I might get flak for this, but I think we've taken a big step back.

There's obvious markers in our league position, goals for and goals against that show this.

The standard of performance isn't as good.  It just feels boring, and stale to me.  No excitement or ambition in the tactics.  It's safe, dull and unexhilarating football.

Goodwin doesn't seem to be prepared to learn from mistakes or poor performances/results and he seems to have taken good players and made them bang average at best, whilst hanging some players out to dry for no apparent reason.  I don't think he trusts the players enough to go out there and let them do their thing.  I get the impression he's a micromanager and a not so good a micromanager at that.

Aside from another season experience in the Premier I can't see any progress at all.
There are arguably a few players like Fatah and Iovu who have looked better as the season has gone on, but the vast majority could be argued have gotten worse.
Remember back to the start of the season when we had a raw squad but could see potential talent in there to play good entertaining football.
Now look at the season as a whole it has been utterly dire, even last night last home game against a relegated side absolutely no style or expression to our play., just more turgid, soulless shite.
Goodwin can do the usual PR self preservation saying it's not good enough and expecting better but I can't ever see him or the coaching staff getting us to play any kind of decent futba.
Past angry just can't be bothered with any of it anymore.

It’s been a bit of a vanilla/ luncheon meat season.i read on X that our average finish in the 21C is 8th so the stats back up that it’s been an average season.

JG will get another season but if we’re sitting here next May in the same position that will be it for Jim.

It’s all down to recruitment, good players win matches poor players lose matches .

The football was turgid last season, but it brought rewards, it was slightly less turgid on a few occasions this season and we showed we can play, that's were the frustration comes in.

With a big rebuild it was a tough task, we're the 6th biggest club so on paper 6th is the target and hope take advantage of 'bigger' clubs slipping up, then 3rd,4th,5th isn't a million miles away.

What threw a spanner in the works is Hearts going from rotten to revelation, Falkirk being the surprise package and nobody saw Motherwell doing what they did.

It has to be and has to get better, look at the amount of draws we've had, especially from winning positions, 14 draws, lose 7 of those you drop 7 points, but turn the other 7 into wins and it looks a lot rosier. Depending on where these come it elevates you into the top half and beyond just hoping for 6th.

I'm pleased we've done some attack minded business early, i'd much rather we concentrated on the back,3,4,5 and keeper now. 

Goodwin got us up, kept us up comfortably, twice, but he'll know there's a bit of discontent in the fanbase, he's been ruthless before, not afraid to bin popular players, I hope he approaches recruitment with that same mindset.

He's probably under no pressure from above, but the fans aren't as forgiving, i'm on the fence, wouldn't cry if he left, not sad if he stays, but c'mon Jim, let's kick the ball a bit more forwardly and be a a bit faster with it.
 

As the summer signings started to arrive I felt increasingly positive that we were in for a very good season.

The 2 games against Rapid reminded me a bit of our great Jim McLean sides.
Particularly away in Vienna, that goal from Watters and that fabulous early turn and goal from Sapsford for our second. Amazing scenes up in the United section.
We were brave on the ball fantastic off it and very unlucky not to go through at Tannadice. Nevertheless my feeling was we were making PROGRESS and my confidence was lifted for the season ahead.

The league results didn't bear out that confidence but as Amar Fatah started to fire up in hindsight it was papering over a lot of cracks. Despite a period of devastating attacking football at Easter Road we capitulated in the end to a 3-3.
Looking back that type of disappointment was going to be repeated time and again.

It was obvious pretty early the 3 at the back and only 2 in the midfield was causing us dropped points.  3 at the back isn't necessarily bad but unless you're Real or Barca you need 3 midfielders.  So arguably 352 could have delivered more points.  He never tested disappointing back 3 performers eg Bert by trying them in a back 4. The slavish adherence to 343 cost us many points over the course of the season.

But for me the biggest negative has been the lack of cohesion, style/flair, the inability to keep the ball, work with it, create with it. We are clueless, hence our over reliance on long throws and corners.  That's the mark of poor coaching.

Good coaches improve individual players, good coaches make a team better than the sum of their parts. That so many of our players have gone backwards technically under Goodwin, that some have lost form under Goodwin, fallen out of favour under Goodwin or failed to develop under Goodwin all bears out the argument that he and Lee Sharp don't know how to coach players, how to deliver well coached football.
Another concern is the sheer number of our players who get injured with strains, hamstrings and other injuries consistent with conditioning which might be the result of bad training procedures. But that's a gut feel and I'd have to see our results in that area compared with other clubs in the league, maybe we're not unusual.

If PROGRESS has been made it is that we consolidated in the League, and will have slightly less player churn this summer. The remaining foreign players will have a better understanding of what the league demands but it's hard to think of other measures of progress. We've been increasing our support impressively year on year but will that continue.

Last edited by redford_must_score (13/5/2026 11:33 pm)

I personally would like us to go down the Motherwell route and develop a style of play that was both entertaining and gets results and  I wouldn’t have a problem if it takes a couple of seasons to get there as long as we did see progress ( and top 6 finishes 😁) each year. Also like to see recruitment/ development aimed at sustaining that goal.
Not too much to ask is it.