Alfred Johansson is confident that Tawanda Maswanhise will soon be back to the levels he showed for long spells last season, though he says his diminishing goal return has been a result of a lack of a service, rather than a crisis of confidence.
The Zimbabwean international had a stunning campaign last term, ending the season as the Premiership’s top scorer with 17 goals to his name, but he has now scored just twice in his last 17 league outings stretching back to the beginning of March, and has found the net only once so far in Motherwell’s opening six matches.
But rather than laying the blame for his form at the door of the individual, Fir Park boss Johansson says that the solution to getting one his star men firing again lies in the improvement of the collective, and in making up for the absence of some of the teammates that made Maswanhise’s job a lot easier last season than it has so far proved in this.
"The team needs to play better,” Johansson said.
“That's the answer. So last season you had, if you just look at statistics, if you go a little bit deeper than only goals and assists, if you look at the players that were producing attacking threat for Motherwell, it was definitely JT [Maswanhise], it was definitely Manny Longelo, for instance. But it was also players like Elliot Watt, Eli Just and Callum Slattery.
"These players were contributing heavily to final third entries and to through passes and smart passes and many other attacking threat metrics that we can measure, which will then provide, for instance, JT with situations with much better conditions to score goals.
"And that was not built last season over the course of a month or two. That was something that was developed throughout the season. And after a while, then it clicked. And then you see the end product by looking at the tally of JT.
"But JT himself cannot score goals for Motherwell. So JT, we have to analyse him within the context of 11v11, within the team. And if we can play a better build-up, if we can be better when we turn between lines and accelerate the game with runs and passes with fluidity, if we can have a better offensive structure in the opponent's box when we finish the attacks, if we can press better, if we can defend long balls better, then JT will score more goals.
"If we play better, then he will play better and he will have more end product, as simple as that."
Johansson is certainly hoping that his team play better than they did in the 4-0 thumping at the hands of Aberdeen in midweek when they travel to Dens Park to take on Dundee this afternoon.
It has been a promising start to the season overall from Motherwell under their new manager, and Johansson doesn’t feel that the severity of that loss will dent the confidence of his players in what they are doing.
In fact, when looking back on the rocky start that Jens Berthel Askou had in terms of results last season, Johansson believes that his team are further along in their journey than that Motherwell side were back then, and that their example shows the value of looking at the bigger picture.
"I was not feeling at any moment that we are the finished product,” he said.
"I was not feeling at any moment that our build-up was super consistent in the way that we wanted it to be.
"I've seen since day one that the effort and the commitment of the players have been so high. We've gotten some results, good. We've gotten some results, not as good as we want. But it's really a team that will grow over the course of the season and improve the relationships and everything.
"Expectations are there in football, right? So obviously if you look to Motherwell's last season, that was superb, ending fourth. And that created expectations, which is something that I'm very used to. It's something that I think is a good thing. Because expectations, if you don't like it, then you should change sports or do something else than elite sports.
"But of course, it's the emotion, the feelings of people will go up and down with the results, right? That's how it is. And it was two weeks ago how much praise we got for the Dundee United game. And before that, how we approached the European campaign and the Hibs away game and so on. That's how it works.
"And that's something that we just need to be really good at coping with. Not getting too carried away with ourselves when things are going well. Or not being too down when we lose a game.
"Because, like you mentioned, last season there were many difficult moments in the beginning of the season. And this season maybe started much better than last season in terms of results.”
In fact, Motherwell could have gone bottom of the pile around a month or so on from this point last season had they lost at Livingston, but they barely looked back after Just’s last minute winner that day.
“You mentioned a game in October, right, where if you lose that game, maybe they were drawn into the bottom three,” Johansson said.
“And that's not where we are at this moment. And that's not where the club ended last season.
"My job is to, when it comes to development and performing, have a focus here and now. In the next training, in the next game. That's my job, to help the players. But I also have a responsibility to not get affected by the results of the game, and to zoom out and to understand that this is a project that needs time to develop.
"And people can hate to hear that word, time. We just want to win and so on. That's what we want as well. But the way to win games, how do you win games? Is it just random? No, it's not. You need to follow your strategy.
"And in football the strategy is the style of play. And you need to follow that and you need to become really good at your strategy. Really good at your style of play, so you can execute it with a lot of bravery, confidence and strong mentality on matchdays.
"And you will hit bumps in the road, right? So that's not a problem. The problem will be if you can't cope with that, if you can't take that. But I'm not afraid about that in this group. I love this group of players. And it's a lot of untapped potential.
"So we will keep on working no matter what. And we'll try our best to make sure that our performance on Saturday is on a higher level. And then we will see after the game what is the result."
