Motherwell v Celtic 11/10/2026

[grizzlyg]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/motherwell

AJ explaining why Willy started.  I am sure the lad is working hard in training but his confidence totally shattered now though granted he didnt show anything yesterday.  The one in 2nd half where Tierney outpaced him said it all

[well_said]

45 minutes ago, wunderwell said:

I will only ever boo once again in my entire life, it will be firmly rooted at Grizzly.
Stand up and joke for Motherwell gig - to be confirmed.
Starring Raymond Mearns, Tam Cowan and welcoming Grizzly G.

The most unfunny comedy gig ever.

[grizzlyg]

14 minutes ago, well_said said:

The most unfunny comedy gig ever.

Bit harsh on Raymond and Tam 🤣🤣

[wellfan]

1 hour ago, grizzlyg said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/motherwell

AJ explaining why Willy started.  I am sure the lad is working hard in training but his confidence totally shattered now though granted he didnt show anything yesterday.  The one in 2nd half where Tierney outpaced him said it all

So, in that aftermath of that drivel, Alfred comes out with this:

“We believe we picked the right starting XI.”

Bloody hell.

[well_said]

38 minutes ago, grizzlyg said:

Bit harsh on Raymond and Tam 🤣🤣

You are funnier than those two.

[grizzlyg]

10 minutes ago, well_said said:

You are funnier than those two.

Awwww shucks

[David]

7 hours ago, joewarkfanclub said:

I think its possible for fans to point out things they thought the manager got wrong without necessarily thinking they know better than the manager or could do a better job than him.

Alfred clearly has way more coaching experience and knowledge than your average fan. But when he talks about certain things pre-match and you see none of it during the game, and then he comes out post match and says he got the starting line up correct, then eye brows will be raised.

If you go down that route, I think you need to add a little flesh to the bones to back up why you think that. Otherwise, fans will quite rightly question your methods/thought process.

If the manager talks about intensity, I expect to see intensity. If he talks about movement and rotations, I expect to see movement & rotations.

He talked about lack of experience in the side, so I wasnt surprised to see SOD start especially when he talked up the senior pro's contribution in training. Whether we think it worked or not is another matter, but at least I can understand why he did that.

Putting Willy in after a 3 week break where he has had time to work with him was a surprise. But given JT's recent form and the fact he has been away on his travels, I could understand it. However, he had another poor 45 minutes and he should have protected the player at half time.

Similarly with Hodge. Playing him on the left, you intitially give him the benefit of the doubt as tactically you think he has seen something in Celtic that requires it. However, with the entire midfield being overun in the first 45, you expect to see a change for the second half.

These arent highly technical tactical observations. Just very obvious things that may have improved our fate before the game was gone.

I agree 100% that fans can criticise a manager without claiming they know better than him. Sunday was poor, and there were obvious things that didn't work.

Where I'd maybe look at things differently, though, is assuming that because the problem looked obvious, the solution was obvious too.

Take intensity, which I've heard a lot of people talking about. That isn't just about players running harder. The truth is, a press only works if the first player goes at the right moment, the next player blocks the correct passing lane, the midfield squeezes up, and the defensive line follows. One player being half a second late can make the whole thing look passive, which happens a lot at our level of the game.

Same goes with movement and rotations. They may have worked on specific patterns all week, but if Celtic changed their press, blocked the first pass or forced players to receive facing their own goal, those rotations can disappear in a hurry. That doesn't mean the initial plan was good, by the way, but "I didn't see it" doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't drilled during training sessions and worked on.

The midfield is similar. For example, if Hodge looks exposed, the problem might be Hodge. But it might also be the forwards not stopping Celtic playing through the first line, the defence dropping too deep, a full-back being pinned, or Celtic creating an overload elsewhere or something like that. What looks like an individual problem can actually be structural.

That's why I'm not really keen on saying stuff like "the midfield was being overrun, so change the midfield" as though that automatically fixes the issue.

The same applies to substitutions. Taking Vogt off at half-time might have helped, but AJ also has to consider whether the problem is actually Vogt or the structure around him, what the player replacing him changes tactically, what substitutions he may need later, and even the effect of publicly hooking a player after 45 minutes when he's trying to rebuild his confidence. Making a move like that also tells the wider squad a lot about you and the trust you have in them.

None of that means AJ got it right on the day. Managers make bad selections and bad tactical decisions all the time. There's a reason the ones who make less mistakes and bad decisions get paid an absolute fortune.

But there's a big difference between identifying a symptom and correctly diagnosing the cause, I think.

I'm far from an expert, but for me that's really what professional coaching is. Working out why something isn't functioning, deciding which part of an interconnected system to change, and anticipating what the opposition will do in response.

I'm also not particularly bothered by him saying afterwards that he thought the starting lineup was correct. Managers aren't giving us a full internal debrief in press conferences. He's still managing the dressing room and isn't likely to come out and effectively say certain players shouldn't have been selected. You start doing that and things can turn really quickly. 

If anything, he should have given the interviews he did, then went back to the dressing room and made it clear internally that some players need to live up to the faith and responsibility he's showing in them. But that needs to be done behind closed doors, not through the BBC or on YouTube.

Where I will start to be more critical is if the same problems keep happening.

If we're sitting here in December and the midfield is repeatedly overrun in the same way, the press repeatedly lacks coordination, the rotations continually fail, or players are consistently used in roles that don't suit them, then it becomes a coaching issue rather than one bad afternoon.

And that's the bit I'm personally interested in watching closely with Johansson, because adaptability was one of the legitimate criticisms of how things eventually unravelled at Rosenborg.

So, fans can absolutely question Sunday's decisions. I just don't think "we could all see what was wrong" automatically means the corrective decision was as straightforward as it looked from the stand.

Seeing the symptom is often easy. Correctly identifying the cause is the hard part.

[Spiderpig]

AJ has had to totally rebuild the team over the summer, losing players of the quality of Just, Watt and Slattery, with all their goals from midfield, Welsh and McGinn( long term injury) from defence.

Add to that Maswhanise having a once in a career (Bair / Higdon )season and the ongoing 1st pick. Players like JK and priestman still out wiith long term injury no wonder we are struggling.

It will take time to get a settled team, and all the 1st pick players back available, so why dont we cut AJ some slack.

We are no worse off than last season at this stage in this league 3 or 4 wins and its suddenly top 6 etc as we saw last year. Judging and condeming the manager after a 4 game poor run is nonsense, coyw.