This is an excerpt from this week's McGarry on Motherwell, a free Motherwell newsletter written by Graeme McGarry that goes out every Thursday at 6pm. To sign up, click here.
The celebration from Tawanda Maswanhise after he had risen like a salmon to bullet home his late header at Dens Park on Saturday was perhaps only surpassed by that of the McGarry family, as me and my boys were a pictured in various sports pages making a right old spectacle of ourselves.
Ach, I suppose it wasn’t my most embarrassing contribution ever to Scottish football journalism.
Anyway, the cathartic roars from the Zimbabwean told a story deeper than the simple value of the goal in securing the three points for the 10 men of Motherwell, a strike that ensured Premiership football will be played at Fir Park for the 41st consecutive season.
Maswanhise’s situation at the club since the arrival of Michael Wimmer has been an intriguing one, and has angered seemingly thousands of his countrymen, who are about ready to launch the German over the Victoria Falls if the social media replies to his recent starting XIs are anything to go by.
It was interesting that from early on in the game at Dundee, Wimmer was in deep conversation with Maswanhise at the side of the pitch, pointing out areas of the park where he presumably had identified there was space for him to come on and exploit.
Having switched to a back four during the game to great effect the previous week against St Johnstone, it was something of a surprise to see Wimmer revert to the three from the start at Dens Park.
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But he clearly didn’t like what he was seeing from his men in the first half, and his in-depth chats with Maswanhise were a sign that he was ready to shake things up at the interval once again.
What also fascinated me as a I tried in vain to hold together a rapidly disintegrating macaroni pie was that after a minute or two of the half time whistle, Wimmer and assistant manager Ahmet Koc appeared back in the dugout, having presumably said their piece and left the players to sort it out amongst themselves.
It worked, with Motherwell putting on a vastly improved performance and being thoroughly deserving of their win, even after going down to 10 men and benefitting from VAR, erm, correctly ruling an earlier Dundee goal out for offside.
Incidentally, had it not been against Motherwell, then of course I don’t like to see the technology butting in and ruling out spectacular strikes like the second one from Antonio Portales.
But Clark Robertson was offside, and motioned towards the ball. The refereeing team would have been savaged by their superiors had they not followed the rules, which aren’t rendered null and void just because someone has subsequently rattled in a thunderb******.
Anyway, I digress. The point I want to make here is that not only did the team look fitter and stronger than they have in some time, perhaps down to the more intensive training that Wimmer has spoken of implementing, but Maswanhise as an individual looked hungrier and more motivated than he has of late too.
There is no doubting his talent. I spoke to him for this newsletter back in January, not long after he had scored a brilliant goal against Rangers in the 2-2 draw at Fir Park, and he also seems to be a lovely lad.
But his goal against Dundee was just his second since that strike against Rangers in late December. He netted against Aberdeen the following week, then failed to find the net in 12 appearances. What’s more, since Wimmer’s arrival, he has started just two matches.
Granted, there was a bit of disruption as he travelled to represent his country during that spell, and he has had the odd niggle, but he was seemingly dropping down the pecking order under Wimmer, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that the manager may have been making a point to his player.
Wimmer would never explicitly name individuals, but when I met him for a one-to-one a few weeks back, he had spoken in a general sense about the need for his players to work hard every day if they wanted to play in his side. When I gently pushed him on who he may be referring to, he said simply ‘look at the teamsheet’.
When Wimmer spoke about Maswanhise after the win at the weekend, he said: “In the last couple of weeks he has worked much better in training.
“I think of how important JT could be for the team, and how much quality he has, as he showed today.
“Hopefully the penny has dropped, and this is now our JT, and we will have a lot of fun with him.”
One can only hope. Given the lack of attacking creativity that has been evident within the side for spells this season, and the imminent departure of Lennon Miller, Maswanhise could be a key player going into next term.
If he wants to get that move back to the top level that he spoke about in this newsletter previously, then he is going to have to work for it. As Wimmer has now made clear to him, to even get into his Motherwell team, talent alone will not be enough.
Hopefully, both the player and the team can reap the benefits of the way that his manager has handled him from this point on. And the presence of my daft mug will be restricted to my byline photo.
