MJC

Of course and that’s why I have regularly bemoaned our inability to make chances count and get points on the board. It’s been a running theme of the season and I don’t see it changing at this late stage unfortunately. Don’t worry mate, you’ll be safe from that nonsense as long as I’m around. 🤣

Even before today it was always Hibs we had to worry about catching us for 4th and nothing has changed in that regard. We seriously need to buck our ideas up but as you say it’s hard to see where the next point is coming from.

It was good to see them slapped right back into their box today. After being 2-0 up and getting all excited it ended up a bit of a drubbing for them on their own patch. 😁 (Guitar into……) # Ah-as I was walking by the Falkirk wheel I-I seen a local ragin’ Cos the Falkirk Bairns, Got skelped six-three By the Fame-uss Glesga Rainjurz #

It’s football, these things happen and they can often happen in sequences from time to time and when it does then of course that’s frustrating. And I don’t subscribe to the idea that “these things even themselves out over a season” because more often than not they don’t. But it’s when people start going down the cheating/conspiracy route that annoys me and it’s only when it’s one of the Old Firm, one of them in particular does that start getting trotted out. Put it this way, had the ridiculous non penalty incident that we got against Falkirk happened against Rangers then everyone would be up in arms and howling about cheating Masonic refs and the like. I think even the dogs in the street know that.

Perhaps my style is over the top at times but I just get frustrated by grown adults coming out with absolute nonsense and schoolboy patter like “aww the other team will get a penalty so it doesn’t matter what we do” whilst completely overlooking the fact that we have shot ourselves in the foot by failing to make advantages count. I’m not saying that it’s just you or even that that’s what you were doing with that post, but when I see posts like that I just shake my head at the idea that people actually live their lives thinking like that. As for the “Penalty to Rangers” thing, it was something that caused a lot of hysteria a few years back when every single time Rangers were awarded a penalty, whether justified or otherwise, it was subjected to a ridiculous amount of scrutiny from the media and fans of every other club. The term implied that Rangers get favourable decisions and again you had grown adults just accepting that as if it were gospel even when all the evidence was there to show otherwise.

Agreed and that’s always likely to happen when you can’t make it count when you are on top. And on far too many occasions this season we have played some nice stuff but have undone it all by being utterly powderpuff when it really matters. I personally think it was the correct decision to award the penalty yesterday but if we take even one of the chances before that it would have been irrelevant so we have only got ourselves to blame.

It’s not trolling it’s stating facts. Rangers have been awarded two less penalties than we have this season. That could obviously change between today and when we play them but maybe if we didn’t give them the opportunities to get a penalty awarded, you know like not handling in the box or wrestling the shirt off attackers at set pieces then we might be okay in that regard? We could also help ourselves by actually breaking the habit of a season and actually making chances we create count and then in the event we do concede a penalty then it won’t have much or any impact on the end result. That would be a lot more beneficial than trying to walk the ball into the net, taking one touch too many and firing wide when we should have burst the net then concede an avoidable penalty, they score, beat us and the usual dafties giving it “boo-hoo we didny win, the refs a cheat, let’s stamp oor feet 😭 😭 😭”. Or at least I would have thought so anyway. 🤷‍♂️

Aw boo-hoo. BOO-HOO. Let’s just get the pathetic excuses in early doors. And just for the record, we have been awarded two more penalties than Rangers have in the league this season so put that in your pipes and smoke it.

There is a ‘ceiling’ which shows how good we actually are. And we have shown time and time again this season that we aren’t capable of going above that ceiling. When it has come down to the crunch we have consistently fell short of showing that we can compete with and beat the stronger sides. Obviously that can be countered by pointing to the Celtic game at FP in December, and understandably given the way we dominated them that night. But to counter that Celtic were at their worst point in decades with a manager who was clearly miles out of his depth and who was sacked less than a week after that game. I don’t mean to take anything away from how we played that night but that was clearly a factor. As it stands heading into the split we are in a good position. We are in the top six and that is something that would have been seen as laughable if anyone had predicted that before the season started. But we can’t just go on what would have been “acceptable” or seen as “beyond our reach back in July/August”. The season develops and perspectives change and we have gone from getting ourselves into a great position in mid February to utterly whimpering our way to 6th place come the end of the season. And…that does not mean that we have had a bad season or anything of the sort. It’s just that we have had a season which had the potential to be so much better than it has ended up. It’s more frustrating that disappointing.

Aww dear 🤣🤣

It was a stonewall penalty. Anyone saying otherwise is kidding themselves on. Overall we just weren’t good enough and were well beaten by a better team who are more clinical and more equipped to deal with how football works in this league. We are now ending this season with a whimper because we have been well and truly sussed out. Fur coat, no knickers.

Unchanged 11 so the same team that got their pants pulled down at Fir Park against Falkirk last week start today at Tynecastle. This is going to be grim.

Sometimes I like to ride bareback through the fields with the wind in my hair. Only when the mood takes me though.

I think it’s you who is trying to make something of nothing. I will say it again, this has been a very good season and JBA has been very good for us, surpassing all expectations. Obviously he is not perfect but we are never going to have the perfect manager. A poster earlier in the thread described him as a legend, which I completely disagree with because he hasn’t been here anywhere near long enough and we don’t yet know how this season is going to pan out. We might still get Europe, we might not but whatever happens it will still have been a good season. It’s just that it could have been even better.

In fairness I would put Tommy Coyne in the legend category. He never won silverware with us but he was the spearhead of a fantastic Motherwell side and scored many a crucial goal. He was also a terrific footballer into the bargain. Likewise guys like Keith Lasley, Stephen Craigan and Stevie Hammell, all club legends in my book for the many years of great service they gave us.

I haven’t at any point said that we haven’t been very good this season overall. We have clearly surpassed all pre-season expectations and then some and indeed the football we have shown we are capable of playing has been the best in as long as I can remember, possibly since McGhee’s first season back in 07/08. But nothing is black and white. There was nothing that I said earlier that wasn’t factual. We failed to win a league match until late September, throwing away a bucketload of points early season. We have a very poor record against the top six sides especially away from home. In both Cup competitions we exited in absolutely dismal fashion and the Scottish Cup tie against Aberdeen saw the manager rotate the team for no good reason. And since mid-late February we have fallen away performance and result wise and from being talked about as potential title contenders we now look like we could throw away fourth place. Now, let me be clear, even if that does happen it will still have been a very good season for us but I think while there will be a great deal of fondness for this season, Jens and the way we have played when we are at our best, there will also be a degree of “what might have been” or even possibly “what should have been”. JBA has been very good for us in his short time and I hope we can hang onto him. But he is not a club ‘legend’ yet as was suggested and he is certainly not the next Pep Guardiola as you would think with the way some both inside and outside our support have been gushing over him. He could very well go on to be a legend of Motherwell FC but he is nowhere near that yet. Artichoke. Cholmondely. Pedigree CHUM.

I don’t know about the first one but I just gave you a second for calling JBA a legend. He is NOT a legend. He has been good for us this season but after a very impressive spell from November to February we are falling away badly and are now in serious danger of throwing away 4th place. Our record against the top six is awful, McGlynn and Falkirk have had his/our number all season and unlike us are a pretty solid, competitive side. And they are in the Scottish Cup Semi Final, the same Scottish Cup we whimpered out of partly thanks to Jens needlessly and arrogantly not fielding our strongest team against Aberdeen. JBA has done absolutely nothing so far either in his time with us or in his coaching career to merit being called a legend. We failed to win a League match until the end of September after chucking away several points from winning positions in the first five games of the season, got our arses handed to us by a woeful St.Mirren side in the LCSF, haven’t won away against any of the sides in the top 9 never mind top 6 and appear be peaked and burst before the split. JBA? Just Bang Average

2-0 home win

“Alot of Motherwell fans are deplorable human beings”

We will draw with Falkirk and lose to Hearts. We have peaked.

Time will tell but I don’t think anything is certain yet over him staying or leaving. Obviously money talks and if a bigger club who can offer him more money come in then he will go. But that is a big ‘if’ still I feel. I don’t think he’s at the stage yet or done enough yet to have Celtic or English Championship sides seriously considering him. But maybe they will, as I said time will tell. Of course he may chose to leave of his own accord and take a job in or nearer his home country like Michael Wimmer did. Or he might not and instead opt to stay with us. But of course he then runs the risk of him not hitting the same levels he did this season and his stock falls as a result. Let’s face it, both Celtic and Rangers will not have another season like this one for a long time. At least one of or probably both of them will be a lot stronger and a lot more consistent. Hearts will spend money too and Aberdeen, if they survive that is, will be stronger next season you would think. JBA is 43 years old and therefore still a young manager and still developing his coaching skills. Bigger clubs especially Celtic who demand instant success might view him as too risky an appointment at this stage.

There’s no certainty that JBA will leave us for another club this summer either imo. I mean there probably as as good a chance of him being here as not next season but is his pedigree as a manager that high or his performance with us this season really been that exceptional that bigger clubs would be circling him? That’s not a slight on him, I think he’s been really good for us, but he’s been knocked out of both cups in really poor fashion and his record against the top half of the league really isn’t that impressive. A lot of lovely football, yes, but also a lot of draws and from being talked about as title contenders a few weeks ago (ridiculously albeit) we’re now looking over our shoulders to stay in 4th place. Put it this way, if he was to go to Celtic as has been mentioned by some then he would flop spectacularly in my opinion.

Falkirk are a good, solid team and we will struggle to break them down again. Our problem all season long is that we just aren’t strong or clinical enough up front when it really matters and that is why we were never seriously in contention for a top three finish. As someone highlighted in the match thread yesterday, our record against the top six sides is actually pretty poor. 2 wins in 13 albeit only 4 losses. As has been the case most of the season it’s the inability to turn draws into wins that has been our downfall. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if the end of the season sort of mirrors the start, with a lot more frustrating draws.

Another draw.

Poor stuff overall. We were unlucky with the offside VAR call even though it was technically correct but it’s that jobsworth nonsense that’s ruining football. After that we weren’t nearly good enough up front or going forward and didn’t deserve any more than we got. Maswanhise has regressed badly over the past month or so…believing his own hype? Just hitting a natural slump? Who knows? But he’s been way below the standard he set from November to early February. 4th is still ours to lose I reckon but we are less comfortable than we were before today now. We need to beat Falkirk at home as we will get nothing at Tynecastle in the final pre-split game.