capt_oats

Halliday went off injured on Tuesday night so...there's the answer to why he didn't start.

Result aside this is probably the most annoying thing about last night IMO. Even though we hadn't necessarily been winning on this recent run it felt like we'd generally found a way to get gain control of games rather than the sort of chaos we'd seen through November/December. As you say, that just seemed to go straight out the window as soon as Morton started to get in about us - to me that seemed more a result of the players getting spooked rather than anything tactical but the net result was the same I guess. @thisGRAEME made the point a few pages back that the one time we got the ball down and moved it quickly we scored. Which is, politely, infuriating given the shambles that preceded it. There was a point in commentary where it was mentioned O'Donnell gave Kelly both barrels after seeing the ball launched (again) when there was a straightforward short ball on to Bevis or himself. It didn't seem to register though. Tbh, Kelly had the energy of someone playing through a full blown panic attack and having gone completely rogue.

Aye. I’m no Kettlewell stan but I agree that was on the players. Not in a ‘downed tools’ way but they never got to grips with the game and genuinely looked spooked by Morton.

Given my username every post I make is a small reference to The OC.

See, the more I’ve thought about it; George quit then went back pretending nothing happened after he realised he wasn’t getting another job. We’ve terminated little Oli’s loan and sent him back to Barnsley before bringing him back after all our other options fell through saying “Oh, yeah there was always a chance this could happen”. I don’t think we were ever playing 4D chess or anything but it actually *is* the Costanza move we’ve pulled.

I mean, maybe I’m not giving everyone involved enough credit but I’d be surprised if we Costanza-d Shaw. Dunno, it feels more likely that we’ve just gone back to Barnsley as an absolute last resort after we’ve missed our targets than us terminating his loan with the intention of gaslighting everyone by bringing him back and pretending nothing happened.

I just had a swatch at Ferrie's Transfermarkt and he's actually played more minutes for us this season than he managed at Stenny.

Aye. I mean, fair play to the club for trying to spin this and given the circumstances...fine but don't kid a kidder. Yeah, I had posted after the window shut saying that regardless of what happened going forward it was still a failure and I kind of stand by that. We cleared the decks but presumably missed *all* our targets - given we've brought back an apparently still injured player whose loan we terminated less than a month ago. Like I don't think folk need to be looking for their pound of flesh or anything (the Nick Daws thread on Steelmen is a riot - shoutout the boy who can't "farthom" (sic) why people think results last season were worse. Spoiler: it's because results last season were worse.) but there probably needs to be some sort of accountability as far as process goes; were we unrealistic in our targets, did we leave things too late, was it financial etc?

I see "Union" Jack has us releasing a joint statement alongside Aberdeen, Livi, Rangers (ick), St Johnstone and St Mirren.

Well. My point was that in any circumstance a draw wouldn't suffice on account of the Dundee St Johnstone impacting. I thought that was pretty obvious but...here we are.

Yes. I know. That's why I said "it depends on that result" in the sentence you've just quoted and then pointed out the permutations.

It'd need to be a win against Aberdeen as the rearranged Dundee v St Johnstone game is over the weekend so it depends on that result. The draw puts us on 26 points. Dundee win they go to 29 points, draw 27. St Johnstone win they go on to 27. The difference in narrative of the respective seasons is quite funny though. The general consensus seems to be that Dundee are having a "good" season while we're erm...very much not. As it stands there's a point difference between the two teams with us having (marginally) scored more goals and conceded fewer.

The spiel in the news story for his signing was really oddly worded in so much as it implied it was a free transfer. However, during the press call he did the other week he said that he's still "technically" under contract at Colorado. Reading Colorado's announcement he's been 'waived' so it seems he's been freed. I actually quite enjoyed his presser (as far as you can "enjoy" pre-match interviews with players) he seems entirely sound...

Well...

So Burrows tried to get Warnock in at Fir Park then?

I'm sorry but I literally just burst out laughing in the middle of the office.

Aye to be clear, when I'm saying we should have kept our powder dry I'm not saying we shouldn't be talking him up. He's been playing really well and above anything else he seems to be someone who responds well to that sort of thing. I guess what I mean is that it just feels a bit premature for Kettlewell to be taking victory laps with a "told you so" energy. Leave that sort of chat until the end of the season when he's hit 20.

I've actually found a lot of the Bair discourse really odd, surprising even. Like, we've seen journos pretty much saying straight to his face "LOL everyone thought you were shit eh?" like that's a totally OK line to take.

This is pretty much where I am tbh. A big part of Kettlewell's success when he was parachuted in was the fact that he was effectively playing the same team week in, week out, and while it's fair to say that he's not helped himself at times this season, given the injuries he's had to deal with it's meant he's not really had the opportunity to get a regular, settled XI on the park. Fwiw, my hot take is that we might actually start turning some of the draws into wins with this shape if we swap out Paton for Nicholson on account of Nicholson being a natural forward rather than a centre mid being asked to play in what is effectively an attacking role. Equally I don't think SK will do it because he seems to fucking love Harry Paton but I'm 100% of the view that we'd see an improved output from playing Nicholson in there (once he's actually fit).

Dunno lads, I feel like we could probably have kept our powder dry rather than giving it the "I told you so" about the big man.

Aye, to me it's McGinn who actually makes the back 3 work. With respect to Casey for all his plus points when he's on form he still doesn't offer what McGinn does on the ball in terms of progressing the ball up the park. If everyone is fit and on form then it's be a return to the back three of last season for me McGinn/Butcher/Casey.

I'd imagine we'll set up the same as Saturday but probably make a bit more use of the bench. These are the sort of games we usually f**k up and seeing as we apparently aren't allowed nice things this season I'm not exactly confident of things going our way. Just saw a clip of Kettlewell's pre-match and according to the man himself Obika's back training and the only injury we have at the moment is Slattery who's due in for surgery this week.

He’s already played for us and Kidderminster this season so probably not. Rumour is he’s away to LOI.

It's a moot point really as it's been made relatively clear that the board aren't of a mind to bin him. Which is fair enough as the rate we've been going through managers recently hasn't been ideal and as it stands we're 4 points off 6th (but 3 points off 11th..yikes). There's a legitimate question over whether his contract is renewed though. The fact that we haven't been losing games also helps a bit and our draws recently have been far more controlled rather than the out and out chaos of chucking all our forwards on with 15 mins to go. At that point we looked completely out of control we conceded 3 against County twice, 4 against Aberdeen and 3 against Dundee. You look at our recent form and even though we've only lost 1 (to Rangers) in our last 8 we've still only won 2 (one of which was against Alloa). Since 7th November we've played 13 games (in all competitions) and only lost 3 but again...we've only won 2. He's in a weird place though. Teams like St Mirren have actually lost more games than us but it's the draws that have been killing us. Equally if we're not losing games the board are unlikely to be compelled to do anything (they're unlikely to do anything anyway as the CEO is interim and has indicated he's been doing this longer than he intended so will be stepping down imminently while our Chairman will step down at the end of the season - so recruiting a new manager while that is going on seems like a hassle unless we absolutely have to). What has settled things down a bit is that since the 3-0 against County in Dingwall where he looked done for our relative uptick in form (1 loss in 8 ) has coincided with Kettlewell doing things like playing left sided players on the left and a holding mid in the holding mid role - which he wasn't doing before. So while it's been clear he's been doing the job with one arm tied behind his back due to outside factors (budgets, injuries etc) he really wasn't helping himself with a lot of the choices he seemed to be making. As @Quatermass says above I don't think asking if folk are still keen for Kettlewell to be sacked is really the right question.