Ya Bezzer!

Not at the game today so won't comment on it but.... I think it will be interesting when we go into the 2nd round of matches. Usually in the second round of matches teams are more familiar with the set up and go into matches to counteract the opposition tactics established earlier in the season. If we can't win matches in the first round of matches it might be even more of a struggle to get wins later in the season unless we change something up, which I don't think is Askou's way. I've always said you look at things 11, 22, 33 matches into the season, that's when you review it so there is still a while for us to get wins but we really need to start winning matches. 3-0 up at Hearts, 2-1 up against Kilmarnock, 1-0 up against Dundee. 6 points dropped from not being able to hold a lead. It's an issue if it continues.

So purism versus pragmatism ended all even. And who can say but maybe there was some karmic element to Ward's bout of dropsy but who am I to speculate on the musings of the universe.... Actually a good game. Enjoyed it. Think we have one of better groups we've had for a while. Longelo, Watt, Fadinger, Just, Maswanhise are all better than average and we have Cook-Charles and Hendry to come in and possibly be assets. Of course there are other areas we're not so good and a keeper and a penalty box striker are required. Some slick play although lacking a bit in terms of actual real chances. Don't think the Killie keeper had too many real saves to make but good to watch nonetheless. I'd actually like to highlight Elijah Just, though he had a great match. The whole points v performance thing. Well obviously we need to start winning at some point but as I always say you can only start judging a manager until we've played a full round of matches. I'm enjoying watching it but whether it's actually effective is still open to question but you have to give the experiment time.

Was looking forward to going to the game as it seems like a whole other close season since I last saw us against Rangers. Then I come on here and we are still getting the rampant victim blaming and hate towards Kettlewell. Yuck. Maybe it's a form of de-tox to only have a home game every 30 days.

Regan Charles Cook had two seasons at Ross County and one of them he stunk the place out and the other he was really good. He seems to have adopted a middle position since going to Belgium.

Yeah but Jordan McGhee has 119 league appearances in this last 4 seasons!

Could be a good signing but he's been inconsistent across his career in terms of goal scoring, even season on season at the same club. Hopefully this is a decent season for him. Even if he can get 10 goals that'd be twice as many as last season's top scorer.

Wasn't at the game but O'Donnell is generally better in central defence than he is at full back.

I'm late to the party so I won't say much as it's probably all been covered but.... 1 lose in the last 5 league matches against Rangers. Gotta be our best run since the 1990s and long may it continue.

Obviously I'd love to see us win and I think getting them at home on the first day of the season gives us a better chance but this will be a massive step up. What I'd like to see is a good professional attitude. Go out and compete. If that gets you a result - great. However I think every lower league team we've played so far has either scored or had real opportunities to score and against Rangers that's going to present a much bigger problem. Our League Cup matches were a bit up and down, finishing on a high but this is a different type of test. It'll be interesting to see how we stand up to it.

Well it's more than just MJC. That's why there is so much pressure on managers to win over developmental coaching. Fans and the media play a big part in how football is played in this country. But I also think it's especially acute at Motherwell since we have this 39 year run in the top league. Relegation is seen as being catastrophic, even being in the running for relegation, when for most other clubs, our size and much bigger, it's something they've been through multiple times.

Wasn't Bair main attribute using his pace and strength to run in behind, chasing long balls? Maybe a passing midfield isn't what he'd prosper off. BTW I think we are still a bit away from having a 'passing midfield'.

HIs physical attributes mean he can do well in our league. He's not a footballer though, he's a unit, so stepping up to a Top 5 league always seemed a long shot. There are different levels in the game and ours is fairly low down the ladder.

And yet top European coaches came to Largs to learn from us. There are so many factors that determine national styles of football. Just for a start we are probably one of the most northerly leagues in the world that play through the winter. That alone is going to encourage a faster, more direct style of football. It wasn't that long ago we were playing on mud piles that made possession football very difficult to impossible. And I guarantee you if Rangers pump us in a couple of weeks all the positivity on style of play will go right out the window in the typical Scottish fan style and we'll 'need' to win the next match or it will be a 'disaster'.

Obviously the best performance of the group stages, kept our tempo high for the 90 minutes which you can probably put down to improving fitness. Overall, although we were better tonight, I thought all the same issues as we'd see before where still there. Thought there was a few stray passes, kinda struggled to create chances and our final ball needed to be better. And although we weren't put under loads of pressure I still thought Morton should have scored twice in the first half. Still it was a step forward and Maswanhise's second was our first great goal of the season. Lots of work on and improve on but there was signs there that we are going forward.

I've probably said this a thousand times so excuse me but Slattery cannot play as a general midfielder. He could potentially be effective as an attacking midfielder, maybe in a 3-4-1-2 or something like that. But if you are putting him a four across the middle just no.

I think that just shows the decline in our top level. There used to be cup shocks. Now there aren't really because lower league clubs beat top level clubs all the time in both cup competitions. Non league clubs have beaten Top 5 clubs on multiple occasions in recent years. Our game at the top level has gone into massive decline, and no offense, but you are old enough to know that. 😆

That second half man. Painful. I'm not even going to say much about that match because there isn't a whole lot to say. But if you take the three matches as a whole we've probably been OK in 2 halves out of 6 and less than OK in 4 halves out of 6 and this against League 1 and League 2 sides. And pretty much across the board our final touch has been dreadful. Passing, shooting, crossing, chance creating it''s all been pretty woeful. And there is a whiff of defensive vulnerability even when we aren't under a lot of pressure. We are still very early in the season, and very early in Askou's tenure. But that team has a lot of improving to do in the next couple of weeks when we step up a level against Morton and Rangers.

When he came on he raised our tempo x 2. At the sluggish pace we were playing before he came on we probably had another penalty shoot out on our hands.

Fadinger

You'll probably know that I'm not Slattery's biggest fan but he came back last season and was pretty good. These two games this season, garbage. Watt wasn't very good either and when you add that to our central defensive issues that's a big hole right down the middle of the pitch. Plus there is the centre forward position, again didn't see anything convincing from the guys that played there tonight. You aren't going to do anything at any level of football unless you sort out the spine of the team. There were occasional good spells of forward play, the two goal scorers did well. Maswanhise when he came on. But there was also fairly long spells when we looked disconnected, slack play, poor passing, poor delivery, poor set plays, laboured movement and tempo. It was all about winning tonight but unless performances improve we are going to come a cropper in one of these matches and if we play like this against Rangers it's going to be a very bad start to the season. Two games in, now we need to see better play.

I see Peterhead have signed Niall McGinn. He must be some age!

Cosgrove was terrible at Aberdeen and then went on a mad run of good form out of nowhere. Honestly, you'd have to imagine that it was a one off since there has been little sign of him repeating it.

There was a time when we could bring in players from the English Championship or good level players from Rangers and Celtic. Those days are gone. That makes finding a strong spine much harder than it used to be and the likleyhood is any good player brought in is leaving after a season. If we'd kept all our good players over say, the last five seasons, we'd have a pretty good team. But the financial reality in 2025 is it's very, very difficult for a club our size to build a side that's got any quality.

It'll be a lot cooler and played on a decent pitch so that takes away some of the reasons/excuses from Saturday. Askou has said he'll be utilising the whole squad and treating these games as 'competitive pre-season' so I think we will see changes. Could be an opportunity to play some younger players, especially if we can take the lead. At this stage in the season you can't expect a well oiled machine, it's more about getting into the knock stages, so it's result over performances for me.

Honestly as a Motherwell fan an alternative history might be a better read than actual facts! 🤣