What difference does it make what many of us do? The players clearly give everything, as can be seen by the fact we take something from the OF virtually every season.
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We can't just afford to write off six/eight games a season like alot of our support seem to do. As I said, other clubs are able to get better results against Rangers and Celtic than we do all while we meekly shrug our shoulders and basically say "well, we're only little Motherwell, what else can we expect?". It's truly pathetic and it's something that has definitely increased over the last twenty years.
We have become a team full of players that accept defeat gratefully. Today was a prime example nobody appeared angry with their team mates when the goals were flowing in to the back of our net. Our marking of opponents was atrocious at best. Doesn’t matter wether we consider ourselves a big club or a “wee” club to win games you have to get the basics right no matter the opposition
Who's writing them off? Me shrugging it away because I'm more interested in the big picture is one thing, would we have taken points off the OF every season for goodness knows how long (other than the interrupted last) if the players did the same? Of course not.
I absolutely don't mind them chucking it at 3-0, the game is done, we're coming out of a testing period for the legs and there's more important things to come...it's what professionals do the world over.
You "shrugging it off" is writing it off whether you choose to see it that way or not. You are effectively saying that you don't consider games against the Old Firm to matter because of the difference in budget. In other words, you don't think it matters what happens in these games and you have your ready made excuse about budgets and size of clubs to support your point. It's by no means just you who has this outlook, several of our support and within our club seem to have it too. As I said, this is just giving the players a pre-made excuse to turn in gutless performances like we saw today.
Again I ask who within our club? Because they clearly turn up for OF games on occasion otherwise we wouldn't sometimes draw, lose narrowly to much better players and even - very occasionally - sneak wins.
Nobody truly knows what our problem was today. It might have attitude. It might also have been that it was our fifth game in 15 days and a vastly superior team - with the aid of some breaks in the box - killed the tie by half-time.
I know which I consider more likely and therefore I'm definitely happy in shrugging it off because there are - quite obviously - bigger, more important games to come in defining our season.
When we beat the OF I'll be thrilled but unless we really do something outrageous, the context around these games means I just don't see the point in getting as wound up as you, and others, do.
Here's my stab ... if we've now accepted we ain't gonna win, or even put up a show against the bigot bro's, why don't we play the reserves, suck up the 5hit, but give our 'good' players a rest to then play the other diddy teams like ourselves? A solution that goes against my gut, but if it means we gain more points it's good enough for me.
I don't want to name specific individuals as I don't know for definite, but I have my suspicions as to who within the club are very much behind the "we're only a small club, punching way above out weight" mentality.
We are the only provincial club as far as I can see that openly talks of being "a wee club", which they do, through social media and in the past in programmes and fanzines. There is a collective mindset in the club and certainly the support that basically sees us as one of the smallest clubs in the country and its a miracle that we are in the top flight at all. It is no coincidence therefore that while other clubs the same size as us have won trophies and quite regularly beaten Celtic and Rangers whilst we have failed to do the same in that timescale. There is this mentality within the club and it inevitably rubs off on players and managers and it is telling that our last three victories against Rangers have came when we had relative 'outsiders' in charge. Baraclough in 2015 and Robinson in 2017, just six months after he'd taken over. Robinson was a breath of fresh air when he first took over because he didn't appear to subscribe to the "punching above our weight mindset" but sadly it's clear that he's bought into it more and more as his tenure has continued.
As I said, I don't expect us to compete with Rangers or Celtic over the course of a season, but what I cannot accept is how we just shrug off pitiful displays like yesterday with the ready made excuse of bigger budgets. It's just not good enough.
You don't want to completely tonk your goal difference incase it's needed later but I'm certainly not against a fair bit of rotation for these games, depending on the schedule. It does put more pressure on the next game though, we did it at Celtic in 2018 and subsequently produced a dismal showing to lose the next game to...St Mirren, I think.
I don't follow everyone else in that much detail any more but there's plenty of realism that I see from fans and players/staff at other clubs as to their position in Scottish football.
It's definitely a shame we've not won anything in so long but alternatively while others have won things - often with slices of luck almost comically large - some others are on an even longer drought than us.
Despite this, we have been incredibly consistent instead and have a record which stands comparable to most city clubs never mind our provincial peers. We've been in the top three seven times since our last trophy and reached another four finals plus however many semis...I just find it bizarre people make broad sweeping statements about 'losing mentality' because we didn't benefit from a defender playing volleyball on the line (ICT) or Celtic missing a dozen sitters (Killie) when it mattered.
The vast majority of clubs our size have won zero to five or six titles in over 100 years of trying. If you think that this is down to attitude, mentality or whatever that's up to you but for me it's just the reality of what Scottish football is when you have two absolute giants, a few city clubs then nearly 40 minnows of various sizes living off scraps - of which we are, obviously, one of the most successful.
I don't love having a meh season by any means but I accept that in our situation they are unavoidable because there is no way ourselves, Killie, St Johnstone and goodness knows how many others can all do well at the time. So instead I look at how we're doing long-term and in medium windows of, say, three to five years, and keep the toys in the pram when it's our turn to have a bad one.