Motherwell v Peterhead 15/07/2025 🏆

[SteelmaninOZ]

At least we are playing on the green green grass of a real football pitch expect a lot better from us and no water breaks 

[Kmcalpin]

There's limited scope for change. GK and central defence pick themselves because there's no-one else. If AP Stam isn't fit, the Sule has to start even although he hasn't played a full game, because there's no one else. There's scope to change the left back position and switch Koutroumbis to the right and shake up the midfield. 

A big improvement required.

[wellfan]

After that shambles in the plastic Sahara yesterday, anything short of a proper win on real grass won’t cut it.

[MFCL84]

This'll be my first game this season, and even after the Clyde result, I am excited about the prospect of seeing some progressive, positive football from Motherwell. 

I expect that the first half will be difficult, but we will eventually win through by a clear margin, 3-0 to The Well.

[wellfan]

3 minutes ago, MFCL84 said:

This'll be my first game this season, and even after the Clyde result, I am excited about the prospect of seeing some progressive, positive football from Motherwell. 

I expect that the first half will be difficult, but we will eventually win through by a clear margin, 3-0 to The Well.

The exciting, progressive football is definitely a positive. But with that defence and keeper, the only way we’re winning games is by scoring 3 or 4, because they’re always good for conceding at least 1 or 2 soft goals. 

[stv]

6 minutes ago, wellfan said:

The exciting, progressive football is definitely a positive. But with that defence and keeper, the only way we’re winning games is by scoring 3 or 4, because they’re always good for conceding at least 1 or 2 soft goals. 

Aye the manager , who was a defence coach , can't see that and won't make that a priority to change. 

[Ya Bezzer!]

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.

 

[wellfan]

7 minutes ago, stv said:

Aye the manager , who was a defence coach , can't see that and won't make that a priority to change. 

We don’t know that he’s not making it a priority. He’s said himself the window’s open for almost two more months and that we should expect more movement.

[sinjy]

Manager needs to rethink the goalie being 40 yards from his goal. That cost us today and other clubs will be watching. Oh and imagine the melt down if it had been SOD who gave the ball away for the goal.

[Spiderpig]

2 hours ago, sinjy said:

Manager needs to rethink the goalie being 40 yards from his goal. That cost us today and other clubs will be watching. Oh and imagine the melt down if it had been SOD who gave the ball away for the goal.

I agree its one of my pet hates, keepers thinking they are midfielders, Liam Kelly was guilty of that quite often when he was at Fir park, it's simple to resolve JBA just tells Oxborough and Ward dont do it, unless they are actually trying to clear the ball.

[weeyin]

2 hours ago, Spiderpig said:

I agree its one of my pet hates, keepers thinking they are midfielders, Liam Kelly was guilty of that quite often when he was at Fir park, it's simple to resolve JBA just tells Oxborough and Ward dont do it, unless they are actually trying to clear the ball.

It's the managers that are telling them to do it.  One of the current trends in modern football, along with passing out from the back, inverted full backs, and wingbacks instead of wingers.

You might not like it, and will be more likely to notice it when mistakes happen, but I guarantee all the modern coaches have Gigabytes of match data showing that less goals are conceded that way, and more attacks are created that way.

A few years ago, I saw the guy in charge of data at Liverpool discuss his analysis. He had taken all the available stats from all the available matches to create a map of the pitch. They had calculated the percentage chance of a goal being scored from the starting position of the man with the ball on every square foot of the pitch.

They used that during training to focus on getting the ball to highest percentage starting positions as quickly as possible. 

That's the kind of analysis that goes into the game these days, even at smaller clubs like ours. And the kind of thing JBA means when he says that Danish teams play more modern football than Scottish teams. 

We can't ask for a more progressive approach to the game and then complain about what that means. Well, we can, but it will hold us back.

Today's tactics are significantly different from when I started watching football in the 70's, which is mostly a good thing - although preferring full backs that can attack rather than defend still drives me nuts.

Back to this game, I expect more of our new signings to start, and a higher tempo game on our grass.

 

 

[texanwellfan]

I’m on the fence regarding the goalie style of play obvious drawback we are all aware of but it does allow us to get more players ahead of the ball. I thought the first half we maintained possession well and there were was hardly a hoof ball played the whole first half. There were some longer passes but they were decent balls where our player was always the favorite to win the ball. Midfielders were showing for the ball making it easier for us to make passes and keep possession.  However, second half was very different story. For our level of players I think it’s very hard for them to maintain that for a full 90 mins. Having that focus and mentality goes downhill fast as you start to tire. So between fitness and heat yesterday we just couldn’t maintain the first half control. Sure, we made subs but that didn’t seem to work in maintaining then level of focus and fitness required. While disappointed yesterday I’m confident we will improve and that the manager will be a bit more analytical in his assessment and able to prioritize what needs fixing first. With some new players likely to come in there still cause for optimism. 
Yours faithfully,

Happy Clapper 

😂😂

[MJC]

1-1

Who knows how the penalty shootout will go this time.

[Mccus28]

13 minutes ago, MJC said:

1-1

Who knows how the penalty shootout will go this time.

2-0 to the Mighty Well