Showtime
SHOWTIME!!:
While the proposed Super-League argue over how many teams should participate in the new set-up, Motherwell are set to propose the most radical and competitive idea yet - a three team "Lanarkshire/Glasgow All-Stars" division featuring Motherwell, Celtic and Rangers.
Whilst Lex Gold is not falling over himself to rubber-stamp this move, it seems to be the only way that we would see our favourites put in a decent ninety minutes this weather.
Indeed when the Fourth round draw for the Scottish Cup had ourselves at home to either Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Dundee United and Rangers, following our performances against Thistle in the CocaCola Cup and United at Tannadice earlier in the season, who were you willing to come out of the bowl next??!!!??!?
Whilst we could simply put it down to yet another typical Motherwell eccentricity, surely questions must be asked about how, enjoyable and fulfilling as it is to upset the "Big Two" each time we meet, how can we have a track record second to none against them this season while we
have still to secure a solitary point against St Johnstone and Kilmarnock, teams in 'our league' that we should be competing with?
The only reason that I can justify these strange set of results with is that the atmosphere and big-time stage seem to push them onto bigger and better things whilst the mundane, bread and butter encounters Fail to bring them out of their lethargic shells. But how vindicated is this
assumption on what we have all witnessed so far?
I get the impression that certain players reaching his twilight years in this game , having perhaps played at bigger and higher levels in the past, only seem motivated by 50,000 plus crowds for them to perform in front of, rather than the more normal 5,000. Surely players that have now been around the block a few times must have enough intelligence to realise that visits to places like Perth and Rugby Park are more important than the high profile matches where points taken are
seen as a bonus to add to our total, NOT to subsidise or cover games sloppily thrown away without the team reaching second gear.
This seems to have rubbed off on the younger players in our side, who whilst attempting to learn something from these popular figures that will stand them in good stead for the future careers in the game, seem to be shown that you only raise your game eight times a year. It is
incomprehensible how players such as McMillan, McCulloch and Christie can be highly praised for their mature performances in these games, then seem tentative and unsure against lower opposition.
If the above is true, then blame must also be laid at the feet of the management team for their lack of ability to motivate the players for certain matches. If the team are only lifted for visits to Glasgow but not the visit of Hibs or Dunfermline, then surely stands to reason that
they are self-motivated occasionally but never cajoled to greater things by their pre-match/half-time talk-ins? Despite being relatively new to management, Alex McLeish was seen as a born winner whose never-say-die attitude would be past on to his players. How much evidence have we seen of this, as the only other time the players seem to show fire in their bellies is when the rest of the world seem to be against them, be that having a man sent off, or more recently going goals behind.
As the run in to this season looms, we have surely got to see a marked improvement in the way the men in Claret in Amber go about their business. It is totally chicken-and egg syndrome that if they will only perform on the big stage, less people will come to watch them in the'less important' games, and so on. Something has got to give, otherwise the only great crowds we draw next year might be a visit to Kirkcaldy or Cliftonhill.
.....by Christopher Hutton
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