MJC

We’re basically all fur coat and no knickers and we’ve so far been unable to show that we can win games. We were never going up to Aberdeen and knocking them out of the Cup no matter who they signed.

Funny you should mention that as I was looking back on soccerbase and saw that too. Exactly 30 years ago. And guess who we were drawn against in the League Cup Quarter Final? Yip, Aberdeen, albeit at home where we lost 2-1 after extra time. That year we finally got our first win at the very end of September at home when we beat Killie 3-0.

On a serious note I don’t see it being 4-4, though you never know. A draw is the most likely result though, it’s the best we’ll get from this one IMO.

Dundee 4 (Ward o.g 22 mins, Dhanda 86 mins, Murray 90 mins, 90+8 mins) Motherwell 4(Maswanhise 54 mins, 77 mins, 83 mins, Fadinger 61 mins)

From what I saw today both of them looked really poor. Obviously in all likelihood they will both pull away from the rest in time given the budget difference but that looked dire stuff from the two of them. Hearts under McInnes and with the Bloom backing would be the most obvious side to challenge the duopoly and they have had an excellent start to the season (even though we let them off the hook last week). It’s certainly a very tight league and I definitely don’t remember the last time you had three teams (Us, Kilmarnock and Rangers) all drawing their first four fixtures.

60/40 for me so far. I’ve mostly liked what I’ve seen in that we have shown that we are capable of playing some really attractive football, something we haven’t seen for years and that is very refreshing. The flip side of that though is that we haven’t yet shown that we are capable of actually winning football matches and until we break that duck it’s a bit in vain. The last two fixtures have been maximum points thrown away, mostly because of bad goalkeeping but also because of poor game management and a lack of bite up front. And looking at the upcoming run of fixtures it is difficult to see where a win will come from, though I do have a hunch that we will finally get it when we play Aberdeen at home at the end of next month, after they have knocked us out of the league cup the week before.

We could actually win a match when we’ve played well and the odds are in our favour instead of shooting ourselves in the foot 🤷‍♂️

Of course and that’s why I emphasised the context of the result. Before a game at Tynecastle you take a 3-3 draw straight away. However we were 3-0 up and comfortable with 20 minutes to go and we failed to win. It wasn’t a bad result to draw that game but at the same time it was definitely two points lost and a missed opportunity. We saw the same today, 2-1 up and relatively comfortable and…we saw what happened.

On paper no, but as I said last week, context is everything with draws. And if you are 3-0 up with twenty minutes to go one week and 2-1 up with less than ten to go the following week and you don’t win either game then that can’t be viewed as anything other than two big missed chances to get three points on the board.

We need to hope so, as we have a difficult run of fixtures after the international break.

Because we have failed to register a win yet. Despite dominating a second half against Rangers, showing some nice play at St.Mirren and then being 3-0 up with 20 minutes to go at Tynecastle and failing to win and today against a Killie side we had on the ropes after turning around a deficit we contrive to gift them a goal to sneak away with a point. Even the game we did win against Championship St.Johnstone we needed extra time to do it. I’m not saying we have had a bad start to the season, the opposite if anything, but we have missed some big opportunities so far and they could well come back to hurt us.

That’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it. Mine is that I am unconvinced so far.

So again some encouraging play but we don’t get the result to show for it. We don’t carry enough threat up front and when we do manage to score goals we duly chuck them in for the opponents to cancel it out. It’s not been a bad start to the season but already there are concerns because we’ve played well enough so far but haven’t been able to convert that into wins. We could very will live to regret that. And finally, the jury is very much out on JBA and his game management in particular. Harsh, perhaps, but until we manage to make that ‘quantum leap’ and actually win a football match under him then conerns will persist.

Just Blew(it) Again

No one has said anything of the sort. They are though saying that Ward has been culpable for conceding goals two weeks in a row now which have cost us points.

This is already shaping up to be a season of “what might have been” even at this early stage.

Can’t win Won’t win.

Unless we get at least a point from this then my point stands. Even then a draw, at home, when we’re still seeking our first win, with an international break coming up followed by a trip to Dundee after that isn’t the best result.

Well potentially a big goal there. But a long way to go and so far we have shown no signs that we can win this.

Game over. We’re not coming back from this. After all that waxing lyrical about “60 brilliant minutes” against Hearts last week which Tam Cowan described earlier as the “best football he’d seen Motherwell play in 50 years” (whilst discounting the fact that we absolutely capitulated in the last 30 and were lucky to escape with a draw) this was always going to happen. As it stands we are four league games into the season and don’t have a win to our name. Big reality check for folk who were coming out with “how long will be able to keep JBA for”? in the last week.

Your posts always come across as similar to a film critic reviewing a new release rather than a football fan who enjoys going to support their team. ”It was a fairly low budget production which delivered the standard of film you would expect, wasn’t brilliant but it certainly wasn’t terrible either. The way the audience reacted to it was a disgrace, but not surprising. Totally ungrateful and lacking basic understanding of the movie industry and the online reviews only reinforces this. It has to be said that so many cinema goers really are deplorable people with no common sense whatsoever. At the end of the day it was well written and credit goes to the producer…Graham Alexander.”

The ‘co-efficient’ of the national game means nothing to me and although I know others will disagree I don’t see how it benefits us as a club to have other Scottish sides doing well in Europe and thus generating more money. It has the opposite effect in my opinion. My concern in football is Motherwell FC and how we can prosper and succeed as a club and as I’ve said time and again, the ultimate achievement for us would be to win one of the domestic Cups. After that then playing good football and finishing as high up in the league table as possible is what I want to see. I fully accept that both of those scenarios are tall orders but I just want us to aspire to be the best we can be. If we get ‘Europe’ as a result of finishing 3rd or 4th or winning the Scottish Cup then I would view that as merely an added bonus.

In fairness he was hardly going to say “ya I’ve heard that this Stuart guy was a bit of a wank and he said some shit about the fans when he left so we hope we can create more misery for him on Saturday”. But in all seriousness he does come across very well and very professional. Let’s just hope we can get our first league win with him in charge under our belts on Saturday.

The closer this gets the more I’m envisaging us losing and Kettlewell away back down the M77 all smug and self satisfied.

That’s a good question and something we’ve been stung with in the past by having our managers working without a set out contract ie. Gannon, Craig Brown. I don’t think we need to worry about Rangers moving for JBA if/when Martin gets the boot but it’s something worth taking into consideration especially seeing as it was never made public (to my knowledge anyway) if or what contract our manager is on.