No excuses as Motherwell are blown away before the break
DON’T be fooled by claims of a secret ‘agenda’. Don’t allow yourself to be blinded by the deflection tactics or the blatant distortion of reality.
With Motherwell badly in need of a guiding light, Mark McGhee looks capable of leading them nowhere other than further up the relegation cul-de-sac.
When McGhee reflects on this shambolic defeat, he may struggle to comprehend the ineptitude of a group of players whose belief in their manager was not overly apparent.
Motherwell were awful here. Trailing 5-1 at halftime to a rampant Dundee side, some fans didn’t bother sticking around for the second half. Others decided to march straight outside and stage a protest against the beleaguered manager.
This shellacking means that McGhee’s side now have the worst defensive record in the Premiership — and by quite a distance. It also came hot on the heels of a 7-2 thrashing at Pittodrie and McGhee admitted last night that his team are now slap bang in a relegation battle.
Granted, he was hamstrung by the absence of some key players in defence. Stephen McManus, Richard Tait and Steven Hammell were all absent.
At 23, Ben Heneghan and Joe Chalmers were the elder statesmen of the back four yesterday. Zak Jules is 20, while Jack McMillan is even younger at 19.
But that cannot be used an excuse. The way the Motherwell players gifted Dundee the freedom of Lanarkshire to pretty much score at will in the first half pointed to a team badly lacking in guidance and direction from their manager.
Take nothing away from Dundee. They were excellent, with Paul McGowan and Henrik Ojamaa both highly influential. Marcus Haber also scored two good goals.
Paul Hartley has tinkered with his system over the past couple of weeks and it has worked a treat. There is a real shape to Dundee now since ditching the 3-5-2 for a 4-2-3-1.
Unsurprisingly, Hartley named an unchanged lineup from last week’s victory over Rangers and it took only seven minutes for his side to be gifted the opening goal in a big claret-and-amber bow.
Kevin Holt’s corner was cleared only to the edge of the box.
Cammy Kerr chipped the ball straight back into penalty area. Jules completely lost his bearings and, running backwards, looped a header over Craig Samson and into his own net.
Motherwell equalised on 22 minutes, with Louis Moult finishing from close range after Heneghan had won a knockdown header from Chalmers’ free-kick.
Surely — surely — the goal would restore a little bit of confidence in belief into a Motherwell side who haven’t won at home since November 19. Well, no. Cue the capitulation.
McGowan’s dink to the back post was headed down by Mark O’Hara. The loose ball was snaffled by Haber and he was far too strong for Jules; tossing the young defender aside, turning and shooting low across Samson into the bottom corner: 2-1.
Then came the goal of the afternoon on 32 minutes. After exchanging passes with Ojamaa in some lovely build-up play, McGowan threaded a clever pass to O’Hara on the edge of the box. He rifled the ball past Samson: 3-1.
Ojamaa, who is on loan at the Dark Blues from Dutch side Go Ahead Eagles, had an excellent game and would later leave the field to a standing ovation from both fans, a nice gesture to their former player from some otherwise scunnered Motherwell fans.
An elusive presence operating in the hole just behind Haber, the little Estonian cut the ball back for Craig Wighton to thump home from the edge of the six-yard box: 4-1.
McGowan was pulling the strings in the heart of midfield for Dundee and came within inches of the goal his performance deserved when he curled an effort only inches wide of the post.
By this point, the score could have been anything Dundee wanted it to be. They were running riot. Wighton floated a free-kick to the back post and Haber, totally unmarked, headed his second of the afternoon on the stroke of half-time: 5-1.
‘I was surprised we were 5-1 up at half-time,’ said a delighted Hartley.
‘But I thought out performance was absolutely first-class.
‘We have an exciting young team and it was really important for us to go out and show the result against Rangers last week wasn’t just a fluke.
‘We are playing some brilliant football just now and long may it continue.’