joewarkfanclub

The infringement happened before the final whistle. It shouldnt matter that the review wasnt completed by then. I cant actually believe that is the real reason it wasnt reviewed or given, but as Texan says, without clear dialogue we are all left in the dark guessing.

The crazy thing for me is that on the whole, we have defended well for large parts of most games since the start of the season. It makes it even more inexplicable how we manage to contrive to to cough up such easy chances that continue to cost us goals and points. Im no master tactician, so Im not sure if its just a lack of concentration or poor decision making under pressure, but its something that plagued us last season as well, and we werent set up as open as we are now. Last season I felt it was because we invited pressure upon ourselves, as we didnt take very good care of the ball. This season we have been much better at that side of things but the same mistakes persist. Not sure what the answer is other than winning the Euromillions and being able to sign better players.

Re our 3 penalty incidents yesterday. The first one with Tierney is difficult to tell. The contact from the stand side camera is obscured by the Aberdeen player and the camera behind the goal doesnt pick it up until after Tierney goes to ground. I thought it looked like a fair shout in real time but I can understand why VAR cant over rule the referee on that occasion. Re the handball, it is quite clear to me. I watched Sportscene last night and Shelley Kerr is saying it clearly hits his hip. Really? My eyesight must be shocking as it looks like it hits his hand to me. The question would be was it deliberate, and again thats subjective. Some will give it, some wont. Finally the Lamie incident isnt even a question. How VAR could look at that and not think that is a penalty I have no idea. Its as clear a penalty as you will see. Of course we still have to score it to get anything from the game and the form KVV was in yesterday gives no guarantees. But these are the fine margins that decide games in our league and regardless of the performance yesterday, our fans need to show a bit more understanding when it comes to their assessment of the manager.

Maybe his judgement is that the players he is picking are the best he has available right now? Our problem right now is that that the youth players who are considered ready are Maguire, Cornelius and Miller. Given how Goss, Slattery and Spittal had been performing, there wasnt a case to drop them going into games against Celtic and Rangers. Ive no idea if young Ferrie is good enough or not, but it would have been unfair to throw him in before now. It will be interesting to see if he is given a chance in the next run of fixtures.

Firstly, we were poor yesterday. No arguments there. But the reaction from the usual suspects is unsurprisingly OTT and gives no consideration to the circumstances of the last few weeks. We have gone into a really tough run of fixtures with a threadbare squad and little ability to change things up as most of the missing personnell are in the same areas of the pitch. Our results have been poor, but yesterday was the first time I felt the performance fell well below the required standard compared to the level of the opposition. My one criticism of Hammell yesterday was that once it was obvious Goodwin had set Aberdeen up to counter our set up, he didnt go and match him up. We had the players on the bench to do it and I think it would have protected our defence a little more and given us a better platform to play from. That said, the changes he did make got us back in the game and a bad KVV miss and an inexplicable refusal to use VAR for the penalty decision are all that stood between us and a point. I also thought Tierney had a decent shout for a penalty in the first half and surprised VAR didnt look at that either. Its clear to see where our problems are and there is no hiding from them at the moment. But most of them are not of Stevie Hammells making, so we need to get behind him and the players as they are all we have at the moment. We need to try and scrape a few more points before the break and then hope we can get some players back fit and also sign a couple in the next transfer window. The time to judge Hammell is not now.

When the academy players turn out not to be good enough he will just slaughter them and blame Hammell and Burrows.....

A few of the team had good spells in the game. Few of them maintained it for long enough to be considered MOTM. I went for McGinn. He is a solid 6/10 pretty much every week, so he gets it for his level of consistency and reliability.

Normally fancy us against Aberdeen. I think our biggest concern is who is fit and available for selection. Our squad is looking very threadbare at the moment, moreso in the attacking areas. Hopefully we can get a few back and give us a fighting chance. I dont think its a must win game, but a point and a decent performance would steady the ship a little.

Was always going to be a tough ask last night. Celtics demolition of Hibs at the weekend really shouldnt have had any of our fans unaware of the scale of the task. For what its worth, I actually thought we gave a decent account of ourselves in the first half. Yes we rode our luck at times and Celtic passed up several good opportunities to score. But we stuck to our gameplan, had some nice phases of possession and got ourselves into some dangerous positions. With a little more luck/quality we might have nicked one, and at that point you can start to think it could be your night. Losing the goal just before half time was a sore one given how much effort had gone into the performance at that point and the number of chances we had to clear it, but you cant argue Celtic didnt deserve it. Second half I thought we came out the traps quickly and were still posing them problems, but the second goal kills the game. After that the heads visibly went down. 4-0 certainly didnt flatter Celtic, but it shouldnt embarrass us either. If we stick to what we are doing we will pick up more than enough points over the season against those around us to be comfortably safe.

Why dont we all just stay at home. Obviously no point turning up.......

No need to scapegoat him. Hammell has the same players playing much better football with a marginal difference in results. That speaks for itself.

Are folks really judging Hammell on todays performance? What choices did he have? What options did he have from the bench? Personally I think we have shown enough so far to suggest we will be fine. January will be important as today has shown how light we are up front when we have a few injuries. I like how he has us playing and Im willing to give him time to get it right. We are mid table right now after a tough run of fixtures. Lets see where we are in January after half the calendar and with Hammell having had the chance to try and get a few more in. As much as I wasnt getting carried away after Ross County, Im not gonna get suicidal after defeats feom Celtic and Rangers.

Sean Goss by a country mile. The only one of our players who retained any sort of composure on the ball. Fast becoming our most important player.

Was surprised by the starting line up today. Unless I missed it, Hammell didnt give away anything about how many players we would be missing. I also missed the start of the game so didnt see the list of available subs until halftime. Given the dearth of available forwards Hammell didnt really have any options in selection in the forward areas. For a club like ours to be missing Shields, Efford, Spittal and Moult at the same time really does leace us down to the bare bones and filling the bench with youth players. With that in mind it was always going to be difficult even against what was a poor Rangers side. I thought our workrate and shape was good in the first half and we had good territorial position at times, however, our quality in possession of the ball was very poor and we never really laid a glove on them first half. The first goal was always going to be crucial and our defending for it was awful. Tierney and McKinstry bith had chances to take him down outside the box and then Penney and Lamie contrive to show him the direct route to goal. Really poor stuff. The game felt over at that point and you could see the difference in body language from both sides as a result. Second goal again is poorly defended. Couldnt believe when we got back into the game with McKinstrys goal and really pleased for the boy. Had plenty of opportunities to put Rangers under pressure in the last 10 minutes, but again lack of quality in the important moments ensured the game fizzled out. Very disappointing result even in light of the circumstances. Can only hope that our injuries are just niggles, otherwise we will be similarly exposed on Wednesday.

I certainly recall them having an "offside line" between the halfway line and the penalty box, but not sure how that was used.......

Good shout. Barisic also isnt great at tracking clever movement as he switches off all the time so hopefully we have a plan for that as well.....

Why wouldnt we play the 2 guys in our team most likely to retain possession of the football? The longer we have it, the less damage they can do with it. Formation wise, Im up for whatever works and with Shields out it makes sense to find a way of getting KVV and Moult into the same starting 11. They are both big game players with lots of experience. I also think they would compliment one another as KVV likes to come short, hold the ball up and play knock ons, and Moult likes to play on the shoulder and run in behind. For me its 4-2-3-1 Kelly McGinn Sol Lamie Penney Goss Slattery Efford KVV Spittal Moult There is always room in behind their fullbacks which we should be looking to exploit.

Maybe so. But the guy was brought in by a manager who knew him, proceeded to play him out of position, only for that manager to be sacked and for the new manager to come in with a view to playing an entirely different style with a focus on promoting youth. The fact that he hasnt exactly shone in the first team maybe isnt that surprising. Maybe a few reserve games will do him good. I wouldnt be letting him hit free kicks off the bench right now, but thats a different argument.

If it is only used to correct "clear and obvious" errors, then I think we should be ok. If we start measuring offside decisions by the bawhair and penalties by interperetaion, then it could quickly turn into a farce. Hopefully it will enhance the game. Fingers crossed.

He also scored the second goal......

Well done Motherwell FC. More than a club......

Not really sure what you are on about. Cadden was going to sign for Oxford who were due us a compensation fee. He then signed for an MLS club who werent part of that process who immediately loaned him out to Oxford. Oxford and the MLS club were owned by the same individual. No one is saying Cadden wasnt a good player for Motherwell, or that he didnt make a valuable contribution to the club, in fact quite the opposite. But Motherwell were pivotal in his development and should have been rewarded for that. Its totally up to him how he wanted to leave the club and be remembered. But if thats the path you choose its guaranteed to make you unpopular. Fans dont forget these things.

I dont recall reading anything about us getting paid before he signed for Hibs, but regardless, it still doesnt make up for the conduct. I dont doubt for one minute that it was more lilely to be Caddens agent and the clubs that came up with the wheeze, but the player could have easily instructed them to play fair by the club. Its not as if it was a ransom they were being asked to pay. Unfortunately for Mr Cadden, he will never again be revered at Fir Park in the way that Turnbull and Campbell are. Motherwell FC were a huge part of his development as a young player and, in those circumstances, there is a way to conduct yourself when you leave. He failed to do the right thing.

I think you CAN point these things out. You just cant call him a cheat. I back Goodwin 100% for doing so ( although given his playing career he has a bit of a cheek) but he should have been smarter with the language he used. If he had said that Porteous "influenced the referees decision using the dark arts of the game" he would probably have got away with it. But everyone would have known exactly what he meant.......

Precisely why it was my highlight of the match!