Motherwell v Falkirk 9/8/2026

[FirParkCornerExile]

2 hours ago, mio said:

Johnny man…. What a chance.

we’ve definitely had the clearest chances but it’s been a horrible watch… mostly due to Falkirk.

I think we contributed quite a bit to it too. Second half was dreadful on chances we should have taken the 3 points but it would have been a steal. We looked comfortable at the back to middle but absolutely no link up middle to front. Maswanhise should have buried the ball in from lonlgello but sent it skywards. 

 

However on the plus we remain undefeated and move up to 3rd and its a point more than we got at home to Falkirk last season. Big Big improvement needed for the Helsinki and Aberdeen games. Really wish I could see Eythor Bjørgolfsson getting near or is he another long term waste of money like McGhee .

[FirParkCornerExile]

2 hours ago, MJC said:

Dismal stuff.

The only positive is that we didn’t get beat but apart from that that was an awful game and an awful performance.

Nothing up front

Slow and ponderous in attack

Lucky to get a draw if we’re honest

 

Big improvements needed

we weren't lucky to get a draw. Falkirk created absolutely fuck all. We hit the woodwork twice and both Maswanhise and Koutrombis skyed efforts that should have been goals. We didnt deserve to win but by no stretch of the imagination were Falkirk unlucky not to win. 

[Spiderpig]

1 minute ago, FirParkCornerExile said:

we weren't lucky to get a draw. Falkirk created absolutely fuck all. We hit the woodwork twice and both Maswanhise and Koutrombis skyed efforts that should have been goals. We didnt deserve to win but by no stretch of the imagination were Falkirk unlucky not to win. 

Spot on, Well said.

[grizzlyg]

Lot of factors to take in.

1) 2 games a week so some looking tired plus some coming back from injury.

2) falkirk so anti-football and dramatics embarrassing 

3) knight-lebel looked the part and with moorman plus girdwood-reich we are well covered in that area. 

4) oh johnny k!!! Huge chance

But....still unbeaten and sitting 3rd in table.    Thursday night HUGE!!!!, Lets all get right behind AJ and lads 

[weeyin]

Of course it's stupid to look at league tables at this stage, but we've already moved into 3rd place on our own.

[FirParkCornerExile]

Good to see the fans seem to have stayed with us, 7018 crowd is pretty decent considering Falkirks travelling support was half of last years for the same fixture.  

[grizzlyg]

We need to find nicknames for knight-lebel and girdwood-reich as takes ages to type! 🤣🤣, I thought KL done really well today

[El Grew]

As I said previously on here, we need to cut the players some slack as it’s very often the case that teams that have played an away game in Europe suffer in their first game afterwards but at least we didn’t lose the game.

I thought Falkirk went away with exactly what they came for - a draw.

The only negative for me is that we don’t have a forward that can lead the line and bag some goals - same as last year. It’s probably going to be magnified this year though because Maswanhise got 19 goals last season and at present he doesn’t look the same player. We need to find those 19 goals from somewhere. Does anybody know if Bjorgolfsson is injured or whether the manager doesn’t rate him.

[Kmcalpin]

3 hours ago, mio said:

Considering our exertions over the past few weeks and injuries I’m happy with the point.

Likewise. Given the circumstances, I was hoping for a draw at 3pm and we achieved that. A better result than either of our 2 home games against them last season. Credit to Falkirk their good fortune didn't desert them.    

[MFCL84]

1 hour ago, FirParkCornerExile said:

we weren't lucky to get a draw. Falkirk created absolutely fuck all. We hit the woodwork twice and both Maswanhise and Koutrombis skyed efforts that should have been goals. We didnt deserve to win but by no stretch of the imagination were Falkirk unlucky not to win. 

I would go further and say that I feel that we were worth a win. We created 4 decent chances and played some great stuff at times (albeit fairly infrequently). The football to get JK away for his chance was top drawer, as was the work to get JT the chance that he lashed over from 6 yards out.

Falkirk offered nothing to the game and were happy to foul throughout, knowing early on that the ref was useless. They were happy to break up play and wait for us to run out of gas in the final 20mins. No way did they deserve anything from the match.

To comment on Motherwell today, I feel that we were generally slow and ponderous in the build up, and our movement in front of the ball is minimal, so making chances is going to be difficult against any well organised team.

We need to improve our fitness, to last more than an hour. We need more movement and intelligent movement in midfield and, especially up top. We also really need the few runs that are made to be seen and used. We are very guilty of ignoring forward movement and turning back when forward options are available.

I'm hoping that we'll improve with games and familiarity, but I don't think we have the players in place to emulate last season's performances. We need some more quality in the mid and front areas.

[Lobey_Dosser]

While not an expecting us to reproduce the scintillating football of last season, that was a drab affair. Of course, there are multiple factors at play including the European exploits, injuries and being 2 or 3 quality forward thinking players short of where we want to be. However, I am disappointed that many of the principles that allowed us to play such entertaining and successful football, principles that were apparent almost immediately under Jens, are not so evident now. 

This seemingly more pragmatic approach and lower tempo may return a similar points tally to last season, particularly if we sign a couple of top players, but i don’t think we’ll be on the edge of our seats quite so much. 

[Spit_It_Out]

Honestly we would get more from moving Maswanhise back on to the right,Start Wilson left back move Longelo further forward and start the unit Said in the middle now i know he isnt the best at finishing but by christ would offer us more than Maswanhise in the middle.

Longelo,Said and Maswanhise front three be very interesting that combo has goals,free kicks around the box and pens won in them.

[Welly Machine]

Thought we were the better team in the first have and could have been two up at half time.

Tired quite badly in the second, especially last 20-25 minutes although that could have been partly due to Falkirk pressing us better than they did in the first. Sibbald seemed to make a difference for them.

Still should have made better of the two great chances we had in the second.

A draw and a clean sheet against Falkirk is not a disaster with we have on our plate at the moment.

[Big Stall]

Thought we looked good first half. Dare i say it the closest to a JBA team since the new gaffer came in.

2nd half we regressed badly but still created the best chances. The build up to Tawandas effort was proper football. No idea what Jonny K thought when he was pulling the trigger.

Noticed Longello belting up the tunnel with his towel after being hooked. Injured or soor face??

[Kmcalpin]

6 minutes ago, Big Stall said:

Noticed Longello belting up the tunnel with his towel after being hooked. Injured or soor face??

On way out?

[Great Balls of Shire]

39 minutes ago, Kmcalpin said:

On way out?

Tell tale sign if someone is on way out, belting up tunnel with towel.

[SteelmaninOZ]

The gaffer said 

 

[Kmcalpin]

I noticed today, on quite a few occasions, that the other players completely ignored Longelo when he was in acres of space on left; preferring instead to play on a congested right wing. A few around us commented on this. 

[Happyhonest]

58 per cent possession to well but we still allowed them 10 shots at goal and 18 touches in our box.  Our record under JBA was keep.posession the other side can’t score but on 42 persent getting 10 shots away must be a worry.

 

still  we worked chances to win it and on another day could have got two or three goals.  Still early days  but would like to see a couple of new faces to strengthen the team and allow for rotation etc.  hopefully no injuries and with some recovery work will be in good place for Thursday.  

[Stuwell2]

5 minutes ago, Kmcalpin said:

I noticed today, on quite a few occasions, that the other players completely ignored Longelo when he was in acres of space on left; preferring instead to play on a congested right wing. A few around us commented on this. 

I wouldn’t read to much into that, last season was the same left wing ignored every game with the midfielders more that happy to turn around and play down the right when the pass out left was on. 
I’ve often wondered if it’s a statistical thing where more goals come from crosses from the right, maybe right footed attackers feel more comfortable with this? Honestly I don’t know why but it’s bugged  me how often Longelo and others have been ignored when we’re building an attack.
Although I’m happy that others are noticing it and it’s not just me being left footed and paranoid that see’s it.  

[Kmcalpin]

I agree with many earlier comments about our hectic schedule, small squad, and burn out. So our overall assessment should be seen in this light. In summary a good result, but  a poor performance. I was surprised at the bench today. Why list 3 keepers? Just plain odd. Also, we were told Thor was just about fit, yet no place on the bench for him. A bit of expected squad rotation in the starting 11.

We had a decent first half and created and squandered a few chances and could have been 2 goals up. However, the midfield just wasn’t right and didn’t support our front line, such as it was. I felt sorry for TJ as he was so plainly out of position. No surprise at the half time change, as Booth simply wasn’t at the races and was battered and buffeted by more physically mature opponents. A promising prospect and good to see him get game time but maybe a loan to a Championship or first division club would be more beneficial to him this term.

I thought the defence played well, especially the central pair, but am looking forward to JK returning to right back. Sparrow has done ok in an emergency with his boundless energy but you need more than that at right back.

The midfield lacked creativity and looked to be a man down in the first 45. In the last 20 minutes they ran out of gas as Falkirk piled on the pressure.  Having said that, they only tested Paulsen once in 90 minutes.  Up front we were non existent to be blunt.

Overall we probably just deserved to win and were unlucky to see thew woodwork come to Falkirk’s rescue.  They were streetwise and niggly and on occasion guilty of downright cheating. However to those who know John McGlynn’s methods, that would come as no surprise.  Not a good look for Scottish football (SFA please take note for the forthcoming summit).

Hopefully Sparrow is ok for Thursday, but would hope that Johnny K is fit enough to start at RB.       

[joewarkfanclub]

Surprised at some of the negativity regards todays performance.

Whilst we were far from our best, misplaced numerous passes and fluffed a number of very decent chances, there was still a lot to like.

Maybe a sign of how far last season raised the bar?

I thought Falkirk offered nothing first half. Content to spoil the game, commit fouls and go down at every turn. All ably assisted by Chris Graham who must be the worst referee in the league (which is saying something). 

We should have been a couple up at half time and that would have maybe allowed us some more breathing space as we did tire badly second half.

Although not as fluent a performance as we would like there was still some excellent football played.

Said was box office first half and some of the stuff he pulls off is ridiculous to watch. The move where JT shot wide whilst having his shirt removed from him would have been even better than last weeks goal of the season entry. Add to that the 2 second half moves spurned by JT and Johnny K and I left feeling that it was 2 points dropped rather than a point gained.

The squad is light, we have a lot of games coming thick and fast with not a lot of time on the training pitch right now to bed in the new players and managers ideas.

I think by the time we get to the end of the window and things start to calm down, we will be in much better shape.

[mio]

Taking a positive out of yesterday apart from a point and a clean sheet (happy with this tbh) I really liked Alfred’s post match chat, absolutely no bull sh1t manager talk, I totally agreed with everything he said and it was refreshing to hear. Each week I like this guy a little better.

[FirParkCornerExile]

8 hours ago, joewarkfanclub said:

Surprised at some of the negativity regards todays performance.

Whilst we were far from our best, misplaced numerous passes and fluffed a number of very decent chances, there was still a lot to like.

Maybe a sign of how far last season raised the bar?

I thought Falkirk offered nothing first half. Content to spoil the game, commit fouls and go down at every turn. All ably assisted by Chris Graham who must be the worst referee in the league (which is saying something). 

We should have been a couple up at half time and that would have maybe allowed us some more breathing space as we did tire badly second half.

Although not as fluent a performance as we would like there was still some excellent football played.

Said was box office first half and some of the stuff he pulls off is ridiculous to watch. The move where JT shot wide whilst having his shirt removed from him would have been even better than last weeks goal of the season entry. Add to that the 2 second half moves spurned by JT and Johnny K and I left feeling that it was 2 points dropped rather than a point gained.

The squad is light, we have a lot of games coming thick and fast with not a lot of time on the training pitch right now to bed in the new players and managers ideas.

I think by the time we get to the end of the window and things start to calm down, we will be in much better shape.

I felt we were poor yesterday at the game but when I watched the Sportscene highlights back I think there's be an over reaction. We weren't that bad. I think it's just we are not yet ticking along as we did last season. Last season was An extremely high benchmark. I think I possibly need to temper my expectations to actually see that we weren't that bad and should have won. 

[wellwell91]

With the amount of minutes that both Fadinger and Priestman have played surprised that we didn’t see Ollie Whyte at some stage yesterday