capt_oats

Obvs already being discussed but here's the blurb. Board re-structure and a new fund-raising initiative to be announced in the New Year.

Unrelated to our current manager I see that's Grezza won 5 on the bounce with Bradford. Currently sat on 71.5% win with 5 wins in 7 games. His trend of good starts continues apace (he didn't last long at MK Dons but he still won manager of the month when he was just in the door).

I think you’ve maybe misunderstood or confused/conflated some posts. The St Johnstone game that a number of people have referenced recently was last season - a 2-0 defeat at Fir Park that effectively marked the beginning of the end for Hammell where it was obvious to everyone that the players had chucked it/Hammell was done. Although, having said that coming off the back of getting scudded 3-0 in Dingwall it’s pretty clear that the game against them at Fir Park the other week was significant.

I get the frustration certainly but I wouldn't say I'm perplexed by it. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that it's entirely on brand for how the club tend to carry themselves in these sort of situations (and I don't mean that as a dig - genuinely). Generally speaking we tend to give managers the opportunity to dig themselves out a hole and we'll only act as a last resort - whether that's because of the optics of not wanting to be seen as a "sacking" club or whether we're just really nice folk IDK. Either way, the only manager I can think of that we've bulleted quickly and not given time was Baraclough and I'd guess a large part of that was down to him not getting buy in from the players. All the rest of them whether it was McCall, McGhee, Robinson, Alexander, Hammell and now Kettlewell had bad runs and were given the opportunity. Two of those resigned, McGhee still got games after being scudded 7-2 by Aberdeen, Hammell was allowed to sign 9 (NINE) new players in a January window and carried on until his position was legitimately untenable. Given Kettlewell went into this season with a 70%+ win rate, having kept us up comfortably I'd say he had a fair amount of credit in the bank - which you'd think he's long since used up.

Again, to be fair, it was Robinson who made that decision. He resigned - it wasn't a sacking. The story was that much like McCall we were open to keeping him on board. Speaking of whom...here's his run up to his resignation (ironically those 2 wins and a draw mean he had accrued more points (7) than Kettlewell in his 14 game run (6)).

A new manager.

FWIW: this is the run of results that led to Robinson's resignation.

No wins in 14 (and counting) thank you very much.

I have nothing against big CareBair but it's an absolutely shocking attempt and you can also add me to the Big Wilko would have scored a couple of those chances gang. Ultimately I suppose the point is that we're not losing games. If, after the County game, we'd gone into the sort of spiral we saw hit Hammell after the St Johnstone game at Fir Park and ended at Starks Park in the cup then I have no doubt Kettlewell would be gone but while you can argue that we were within minutes of losing against County, St Johnstone, Celtic and Dundee...we didn't. It's an arbitrary number but here are Kettlewell's last 10 results: These were Hammell's final 8 plus the 2 Cup games: To be clear that's not a pro-Kettlewell post but I guess it's probably a tougher decision to bin a manager off the back of draws than it is a series of losses (including one to a lower league club).

In fairness, we’ve emptied plenty of managers mid-season and generally we’ve got the timing correct and it’s proved to be the correct short-term decision. I mean, sure but you’d think the previous 13 games would factor into the decision rather than it hinging on that singular moment.

I'm kind of in the same place tbh. I agree 100% that in the current football culture we're doing well to get 3 seasons out of a Motherwell manager. Like, I'd still be surprised if he's our manager at the end of the season or even if he does manage to finish 10th or above with his contract up at the end of the season given our form is it likely he'd be getting a renewal? IIRC the season the wheels fell off for McGhee with the run including the 7-2 at Pittordrie and 5-1 against Dundee he's expressed an interest in sticking around but confirmed the board at the time had made no indication of offering him a new deal (and we were mid-table at the time). As I've said before Kettlewell feels very much a transitional figure for us - a guy who's dug us out a hole and overseen the "difficult" decisions in trimming the squad. He's effectively cleared the decks for whoever the next guy is. I think the hesitation I have in terms of sticking or twisting with Kettlewell at the moment is that I genuinely don't trust those making that decision to appoint someone who'd improve us. Especially in the context we have at the moment of the two losses in the last seven or 1 in the last 5 depending on what what you look at it - obviously the no wins in fourteen is a big picture thing but in terms of recent form it feels like things could just as easily break for Kettlewell as against him. It'd be different if I thought there was an obvious, outstanding candidate to drop in but as it stands do I necessarily think jobbers like Gary Bowyer or Simon Grayson would do a significantly better job than Kettlewell is currently doing? I don't think his recruitment has been that bad, I think we have the guts of a good team in there but regardless of him trying to walk things back the other day the fact it took circumstances outwith his control to force him into getting Gent and Davor into the starting XI doesn't reflect well on him and in terms of the scenario @ropy mentioned, I'm still not convinced he'll make the right choices when the various injured players return.

I see Spittal's missus gave birth yesterday. The club just shared his IG post. Congrats and everything. You couldn't really blame him if his mind was elsewhere like.

Mentioned this in the match thread just there, not necessarily in a happy clapping way more just as a counter-point to the whole form situation - that's us only lost 2 of our last 7 but equally we've now drawn more than any other team in the league. Tbh, stating the obvious but losing to both Livi and County have kind of fucked us at the moment since wins in both those games would have us sat comfortably mid-table on 22 points (not that we deserved to win either but that's not really the point). Could've, would've, should've/aunties, uncles, baws etc.

On the point about it not seeming like a performance that would be followed by a sacking, it's maybe worth mentioning as well that we've now only lost 2 of our last 7 but we've drawn more than any other team in the league.

September at Tynecastle. The last time we won a game innit.

Aye. From way, way, way on the outside that's the impression I get. To be clear, my post wasn't a dig at the specific people or the suggestion that had Jay and Derek been on the panel we'd have come to a better decision than giving the job to a candidate with literally no first team management or coaching experience. It's more that the language attributed to McMahon feels a bit disingenuous if you're presenting the idea of representation or inclusion of the WS in decision making when in actuality in talking about "the directors and the Well Society board members who sat on the panel" he's talking about the same people who exist on both boards.

Without wanting to continue the WS pile on, I had revisited the quotes attributed to McMahon when I was writing one of those big daft long posts that kind of touched on a point I think @Handsome_Devil made the other day about the same people being on both boards. I'd never really thought of it at the time but I take it the WS board members who sat on the panel were Feeley and Dickie who are also directors of the club rather than folk like Jay and Derek?

It also means that Blaney now knows he's guaranteed a run of games for the foreseeable since he's our only fit left sided defender. Also...

Casey out for "six to eight" weeks.

He posts some of his writing up here: https://thoughtsfromthefoothills.com/ As @well fan for life says, absolutely fair play to him.

Related to that Mundial post I see Grimmy has written a piece on Tait in the new Nutmeg.

Actually agree with this and I was thinking that yesterday. The whole vote of confidence approach more often than not just leaves the club looking flaky. It's a fluid situation, we could've released a statement with the best of intentions backing the manager on Monday and genuinely meant it then get battered by St Mirren on Saturday and feel we have to act. I agree strongly with @crazylegsjoe_mfc's point in their post yesterday that if you don't trust a manager you have to get rid of them but equally everything has a tipping point and I don't think publicly backing yourself into a corner really helps anyone. That said there has to be a middle ground between Dave Cormack pitching up on Radio Scotland with his Data defence of Stephen Glass and the stoic silent situation we seem to have at the moment where we say nothing and wait for that final straw. I guess we had that balance with Burrows who even if he wasn't talking directly about the big stuff directly was both visible and present so you had an idea of our general direction rather than the current empty space. That doesn't mean they have to take Burrows' lead and engage with every reply guy on Twitter regardless of whether they're a Motherwell fan or not. Even briefing friendly journalists and giving them a steer as to what's going on would be a good start.

I see there’s a Bois feature in the new issue of Mundial.

Posted it earlier in the thread but this is Simo's managerial record.

It's a classic. Absolute nail-on-head post from @Handsome_Devil btw. One of the more interesting things with the Kettlewell situation for me is to what extent the club are invested in Kettlewell (if they are at all). By which I mean (without any disrespect) he's always felt like a more temporary or transitional figure in so much as he has/had no previous connection with the club beyond his short time as LDC so there's none of the legacy baggage that Hammell had and equally he wasn't an external hire in the same way Alexander was. You could see why we'd be willing to give both a longer leash. Ketts was parachuted in to dig us out of the hole we'd got into by the initial failure to either back/sack Alexander which was then compounded by the Hammell appointment and there's no argument of the job he did on that front. He was then asked to essentially cut all the excess and bloat that we'd accumulated on the playing staff side of things and the backroom restructure we'd put in place for Alexander was quickly dismantled and never spoken of again. What I find interesting (and it possibly points to the board having learned a lesson) is that we were very quick to extend Robinson's contract he got the job on an initial deal to the end of the 17/18 season on 15th March 17 we then extended it again 13th October 2017 to take him through to the end of 19/20 that announcement was just before the Semi-final against Rangers. Similarly after Alexander's year of excellent form we announced his extension on 10th January 22 to take him through to the end of 24/25. Hammell clearly wasn't in the job long enough to even reach the point of having a new deal offered to him. After the job Kettlewell did not only in keeping us up comfortably but also his success in moving on the likes of Shields, Danzaki, Efford et al in a way where we've been told we didn't take a hit in having to cancel their contracts then given his start to this season it wouldn't have been out of character for us to look to extend his deal - but we didn't (AFAIK). @crazylegsjoe_mfc made a good point the other day (and I see he's typing at the moment so may well make it again) in saying that we've generally afforded our managers a January window to try and fix things so if we were to bin Kettlewell now he could reasonably feel a bit aggrieved at not getting the chance that other have had, especially in the context of the job he was asked to do through the summer. I mean, you couldn't call a run of potentially 16 games or whatever without a win a harsh sacking but there's no doubt he could point to the fact that we've only lost 2 of our last 6, we picked up a point at Parkhead and it's clear that the team themselves are still digging in with the last minute equalisers and stuff. There's also the question/risk of who takes over - if there was a really obvious candidate then I think it'd probably be a much easier decision to make. Since there's not I can understand why we might be willing to let things play out until they hit the point where it's genuinely untenable and the club aren't going to get blowback for a 2nd manager in a row failing to last longer than 12 months. Either way, I think he's toast and I very much doubt he'll be our manager come the end of the season.