MJC

Yes that’s correct, which is why I don’t think anyone seriously wants to see him fail or us to say “cheerio” at this point. Any Motherwell fan worth their salt wants the manager and the team to do well but at the same time we can’t ignore some glaring concerns about the way we are playing and the results. And those come back to the manager I’m afraid.

That’s exactly what I was thinking. The similarities are there…walked into a near impossible task, started off okay but the cracks starting to show and looking out of his depth.

I’m very much at the same stage as the above posters saying “too early to be thinking about sacking the manager but at the same time getting increasingly concerned about him”. Sometimes you get that gut feeling about something and for me this is one of them.

He will get a chance and indeed I don’t see anyone saying that he shouldn’t. He is a very young coach and came into a tough job with big shoes to fill and had to contend with the heart of last seasons team being ripped away from under his feet. But there are worrying signs at this early stage, that’s all anyone is saying and from my own post on this thread earlier on today I was simply highlighting that there are some signs of what the Rosenborg supporter posted about him a few months back. It might well come good for him and us though and we all hope it does.

We did well enough in the European games, the HJK home game was a highlight. Hibs away wasn’t great but a massive win and a brilliant move to clinch it. Dundee Utd at home was a very good performance, our best of the season albeit we were playing against ten men from an early stage. Falkirk 0-0 was insipid and dismal, St.Mirren away was a capitulation after a good start and only a great goal at the death saved our blushes. Rangers at Ibrox was a pumping in everything but name. And last night v Aberdeen was a pumping, in both name and in the way we performed. I know people will point to them only having x amount of efforts on goal but I saw nothing from us that was in any way effective whereas Aberdeen were.

I’m voicing my concerns, yes.

It’s early days yet, but I think there are some signs of this already from AJ. Particularly about the football lacking confidence and identity and him not showing leadership. Alarm bells are ringing for me.

3-0 home win. We are ineffective and the ball is burst. Last night was not a blip it was a sign of things to come.

Trying to compare our start this season to this time last year is pointless, it is not the same at all. For all we couldn’t buy a win at the beginning of 25/26 you could see what we were trying to do football wise, even if we weren’t able to make it count yet. And JBA was a leader, a proper boss, a figurehead who you just felt had that something about him that would work for us. It was always going to be difficult to follow on from that, but sadly AJ doesn’t look anywhere near capable of bringing the same to the table. Yes we have lost some top class players and that was always going to hamper us, but we have no leadership in that team whatsoever.

Something tells me this will be different. 😬

0-4 You can dress this up any way you want but that is an absolute disgrace. Against a team who’ve not been able to buy a win of late too. I repeat, we are in trouble this season.

Absolutely disastrous night. No complaints, this team are going to do nothing but go downwards.

This team is ineffective and poor. We are in trouble this season.

Good strike in fairness but he should never have been in a position to shoot from there

Called it at the time about Burrows, Aberdeen and their warped self entitled fanbase. Anyone going there in a managerial or boardroom role has an almost impossible task.

0-1 Aberdeen This is the kind of game we traditionally* come a cropper in. We aren’t clinical enough in the box and we know that Robinson will set them up to be physical and nullify us, so this could well be a struggle. *Note the use of the word ‘traditionally’ not ‘always’. For the benefit of the forum pedants (hiya weeyin 👋) the former means in accordance with customs or habits with room for exceptions whereas the latter means something happens 100% of the time with no exceptions whatsoever.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting otherwise. I personally don’t mean any ill will to any player who came to us and didn’t work out, for whatever reason. But if they signed for us and were pretty hopeless then they’re going to get mentioned when it comes to discussing players that basically failed. And I say that as someone who has met, shook hands with and found Andy Roddie to be a top class guy…and yet I thought he was hopeless for us back in the mid 90s. The same applies to Alex Burns although I’ve never spoken to him personally…but I know plenty who have.

Eric Deloumeaux and Yassin Moutaouakil(sp) have got to be up there too. Likewise the Austrian duo of Franz Resch and Mario Dorner who McLeish spent the entire summer chasing only for them to both leave by the end of September of that season.

I only saw the end of the first half but saw the second half in full and we can have no complaints, Rangers were well worth their win and indeed would have won by more if they had been more clinical. It’s obviously very frustrating that the goal they did manage to score only came about because we gifted it to them. I cannot stress just how much I hate seeing goalkeepers trying to be footballers in their own box. We saw it last year with Ward at Celtic Park and today again with Paulsen and it cost us both times. Del continues to have a hold over us it seems. We couldn’t beat his Hearts team last season even with JBA and today Rangers nullified us with a side typical of one managed by him, disciplined and dogged and get the job done.

Our record and mindset against them has improved tenfold since Alan Burrows left the club imo. He was one of the biggest champions of “punching way above our weight” and it’s no coincidence that several managers, notably McCall and McGhee whom he had close working relationships with, firmly bought into that. I don’t think we will get anything today but I also am 100% confident that whatever happens we won’t go into this game beat before a ball is even kicked like we did for far too many years.

We wouldn’t need to but if we didn’t then we would be getting the usual “siding with Rangers, discriminating against Celtic” pish because Celtic would pull that card and their media mouthpieces would do their bidding…and unfortunately some of our own fans would also subscribe to that nonsense. We should of course do it anyway and stick two fingers up right in Celtic’s faces but would we as a club have the backbone to do it and stand our ground to the Celtic driven backlash against us?

I’d love us to cut their allocation but the problem that would cause would be more of them would buy home end tickets which puts our fans in potential danger. And no doubt we would also cut Rangers allocation just to be ‘balanced’ and not to give the wrong impression even though Rangers fans have done nothing to merit their allocation being cut. If we did cut Celtic’s allocation it should apply to Celtic and Celtic alone and we should be stating it in crystal clear terms as to why.

Article in the Sun today about Caldwell’s update and it’s good to hear him call out that it was Celtic fans who caused significant damage that night as it’s been going on for years and it’s getting worse every time they come here. We need to keep pushing this and highlighting the behaviour of Celtic fans at our ground because every single time they are at Fir Park they leave behind them thousands of pounds worth of damage. That cannot be allowed to go on.

Ah it’s the ‘Hands across the M74’ derby. Love it. I watched Rangers game against Aberdeen on Sunday and it was very much a typical McInnes type performance and win, ie. pretty dull but effective in the end. They’ve had a shaky start but you can see Del starting to put his mark on that team and Shankland is back on the goal trail which will always carry a major threat as he is a lethal striker at this level. From our point of view we need to take confidence in last night and our recent very good record at Ibrox where I always feel far more confident of winning than I do when we play them at Fir Park. That said though I don’t see us getting anything on Saturday. 2-1 home win and plenty of bubbling and dribbling about the referee on here afterwards.

Even when we went 2-0 up there was always that nagging doubt for me. Especially against Dundee Utd at home where we have surrendered two goal leads on more than one occasion even when it hasn’t always resulted in us losing or drawing the game. It’s just traditionally been a fixture where we can never fully relax when two goals ahead (3-1 up in ‘91, 2-0 up and only drawing at home in 1999, the 4-5 game in 2005 - say no more). But tonight we just looked comfortable and home and dry once that third goal went in.