capt_oats

That's kind of it for me. Like, I recognise that as a fixture it was the real derby but it's something that's such a 70s & 80s throwback that grown men losing their shit about it just channels a heavy 'old man yells at cloud' energy. As @well fan for life says never has a meme been more apt.

I'm just saying that it's down on the books as a draw. They won a bonus point with the pens.

Here's Alexander talking about Slattery and what type of midfielder he is. So...Campbell's replacement then?

There was a Twitter thread on the go last night with some boy who was absolutely furious that some Motherwell fans didn't seem to give a f**k about losing to Airdrie in a glorified bounce game of a competition that we ended up qualifying from top of our group because rivalry and how-very-fucking-dare-these-so-called-Motherwell-fans shrug their shoulders. Don't get me wrong, if we hadn't qualified it'd have been a colossal failure (given our record at this stage of the competition - we didn't lose a single group game on Robinson's watch) and would have made our strategy look quite foolish. A large part of us not exactly being convincing has been down to a very obvious change in approach to this summer and the knock on that holding off on recruitment has had on account of players picking up injuries. I don't think any of the 4 group games saw us start with what you'd consider our preferred starting XI. Seeing the usual suspects working them into a shoot about stuff that's really quite self-explanatory and obvious is some trip.

That's what interests me as it suggests that Alexander has perhaps decided that none of O'Hara, Maguire or Crawford (thank f**k) are suitable options to play in the CDM role. Which really only leaves Donnelly for that job based on the bodies we have in the building at the moment. By extension it kind of opens up a question of, if we're still bringing a few others in, does that have a knock on for the likes of O'Hara and Crawford as you'd imagine we'll be our Donnelly and Slattery will be making up 2 of our starting midfield 3. Greg Marshall had us definitely needing a starting level CDM in his scouting report and quite frankly, who am I to argue there. Also...

Popping this in here and deleting the post from last night with The Sun screenshot because f**k The Sun. Anyway, yes...it raises some interesting questions if we've shown an interest/been looking at Odoffin.

As @dezz says, over the Betfred games we've looked genuine relegation shouts. Getting scudded by Airdrie is as much of a minter as you can get. At the same time, not once in any of those games or the two bounce games we played have we started with what you'd consider to be our best XI. There are players who we've still not seen anything of (Mark O'Hara picked up an injury in the first BCD game vs Dumbarton, Connor Shields picked up a muscle injury the other week, Liam Grimshaw's still not right after his glandular fever from the start of the year and Bevis Mugabi is rehabbing from a shoulder injury). On top of the injuries and mix and match teamlines we've still a pile of players to bring in to address the obvious deficiencies and we've clearly been using the LC groups as pre-season. So barring the 2nd half against QoTSA where we were 2 down and actually had to try we've pretty much been playing in 1st and 2nd gear. That's before you factor in doing stuff like playing a wacky 343 as we did yesterday. So it's a massive ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ in terms of how things will pan out this season. On the face of it Alexander seems a perfectly fine manager. He's sitting on a 48% win rate at the moment and took over when we were bottom of the league in January and had us finishing on the same points as the best St Mirren side in 30 years and from Alexander being appointed we had the 3rd best points total/form in the league behind Rangers and Celtic. So that's something. Of the team with the good form we've lost Gallagher, Campbell, Polworth-ish (he fucked it and barely played under Alexander but we still miss that type of player) and Cole. But retained Kelly. Which is nice. All things told this feels like a massively transitional season for us. We seem to be trying to address the frankly ludicrous turnover of players we've seen by dishing out 3 year contracts like sweeties and it appears we've taken a bit more time with recruitment and moved away from Robinson's approach of signing up anyone who might "do a job" on a 1 or 2 year deal and dealing with whether they're good or not after they've signed. Like most years anywhere between 5th and 8th with the bonus of runs in both cups would be absolutely fine tbh.

Burrows' reply guys are generally a mess but he addressed that point here.

Oh, absolutely no argument on any of that from me. It feels like that's been the trade off for waiting to get these players in. There's a big picture aspect to it but it doesn't make stumbling through LC group games, getting scudded by Airdrie and being up against it bedding an XI in for early season games anything other than unedifying. I fully agree that we could be doing with adding a couple of experienced pros. I was just meaning that it's kind of tough to judge EPL Academy players on first team games given that if they were playing first team games for their parent club we wouldn't be anywhere near them and in the case of Slattery his development loans seem to have been stunted firstly by the pandemic and secondly by an injury. With the caveat that I haven't seen either play Slattery feels quite similar in profile to Luke McCormick who we were linked with earlier in the window. Same age, same height (apparently), roughly same sort of position, similar club background (Chelsea vs Southampton), both loaned out to League 1 clubs last season and both in a similar place contract-wise (both had a year left to go on their deals). The main difference between the two (in terms of profile) is McCormick at the same age has 50 first team appearances at League 1 level (Shrewsbury and Bristol City) and 42 of those came last season whereas Slattery only has 17 first team games under his belt. To put it into perspective and touch on @Swello's post above, Slattery's the same age as Campbell was when he left. Campbell had 160 first team games to his name.

Oh...he has his own thread on Southampton's forum. I've not read it all so it may end up just saying he's pish. It seems he was their B team captain though. https://www.saintsweb.co.uk/topic/56887-callum-slattery/ Also, he was tipped to have a breakthrough season by the BBC in 2019 alongside Max Aarons, Phil Foden, Mason Greenwood, Mason Mount and others. So there's that... https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49057145

I think there's a certain amount of latitude you have to give EPL academy players on that front. I mean, he made 3 league appearances for Southampton in 18/19. Went out on loan for the 2nd half of 19/20 (which as we know turned into a shitshow on account of the 'rona). Then went out on loan to Gillingham for the 2nd half of last season but picked up an injury: That bring us up to date and him pitching up here with a year still to go on his deal at Southampton. If you factor in Premier League 2 games (and fair enough if you don't) it doesn't look quite as sparse.

If it helps he's wearing a #10 playing for England. #numberpolis

Well...that's a question. Going by FM21's page (I know, but there's not a lot to go on given he's not played a lot of first team football)...it appears he's best as an attacking midfielder. However, going by this report from Football League World (again, I know...really there's not a lot to go on) this is how he was described while he was on loan at Gillingham last season: So who do you believe? FM21 or Football League World (or Steve Evans being able to play him in his best position).

From The Athletic's Southampton guy...

Tbh, I think that Coventry Telegraph article explains the gap in his appearances relative to his age: He moved to Terek from Young Boys in 2015 so...that injury was a while ago and by all accounts he made 25 appearances for Vejle last season. As you say he's 32 and while I'm not a keen follower of Danish football (or at all) I'd guess he's more a squad option for Vejle. Otherwise I doubt they'd be fine with one of their players jumping over to Lanarkshire for a trial. https://www.bold.dk/fodbold/nyheder/medie-vejles-ojala-proevetraener-i-skotland/ To that point though, I saw someone on Motherwell Twitter getting bent out of shape about how "we have done well over the years making big money on players and making large profits on them, its time we started re-investing that money in the squad properly to improve us than bargain basement freebies who are let go by clubs for a reason!" Aside from a massive eye-roll and quick 'mute' from me it's worth pointing out that Kelly was still contracted to QPR and in this case big Juhani is still contracted to Vejle. Like, part of the reason we're it's taking longer to get players in this Summer is because players who aren't "bargain basement freebies" are more difficult deals to complete and on the face of it that's what we're trying to do rather than go with Robinson's strategy of filling the squad early with "bargain basement freebies" who were good enough to take care of lower league opposition in July but who he ended up having to chap up the board in January to replace.

Aye, I haven't listened to either of them in a long time and I was a regular listener to the Richardson-era Football Weekly so all this was kind of news to me. Going by this Muddy Knees Media who produced all the Totally... pods (Macintosh was a co-founder) sold to The Athletic in June last year.

Initially I thought it was maybe just a bit but then realised it probably goes back to Macintosh setting up The Totally Football Show and taking James Richardson and a bunch of the other Guardian Football Weekly regulars with him before selling up/out to The Athletic.

On the face of it Ojala ticks all the boxes as a Gallagher replacement: International? Experienced? Right sided? As far as I can see he hasn't done time for leathering a boy's skull with a baseball bat but I'd say that one's probably optional rather than a requirement and tbh, top flight experience in Denmark, Switzerland and Russia along with playing in the Europa Group stages (and CL qualifiers) is probably a fair trade off for him not having had a Gallagher-style "career break". This one's for @crazylegsjoe_mfc...it seems your boys Coventry were interested in him a while back: https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/sport/football/football-news/who-coventry-city-target-juhani-11736885 I know some folk don't get too hung up on this but it's something I definitely think is a thing, should big Juhani sign going by his Transfermarkt he's a right footer which would still leave Lamie (and nominally McGinley) as the only left footed option(s) at CB. Mugabi, O'Connor and Devine (I think) are all right footed as well. Either way, assuming he does sign up I'd say that there's still room for a left sided CB that's not Lamie and preferably good in the squad. Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part but Alexander was talking about needing at least 4 or 5 to add to the "senior" group. Since then we've signed our boy Mich'el on a 6 month deal and has been heavily managed in terms of expectations of where he fits in the squad. Hopefully that means we've still a good few bodies to add specifically in midfield but with some spare change numbers-wise for the defence as well.

It seems he played for Simo at SJK as well.

He's 32, 6ft 2" with 32 Finnish caps his last was in May this year against Sweden. He's captained them before as well. Last (currently?) seen playing for Vejle BK in the Danish Superligaen. From 15th July: https://www.bold.dk/fodbold/nyheder/medie-vejles-ojala-proevetraener-i-skotland/

I say this having not read much about any other injuries etc but rather than dropping Crawford in there to replace Cornelius is there not an argument that we'd be more likely to go: Lawleff Donnelly Maguire Woolery VanVeen Watt

Aye. I was busy with my actual job yesterday morning so I've missed all the post-Airdrie fall out. I doubt I've much to add other than we were always running this risk by taking our time with the signings and having massive fucking gaps in our defence and midfield not to mention actively treating these group games as pre-season. Say what you like about Robinson's signing policy but we never lost a LC group game under him (in fact prior to Wednesday the only group game we'd lost was the very first one against Rangers in 2016). Here's the quote from The Record: "at their other clubs"? Hmmmm...so they're not free-agents then? I mean, calling them "brilliant" additions is setting us up for a fall. The Thread will be the judge of whether they're "brilliant" or not thank you very much.

Kenny Millar would beg to differ. "Tailor made for the game here" remains one of the great shouts. He was all in on him for a while. Bought all the Zak Jules stock going.