We won't be having a Blue, Blue Christmas! || Motherwell 1-0 Dundee
- Marc Christie
- 3 minutes ago
- 4 min read
The air of anticipation high at Fir Park as the Well prepared to face Elvis' blues. Thankfully, there will be no midwinter Blues in ML1 this year!
The Well went into this game looking to further extend our unbeaten run to 10 games (something we haven't done since 2013), extend our clean sheet run to 6 (our longest run since season 2013/14, and something no non-old firm team has done since 2018) and close the gap to Celtic in second by 2 points (as they play Aberdeen Sunday 21st). A win and 3 points would also see us push above Rangers back in to third (as they play Hearts Sunday 21st). A state of affairs that if you offered to the Well faithful at the start of the season, we'd have laughed at you. And yet, here we are. Our previous match saw us draw 0-0 with the other half of Dundee, so we hoped to carry on the defensive solidity, but improve in the final third.
As for the visitors. they looked to overturn a run of 3 without victory. In their last 10, the Dee have lost 7, drawn 1 and won 2, but one of their victories came against Celtic. Despite that, they've still been on the end of two 4-0 defeats in there too. A win, and other results going their way, meant the Blue half of Dundee could start to climb the table and away from the bottom. Dundee's last outing saw them draw 2-2 away at Livi, with the Blues leading 2-0 before conceding an 85th minute equaliser.
The Line-ups
The Well made a few changes to the side this week. Out went Stephen O'Donnell and Tawanda Maswanhise (away on AFCON duty with Zimbabwe). In came Regan Charles-Cook and Emmanuel Longelo. With a spot available on the bench, academy graduate Aaron Thomson was named in the matchday squad for the first time. Formation wise we sit in the faithful 4-2-3-1.
As for Dundee, the shape remained the same with a 4-5-1, but the personnel differed from their encounter with Livingston. Out went Ryan Astley, Paul Digby, Ethan Hamilton, and Simon Murray. In came Imari Samuels, Callum Jones, Finlay Robertson and Ashley Hay.
Same old story?
The first half largely followed a tale that we have been used to seeing from the Well of late. Dominance with nothing to show for it. 66% of the ball, limiting Dundee to only 1 shot (not on target), meanwhile the Well had 3 shots on target (with 4 off). Slattery had a few chances, and came close from inside the box, after a great ball from Longelo. A flick from Slattery saw the ball hit the side netting. The Well mixed up some long ball passing alongside the usual short play, however accuracy seemed to be a little off across the board. The Dee nullified us largely, but we still feel aggrieved to have not made the sheer dominance count.
The future is unwritten!
The second half seemed to be a potential repeat of the first for the Mighty. All the possession again, albeit with Dundee coming into the game more (54% to 46%), but the Well were far more creative. 4 shots on target and 3 off, compared to Dundee's 1 shot on and 1 shot off. Thankfully for the Well, one of our shots eventually hit the back of the net.
In the 82nd minute some great play on the wing from Longelo, Said and Watt found the latter free on the wing. Watt swung a cross in with his left peg, and found an unmarked Slattery. Slatts headed it towards the near post, and beyond the flailing Jon McCracken. 1-0. And by the score line a tight game, but another game of domination where we just had to sneak it. Back to winning ways, and into third, where we will remain for Christmas with other results going our way.
Now we've spoken about the stats per half, but overall, what do the starts tell us about the full 90?
It seems like we write pretty much the same thing every time we analyse the stats, but they tell the story really. All the possession, more passes, more shots. Our earlier comment of the passing seeming a little off in the first half looks a wild take considering the % accuracy for the full 90, but even then, we are used to high 80 to 90% pass completion, so a 84 is a drop in comparison (which again, is a wild take, we are aware).
The one stat which we have seen get various mentions recently on your usuals (Clyde SSB for one) is reference to our goalscoring, which also drew a slight mention from JBA. JBA mentioned this season we have scored 26 league goals in our 18 games so far, mentioning that not a lot of teams can say the same. Indeed, only Hearts (36), Celtic (29) and Aberdeen (28) have scored more than us. But the comments made on recent media outlets have said if we had a "proper goal-scorer" we could be far better off. Now, these comments sit fairly in the middle for us here at The Dispatch. On paper, we have the 4th most goals in the league, sit 3rd, and have 2 players in the top 10 goal scorers (Tawanda Maswanhise and Apostolos Stamatelopoulos, with 8 and 6 goals respectively). That's not even to mention our next highest goal scorer is a left back (Longelo) with 4, or that Tawanda is only outscored this season by Lawrence Shankland (who sits with 9 currently).
However, I think we have all sat at one point and said "imagine we had a 20 goal a season striker in this team", "imagine we had a Higdon/Moult", etc. Again, this is in no way a slight on the current squad or players we have, as without them we wouldn't be where we are currently. But these stats from today's match, the Dundee United match, the Falkirk match even, do bring these arguments to light more frequently.
Anyway, that is perhaps a piece for later...
