capt_oats

I mean 2 of our biggest performances last season came playing a back 3, it's a shape that gets the best out of our captain, we've signed players who play as #10s, both McGinn and McGhee are "versatile" players and the manager spoke post-season about looking at changing the structure of the team but OK. Don't get me wrong, looking to solve defensive issues by bringing in a defender from the only team in the league to have conceded more goals than us is a quirky approach but still... Fwiw (in the event McGhee signs):

Out of curiosity, did McGhee ever play in a back 3 for Dundee? Also, I didn't realise that he was born in EK.

Vaguely related but I noticed this from Burrows in response to one of his reply guys who is "Concerned about the early signing philosophy, no longer players to be developed and sold…a lot of good things off the pitch just nothing on it so far". God grant me Alan Burrows' patience etc...

Yeah, that's the impression I got, which is why I asked. Like I say, given we've lost both O'Hara and Donnelly from the squad it wouldn't be a huge surprise if we'd taken a look at McGhee as an *option* but chucking money at Dundee to get him is a completely different conversation. To that point, is there a chance McGhee has some sort of relegation clause or agreement with the club that would make it easier for him to move for a more nominal fee?

Is the guy that mentioned it on TDBF not a bit of a shitehawk? I notice he's replied to a guy saying it's not something that he's read but instead he's "been told" that we're "sniffing about". Any time I've taken a dip into that forum he seems to have been swinging his dick about something. Tbf, someone like McGhee would kind of fit in with the trend Spittal/McGinn trend we've seen ie: relatively experienced Premiership players and as you say he's versatile which although we have Barry Maguire for that sort of role we've also lost both O'Hara and Donnelly so it wouldn't be massively surprising if we'd taken a look at him. It's been mentioned a fair bit on this thread but our squad is pretty stacked at the moment and there's probably not that much room so being honest I'd say that it feels like our priorities at the moment should probably be a centre forward and an actual midfielder.

There they are...

I suppose the announcement of the B team cup fixtures and Burrows suggesting the Reserve league is restarting begs the question - who's taking the B/Development Team? Kerr alongside his role with the 18s? It was obviously the position Ross was in previously but what with that tier having effectively been mothballed/binned through the pandemic we've not really had to replace him (albeit Lasley seemed to have filled his role with the 1st team). Then again, Alexander suggested that we were still in the market for a coach when he spoke to the press the other week. Which makes sense as at the moment the first team coaching staff consists of him, Lucketti and Dibble (plus the assorted S&C types).

We've got EK at home. Annan at home in the 2nd round should we qualify.

Unused footage that would have really got the mumsnet crowd worked up on Motherwell Twitter.

See, the first thing i thought of was that there was a pre-season video published of McGhee taking the team out on bikes along the Clyde canal but looking through the archive on the MFC YouTube I couldn't find it. Turns out they've made it private. Footgolf is still there though...

Fair play. He's aged a fair bit in a fortnight.

Who dat?

I mean, it depends where you're looking I guess...

Picked up (and bought) the new away shirt earlier. Size-wise I found it pretty much the same fit as last year's. I didn't need to size up or anything. I've generally been a L in Macron shirts and the L of this one was fine for me although I also tried an XL just to check the difference. Anyway. It's very nice - good job everyone. In other news, Austria looks nice.

The other thing that's super obvious is that for a lot of teams some of their coaching/medical staff double up with both first team and reserve team. I don't think there's really much appetite for the costs of effectively having to run two distinct teams.

I was getting the same message but it seems to have been an issue on Ticketmaster's side. I just tried logging in again and it's worked for me.

I quite fancied Carey for us when we binned Polworth. Even now I wouldn't have minded him as an alternative to Goss tbh. It'll be interesting to see how he gets on.

Slattery on the socials is it?

The attempt at a reserve league rebrand was a half arsed shambles championed by "it was better in my day" type morons.

Pitch update.

f**k all to do with Motherwell but fair play to Morecambe for taking shots at the shitey wee Twitter account that posted (then deleted) that their boy had signed for us.

In fairness, I've no idea of the technicalities but a bunch of our Academy players were announced as having signed pro-terms the other day and a fair number are currently 15. https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2022/06/24/ten-2022-23-academy-graduates-turn-professional/ Then of course we had the announcement that Rangers had signed Bailey Rice (also 15) yesterday. https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2022/06/30/rice-leaves-to-join-rangers/

Donnelly's a weird one in that I'd have been absolutely fine with him sticking around but equally him moving on felt like a completely natural parting of ways. Robinson signed him as a centre half but didn't play him (quelle suprise). The gist seemed to be that he'd struggled with the strength and conditioning aspect and just generally struggled with adapting to the physical side of the Scottish game. The result was he was regularly picking up knocks - he only made 7 league appearances that season (6 starts, 1 sub). 2nd season he found a niche in the team as a midfielder with Ally Gorrin having left. He slotted in well alongside Polworth and Campbell - although the season was curtailed he finished our joint top scorer on 11 goals. 3rd season his knee fell apart after the first league game and that was that. Season a complete write-off, he didn't kick a baw again in 20/21. 4th season Robinson had resigned the season prior, Alexander pretty much admitted that on reflection he'd pushed Donnelly a bit too hard in pre-season and it meant he missed the opening months. Then when he did get a run in the side it coincided with our form sailing wildly off a cliff. I think that's the rub, he has the appearance of a defender who wants to be a midfielder and has some (but not all) of the qualities to play in there. He worked in that role because Robinson's midfield 3 was a bit looser and probably leaned more on the things Donnelly is good at and benefitted from Allan Campbell, whereas Alexander's set up exposed him a bit more and didn't have Allan Campbell. Either way, he's currently in and around the NI set up and IIRC was their record cap holder at u21 level with 24. He's a useful player to have around the squad and tbh, if McInnes figures him out then he'd be solid first team player. I noticed big Christy has just signed for a team in Hungary the other day (to be clear it was a story on Cedric's IG that made me look rather than me following Linfield's Twitter).

To that point, it's probably worth noting that a number of our first team signings last season didn't happen until mid-July. Slattery was 24th July, Ojala was 29th July and Goss was 26th August. Johansen was 31st August. Which I guess brings us full circle to your original point of there's a chance they won't be in for Austria.