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Motherwell Vs Levante Discussion Thread


David
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Assistants dont normally flag until the player who is in an offside position goes to play the ball, so yes it is played in SPL

 

at the game I never questioned it, was raging Hately and co never challenged the fella who came from onside to play the ball and score

 

although plenty around me in the Cooper were screaming blue murder so I really need to see it :ph34r:

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I think we got beaten by a better team. They are a very organised outfit.

 

First goal, and I shall use one of the first 3 things I was ever taught at football training to keep it short, play to the fucking whistle. Go, make the challenge, then when the ball is out of play argue about it.

 

Second goal, we were caught all over the shop. Hammell wrong side of his man again and we were punished.

 

My main gripe about tonight wasn't our performance, the result or any of the players on the park. But the fans. In particular the old dickhead sitting next to me in the Cooper. See if all you're going to do is turn up and hurl abuse at everyone in claret & amber just stay at fucking home. Alright, it's frustrating watching a team snuff us out after going 2-0 up. But this guy was at it for 90 minutes. Higdon chested the ball down neatly to Ojamaa, this guy is up hurling abuse at Higdon. Honestly, if this game had extra time I think I'd have had an embolism. I bit my tongue and only contested a few points with him, but that was a struggle.

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Assistants dont normally flag until the player who is in an offside position goes to play the ball, so yes it is played in SPL

I've seen loads of incidents over the the last few years where Scottish linesmen have flagged when a player in an offside position hasn't touched the ball (including in a Europa League game last year) although that could be more down to them not appearing to know the offside rule properly. McHugh's disallowed goal in the League cup last season when Higdon was given offside despite not touching the ball for example.

 

On the match itself hardly any chances created which apart from Saturday is becoming a bit of a recurring theme this season.

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Not "Finish within 13!! places of last season, but to actively AVOID relegation"

 

Where on earth do people think Motherwell would finish in la liga!?

 

Fair enough, Levante weren't outstanding and had we played to our best we *might* have given them a game. They are still a comfortably better side than us and the rest of the SPL (maybe Celtic excepted).

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Where we would finish in La Liga is irrelevant.

 

Levante being a better side and from La Liga were not the factors that drove that defeat last night.

 

We made countless unforced errors that we would never make again if you staged that game 12 times over for more than half the team their first touch was dreadful, their second was a tackle and any attempt to get in their box or get an attempt on goal failed miserably.

 

We lost last night because we were pish, not that they were good.

 

Sometimes that's what happens and we move on to the next game.

 

But let's not comfort ourselves in a falsehood that Levante somehow overpowered a valiant effort.

 

They were there for the taking and instead of being able to muster the kind of performance we did against Pana, we instead fluff our lines.

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I actually don't think there were that many unforced errors last night. Our opponent to me were very positionally aware, doubled up on the player on the ball and blocked off the easy passes which forced us to try harder ones which we didn't have the ability to pull off. Yes, it is frustrating that we kept giving the ball away but to be honest I think it happened because Levante forced it.

 

Goal one was a disgrace from our players though - I said elsewhere you could sit round the 20 best referees in the world and you would never get consensus on whether that goal should be given or not. However you could sit the 20 best managers in the world round a table and they would say that the Motherwell defence should have played to the whistle so I know where more of my irritation sits with that one.

 

Goal two they doubled up, won the ball and played a slick passing move. Maybe we could have done more once we lost the ball but that one bothers me less.

 

I thought we tried to play the same tonight as against Panathinaikos but our opponent were better drilled and ready for it and didn't let us and we had no second option which is why we struggled - my feeling is saying we fluffed our lines is a bit harsh.

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Where on earth do people think Motherwell would finish in la liga!?

 

Fair enough, Levante weren't outstanding and had we played to our best we *might* have given them a game. They are still a comfortably better side than us and the rest of the SPL (maybe Celtic excepted).

 

 

Dont agree with that, for me Levante did not look any better than a top half SPL side who we face week in week out, they were ordinary. We gifted them 2 goals and created nothing against them so they were not stretched, Motherwell needed to be at their best last night and we were not.

The Levante front players did not look anything out of the ordinary ability wise but they had a bit of pace which when the ball went over the top as it did frequently, they were creating chances from it and turning our defence. We had Higdon as the target :doh: while he has scored a few goals, he is a slow as a week in the Jail.

 

We spent large parts of the game last night playing the ball across the middle of the park and back and forward from defence to midfield and going nowhere, the Levante players were just sitting back and enjoying the break. Levante were there for the taking last night and we fecked up yet again, ( AS Nancy, Odense, Levante ) its a familiar story.

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And Levante were brilliant tonight???

 

Levante did not look brilliant, no, but to compare that to getting pumped at home by a team from Finland....

 

I'd compare last night to one of the several defeats we've had to average Celtic or rangers sides. They are operating at that sort of level, i'd guess their football budget is around 10 times ours?

 

Perhaps there was also an element of them stopping us play, they always had plenty men behind the ball, although our slow deliberate build up play made that easy, they could get from one penalty box to the other in 3 passes, we wanted 30.

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As has been said when they had a player rolling about the deck they pushed all out for a goal, we got posession and fired the ball out to allow treatment, then when they gave us it back we went all tippy tappy passing it across the halfway line with no attempt to capitalise on our man advantage.

 

So we will get a reputation as being very nice and sporting but I'd rather have a reputation for winning games. Time to toughen up and find that ruthless streak.

 

On Saturday against Killie we had shots flying from all around the box inside and outside, last night we wanted to walk the ball past a solid Spanish defence and got our arses handed to us once again. wallbash.gif

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On Saturday against Killie we had shots flying from all around the box inside and outside, last night we wanted to walk the ball past a solid Spanish defence and got our arses handed to us once again. wallbash.gif

Maybe the reason we weren't shooting from the edge of the box was their two midfielders sitting in front of their back four whenever we had the ball. While I agree we overplayed it on occasions, Levante did a good job of limiting our shooting opportunities...

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Where we would finish in La Liga is irrelevant.

 

Levante being a better side and from La Liga were not the factors that drove that defeat last night.

 

 

It's relevant enough to the quote I was replying to and every bit as relevant as the comparisons people have been drawing between Levante and other SPL teams.

 

I agree with a lot of the rest of your post. We were poor. Particularly in the fist 45. Levante looked like they had a couple of other gears though.

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Where we would finish in La Liga is irrelevant.

 

Levante being a better side and from La Liga were not the factors that drove that defeat last night.

 

We made countless unforced errors that we would never make again if you staged that game 12 times over for more than half the team their first touch was dreadful, their second was a tackle and any attempt to get in their box or get an attempt on goal failed miserably.

 

We lost last night because we were pish, not that they were good.

 

Sometimes that's what happens and we move on to the next game.

 

But let's not comfort ourselves in a falsehood that Levante somehow overpowered a valiant effort.

 

They were there for the taking and instead of being able to muster the kind of performance we did against Pana, we instead fluff our lines.

 

I don't think anyone on here is claiming that it was a valiant effort from us last night, we didn't play to our potential. Neither is anyone claiming that Levante were unbeatable.

 

But taking last nights game out of it, they play in one of the best leagues in the world, a standard far higher than the SPL and even if you don't watch La Liga, it would be difficult to argue that they weren't a decent side, since they qualified for Europe.

 

So to suggest stuff like...that was our worst European performance and that Levante would struggle to finish in the top six of the SPL, is ridiculous at best.

 

Bit of realism required.

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Well think we were very poor at times last night the amount of times passes were short, nearly always second to every ball. Thought only hutchy cummins and Randolph got pass marks, I watch a lot of La Liga and whilst levante didn't look that impressive finishing sixth is no mean feat. Really feel we don't focus on our abilities in these games to busy worrying what opposition will do thus leading to aforementioned passing issues. Poorest European performance for a while and I've seen them all :(

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COME ON! WE HAVE TO STILL BELIEVE WE CAN DO THIS! I know from the moment we were drawn against them, everyone wrote us off. Our chances of succession are even tougher to achieve now that they have a 2 goal advantage going into the second leg in Spain. But they might be thinking they have got this in the bag before the game has begun this thursday, we can maybe beat them that way, they'll put on a much weaker side. Or, there is another way of us going about it. We can cheer our hearts out in Spain or cheer them on whilst watching the telly. If we can get a goal in the first 60-70 minutes of the match, then we are right back in it, we can maybe grab another goal and take it to extra time. Maybe (although sooooo unlikely) Faddy might even play if he cant find a club. SO C'MON THE WELLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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I went into the game with the fear thinking we would get pumped 5 or 6 nil. I was expecting Levante to be all about us with that tippy tappy style that is all over Spain right now, but no they were like the Dunfermiline of La Liga. Big old brusiers who had almost fuck all going forward, but were pretty tight at the back.

 

Thats what makes it really dissapointing in that they were not an amazing side and we had a great chance to do something against them, but nearly every player on the pitch with exception of Randolph, Cummings and Hutchinson were shite.

 

Just too many players having really bad nights.

 

Hopefully we can go to Spain and do something, because I do believe if we can get all 11 men on the park to play a blinder we might be able to do soemthing against this team.

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A fair bit of typical steelmenonline over-reaction on here!

 

Levante finished 6th last season in the best league in the world. That's not a fluke! We couldn't live with them last night and they had an off night. Tactically and technically they are miles ahead of us. For example, every time Murphy got the ball, he had 3 to beat and basically stangled the creativity out of us. No offence to Las & Law but if you stop Humphrey and Murphy you stop us. They did their homework on us. That's what they did and they thoroughly deserved the win.

 

Couple of other points:-

 

Humphrey was our best player last night, the pace he has scared the life out of them.

Two mistakes by our full backs cost us dearly.

Ojamma has been a massive let down since he signed a long term deal. Poor again last night. And a huffy we git to boot. Drop him and try Murphy up top.

We need to change back to 4-3-3 / 4-5-1in Europe ... 4-4-2 isn't working for us.

The ref was superb last night, it was great watching a ref that didn't spend half the game being the centre of attention with 3 minute lectures ... Iain Brines et al please take note.

Those that are saying that Hearts & Dundee Utd would have beaten them need to have a word with themselves.

Diving - we need to change, not the other way about. I know it's frustrating to watch, but I get the feeling that people on here only watch Scottish football if they are surprised by this. It's (unfortunately) part of the game now; we need to adapt to it.

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A fair bit of typical steelmenonline over-reaction on here!

 

Levante finished 6th last season in the best league in the world. That's not a fluke! We couldn't live with them last night and they had an off night. Tactically and technically they are miles ahead of us. For example, every time Murphy got the ball, he had 3 to beat and basically stangled the creativity out of us. No offence to Las & Law but if you stop Humphrey and Murphy you stop us. They did their homework on us. That's what they did and they thoroughly deserved the win.

 

Couple of other points:-

 

Humphrey was our best player last night, the pace he has scared the life out of them.

Two mistakes by our full backs cost us dearly.

Ojamma has been a massive let down since he signed a long term deal. Poor again last night. And a huffy we git to boot. Drop him and try Murphy up top.

We need to change back to 4-3-3 / 4-5-1in Europe ... 4-4-2 isn't working for us.

The ref was superb last night, it was great watching a ref that didn't spend half the game being the centre of attention with 3 minute lectures ... Iain Brines et al please take note.

Those that are saying that Hearts & Dundee Utd would have beaten them need to have a word with themselves.

Diving - we need to change, not the other way about. I know it's frustrating to watch, but I get the feeling that people on here only watch Scottish football if they are surprised by this. It's (unfortunately) part of the game now; we need to adapt to it.

 

I think you'll find that if 6th is the best they've ever finished, and they wind up back fighting relegation this season, then a fluke is exactly what it was.

 

Really wasn't impressed with them at all. Don't expect us to go through obviously but if they play like they did last night, and we step it up a gear to what we're capable of, we can give them a scare at least.

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