Dundee - 24h on

[Footymad]

Motherwell came through the ***** double header against St Mirren and Dundee with six points and a welcome boost to the team's confidence. The manager gained an inch as the weight came off his shoulders. - External Link

[dasdeid]

The emergence of Turnbull has quite possibly saved Robinson’s job.
You wonder who else is ready to step up and could’ve saved us pissing away wages on Donnelly, Taylor-Sinclair, Gorrin and Sammon to name but 4 who have contributed absolutely zero! Literally thousands of ££££ per week for guys to not even fill the bench, but the stands or the treatment table!

The lack of quality up front is killing us. We knew last season Main and Bowman was never going to be good enough to lead the line and 2 league goal between them doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.

Shan't take credit for post as one I copied from Steelmen Online but one I totally agree

[LawSteelman]

This week has been absolutely massive for us. We needed six points out of six and we've got that, albeit against the two worst sides in the league but had we got anything less against those sides then we were in serious, serious trouble so credit where it's due.

In David Turnbull we finally seem to have found something we've not had in God knows how long - a midfielder who can take a shot from outside the box and that's the difference it makes. When you have someone like that in your side you always have a chance of pulling something out of the hat and that's what happened yesterday.

The above quoted post is spot on, especially regarding the poor recruitment and our striker options. In Main & Bowman we have two forward players who would probably make a decent foil to a goalscoring striker such as a Louis Moult, a Michael Higdon or a Scott McDonald, but neither are goalscorers themselves and neither can realistically be expected to be. Sammon is a waste of a jersey and while Johnson has showed promise, it appears that he is not rated by the manager for whatever reason.

[Handsome_Devil]

I've no idea why it took Robinson so long to change to a back four or pick Turnbull but both have helped massively. We can hope for better in the week's ahead but plenty of work is still needed - as said, most notably up front. Robinson's striker signings have been little short of dismal overall.

[texaco cup]

Agree with the above posts. Turnbull has been outstanding let’s hope we don’t burn him out. I would take a gamble of playing Main with Johnson, using Main as hold up player in central attack position and tell him to position himself in the opponents area more. Johnson could do the running. Bowman in last few games has found himself in good goal scoring positions but his final shots have been like passbacks. He is also picking up one or two bookings which could hurt us later in the season so having him sitting on the bench could be a wise decision. Also have to mention that I thought Grimshaw had a good game yesterday and covered every blade of grass.

[LawSteelman]

This season so far we've seen first of all a front pairing of Main & Sammon which the least said of, the better. Then we briefly had Main & Johnson which fared slightly better with Johnson scoring three games in a row and Main putting in arguably his best performance of the season (Rangers at FP) before Bowman returned and we reverted to the partnership from the second half of last season. And a penalty, a worldy and a deflection apart it's just not worked, so it's clear we are short of options, though why Johnson is benched when he is clearly the only one who offers something a bit different if nothing else is a mystery, but we need to do all we can in January to bring in a goalscorer.

[Handsome_Devil]

we certainly need to try.

But Robbo's record on attacking players, as far as I can remember, is:

Main: great start, poor since April. Possibly a player there somewhere in right circumstances.
Tanner: we'll call him an attacking midfielder mainly, took a bit to settle then did well before injury.
Petravicius: a cheap gamble but awful.
Fisher: disaster, at least we binned him quickly.
Newell: another cheap gamble which has shown little sign of working
Ciftci: some nice moments but didn't work out
Johnson: average if you're very generous
Sammon: awful
Bowman (re-signed): awful

You could call Tanner a success(ish) and Main, given his contribution last season, shouldn't be written off yet. The best you could say about the other seven is that they've been cheap or we've ditched them pdq...that's an absolutely shocking balance. I seriously can't remember any other manager having such a poor record in one area of the team like that.

We obviously can't stop trying to sign better strikers but there's little to suggest January will bring improvement...

[wellin]

It's obvious if we had someone who could put the ball in the net we would be a few points better off. We have four strikers but no matter what pairing Robinson puts together it doesn't work out. That is a position that needs to be sorted in the January transfer window. The emergence of Turnball is a major boost and possibly we could promote from within if we have someone from the reserves that can put the ball in the net. Lets hope we can push on a bit and put a few more points on the board and make it a little more comfortable in the coming weeks.