capt_oats

Old news but this was the first mention I'd seen of what the injury actually is (back).

This is something that's vaguely interested me tbh. I'm pretty sure Kettlewell did an interview at the start of summer where he essentially said that <paraphrasing> the back 3 was a system that he'd never used before </paraphrasing>. It was more a statement of fact rather than any indication as to what his plans were going forward or anything. With that in mind - you don't really have to look far to see managers who, in the same situation, would have used the summer to pivot to a shape/system that broadly speaking was their preference and make it about their "philosophy" or whatever. It actually says a lot for him that Kettlewell has been savvy enough to essentially not look a gift horse in the mouth with a shape that has ended up working incredibly well but tweak it enough to account for the loss of players like Van Veen and Johnston. Kelly; O'Donnell, McGinn, Mugabi/Butcher, Casey/Blaney; Slattery, Miller, Spittal were all at the Football Club last season and played while Kettlewell was digging us out a hole so in a sense, given the bulk of the starting XI is still here it'd have been mental to blow it up. To that end, the fundamentals of how we were playing in the Van Veen/Johnston version of the team are still there but there's been a subtle evolution too. I also wonder how much having Frail to lean on has been beneficial for Kettlewell in terms of learning from past mistakes. Either way, while we'll clearly revert to the mean soon enough, when you look at some of the goals we've scored so far this season (Sunday in particular) in a footballing sense it's been a long time since we've seen a Motherwell team with the passing, the movement, the tempo...

What a carry on eh?

@thisGRAEME covers Bair well in his Terrace Patreon about how our season is shaping up tbh. A smashing listen in the office today btw. Kettlewell has been clear that we've brought him in as a project because we think we might be able to get a turn out him but as others have mentioned due to injuries to literally every other senior striker at the club (until we brought Oli Shaw in on deadline day) it's meant that Bair has been playing significantly more than I'd imagine either he or Kettlewell expected when he arrived at the club. What Kettlewell has been good at generally is focussing on what players strengths are and just asking them to do that. Which is broadly what he's done with Bair - he's not expected to be a replacement for KVV (and never was) which I noticed some folk on another forum getting entirely bent out of shape over for *reasons* but instead he's been asked to play up top and generally facilitate getting guys like Spittal, Slattery, Paton and Miller on the ball which is working out fairly well so far. Is it sustainable in the longer term? Probably not but we've scored some absolutely smashing goals over the past few weeks and we're getting a turn out him until the other strikers get back to something approaching fitness.

We've gone done a statement (that's not really much of a statement):

+1 on this. A treat of a listen.

It was broadly covered whenever he signed. https://www.ross-shirejournal.co.uk/news/ross-county-fc-player-accused-of-abusing-ex-partner-has-tria-276299/ The case was dropped in January https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/spfl-star-walks-free-court-29022997

Yer man JJ Bull is a giggle.... Mind the gap lads...

That's sensational.

Not sure if it's been mentioned but we apparently approached Montgomery last year with a view to him replacing Alexander which prompted this weird Tweet from CCM official account where they link to a news story: It includes this mildly amusing quote:

Nah, if you believe Burrows there was never any contact despite Robinson's Mr 20%s best efforts to get his name in the mix (in a similar way to the current discourse around the Hibs job). https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/motherwell-chief-breaks-stephen-robinson-20795203 I could be wrong but was it not around this time that Robinson's name started being linked with every available job going despite there never actually being any sort of concrete approach? eg: Luton, Huddersfield, Bournemouth etc.

I think Kettlewell is kind of in that sweet spot for us at the moment in so much as he's only been in the door 5 mins and his record is so fucking ludicrous that I'd imagine most would think that it's still a kind of new manager bounce effect and his bubble is due to burst. Like, he's clearly a manager who knows what he's about but a 65% win rate with a club like Motherwell feels like it's unsustainable - given Brown was 47.73% (44 games), McCall was 42.5% (174 games), Robinson was 42% (169 games) and McGhee's first spell was 39.8% (88 games).

Depends on when the videos were taken but I noticed that from the look of the IG stories McKinstry posted over the weekend that he seems to be having a nice time on holiday. AFAIK the Indian season starts in September. At least Wiki has it starting on Sept 22nd running through to March - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023–24_Indian_Super_League Tbh, that's kind of what I thought may have been the case with Goss however as @Swello says it looks like there's a fair chance he may have fucked it.

Slattery's goal had the same sort of energy as Davies against Thistle IMO.

In the league (before some lurking St Mirren fan picks up on that one).

Kettlewell confirmed he'd went down with an injury yesterday in his post match.

Oh, hai...

Here's a summary of the squad and movement over the summer. Fair play to Kettlewell, he's clearly understood the assignment and I genuinely can't remember us having a window that's felt as managed as this one. Not scrambling about on deadline day? What a concept.

I guess this answers that question...

Not advocating him for us but to add to @YassinMoutaouakil's post there and to back up the shouts about Free Agent strikers being more available outside the window here's another (I'd still rather we signed Fletcher though):

I mean, McGinley hasn't started a competitive game for us this season so I don't really see that he's in a position to be displaced in the first place.