capt_oats

Unless they've change the rules...no. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/36265268

12 years to the day since Pavement played the Barras.

I mean, it's at the point now where I almost respect their commitment to the bit. Heads combusting all over the place in the mentions.

Nah, Craigan ruled himself out pretty early that time around. His name was more around the job when he was caretaker after Baraclough left. Even then he was always pretty arms length about it,

Simo - https://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/15124784.exclusive-simo-valakari-makes-case-motherwell-job-mark-mcghee-exits/ Hughes - https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/motherwell-shortlist-five-in-manager-10031015 Was there not chat that Lasley had thrown his hat in as well?

Something that I'd completely forgotten until the other day when I was looking up the 17/18 season was that we made pretty much the same contract move with Robinson as we did with Alexander albeit Robinson's was a shorter initial deal. We actually extended Robinson's deal after 7 months in the job. When Robinson got the job permanently it was in March 2017 on a deal until May 2018. https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2017/03/15/robinson-appointed-motherwell-boss/ That was then extended in October 2017 to 2020. https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2017/10/13/robinson-signs-extended-deal/ He subsequently signed an additional extension in 2019 through to 2022. https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2019/07/18/management-duo-extend-their-stay/

See, I reckon at the end of season review there are some pretty unavoidable questions. There's going to be some sort of resolution one way or another. The whole 1 win in 15 in the league is the obvious one but beyond that, because the season has been so weirdly polarised there's pretty much zero grey area. Since the winter break we've scored markedly fewer goals and have conceded more (conceding 1.8 GAPG vs 1.35 in the opening 20 games). Regardless of whether everyone's happy that KPIs have been met, the root causes need addressed. It's been said often on here that we're not sacking a manager because of the style of play. However if it's framed in a different way ie: "Dude, 1 win in 15?! What the actual f**k?!" and "how, precisely, do you address that and fix it?" then it really depends on whether we like/accept the answers. To be clear up to the winter break in the league we were: P 20 GF 25 GA 27 PPG 1.55 Number of games failed to score: 4 Number of clean sheets: 6 Post-winter break: P 15 GF 14 GA 27 PPG 0.6 Number of games failed to score: 6 Number of clean sheets: 1 One is legitimate European qualifying form, the other is actual relegation form. The irony isn't lost on me that County have effectively had our season in reverse (1 win in their opening 12, 8 losses) so despite only being a point ahead of us everyone's blowing smoke up the big ol' racist and anti-semite because they've hit form towards the end of the season while everyone and their dug are queuing up to give Alexander pelters because we're very much not in form.

Aye, FWIW my take is he was a relatively successful manager rather than a good one. We actually got worse defensively each season he was there. Our GA columns were: 10/11 - 37 conceded in 21 games compared with 16 in 14 while Brown was there that season. (3rd) 11/12 - 44 (2nd) 12/13 - 51 (2nd) 13/14 - 60 We'd conceded 21 in 12 games by the time he resigned in 14/15 - at that GAPG average it'd have been 66.5 goals over 38 games. That's before you factor in all the other stuff you (rightly) mention. For me, a good manager fixes stuff like the defence whereas he chucked his budget at some very good players and got the benefit of it until he didn't.

"Despite his league finishes, Stuart McCall wasn't a particularly good manager" is 100% a hill I'll die on.

Mentioned on the previous page but here's the video from the official YouTube.

Wait, so I actually posted in this thread...

Aye, I suspected it'd be the case having seen Burrows' RTs about it on Twitter but nice to know we've actively avoided it directly. I have zero doubt that the SPFL thing will fall on its arse as well.

To rewind to the #crypto chat a while back, I just clocked this from Derek after the whole SportemonGo affair. Seems we declined a similar offer at the time.

Aye. Whoever replaces Alexander, whenever that is, be it today, the summer or further down the line it seems unlikely that we'll be suddenly be pivoting to someone who's going to come in with promises of expansive, attacking football - that obviously worked really well for Aberdeen and Hibs this season. Instead, it'll be someone who generally fits the same template as Robinson and Alexander. Broadly that has tended to work. Our league finishes since Robinson's first full season have been; 7th, 8th, 3rd*, 8th and minumum 6th this season (an average of 6.4 over the 5 seasons) along with 2 cup finals, 2 SC QFs and a LC QF. It's something that the usual suspects currently living in the clubs mentions and stamping their feet about style of football probably need to deal with or they're going to just find themselves permanently unfulfilled and raging. Generally for our resources, pragmatic fitba seems to be our bread and butter. Which isn't to say we can't aspire to brief flourishes but the fact is that even when we were Fun Motherwell sections of the support were still furious about something. So it is what it is - you can't always get what you want. That said, I'd still kind of expect the board to learn from this and factor it in to the criteria going forward. In the same way they seemed to take on board the fact that Robinson's perpetual rebuilds and wild turnover of players were unsustainable it's not unreasonable to think they'd look at the current situation and realise that, while not dramatically changing the criteria, they can finesse it a bit.

Aye, he was in on trial with us before he signed for St Mirren. I believe we decided Christy Manzinga was a better option.

Just dropping this in here but Morecame have made Obika available for transfer.

He was a Robinson signing as well.

Mildly amused that in part the answer to "How the actual f**k did this gang make it into the top six?" is "by scudding St Mirren 4-2" (and by having more points than 6 other teams come the split).

Aye, to be clear I'm not advocating for it nor do I necessarily expect it to happen. I guess there's just a devil's advocate position where there's an outcome that suits both Alexander and the club. Not unlike the Mellon/United parting that @'WellDel mentions. Not read the post on SO but is our squad actually that bloated? You can definitely make the argument that he's not using the squad he has available but ironically that's in part what seems to have fucked up our season. We've 28 first team players listed on the first team page of which 2 are out on loan so we've 26 available. https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/squad/first-team/ We had 35 players or whatever last season and Robinson would regularly have 27, 28+ players kicking about on the books with a bunch that he'd have given up on inside a month or two. IMO a normal squad size comes in at around 24 bodies. We're 2 over as it stands. For comparison: United - 33 with 10 on loan = 23 available https://www.dundeeunitedfc.co.uk/team/first-team Aberdeen - 23 https://www.afc.co.uk/teams/1st-team/ Hibs - 26 https://www.hibernianfc.co.uk/squads/mens-first-team Hearts - 23 with 2 on loan = 21 available https://www.heartsfc.co.uk/squads/first-team/playing-squad Livingston - 25 (plus Gary Maley and Marvin Bartley) https://livingstonfc.co.uk/team/men/playing-squad/ St Mirren - 26 https://www.stmirren.com/teams/first-team/first-team-squad Dundee - 30 https://dundeefc.co.uk/team/first-team St Johnstone - 30 https://www.perthstjohnstonefc.co.uk/squads/first-team County - 26 https://www.rosscountyfootballclub.co.uk/squads

I looked it up a couple of weeks ago he's got a job in Finland. Currently top of the league in the Veikkausliga. He seems to have bounced back from his relegation with Tromsø in Norway.

Give or take you can generally profile what we look for: 40-50, some experience - likely with 1 or 2 jobs behind them plus coaching, we generally don't make appointments who have managed at other Scottish clubs and I'm pretty sure you have to go back as far as Davies for a former (or current) player. Of our recent managers Brown and McGhee are really the only ones who don't fit that description in terms of age and experience, although we seemed to go through a phase in the 90s - 00s of giving folk their first management jobs. Understandably we haven't done that since Malpas. Also AFAIK McGhee's the only manager we've had to have 2 stints in the job. Since McLean; (94-98): McLeish -35, Previous club managed; n/a (98): Kampman - 43, Previous clubs; Reipas (?), MyPa47 (?) (98-01): Davies - 34, previous club; n/a (01-02): Black - 39, previous club; n/a (02-06): Butcher -43, previous clubs; Coventry (33.33%), Sunderland (30.23%) (06-07): Malpas -43, previous clubs; n/a (07-09): McGhee - 50, previous clubs; Reading (43.2%), Leicester (31.4%), Wolves (40.9%), Millwall (46.0%), Brighton (28.8%) (09): Gannon - 40, previous clubs; Dundalk (36.1%), Stockport (43.4%) (09-10): Brown - 69, previous clubs; Clyde (33.17%), Scotland u21s (43.18%), Scotland (45.07%), Preston (33.96%) (10-14): McCall - 46, previous club; Bradford (34.6% win) (14-15): Baraclough - 44, previous clubs; Scunthorpe (23.5%), Sligo (55.0%) (15-17): McGhee - 58, previous clubs; Reading (43.2%), Leicester (31.4%), Wolves (40.9%), Millwall (46.0%), Brighton (28.8%), Motherwell (39.8%), Aberdeen (27.4%), Bristol Rovers (26.7%) (17-20): Robinson - 42, previous club; Oldham (21.2%) (21-present): Alexander - 49, previous clubs; Fleetwood (38.6%), Scunthorpe (46.9%), Salford (48.2%)

As I said yesterday a mutual agreement probably sits quite well from both parties POV. For Alexander he kept us up last season, reached two Scottish Cup QFs and got us Top 6. By any measure you'd say that's successful, in terms of the 2022 form when he interviews for whatever his next job is he can point to losing the league's top scorer (at the time) in January. It'd also make him available just at the point where jobs will be coming up in England. From the club's POV one league win in 15 doesn't seem like a harsh sacking. They can point to the form and say that they felt that a fresh pair of eyes was in everyone's best interests going forward. With Top 6 we're not flirting with relegation and also don't have our usual massive squad overhaul for the summer so we'd be interviewing from a relatively stable position and all things considered, 2022 form aside, it's a relatively attractive job. A conscious uncoupling also probably plays well in terms of the ST stuff. The only real issue is the fact Alexander signed an extension to 2025 in January which I'm sure would sting a bit but in the grand scheme of things could probably be managed - especially off the back of a £3.5m profit from the last financial year. The fact we've brought in a lot of his people in support roles is a bit awkward as well. Still be surprised if it happened like... Would be curious to see who might be in the frame given the circumstances and also the fact we have a fairly clear profile we aim for.

I don't think he actually explicitly said "the only jobs I'd consider are Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen" or whatever. Was it not more implied when he was talking about Motherwell having reached their ceiling? He definitely overestimated his stock though. He admitted as much in that YouTube video he did with the Bournemouth fans podcast that I posted in our thread the other week where he admitted he'd applied for that job twice, the first time while he was still with us. The gist of what he said was that he realised taking Motherwell to 3rd didn't have anything like the pull in terms of opening doors he expected.

Basically everything @thisGRAEME said. We got the money for him because there was a ton of potential with him that we saw in flashes. I'd also say that there's probably a bit of context, after he left us he picked up an injury that required surgery in his first training session at Hull. Then the pandemic happened. After the Championship restarted Hull had sold Bowen to West Ham and a bunch of their players chose not to sign interim deals, the upshot was they slipped from mid-table to being relegated. Everything about the move just seems to have stalled his career and as @thisGRAEME says, where Campbell and Turnbull are rolling up their sleeves and making the most of the opportunity it feels like the combination of getting money, moving south and the enforced break when he moved hasn't done anything for him.

Aye, it's across all comps so the fact we pretty much threw him straight into the Betfreds after the Euros probably plays a part in why he's as high. Given all the general conversation about him I was quite surprised to see Slattery is our midfielder with the most minutes. Same thing with Woolery as well.