PLZ Soccer › Watch › The Football Show › Celtic News
The Football Show · 11 October 2026
"Today we had four players from last season in the XI." Alfred Johansson after Motherwell 0-2 Celtic at Fir Park: only 34% possession for one of the league's top possession sides, why Willie started ahead of Ibrahim Said and Tawanda Maswanhise ("We believe that we picked the right starting XI today"), and one win in nine for a younger, rebuilt squad with 11 new players and players still adapting to Scottish football.
Transcript of Alfred Johansson Post Match Interview:
The stats going into this match, Motherwell are one of the top clubs for possession. That didn't materialise today. Are you worried about that? Is that a growing trend?
Today we have 34%, I believe. Against Dundee we had 60%, so I don't see that comparison between games.
Said and Maswanhise haven't been able to feature. Is there a particular reason why they haven't been able to convince you of a starting place?
Today is just, I think, from the last couple of weeks, how we've been seeing it in training. We believe that we picked the right starting XI today. And that's why Willie played. He's been working really hard, looking much better in training in the last couple of weeks. So that's why. It's a competition for the spots, and we went with Willie.
How concerned are you with the team's form in general? It's just one win in the last nine games.
Yeah, I mean, obviously that's tough, right? I mean, it's tough. We knew this start to the season, we knew that it was going to be a tough period, because it's a big change when you have 11 players coming in, and at the same time you have many injuries in the players that actually were playing last year. So I think today we had four players from last season in the XI, so we knew that that was going to be difficult. We also are younger now than what we were last year, a couple of years younger on average in all the games that we played. And that inexperience, together with the fact that we also have players that then come from other parts of the world that need to adapt to Scottish football and the UK. So obviously we knew that it was going to be difficult parts of the first part of the season, and we're in that moment right now.
Play PLZ Predictor - win a car or £10,000: https://bit.ly/plzpredictor
Martin O'Neill after the game: https://youtu.be/rMICqZtu0M4
Peter Martin's pre-match live from Fir Park: https://youtu.be/1RUa2WeKcJE
#MotherwellFC #Motherwell #Celtic #ScottishPremiership #PLZSoccer
PLZ Predictor · Scottish league tables · Scottish football news