capt_oats

Aye. Sloth is the obvious one if we're talking about straight mutual-ing. The usual move is to find a taker and not stand in their way Alex Fisher style.

HNY lads... In a move that should be a surprise to absolutely no one...

Alluded to it on your thread the other week but given how short we are in the forward areas and also the fact that 3 out of 4 of Hammell's signings in the summer were former players I'm kind of surprised that we've not been linked with him already. That's not me advocating we sign him btw but if we're talking about short term fixes then known quantities or guys we've regularly scouted who are out the picture at their respective clubs feel like our market right now. Did Murphy take the huff with us? Maybe I missed it but he's a former player who's never really seemed to have been linked with a return given he was loaned out to Hibs and Burton whiled he was at the **** and obvs ended up at Saints in the summer.

Unsurprisingly Agent Scotland gets it wrong (we've actually won 8 games).

Aye, I get that KVV isn't for everyone and yes he takes our pens but he's currently on 11 in 22 for this season and 22 in 61 overall. He's 5th top scorer in the league. That's pretty good all things considered. I mean, some of Moult's goals were penalties as well. Even in saying that, we asked him to play through injuries last season and it feels like we've been running him into the ground this season as well. He's currently played the most minutes of any of our outfield players.

Bowman had that thing with his heart while playing for Shrewsbury and ended up having surgery over the summer. No idea if that's a factor in him not playing regular 90 mins like.

It wouldn't be wrong. Quite the opposite. It'd be quite correct. I suppose the argument I'd make here is that the issues we have at the moment are very different to the issues we had in the first half that season where we had Sammon and Main up front and other teams in the league had worked out how to play against Robinson's Thunderdome side. The shouts that we need better players are, of course, also correct but it's had not to look at us just now and feel that a couple of players who could offer a bit of "leadership" in the mould of yer Tait, Aldred and Hartley would make a difference if they were dropped into our starting XI.

Archer was a free agent when he signed for us on a permanent and it was only ever intended to be a short term thing. So his move to Middlesboro was when his deal was about to expire and we thought Carson was back fit. Chances are we'd already told him his services would no longer be required at the end of that contract. He moved to QPR from Boro. Penney's situation is a loan. He has a club until the end of the season at least. If he moves on it'll be Ipswich that will have to sanction it. Devante Cole (the first time) is probably the better comparison to Penney just now in that we had a short term loan deal that expired in January. We wanted to extend but Wigan chose to sell him on to Doncaster or at least let them take over the remainder of his contract.

On the topic of what/how many we need in January here's a list of those unavailable last night from the first team squad of 22 outfield players we've had since the close of the summer window: Carroll Mugabi Johansen McGinley Blaney (unregistered) Efford Moult Morris Aarons (loan cancelled) Fucking LOL.

If you want to go back a bit further this Tweet was lifted from one of Nixon's Patreon stories.

This is kind of where I am. I mean for anyone trying to say that this is worse than a team with Samson, Super Joe Chalmers, Craig Clay, Lee Lucas and Zak fucking Jules in the cast...granted that side had Ainsworth, McDonald and Moult but sorry, I'm not having it. Just naw. This squad is light. There are decent - good players in there Kelly, SOD/McGinn, Penney, Slattery, KVV while McKinstry and Tierney have the potential to be *good*. What we're missing (IMO) are the McDonald types who set a standard and raised the game of those around them along with the Hartley/Aldred type. It's been discussed to death but we have no depth and no options that are going to allow us to change a game. We have guys who should be perfectly fine squad players starting week in, week out (*waves at Conor Shields*) because we don't have alternatives As soon as he got the gig Hammell was clear that we needed to add to our forward options because the ones we had weren't up to it so we brought in McKinstry, Aarons and Moult. One of those has already had their loan cancelled after his leg exploded (again) and another has only managed 238 minutes of football (and is back at his parent club). Basically if they were needed when Hammell got the job then they're still needed now because 2 of the 3 haven't been available. The worry I have is that Ricki Lamie has somehow Jedi mind-tricked his way into convincing everyone at the club that he's someone to build a defence around or that Blaney is somehow being viewed as a solution rather than a project. The crumb of comfort I have is that Penney has been a genuinely good pick up and he wasn't a former player or someone that Hammell had any association with (AFAIK). If we're able to bring in 3 or 4 of a similar level (CB, #6, CF and winger plz) then it'd have a positive knock on with the rest of the squad.

Tis the season...

Aye. This is nowhere near the worst Motherwell side but unless someone actually takes some sort of ownership of things then we're fucked. As it stands Hammell's had 18 league games in charge and his record is marginally better than the Jan - May 22 run that saw folk lose their minds over Alexander. GA (Jan 22 - May 22) = P 18 W 3 D 6 L 9 Pts = 15 SH = P 18 W 5 D 3 L 10 Pts = 18 There are obviously mitigating circumstances with Hammell in so much as he was parachuted in 2 days before the season started, has a paper thin squad and we've a laundry list of injuries which have now apparently been compounded by illness. That's...fine but the January window opens at the weekend so it's on Hammell/the club to do something about it. Even if it's short term fixes the window is open and the issues around the squad have been known for ages. Without wanting to come wide have we actually seen any individual improvement in players under Hammell/Kerr in the same way we saw with say Cole, Watt or even Lamie's redemption arc under Alexander. For avoidance of doubt that's not me arguing for GA, we were well shot in the end and his position was untenable but it does beg the question of what the f**k we're actually doing just now. As @thisGRAEME said last night whether or not they were actually worth extending or not we lost the likes of O'Hara, Donnelly, Woolery, Roberts etc over the summer and simply didn't replace them. Quite possibly through choice because we wanted to reduce the size of the squad. We've a centre forward who's on 11 goals in 22 games this season which is good but he's literally our only option for that position. We're asking players to play through injury and illness regularly. I mean, that was true with KVV last season as well when we were asking him to play with one functioning arm. Incidentally this is a good point from Nick McPheat: When we hit a slide with Robinson there was a general feeling that he was prepared to blow things up and make changes whether that was bringing Hastie back from Alloa, getting Gboly in and going 433 instead of Murderball or whatever. Right now I don't get the same impression from Hammell. Like, clearly I've no idea what he's like in the dressing room or generally but his post-match script of doing good work in training and we need to defend better started getting old a while ago. I noticed he's modified the line to getting players in "as quickly as possible" now. So that's something. Like others I don't think it's a given that we're down and a routine 3-0 at Ibrox doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know. It's definitely fixable but it absolutely needs someone to actually acknowledge the fucking problems and do something about them. I mean, if we've spend the entire season up to now talking about not being "clinical" enough in the defensive third and our solution ends up as signing a boy from the LOI because he scored a worldie of a free kick against us in July then...f**k me.

Bold move posting that before we rock up at Ibrox with a team held together with sellotape tbf.

8 wins. I mean it's not exactly new information. Our league record after the break in January through to the end of the season was: P 18 W 3 D 6 L 9 Our record this season is: P 17 W 5 D 3 L 9 (soon to be 10 losses - for context though, as I type, we've lost the same number of games this season as Aberdeen(9)).

No. We've only played 17 league games this season.

This was us December 31st last year.

I don't disagree but ultimately if the discussion is about the state of the squad then the fact the board didn't have confidence in Alexander bringing in the right players so chose to not back him but keep him in position is a contributing factor to the current situation as much as it is about GA. IIRC we made an approach for Callum Hendry as well as the players we did manage to get in. As far as the extension goes if you take a swatch at the thread around that point most (including me) were happy enough with it. His record in 2021 was exceptional and I don't think anyone saw him going rogue in the way he did. You live and learn. You can absolutely justify the route that the club took given the sharp turn sideways from February onwards but equally (IMO) there's no getting away from that fact that choosing to let it play out as we did has had a direct impact. Is it fixable? Sure. It needs someone to take control of things and admit where we've fucked up and deal with it though. Going back further to the summer of 21/22 Flow did a pod with the MFC Podcast and outlined to change in recruitment strategy, which was all fair enough. From that, I got the impression that this season was meant to be about consolidation and there was never any intention of having significant player turnover. Someone who was actually there can remind me but there not the suggestion at the AGM that we were only anticipating bringing in "5 at the max" during the summer? Was that direction coming from the club or Alexander or both?

Here are the ages of the youth players who have been around the first team this season: Lennon Miller (16) - debut against ICT Kian Spiers (18) - debut against St Mirren Luca Ross (16) Mark Ferrie (17) Ewan Wilson (18) - on loan at Albion Rovers Max Johnston (19) - on loan at Cove Rangers Broadly agree with that but I don't think all of the blame lands at Alexander's door. The point @Casagolda made a few pages back about either backing or sacking Alexander is on the board and we seemingly did neither and left it until the decision was academic and his position was untenable. For me there's been a strategy in place to trim down the squad. Essentially we've wanted to run with a smaller squad compared to where we were with Robinson in order to allow #YoungMotherwell to fill the gaps and here we are... We have an first team squad of 20 eligible outfield players and as of Friday night we had 6 out injured (Carroll, Mugabi, Johansen, McGinley, Efford, Moult). As you say, this is our current squad - we're picking from the same pool of 14 outfield players. As I've said, I don't think we're the *worst* team in the league but we have absolutely zero depth and finding ourselves in the position where we're relying on Conor Shields week in, week out is a problem that is largely of our own making. The worry I have is not only whether Hammell can address the areas that need fixed but also whether he has the clout to get the deals over the line. 3 of his 4 signings in the summer were former players but I suppose the positive is that the one who hadn't been here before has actually been good.

Tbf, even when he was with us that was his game rather than him being eye catching in the same way that say, Turnbull was. Dig back on this thread and you'll find plenty of shouts saying that players like him are ten a penny down there and he wasn't a Championship level player etc. As it goes, he's turned out to be one of Luton's best players and key to how they function. With the way Luton play, they're set up to press and chase. With his skillset he's a perfect fit for them.

Wee Al still down there doing it...

Aye. That feels so wildly obvious in terms of us needing an experienced, reliable right-sided centre back and St Mirren having apparently packed his bags and left them at reception for him to collect. It's an idea that was floated on this thread earlier in the season and it got a pretty lukewarm reception (and as everyone knows this thread dictates transfer policy at the club). I'm not sure if circumstances have changed folks thoughts in that respect. As others have said, it feels like a pre-injury Peter Hartley or Tam Aldred being dropped into our back four would change things massively. A captain, leader, legend type would be nice and the fact that we cut Juhani Ojala loose on deadline day but didn't replace him still feels slightly weird (whether there was a deal in the works that fell over IDK). Tbqh, I still need to be convinced that Hammell actually sees possible solutions to what we need right now because a development project from the LOI definitely doesn't feel like it and there's a chance we're looking at the fine margins and thinking things will "click" or whatever. Basically... (Narrator: it was not fine)