GLF61: Derek resists the urge to panic.
Go With The Mo
There are occasional moments in football when the absurdity of supporting a team is apparent.The hysteria that followed our defeat at Hibs was,in retrospect,laughable.Fans who have seen ups and downs for over twenty years were calling for our new manager to be sacked after a mere four games in charge.And so I'm not being hypocritical I'll openly acknowledge that while I wasn't quite demanding Malpas be given his P45,I was certainly willing to place a stupidly tight deadline for improvements to be made.
Looking back on this temporary insanity that inflicted us all it is hard not to shake your head and laugh.We all know that Motherwell will lose games and we all know that managers need time to build their own side and impose their own ideas.Nevertheless that knowledge does not stop us going over the edge of reason as soon as a crisis,no matter how fleeting,hits our club.
The opening four games that we lost need to be put in perspective.Losing to Rangers is no disgrace and our record at Easter Road is absolutely horrific.No points from that pair should have surprised nobody.The St Mirren game was naturally more frustrating, especially given the debacle there in January, but we were playing a team high on confidence on their flag day.A loss was understandable even if the performance wasn't.And finally, Aberdeen.Yes, we deserved to lose but this was a match we could and perhaps should have won.Every team will throw away points in similar fashion sometime; it was just particularly unfortunate we threw this game away in the middle of a difficult run.
This is being written after the Falkirk game so at present we are 11th and in 90 minutes we will find out our League Cup fate.By the time this is being read, we could have comfortably dispatched of ICT at home and be looking forward to a cruise to another quarter final.Things may work out differently of course but that should be no reason to lose all reason and logic when it comes to assessing our problems.We do have problems, of course, but Maurice Malpas will be every bit as aware of them as the fans.More significantly he will see the players in training and he will know exactly how far his budget will stretch in trying to improve the squad.Keith Lasley is a major improvement and Calum Elliot is a young talent.If, as seems likely, we make another addition or two before the transfer deadline our squad will be more than capable of competing and surviving.That was always going to be the target for this season.
The people who criticise Malpas and want his immediate removal will rightly point out that we must learn from the recent mistakes of Partick Thistle and Livingston who waited until it was too late to replace failing managers.This is a valid point but our circumstances are different.It is important that we do not wait too long should Malpas not be up to the job but he needs until January to prove himself.
Anything less is obscene and could very easily lead to the dreaded Dundee United scenario of a new manager coming in every three weeks.Should we be adrift at Christmas a new manager will still have enough time to turn things round – especially as we, unlike Thistle and Livi,will be able to find some cash from somewhere to improve the squad.Teams do not get relegated from the SPL on zero or five points.Even the abysmal Thistle and Livingston managed to pick up some points along the way and if we are cast in that role in the early part of the season we will not lose every game.Our squad may be poor but it is quite clearly not so bad that we will be relegated by Christmas.If we are truly that bad, a new manager is not going to be able to save us having only a month to change the squad.That means that for the next three months we should forget about putting pressure on Malpas and concentrate on getting behind the team.Ignore the league table in the Sunday papers but remember we will be somewhere near the bottom.Let's support the players and management and cheer every point we get in our relegation battle.Getting hysterical in October is unhelpful and pointless.The players will not perform any better under additional pressure and John Boyle will not give Malpas the bullet that early anyway.We need to remain calm and then analyse the situation in the run up to the turn of the year.By then we will have seen just how Malpas did with his own new signings and, fingers crossed, something resembling our first choice defence.The decision can then be made if he is up to the task of leading us or if a change is needed.There will still be time for salvation if that is what we require.Until then, just enjoy supporting Motherwell.No matter how bad it gets, you wouldn't change for the world anyway.
Derek Wilson
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