look and see what's going on.

No . Sunday KO 12 noon and playing Celic is what keeps folk away.

You’re confusing having a strong opinion with presenting it as fact. I’ve explained why I’ve reached my conclusions about Alfred, and I stand by them. The points tally is a fact, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. My argument is about the performances, the lack of identity and the apparent regression. You can argue that eight games is too small a sample, but that doesn’t make those concerns any less legitimate. I’m not claiming to know with certainty how this ends, but I don’t need to wait until the season’s over to say what I think I’m seeing.

Accusing me of presenting hindsight as objective analysis is ironic when your entire response is largely subjective analysis presented as objective fact.

Ive only seen the pic on FB but theres no context with that...who would be a polis these days ? Can't do right for doing wrong and every move gets filmed just in case...ive probably gone off topic but its taken heat off Alf a bit.

We're all hoping you didn't answer tour own question there 😉

I’m prepared to give the manager time but he really needs to start showing that he knows what he’s doing. However, from what I’ve seen and heard from him so far, it seems to me that his football knowledge has been gleaned from textbooks and coaching manuals. He looks well short on man-management ability and based on our recent performances, I fear the players are starting to doubt him.

Absolutely all 100% true. But those booing need to give their head a wobble. No one ever got better by being booed off the park. Booing the team or the manager or even the officials at the end of the match is all fair game. Singling a player out, who is already struggling for confidence is such a bad look.

Really well put, as ever, JWFC.

People keep banging on about the similar points tally so far, but that misses the point entirely. Under JBA, there was a clear identity from day one. Alfred keeps talking about a transition phase, and that's fair enough. Nobody expects him to replicate what JBA achieved. But a transition has to show signs of taking you somewhere, and we're seeing absolutely none. If anything, we're moving further and further away from what was good about us under JBA, and we've looked increasingly clueless the longer Alfred's had the players on the training pitch. I said he'd rightly be given time, but time is worthless if there's no sign of progress. We're getting worse, the same glaring weaknesses persist, and he seems either incapable of addressing them or too stubborn to change anything. I don't expect another JBA season. I expect a team that looks like it has a clue what it's doing. I expect decent performances even in defeat. I'm struggling to see what anyone thinks we're waiting for. Alfred looks increasingly out of his depth. And this isn't a plea for him to be sacked, nor is it a desire to return to the 'dinosaur' style that some keep referring to, as if this is some sort of modern football versus dinosaur football debate. Calling a spade a spade isn't creating toxicity either. The situation is plain to see for me, and if others can't see it, I think they're allowing the transition argument to overshadow some pretty obvious problems. This is also an entirely different situation from the ones we found ourselves in under Alexander, Hammell, Kettlewell et al. The needle has shifted since then, and I don't think criticism of Alfred should automatically be lumped in with the discontent that surrounded those managers. A defeat to Killie this weekend, coupled with another poor performance and no evidence that Alfred is learning from his mistakes, will only accelerate what is increasingly starting to feel inevitable.

A passive performance that was deservedly punished. A 2-0 loss to Celtic is, on paper, no disgrace, but had it not been for a combination of poor finishing/fine goalkeeping, it could have been much, much worse. What is clear to see at the moment is this is not the Motherwell of last season. To replicate what JBA achieved was always going to be extremely difficult, yet AJ’s reign began with confidence. Recent results have seriously eroded it. Motherwell are a team who can’t score but are porous defensively – the worst type of combination in football. His team selection yesterday smacked of a manager scratching around for answers. It’s now nearing mid-October, and it would seem he has no idea of what his best team is. Central defensive pairings change regularly, as does the forward line. You could see from fairly early on yesterday that it was not working. AJ waited until half-time, fortunate that it was only 1-0. Changes should have come then, but he remained steadfast. At 1-0 there was always hope. At 2-0, the game was up. Others have covered the performances of individuals. Of more concern to me was the team display. Players not playing in natural positions can be attributed as a reason, but this was not a display of bravery to play from the back, or pressing without the ball. It was the display of a side riddled with doubt and lacking confidence, so much so that from a fairly early stage long balls were being pumped forward to the isolated Palmer Houlden. It was a throwback to the recent dark days of Kettlewell and Alexander. AJ has shown he can replicate JBA’s style, so we need to give him the opportunity to get back to it, but the pressure will come sooner than may be anticipated. The reason? He’s had decent money to spend. So far, the jury is out on many of his investments. Fail to get a result at a struggling Kilmarnock and he is really going to come under scrutiny.

You make some very valid points, but fans can often see with their own eyes what is working and what isn't. Many players look great on the training pitch but can't translate that to matchdays - Derek Adams being a classic case in point. I happen to think that Vogt is talented but hasn't been doing it on the pitch for some reason. The manager has to balance an individual's interests against those of the team as a whole and many think that he got that wrong today. If he had hooked Vogt after 20 minutes, would that have been any worse than taking him off when he was, to boos? The lad himself must have known he was playing poorly. I don't agree with such booing by the way. Personally, I'd have taken him off at half time. That would have balanced the lad's and team's interests. No-one is saying that football management is simple as it isn't. But, punters and pundits are all entitled to have their opinions and to express them, within reason. Its all part and parcel of the game.

Imagine what the level of support for the team would be like if some had their way and the entire end of the east stand was booted out? There would only be moans, groans and booing left. That section is virtually the only one that backs the players consistently. There's a reason the players and staff tend to end up there when the season ends and we're celebrating anything. I don't see the players congregating at the O'Donnell, that's for sure!

The club now count season ticket holders whether they attend or not. The stands were emptier today and I don't think there were 10682 actually in the ground. I suspect quite a few season ticket holders gave this home game a miss because a combination of it now being the most toxic game, with the most poisonous atmosphere on our fixture list as well as it being moved to 12pm on a Sunday. So far the home crowds have held up well with an average of 7700 excluding European games, however that will get worse if we don't start getting our act together. My biggest concern this season so far is for the first time in 25 years, ironically, we've actually been able to spend money and so far on whats showing we've got fuck all for nearly £2million spent.

That is the most inept performance from any Motherwell team. A second rate Celtic team dismantles us. Its not that we lost, normally we do to Celtic, its how clueless we were. The manager had 3 weeks to get his mind sorted and tactics for this game. It was 11 individuals who looked lost about what was expected. His interviews are cringeworthy. How anybody can out a positive spin on that debacle beats me. Players will soon, if they haven't already that this guy is out of his depth. The whole fiasco surrounding Vogts playing should tell you that. It took me two matches to get a handle on Vogts. Yes, two, the first time I couldn't actually believe anyone could be so bad. The second viewing confirmed it. Here is another for you. Kanga is heading in the same direction.

Stop feeding the troll, its best practice never to argue with an idiot as they drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.

I was starting to find some sympathy/agreement with your views today......but that's just fucked it 🤣

Whoever put a smiley laughing emoji face on this comment is in for a rude awakening.