Motherwell v Falkirk 04/04/2026

[Welly Machine]

Can't remember more frustrating game this season. Thought we were showing signs of taking control before gifting the second.

Worrying that Falkirk adopted the same man for man approach from the start today as they did in the second half back in October and we seemed, yet again, to have no answer to it.

Haven't seen the penalty incidents again but hope not being disadvantaged because of the Slattery incident and the arse that was made of it.

 

 

[twistandshout1983]

Very disappointing,  Falkirk deserved those 3 points

Hopefully bounce back real soon , though every game now gonna be a battle 

[Kmcalpin]

23 minutes ago, Welly Machine said:

Worrying that Falkirk adopted the same man for man approach from the start today as they did in the second half back in October and we seemed, yet again, to have no answer to it.

Teams are now adopting a man for man approach against us and we've been rumbled. Can JBA find a solution in our remaining fixtures.

[Spiderpig]

26 minutes ago, Welly Machine said:

 

Haven't seen the penalty incidents again but hope not being disadvantaged because of the Slattery incident and the arse that was made of it.

 

 

Just watched the highlights on Sportscene they agreed with JBA, the Falkirk defender caught Maswhanise and brought him down, a stonewall penalty, feck knows how VAR never saw it, plus there was no attempt to play the ball so it was a dogso and should have been a red card.

As for the Falkirk pen, never, Said was holding the player and the falkirk player just fell down, no shirt pull etc, again those useless cnuts at VAR saw nothing. The referees and VAR in paticular seem to have it in for us, Gollums explanation on the VAR review will no doubt be interesting.

[bobbybingo]

VAR chose not to see the foul on Maswanhise. Unless they can explain why tripping an attacker in the box is not considered a penalty.

[clueless]

I look forward to WC tying himself in knots trying to defend those two decisions.

[Happy Dosser]

41 minutes ago, Kmcalpin said:

When I saw the team beforehand I was a bit worried as we had no Thor and Sparrow was preferred to Priestman. Lightweight up front. 

Then we were back to our old habit of offering up early chances which Falkirk thanked us for. The ref had a poor game and missed his chance of stamping his authority on the game when Just was the victim of a shocking late tackle within the 1st two minutes. 

Overall Falkirk had done their homework and I was sorry for JT given the scant service he was given. He had no support against a big physical defence. Once again, our long ball tactic simply didn't work. 

The second goal was no surprise given identical earlier blunders. I can't comment on the penalty. Overall, we were too lightweight al over the pitch and hardly won a header all day. 

Falkirk deserved to win, but some of their tactics were questionable under rule 77. 

JBA needs to do some serious thinking in the next few weeks.

I was just about to make a similar comment. I like Priestman for his energy and passing and I thought we missed him today. Losing Thor (through injury, I presume, in training, since we haven't played for a fortnight) left Maswhanise unsupported and in any case he seems off the boil

I thought the referee was typically poor and, as you said, he had his chance to penalise Falkirk and set the tone for the game but Just gets clugged every week and receives no protection from referees. Some of the ref's decisions were simply baffling.

Falkirk played exactly how I expected from the previous gome game against them: they simply pressed us hard and waited for the inevitable mistake. They had lots of energy and looked well-drilled and, to be frank, could have score five or more with a bit of luck. We lacked physically and speed of movement and thought.

The penalty was a mystery to me given the level of pushing, shoving and jersey-pulling in the box this season,  which has largely gone unpunished (but not for us at Celtic Park).

If J-B can get us back on the rails for Tynecastle and the split, he will have deserved all the praise he has received up to the end of February, since generally the team looks threadbare and jaded at the moment. This will be a big test of his managerial skills but I remain hopeful.

[Kmcalpin]

6 minutes ago, Spiderpig said:

Just watched the highlights on Sportscene they agreed with JBA, the Falkirk defender caught Maswhanise and brought him down, a stonewall penalty, feck knows how VAR never saw it, plus there was no attempt to play the ball so it was a dogso and should have been a red card.

Thats been a feature of Falkirk's season. 

[grizzlyg]

Just my opinion but teams now sussing us out and too many players off form at same time.

The Ward-watt double act was accident waiting to happen as plenty warnings before that calamtitous 2nd goal.  Watt looks like guy believing his own hype and needs to go back to what he was good at.  Also if we get 3 million for Maswanhise you take it.

However.........we were always going to have a bad run and tbh Falkirk fully deserved it despite the terrible theatrics.   Also at full time not a lot of booing which was good. 

Ps. To cheer ye up.....Ross Co 0 Airdrie 4 🤣🤣🤣

 

[Happy Dosser]

19 minutes ago, Spiderpig said:

Just watched the highlights on Sportscene they agreed with JBA, the Falkirk defender caught Maswhanise and brought him down, a stonewall penalty, feck knows how VAR never saw it, plus there was no attempt to play the ball so it was a dogso and should have been a red card.

As for the Falkirk pen, never, Said was holding the player and the falkirk player just fell down, no shirt pull etc, again those useless cnuts at VAR saw nothing. The referees and VAR in paticular seem to have it in for us, Gollums explanation on the VAR review will no doubt be interesting.

Haven't summoned up the courage yet to watch Sportscene so thanks for that: will take a look now.

You know, I'm beginning to think some in  the authorities don't like us for some reason 🤣.

But then again, "Perfect paranoia is perfect awareness", as someone famous  once said.

 

[Kmcalpin]

15 minutes ago, grizzlyg said:

 Also if we get 3 million for Maswhanise we take it. 

I wouldn't be too hard on him today. Due to injuries, he was being played out of position against 2 big centre backs and had no support. His supply was poor as well. Not a game on which to judge him. 

[texanwellfan]

1 minute ago, Kmcalpin said:

I wouldn't be too hard on him today. Due to injuries, he was being played out of position against 2 big centre backs and had no support. His supply was poor as well. Not a game on which to judge him. 

I only saw bits of the game but from what I seen JT looked very isolated amd in general it didn’t look like we played as a team today. 

[Motherwell Daft]

Out of our poor display today I am most encouraged to see that that wee fanny Kettle got pumped. 🤣 
Every negative has a positive 

[grizzlyg]

36 minutes ago, Kmcalpin said:

I wouldn't be too hard on him today. Due to injuries, he was being played out of position against 2 big centre backs and had no support. His supply was poor as well. Not a game on which to judge him. 

True pal but his first touch is awful. Need Thor fit and play Maswanhise off him

[SteelmaninOZ]

The gaffer 

 

[grizzlyg]

JBA a legend but a bit annoyed he seems to be deflecting blame onto officials .  Yip referee was shocking but not reason we lost.  Should focus more on our own players

[bobbybingo]

25 minutes ago, grizzlyg said:

JBA a legend but a bit annoyed he seems to be deflecting blame onto officials .  Yip referee was shocking but not reason we lost.  Should focus more on our own players

I'm no sure he's blaming the officials for our defeat, but let's be honest, it was a stonewall penalty and a red card for the Falkirk player early on. We saw how that can change a game the other week. And their 3rd goal was never a penalty. 

We're struggling a bit just now, but carrying absolutely no luck and been on the wrong end of some horrendous decisions recently.

 

[smiddy]

2 hours ago, texanwellfan said:

I only saw bits of the game but from what I seen JT looked very isolated amd in general it didn’t look like we played as a team today. 

Hi ya texan    Am back 🙈👍

[thewelllfan]

Hibs got 6.5M for Bowie who was on 8 League goals and is the same age as Maswanhise. I think we need to cash in but only at 4.5-5M territory. He's on 17 league goals and that figure to clubs in Europe's T5 leagues and even the Championship is not even a dent in their budget.

[joewarkfanclub]

Falkirk (and McGlynn) did a number on us again today. Their press was very clever. They waited time and again for the ball to go to our full backs (mostly SOD) which triggered them to go mob handed to close the full back and the midfielders that side blocking off all the available outballs other than back the way or over the top.

They were more than happy for Ward or the CBs to have the ball. We struggled with it all afternoon and it caused a fair amount of disruption to our usual passing / possession game.

That said, the goals we lost were all very poor. The first is a free header with Fadinger being the culprit for losing his man (he hasnt been at all himself wearing that mask. I do wonder if it obstructs his vision).

The second comes from the aforementioned press, but should have been cleared by McGinn and/or Watt who plays a totally blind pass putting Ward in trouble.

The third just isnt a penalty, or there would be 20 penalties a game.

Overall we had 14 shots to their 12 with 5 on target to their 4. So even though we were off it in terms of performance and Falkirk deserved to win, the stats for us werent horrific.

The fine margins are going against us at the moment, so we are going to have to dig deep and find a performance from somewhere.

Slightly concerned that there was no Eyrhor today as it left the bench looking very weak. Although I did think Priestman, Nicholson and McGhee all looked decent when they came on.

Maybe we need to freshen the starting 11 up next week?