MJC

I was meaning more that our scouting/transfer policies and youth development need seriously overhauled, but there certainly are times when there is, or at least seems to be, a lot of emphasis placed on the social media side of things.

0-0, beat on penalties.

Well I don’t think anyone has actually said that he “has become Mo Salah” but what cannot be disputed is that his goals in the first half of the season were a big factor in us winning the majority of games that we did and why we found ourselves sitting 4th at the winter break. Tonight he was playing against us and we struggled to create anything of note yet he managed to score the goal that killed us off. That is/was our top goalscorer this season scoring the goal tonight that finished us off while we failed to score…you can dress that up any way you want but that is a hammer blow and a half…

Fair enough. Granted he did ‘tear us a new arsehole’ but he showed us what we were missing by being there to grab the goal at the crucial moment.

Anyone saying that Watt wasn’t crucial for us is kidding themselves. As I said before, he is the only reason we are sitting where we currently are in the table at this stage. Without his goals we would be fighting relegation just now as we have nothing in the way of goal threat in that side of ours.

Exactly, and our only attempt to replace him was by signing yet another winger who has no track record of scoring goals but “can play anywhere across the front three”. It’s so depressing.

So, three months on, what’s the general opinion on Graham Alexander? I stand by my views that our problems run way beyond the first team manager, but his style of play and tactical approach has to raise questions surely? I personally do not see things improving under GA, either in terms of the team playing entertaining football or actually pushing for a European finish or Cup run. So, what if anything do we have to look forward to under this regime?

Funnily enough, I genuinely don’t think I’ve found a Motherwell side so awful to watch, without being a side fighting relegation, since Kampman’s time. We are absolutely devoid of any football and don’t look like scoring goals. edit: and that includes 18/19 under Robinson when Main & Sammon we’re our front two.

Well that just sums our season up that. The one player who was any sort of goal threat for us who leaves in January for another club scores his first goal for that club against us to bury us in his first match against us:

That’s pretty much my view on the way things are with the team and the remainder of the season. We have managed to get ourselves into a good position thanks to basically shitfest tactics, Aberdeen/Hibs/Dundee Utd being equally as pish and Tony Watt getting the goals at crucial times during the first half of the campaign. This group of players will achieve nothing of note going forward. Not a Cup run, not a strong finish to the league season and not providing any entertaining football for the support.

We are yes, that’s why being 0-1 down to them at this stage is all the harder to take. We miss a gilt edged chance at one end and concede up the other, that’s a tough one. I still fancy us to nick a point here though…

No arguments there.

Looks very short of match fitness. We’re playing well enough so far, using possession well but as ever need to show more in the final third.

Ojala starts and O’Donnell benched! That’s a good start to the evening

Yes, and from those 6 games for Aarons and Ndjoli’s two sub appearances they offered nothing and didn’t look as though they would either. It wouldn’t be a problem if we actually had strikers worthy of the name on our books or at least tried to sign players who are.

Could really do with a win here but the best we’ll do is scrape a draw. 1-1

No chance of us signing him. Firstly he’s clearly finished and secondly that would involve us actually signing a centre forward so this is a non starter!

Only time will tell whether that’ll be proved to be correct, but from what I saw of him yesterday and his goal scoring record before joining us then I don’t see anything to suggest that he will offer us anything and it’s more likely we can add him to Seedorf, Hylton, Ndjoli, Aarons on the list of “can play anywhere across the front” forwards we have signed and been utterly useless for us over the past few years.

Tierney has potential but needs to be coached and used properly. I’m not confident that GA will do either. Efford I agree doesn’t look up to it, early days or not and he’ll offer us no more than Seedorf or Hylton did. Another pointless signing.

I think that’s a fair comment tbh. If we are sitting here in a fortnights time still without a league win since the break and out of the cup (which is a distinct possibility) then it’s only fair that the managers position come under question.

I’m not disputing the gap, it’s more our approach to these games that I take issue with. You say Celtic “lost twice to anyone other than Rangers” in 20/21 but they also struggled to beat Dundee Utd, lost to St.Mirren at home, drew with St.Johnstone at home, lost away to Ross County in the league and lost 2-0 at home to them in the League Cup. All at the same time our record against them was 0-3, 1-4 & 1-2. We as a club are not going to be able to go ‘toe-to- toe’ with Celtic or Rangers over the course of a season, but at the same time I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect us to not just roll over and get pumped by more than three goals every single time we play them either.

I don’t know about that but our record against both of them can’t be far off the worst in the league over the past four/five years. Two 1-1 draws against Rangers apart in 2021 we have lost every single meeting and it’s now eleven straight defeats against Celtic. I said it after we were rode 6-1 here against Rangers back in October, it’s not just that we are losing these games, it’s the amount of absolute hammerings we are on the end of against them both just about every single time we play them nowadays. Yes they are better than us and should beat us, but they don’t even need to break sweat to never mind beat us anymore, they hammer us nine times out of ten.

Exactly. Celtic had their worse season in over a decade last year yet we still couldn’t lay a glove on them in any of the meetings. And nothing needs said about our record against Rangers in the last twenty years. Still, “Welcome to our great wee club”

So both of them have had their biggest away wins of the season against us. Yes they have better players than us, but mentality is 100% a contributory issue here. We are beaten before a ball is kicked in these games and as soon as we go behind our heads just drop. Celtic were excellent today and scored some superb goals, but they will get easier training sessions than that.