Motherwell Overcome Morton After Extra Time

Motherwell secured a place in the fifth round of the Scottish Cup with a 2-1 extra-time win over Greenock Morton. LINK

Despite him scoring the winner .. Donnelly was ineffective for 119 minutes of play !
He was once influential but lacks pace and void of any creative play.
He is not alone and add to players could easily dispose/bench for similar reasons, i.e. Amaluzor and Grimshaw

It’s time to introduce recent signings on a regular basis for consistency, otherwise WHY sign ?

Donnelly isn't supposed to be a creative player though, not really, his mental spell of penalties and thunderbolts in 2019 aside. He's there to break up play, help the defence when needed and play simple passes to the folk who are supposed to do the creative stuff. He certainly wasn't great yesterday but even he had played well it wouldn't have solved our problem.

If we want to attack as a team, you can say every area failed yesterday. Given KVV's injury record, it was arguably fair enough to protect him given the fixture list but that meant the front three was a total experiment. The only positive is there's no doubt a back-up number nine is needed with Watt gone. The midfield was an appallingly cautious choice against lower league opponents, two defensive water carriers and Goss, while a touch more creative with crosses, is hardly dynamic. And finally the much-maligned full backs, whose quota of crosses into the first man/the stand on the other side of park must have been above 90%.

It's been said over and over again but we're simply not a team set up to have possession and break down an opposition happy to defend. We might grind it out with a set piece, long shot etc but it will be a slog and if we don't get a gift or a wee bit of luck we're really going to struggle.

I will say this - with Roberts' goal last week and Donnelly's on Saturday, it looks as if the players have been doing some shooting practice - that can't hurt!!