Livingston v Motherwell

Well what a disaster this afternoon’s game against Livingston turned out to be.  The visitors won 5-1 at Fir Park to send Motherwell deep into relegation trouble.

Algerian striker Khaled Kemas made his Motherwell debut, and was partnered in attack by Dirk Lehmann.  With Partridge suspended, David “Prince Harry” Cowan joined Martyn Corrigan in central defence and Scott Leitch returned to the midfield, with Stevie Ferguson dropping to the bench.

It was Motherwell who made the better start, and both Adams and Lehmann passed up early chances to open the scoring, so when Livvy took the lead after 9 mins it was completely against the run of play. From around 30 yards, Makel drove the ball into the top left-hand corner to put the visitors 1-0 up.  Despite this, we continued to have the upper hand but created very little upfront, and the closest we came to equalising was a long range effort from Lasley which was well saved by the Livvy goalkeeper.

Into the second half, and everything fell apart.  First, just a couple of minutes after the restart, Lasley lost possession and allowed Toure-Maman to run unchallenged to the edge of the box, where he managed to lob a static Steve Woods despite the goalkeeper being only a couple of yards off his line.  Then shortly afterwards, a schoolboy error by Hammell was capitalised upon by Dadi, who fed Cherif to make it 3-0 from close range.  Believe it or not, we were still dominating possession at this point and finally got some reward when Kemas volleyed home spectacularly with 10 mins remaining.  However, any hopes of a fightback were short lived as Livvy ran up the park to make it 4-1, with Bingham lobbing the ball over Woods in a carbon copy of the visitor’s second goal.  Then Xausa made it five in injury time, although I had long since left the ground.

I don’t really know how to sum up today’s game.  I’ve certainly seen us play a whole lot worse than this, and we dominated possession for long periods of the game, but stupid mistakes and a complete lack of a goal threat cost us dearly.  Without McFadden in the side there is no imagination or creativity, and sadly the midfield today were simply muscled out of it by the opposition.  We are badly lacking a “hard man” in the middle of the park, and Scott Leitch certainly isn’t the answer as he is far too old and too slow.  As for Steve Woods, I think I’ve said everything there is to say about him in the past so there is no point in repeating myself.  A very ordinary Livingston side have now taken 6 points off us this season.  Next week’s game at Partick is even more crucial and one we simply cannot afford to lose.

The winner of next Wednesday night’s Aberdeen v Motherwell CIS League Cup tie will be at home to Hearts in the next round.  David Partridge will be available for the trip to Pittodrie, but will then sit out the Partick game next Saturday due to suspension.

Time for a new opinion poll!

Should Steve Woods be replaced when the transfer window reopens?