weeyin

To say Vogt has shown nothing is just confirmation bias kicking in. He started the passage of play that ended with Priestman's penalty. He may or may not be good for us, but he's coming from an entirely different league and has an entirely different background from Hodge or Lowry. Not to mention Lowry has come back home, and Hodge has just moved up the road - and the local language is native to both. It's not as straightforward changing countries and having to operate in your 2nd or 3rd language. However, I'm long past being surprised when fans write off new players after a couple of league appearances. Once we have a settled team and played our first full round of fixtures we'll have a better idea about all the signings.

If we ever manage to get everyone fit, I think we have done a good job in recruiting the new defence.

I read an interesting article recently about how big number 9s playing through the middle have almost disappeared from the top levels of the game. Most modern coaches have forward (and attacking midfield) players who rotate in and out of attacking positions. I suppose that leads to different models for youngsters too who don't have senior pros to copy. Haaland is probably the exception.

Arsene Wenger was one of the managers who introduced this approach into English football. His philosophy was a good big player was better than a good small player. When you are a team like Arsenal (or Freiburg) you have a deeper pool of options to choose from, so you can apply your sports science and gym work to players who have the raw physical attributes. Gone are the days when you were either a wee tricky dribbler or a big thug of a defender. Now you can be a big thug of a ball player.

I don't get this need for defenders to tug shirts, wrap arms or grab shoulders. Every single one of them a foul by the strict letter of the law and dependent on the competence of the ref to decide which ones are penalised. Very soft award that would never have happened if he had taken the advice he was no doubt given as a 7 or 8 year old to keep his hands down.

Top quality team. Soft penalties. Soft red cards. Last minute goals. A tough introduction to European Football proper. Take your pick...

There is no reason any professional defender should be pulling a player in the box. We can argue all we like about how soft it was, but there's no pen if he keeps his hands down. Naive.

No attempt to play the ball in a DOGSO situation. It was very soft, but also very stupid from Moorman. Keep. Your. Hands. Down.

I'm starting to think last year's losing Europa Cup finalists are quite good.

Joke came back to bit me. Just discovered the game is on my ESPN+ subscription.

Happy to report they sent me a voucher code for the English language broadcast just after we scored.

Freiburg < Stenhousemuir

I accidentally purchased the German language broadcast on Solidsport. Not sure if that's a good or bad omen. What's German for schadenfreude?

If you google it, there are a few highly recommended Tex Mex places! I don't know about the food, but if you like wine I'd ask the waiter what the good local vino is. You'll get some excellent, cheap booze and even better service.

I don't think we're going to sell every player we bring in after they've only been here a year.

Sounds like the opening line of a bad country & western song.

I'm not even sure what the point of the KMI Panel is given it has no authority or influence over the officials. Fair enough if the officials who actually make decisions are allowed to comment on why they made them, but that is never going to happen.

Anyone who thinks the any Motherwell season will be a straightforward progression knows nothing about football or Motherwell! For me, beating Freiburg over two legs would be a bigger upset than losing to Stenny. But we live in hope, because football can create those upsets. It's why we love the game.

Because in this day and age when all the information is discussed about sports science, load balancing, rest, recovery, nutrition, training etc. people still seem shocked when medical advice is to leave a player out the team. The days training in the morning then down to the pub (via the bookies) for a couple of pints, a fag and a game of snooker have long gone.

Away team tactics when they win the toss, surely. Rarely happens, but one or two Premiership teams did the same thing against us last season.

If we weren't required to have 3 keepers in the squad I'd be half expecting Connelly to make an appearance at centre-mid.

I still find it incredible that we have fans that judge new players on 1 or 2 first team appearances after just moving to a new country and having 4 hours of training. So not understanding everything David pointed out is not quite as surprising to me.

Not a bad shout. Darren Randolph is available as keeper too, I think. Brian Kerr might be a decent option.

Better teams than us struggle playing Euro/League games Sunday - Thursday - Sunday. That's why teams that are regular participants have deeper squads of first team quality that they can rotate. Even with a fully fit squad it would be a stretch.

Just for the record, there will never be a "none of the above" box. Feel free to not vote. Personally, after some of the pre-match chat about Connelly, I thought he strolled it. Wish the rest of them had performed to the same levels.