joewarkfanclub

The win today should take a bit of the pressure off and being back on the grass should allow us to be a bit more free flowing again. Hopefully Longelo is ok, although I would be just as happy to rest him for the semi final if required. Everyone else should be fitter and sharper as a result of todays run out. Im not convinced United are all they are cracked up to be. Decent, yes. Beatable, certainly. Id take a draw, but 3 points would be magnificent for the teams confidence ahead of Saturday.

Slim pickings today. Some very average perfmances. Watt and Fadinger gave the ball away a lot more than usual. JT was anonymous and Longelo looked like he had the wrong boots on. For me Just was the stand out player. Not everything was coming off this week, but he kept plugging away trying to open the door, was very unfortunate with the 2 disallowed goals, so really nice that he got a deserved winner!

Probably the poorest we have played all season, so more than a bit ironic to get the 3 points. I thought the pitch played a huge part. Despite being a brand new surface, if you dont water it, its gonna play slow and sticky. Clearly a deliberate ploy from Livvy to disrupt our rythmn, and it worked. Too many of our key players failed to cope with it and despite still being the better team, we werent anywhere near as effective as usual. Good to see Slattery back and his pass to Just for the winner is sublime. Thought Walsh was very inconsistent with his decisions and let Livvy away with repeated fouling and feigning injury to disrupt the game, and the 2 offside goals are very marginal, particularly the first one, where the VAR camera angle is beyond a joke. Big win for us. Avoid defeat on Wednesday (or even better win) and we can go into the semi final with a lot of confidence.

Strong looking starting 11 and a very strong looking bench Will today be the day?

Seriously? How any Motherwell fan can so easily dismiss getting to a cup final is beyond me. Im 56 years old and Ive seen us play in 5. Ok, we have only won one of them, and having either Celtic or Rangers in the final always makes things harder. But these are not strong Rangers and Celtic teams, and this Motherwell team has already shown it can go toe to toe with both of them this season. The League Cup semi final is a huge game for us. Given that we cant win the league, surely we can still dream of winning a cup?

Not sure what that has to do with my point? If Stama, Hendry or anyone else is risked on the plastic and get injured, they will likely miss the semi final. However, still need to fulfill the fixture and could do with the 3 points.

Its gonna be interesting to see who is risked on the plastic pitch. I know its a significantly better surface than the previous incarnation, but it still has to be a consideration. With Stama and Hendry both coming back from injuries it could be a tight call up front (Surely Osong doesnt start?). Also with Koutroumbis and Longelo both going off flast week, will both be fit enough to be considered? Big decisions for the manager with one eye inevitably being on the semi final......

Having a wee look around the internet found these..... https://www.motherwellnet.com/fact-file/a-to-z/club-crest/

Ive never seen that crest either (I do like it). Not sure we had an official one before the current one? Certainly not on our shirts. I only ever recall the MFC script that we have on our away shirts.

I agree with this. Next 3 games are huge. The manager and team have had a lot of buy in from the majority of the support over the new philosophy as we can see the long term benefits of what it could bring. But the cup semi final and more entertaining football aside, there havent been the tangible results required to prove it can also be successful. We need something from the next week to hang on to, otherwise the murmurings from the more reactionary within our support will begin to be more audible.

Longelo, Koutroumbis & Slattery all in the training pics which is encouraging. I agree that Gordon & Welsh should start. Although this Livvy side are not the long ball, physical side of old, Gordon still provides more set piece security.

And Arconada's wife was a lady of ill repute! I wonder how a certain manager would have coped with that shit!

Was trying to stay out of this debate, but I cant let this one pass as its just not true. Ive followed Scotland home and away for 40 years and whilst older generations of Celtic fans definitely favoured Ireland over Scotland, that was more to do with the ongoing religious bigotry some of them experienced living in Scotland than being "anti-scottish". The younger generations have no such hang ups as their lived experience is quite different. Football in Scotland has always been divided through politics and religion, it didnt start in 2014. To pretend otherwise is to re-write history. As for Rangers (a very British organisation) doing more for the national side than Celtic? Jock Stein, Billy McNeill, Jimmy Johnstone, Danny McGrain, Kenny Dalglish, Roy Aitken, Paul McStay, Mo Johnston, Frank McAvennie, Scott Brown, Kieran Tierney and more...... What I will also say is that the notion that there arent huge numbers of Rangers fans within the Scotland support is also for the birds. They just arent as visible as they used to be as club colours and identification have been rightly discouraged over the years to prevent discussions like this from occurring. Thankfully, they never occur when Im away following Scotland as no-one really cares what team you support. We are there to support Scotland and thats all that matters.

I dont disagree. But even if he does that, we still have the same issue when Longelo goes off injured. I guess we could put Halliday in there, or bring Balmer on and shift McGinn across. None of those options are ideal though. Not my intention to bash the manager as I think in general he has been fantastic for us. But there are one or two things that havent been quite right.

I think this is a fair point. Not sure Ewan Wilson is ever going to be good enough, but I wouldnt have let him go on loan without a replacement. Its not like he is getting game time at Raith to develop anyway. You could argue that putting SOD, McGinn or Koutroumbis in there doesnt particularly weaken us there compared to Wilson. However, in a situation like Saturday, when you have a player who is just back from injury being asked to stay on and cover, when he is already struggling, you run the risk of that player breaking down again. We want to avoid that kinda shit heading towards a big semi final.

Its the September review. This is October.....

We simply have to win this one. With the semi final only a week away we need a wee lift in the run up to it. Not so worried about the pitch this time as its been totally relaid and seems to be playing much better than the previous incarnation. Livvy play it on the deck now so will have it well watered if required. That said, I wouldnt be risking anyone with any little niggles, so dont expect to see Slattery, unless its a 15 minute cameo from the bench. The home game against United should be fine for getting him some minutes before Hampden.

I think thats exactly the point JBA was making post match. If we slow the ball down and take the sting out of the game we maybe stop them building up a head of steam, and dont leave ourselves so open to the counter attack. Its still early in the process, but we do need to address our rin game management.

There also seems to be quite conflicting opinions over our striking situation. As someone who has defended Stama quite strongly on here, I was certainly disappointed that he didnt start yesterday, especially given his goals in the last couple of games. However, he did go off at Celtic Park with a bit of a knock, so I figured it was just a bit of a precaution ahead of the semi-final not to risk him from the start. It was also a good chance to give Hendry some minutes now that he seems to have addressed his injury/fitness concerns. Given our style of play, we will need both going forward. I thought Hendry did well yesterday in the first half. Lots of energy, put himself about a bit, held the ball up well. Not sure he was absolutely done by HT, but it was certaianly no surprise when he was subbed on the hour mark. I would tend to agree that his movement in the box wasnt as good as Stama's but its early days and that might improve. I thought Stama was again generally fine when he came on. A little bit unlucky with the handball although, as other have said, a little more awareness of the situation might have allowed him to pass it for someone else to knock in, albeit the rule in that regard still hasnt been cleared up. Comparing the 2, I think both are pretty similar players, and I think their work rate and hold up play are potentially more important than their goals, albeit, as strikers, that part cannot be ignored. However, Maswanhise has already scored 8 this season, Longelo has good numbers and we have others chipping in as well, so goalscoring really hasnt been the issue (self inflicted goals and poor defending have). Clearly it would be nice to have a lone striker who was the complete package, and we might be able to get one in January, but until then, Im reasonably happy to give Stama & Hendry the time to improve. Re the defence, in hindsight, I think not playing Gordon yesterday was a mistake when you see what Falkirk had at their disposal, and although McGinn gives you more on the ball, there needs to be some balance in not being too soft at the back. Big decisions for JBA next week.

There seems to be a couple of points of view here that folk are debating, when in fact both have merit and neither are wrong. There is no doubt that our crowds are up because of the entertaining style of football we are playing. Id probably add in the general feel good factor around the club into that as well. Our support is engaged because they feel represented and listened to. We have had plenty managers over the years that have put winning teams on the park and the attendances didnt move. During Alexanders period of success Id suggest the crowds even went down slightly as season ticket holders couldnt motivate themselves to go every week due to how painful it was to watch at times. So the current upturn is no coincidence. That said, there is a pretty big BUT in the equation. The entertainment factor will probably keep folk coming along in the hope that we can strike a better balance and convert our play into points. Where it becomes a problem is if we continue to slip down the table, the players lose confidence in what they are being asked to do, and before you know it performances also drop off. We are not there yet, and the manager isnt stupid. You can tell by his comments and reactions that he is as frustrated as we are. Hopefully he can find the right balance in the weeks ahead. Having a fully fit squad to chose from would be a help.

There was no foul. He clearly gets his body between the Falkirk player and the ball. If anything, HE is the one that is fouled! McLean just shits it when VAR intervenes....

Hard to call this week as most only performed well for 45 minutes. But the shining light first half was Ibrahim Said. He should have had his first goal for the club and it would have been a contender for goal of the season......

The first half today was some of the best football I've ever seen at Fir Park in 50 years of attending. Said, Maswanhise & Longelo were unplayable at times. All abely supported by Watt, Fadinger & Just. I thought Hendry had a very good first half and put himself about. Looked much more like the player we thought we were signing and the 60 minutes today will have done him good. The VAR decision for Said's goal is a shocker. I felt heart sorry for the boy, as the joy he felt in getting his first goal for the club was evident for all to see. That said, we did get into the lead quickly thereafter and should have put the game to bed by half time. The fact we didnt is fast becoming our achilles heal and if we dont rectify it soon, the manager and players could come under real pressure. I really hope that doesnt happen, because some of the football we are playing is magnificent and its the most entertained I have felt at Fir Park in a long time. The second half drop off however, cant continue to happen. A lot of credit has to go to McGlynn for changing things at half time. They pressed us much higher and got some success from it, but we still contributed to our own downfall by failing to remain calm and play our game. Everything got very hectic and rushed, resulting in some very poor decisions. Very disappointed tonight in the result. But not in despair as there is still so much to like about what we do. The next 3 games do really feel like they might be season defining though......

Beat me to it!

Not sure the support are that twitchy just yet. Home form tends to dictate the mood of the support and we haven't lost a game at Fir Park this season. Of course that can change quickly if you lose a couple of, what are considered, more winnable games. But you definitely get more time losing, or not winning attractively than the murderball stuff. Anyway, less of the negative chat. Lets just win this playing sexy Jensball and build towards a historic Cup Win! 😍😍😍