All Saint's Day Misery || Motherwell 1-4 St Mirren

Sigh... Well, here's the article I hoped beyond hope I wouldn't have to write.

Motherwell fell to a disappointing 4-1 defeat to St Mirren to end our Premier Sports Cup hopes, falling at the penultimate hurdle with what seemed like barely a whimper.

While the emotions seem raw and and the wounds seem open right now, I sincerely hope that this setback will spur the players on to never have to taste this feeling again.

Don't get me wrong, we absolutely deserved to go out. While we had more possession and shots than St Mirren, as well as four times the amount of corners - a stat that would suggest that the game was very much played in the St Mirren half - it all seemed very... toothless.

JBA cut a disappointed and deflated figure in his post-match interview. He talks of a lack of sharpness and precision in dealing with dead-ball situations, which we all know are a real threat when playing St Mirren. He then goes on to praise St Mirren's execution of their game plan, compared to ours, and finishes with how he expects to pick the squad back up for next week.

Match report

From the outset, quite literally from the kick-off, it was apparent what St Mirren's game plan would be. With the ball going all the way back to Shamal George to hoof long, it became clear that this would be an aerial assault from the Buddies, with Michael Mandron - a man far removed from the awkward, gangly and inefficient striker known to the Steelmen faithful - throwing himself at anything above chest height, and some elbows going sideways to boot.

The Well never really seemed to settle. Finding our rhythm and finding a way to probe St Mirren's rigid, disciplined back line proved difficult. Gaps were few and far between, and Motherwell struggled to break the lines.

A gentle breeze touching Mandron's neck (there certainly was minimal, if any, contact from Gordon) five yards deep of the centre circle caused him to topple over and the, rather inexplicable, foul given gave St Mirren another opportunity to thunder the ball towards the Motherwell box. The resulting free kick - taken both about 5 yards from where the foul was committed, and while the ball was still rolling - ended with a corner to the Saints. That corner wasn't dealt with at all well by the Steelmen and fell kindly to Mandron - the only black and white shirt in amongst six in claret and amber - who bundled home. Coming very much against the run of play, the goal seemed to knock the wind out of our sails entirely.

We then entered a period of the most baffling football I've seen played by Motherwell since JBA came in. If you happened to watch the Livingston game last weekend, think very much along the lines of the first half there, but somehow even worse. It seemed, for the rest of the half, that the players somehow wanted to consistently and constantly make the wrong decisions in the final third. Wrong passes, not passing when they should, refusing to have a shot when you couldn't ask for a better situation from which to shoot. It was almost torturous in places.

And we were slow. Slow in attack, slow in transition, and slow to react to the Buddies' counter.

We all know what a Stephen Robinson St Mirren team looks like. Stay tight and compact, difficult to play through, and wait for the opportunity to flood forward in numbers. And they made fantastic use of the gaps we left behind.

A breakdown of possession led Freckleton to have seemingly acres of space down our right flank, with Tawanda being out of position having made runs down the right flank. Almost lackadaisical defending from Watt and Koutroumbis, standing off at least 5 yards from their men, allowed a quick interchange with Mandron. The big striker's return ball was half-heartedly blocked by Watt, and fell kindly into the path of Nlundulu. A striker of his calibre will never not take such an inviting opportunity, and the Well found themselves two nil down before half time.

We looked leggy by the time the break eventually came around. Possibly somewhere between the occasion getting to players or 3 games in 7 days where the brand of football we play demands a high energy level for 90 minutes or feeling like we were chasing shadows on the counter meant, to a man, we started making the silliest mistakes yet. Gordon, Watt and Koutroumbis passing straight to a black and white shirt, Longelo seemingly refusing to take Jaydon Richardson on down the left flank - despite having his number with a brilliant trackback and tackle within the opening minutes - and even when we did have the ball, it was 'horseshoe' attack. Sideways and backwards passing with no real threat, idea or joined-up play.

I think I can quantify why this was, though.

With the lineup very much looking like a 4-2-3-1/4-3-3, JBA left out the likes of Regan Charles-Cook and Callum Slattery from the start, suggesting that he wanted to match St Mirren man-for-man in the middle of the park. While this potentially makes sense because you're then less vulnerable to an overload in that area, it directly played into St Mirren's hands.

With the statement of intent from St Mirren set out early - to pretty much bypass the midfield on first contact, and rely on them winning the second ball - the counter from us should have immediately been: keep the ball wide, and get numerical advantage. Just and Tawanda should have been commanding the channels, with Koutroumbis and Longelo bombing on to provide support on the overlap, and Ap Stam either offering runs in behind or floating about the box causing chaos.

In possession, it's always a mildly worrying stat when your goalkeeper has more touches of the ball than your goal source. Context is key, obviously, but the lack of time our attacking players spent with the ball at their feet speaks to a game where we offered very little going forward, and yet still had more than a few vulnerabilities at the back too.

At times, all it took was one direct ball and our back four were running about like headless chickens with no organisation or structure.

The naivety out of possession was off the charts.

Halftime soon came, and a reprieve for Well fans for 15 whole minutes. The conversations were had between us of "what do you change?" and the overwhelming majority mentioned Callum Slattery's name.

Motherwell were first out the tunnel, with the introduction of Stephen Welsh for Gordon being the only change leaving more than a few scratching their heads as to whether it was tactical or enforced.

Nevertheless, we started brightly. As if there had been yet another rocket booted up the backsides of the players by JBA. Passing became slicker - though still miles from our usual standard - and it almost seemed like we could have had a route back into the game.

This was further bolstered by the eventual introduction of Callum Slattery, who seemed hellbent on dragging his team back into the game, almost single-handedly. Although the couple of chances he fashioned for himself didn't ever really test Shamal George, it did enough to galvanise the support behind him and the team, and to spur his teammates on to expect more of themselves.

This prompted Tawanda back into the game, with a couple chances of his own that were agonisingly sklaffed into touch. Frustrating, considering his scoring prowess so far this year, but it felt like the chance was coming.

This hope could've, and perhaps should've, been snuffed out around the 75th minute however.

A decent cross into the St Mirren box was well cut-out by MOTM Gogić, and the resulting long ball seemed to have been dealt with by the Motherwell defence. This was until Elliott Watt dithered on the ball for far too long and was dispossessed by Ayunga. His cutback found Mandron, looking guaranteed to score, until a last-ditch tackle by Sparrow somehow forced the ball to hit the upright.

Motherwell then, eventually, found their way back. A free kick, taken quickly by Just, found Charles-Cook just outside the centre circle. A well-weighted ball found an on-rushing Sparrow whose pinpoint pull-back gave Hendry nothing to do but put the ball beyond George. Jubilation, and confusion, followed.

Jubilation for obvious reason, but confusion because of how simple it seemed. From start to finish of the move it took three passes. And it all looked so easy. So how couldn't we find that rhythm at any other point of the match? All it took was a slight bit of urgency in the buildup, and hitting the Saints before they'd managed to adopt their shape. Rocket science, eh...

Anyway, the St Mirren third and fourth goals were both almost identical so I'll describe them as such. Long ball from George, headed down by Mandron, not dealt with by Motherwell and, all of a sudden, we've gone from having a chance to pull ourselves back into cup contention to... staring into the abyss.

Full time came. Sorrow, sadness, sour taste in the mouth. An opportunity to get to a final not taken, out with a whimper.

Analysis

On the surface this seems like a game that should've been far more competitive. We'd scored twice as many goals as the Saints in the league this year, we'd come into the game with two wins on the bounce to their loss and a draw. And yet, the team going to the final are the team who turned up. Who executed their game plan to perfection and played to their strengths, not succumbing to their opponents.

So where do we go from here?

Well, one option is squad rotation. And the reason for this is twofold.

Firstly, the obvious. We've played 3 games in 7 days. Players will be tired. I can't lie I do hate this argument, considering the fact they're professional sportsmen, but for a squad that is quite thin to the ground in some areas (LB being the biggest culprit), and suffering injuries in the week, this time could be perfect for recovery.

Secondly, I think it'll breed more competitiveness within the squad. Wimmer dropped Tawanda for a couple weeks at the tail end of last year, and I do genuinely think it's helped turn him into the goal-machine he's been so far this campaign. Making players have to fight for their spot again will only be a good thing for the squad going forwards, and it allows players who are more on the fringe the opportunity to prove themselves.

For example, I thought Tom Sparrow looked a player desperate to take his opportunity when he came on at Hampden. With the manager change, and the return to fitness and form of both O'Donnell and Koutroumbis, he's been unfortunate to be left out in the cold, but a well-taken assist and a last gasp tackle to keep it at 2-0 would make a great case for him starting against Aberdeen.

Worth mentioning, we really rate the current Motherwell squad. The below isn't intended to be a pile-on, but an honest assessment of the performance on Saturday.

There's also a deeper point that I'm keen to emphasise here.

This semi-final was Motherwell vs St Mirren. It was not silky football vs haramball. St Mirren did win, they executed their game plan excellently, but that does not mean we're not heading in the right direction. There is also the point that Jens Berthel Askou has had about three months with this group of players and Robinson has had four years. Now, we're not trying to justify the poor performance - far from it. But I think it is worth mentioning to give a bit of perspective.

The football we play is excellent and we've been well worth our plaudits from the pundits this year. It is also true that we have missed an element of pragmaticism in our games and seem to be indecisive in both boxes. If we're going to progress, then these are issues that need to be rectified.

Above is a page from Issue 2 of the fanzine. As we can see, all of these metrics are better than last year. There is, of course, plenty of work to do. The St Mirren match was a sobering reminder of that possession-based football must not result in sterility and passiveness. But are we a club heading in the right direction? Yes, we are.

The new style of play is paying dividends already: attendances, xG, goals scored and possession are all firmly on the rise. The fans are buying into the project. It would be silly to let the semi-final overshadow this, as disappointing it was.

Still, onto the future. There's a huge period of games coming up. We have Aberdeen on Sunday, an international break, then the fixtures come thick and fast with some extremely tough opponents looking to capatilise on our misfortunes. It is imperative that Askou and his staff pick up this group of players before this.

In Jens' letter to Motherwell fans at the start of the season we were asked to keep the faith. It's easy to have faith when things are going well, but when you get a hammerblow like yesterday, it gets challenged.

And that is where you must keep the faith. Not at the highest highs but at the lowest lows. The club is heading in the right direction, as is this squad. We'll see you at Pittodrie.

Motherwell's corteo before the match.