Motherwell boss names the Hearts statistic that leaves him pleased as he assesses Fir Park stalemate
The Motherwell boss was impressed with his side’s defensive efforts in the Lanarkshire goalless draw.
Hearts were held to a 0-0 draw at Fir Park against Motherwell - and one Jambos stat left Jens Berthel Askou thrilled.
Despite the scoreline, both teams had chances to win the match, with Hearts’ best effort coming in the second half, when Lawrence Shankland’s looping header was acrobatically cleared off the line. At the other end, Alexander Schwolow made a handful of superb second half saves to keep the Gorgie side in the game. The pick of the bunch came against Elijah Just, who found himself one-on-one with the German in the 76th minute, but Schwolow made himself big and was equal to the shot.
In the reverse fixture at Tynecastle, Motherwell dominated for 60 minutes and found themselves three goals up against the league leaders, however, a second half fightback had the hosts comeback to salvage a point. Askou was impressed with his side defensively this time around as they held Hearts to limited chances. He was also happy that his revolutionary footballing style is proving popular with Motherwell fans, in a match that ranked amongst the highest attended in terms of modern-day non-Old Firm records.
Askou crunches the numbers after Hearts clean sheet
The Motherwell boss said: “We are proud and very satisfied with that performance, I think it was a top performance in so many ways. We knew that first of all keep we need to keep Hearts from scoring, because they’re a very, very dangerous team on transitions, set plays and especially when they fill up the box with people and get crosses in. I think we defended all three things extremely well, while we pushed and tried to get forward and create chances for ourselves, and we were able to do that as well.”
After their 2-0 victory at home to Hibs on Tuesday, it’s now back-to-back clean sheets for Motherwell - an impressive feat for a team that plays expansive, open, attacking football. Askou was happy with one stat in particular on Saturday afternoon, as The Well held Hearts to their lowest ‘expected goals’ of the season.
He continued: “It’s very, very pleasing [back-to-back clean sheets] because you know when you play the best teams that a clean sheet gives you a good platform for you to go and win the game. We did our best to do that and that was also why we had the chance and the opportunity to really push at the end of the game. We were extremely good defensively against a really, really good team, who have been scoring a lot of goals in all sorts of ways, from all sorts of angles. Allowing them to only have an xG of about 0.3 is fantastic, and we need that.”
Motherwell ‘creating an identity people can be proud of’
With two of the league’s biggest entertainers on show at Fir Park, 10,939 supporters travelled to the ground, in what was Motherwell’s highest attendance figure in recent memory for a non-Old Firm fixture. The 4,600 Hearts fans in the away end also played their part in generating an uplifting Lanarkshire atmosphere.
Askou is thrilled that his brand of football is helping build a ‘community’ in the town. He said: “Obviously for us it means a lot for us [attendance], but it also means a lot for people to have something to look forward to and go to together as a community, which makes them proud and helps them enjoy good experiences together. That's what we want to try to create with the way we do things
“There are several ways we try to develop this club: first of all creating results and second of all creating an identity which people can be proud of and identify with, which will create some consistency in what we're doing. This will help develop our players into bigger and better players and help create revenue for us in the future.”