capt_oats

Tbf, if it's a budget management thing then it makes sense. If he's on a decent wedge but is miles off the starting XI then he's taking up a chunk of our budget that could presumably be re-allocated. I'd imagine the ideal is we shift Joey's wage out to allocate to another prioritised position and bring in someone on a wage that's more reflective of a 3rd/4th/5th choice to take Efford's spot.

I noticed it was Blaney who was ready to come on when Casey was down getting treatment on Sunday so I dunno, it probably suggests that Lamie's fairly well down the pecking order ATM. United actually seems like an ideal landing place for him given the Pals of Declan/Tony recruitment policy we seemed to have in place when Robinson signed him. Maguire to a Partick/Dunfermline is exactly the move tbh.

FWIW: here's Tam Aquilina's YouTube video - plays both left and right side.

Aye, IMO the difference between Moult last season and Obika just now is that Hammell brought Moult (and Aarons) in with a view to them having active first team roles whereas it's been pretty clear that while he obviously has a specific first team role Obika is here in as support behind the Wilkinson/Biereth pair with Bair and (for the moment) Efford as additional cover along with Ferrie and Spittal in a pinch. He’s not the Save Our Season Hail Mary Moult seemed to be for Hammell. I'd guess that the idea was to give him 10 mins and see how he got on. I mean, going by what we've heard about Efford he's hardly been a picture of health in the time Kettlewell's been here either. This is what I was wondering in general tbh as between Biereth, Wilkinson, Bair and Obika it looks like Efford is down around 5th choice striker and as @crazylegsjoe_mfc mentions above, we opted to give Obika 10 mins rather than Efford. Depends whether or not you want to read anything into that particular choice. It also feels like Efford is a very different player to Obika/Bair so I wouldn't say you could easily swap like for like. If Kettlewell is looking for a 2nd striker in the role that Obika has then it's pretty clear that's not Efford whether he's fit or not which I suppose speaks to Kettlewell's whole line about not wanting to have players kicking about the squad who aren't likely to be contributing to the first team.

He's 16...

Tbh, I actually disagree that Obika isn't very good. IMO, for the very specific role Kettlewell wants him to play he's a very good option. An example was the last game of the season when he replaced Mandron - we were 2-1 down. Big Mikael had been doing his Inflatable Man At A Car Dealership routine up front but as soon as we chucked Obika on the ball started sticking better up top and we go on to score another 2 goals (see also his ragdolling of the Hearts defence). Despite him being in the building early enough to claim the #9 shirt I don't think there was ever any danger that he was being viewed as our starting striker (apart perhaps from certain games eg: Hearts who he seems to absolutely fucking hate). The intention (IMO) was that it'd be Wilkinson +1 TBC (who turned out to be Mika Biereth). It's why, as I said at the time, I was largely unbothered about Bair signing as it seemed pretty clear to me that he was being brought in as a 4th/5th choice striker. So with that in mind, to me, when fit Obika is actually a very good player to have around...and I guess that's the rub. He missed a chunk of his season at Morecambe with a hamstring issue, he missed a chunk of his time here last season with a hamstring issue. He's now out again with...let me shock you...a hamstring issue. At his age and with the frequency of the injury it feels like it won't be the last we'll see of Obika as a *doubt* for games. I suppose that's the trade-off though, Kettlewell has kind of alluded to it in so much as he says we've been looking at players who have had <paraphrasing>imperfect seasons</paraphrasing>. As @Swello mentioned back on Thelonius Bair Day - this still remains true: When Kettlewell spoke about having had a chat with Mandron about sticking around his phrasing was that we couldn't really offer him what he wanted (or words to that effect). Most read that as being a financial thing (and it probably played a part) but equally he may simply have wanted more game time than the squad role we had in mind for him would realistically have allowed. I guess there's a chance that with Obika's injury record a spot on our bench and a view to him being used in a specific role was perhaps entirely appealing. I mean, yes that clearly necessitates him being fit enough to actually be on our bench but I take it that's also why Big Theo is here. Is it a sensible use of budget? There's an obvious argument "No" but equally there's the chance that an equivalent player is either going to want a promise of more game-time or more money (or both). That's the gamble I guess.

In no particular order the 2023 albums I have mostly been listening to are: Blondshell - Blondshell Boygenius - the record Gracie Abrams - Good Riddance Paramore - This Is Why Alaska Reid - Disenchanter Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want To Turn Into You Lana Del Rey - Did You Know That There's A Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard Samia - Honey The National - First Two Pages Of Frankenstein Bully - Lucky For You

@thisGRAEME on the Monday pod talking about Big Mika. A rare treat.

International recognition adding to the big man's value...

I mean, we have... In fairness, he seems entirely comfortable with his situation at the moment. It's pretty well known he patched a whole bunch of exactly the sort of clubs folk are talking about to sign his shree year deal with us.

The video/graphics ones yesterday weren't working for me ie: teamlines, goalscorers etc but they're visible now. Seems like it was a platform issue rather than anything the admin was doing.

There he is...

Oh...hai.

M'lord...

Kettlewell's press conference for context of those earlier quotes - the Efford stuff is...interesting - dunno maybe it’s just me but it feels like it has a similar energy to the way he spoke about Riku. It’s also interesting to hear him say we've effectively created a "Loans Manager" role with the suggestion a few more may "potentially" be going out on loan:

Kettlewell's been in charge for 19 competitive games plus anothe 4 friendlies and we've still only lost 2. That sort of form is pretty fucking unsustainable for us so I'm kind of just waiting for us to revert back to the mean and fully expecting a Hibs win here. Hibs are a team who will beat us. Our record against Hibs at FP probably feels worse after daft games like the SC tie where Bevis was sent off after 8 seconds or whatever and that general shambles of the 2-3 game under Hammell last season when everyone in our team seemed to be at varying stages of wanting to simply get the manager to absolute f**k. By my count we've played 9 games at Fir Park since Hibs were promoted in 2017. We've won 2, drawn 2 and lost 5. Which...isn't great. Either way it'd be good if we could get Big Mika on the park at some point in this one as between Wilkinson, Bair and Obika our options up front are essentially iterations of the same player - which isn't ideal but the quicker we fill the gaps in the starting XI from last season the better and Biereth feels like he's going to be key to that IMO. ngl I'd 100% take a draw tbqh.

Some more interesting chat from Ketts in his presser talks about Big Mika, Joey Efford and squad size, withdrawal from Reserve League etc:

Because he’s a massive Tory?

Is this an actual bit from Dundee fans now btw?

See, I 100% think McKinstry could develop in the role that Spittal plays but similar to Tierney, as things stand, he's not going to start - which at his age and stage of development is probably what he needs to be doing. Probably unanswerable question as we're never going to know but I'd genuinely be curious if it was the case that Ketts didn't fancy him or rather, as Tierney discussed in that interview I quoted yesterday, he was just a casualty of the change in shape and the form we were in. Tbh, if Joey Efford was to move on I'd happily have McKinstry back to fill that spot.

It's a good question tbf but it's also worth mentioning that Goss had a decent run of form in the first 6 months he was at the club after Alexander signed him. Given the reports from Saints fans on his arrival there was a general surprise that he had fitted in as he did. He was effectively holding our midfield together when we absolutely did a number on Aberdeen at Pittodrie then whatever the f**k happened after Alexander signed that contract extension happened and everyone fell off a cliff. It probably comes down to what Kettlewell did to turn the season around in general in so much as he stripped everything down to basics and seemed to tell everyone to just focus on what they were good at. He also changed the shape to something that actually got the best out of everyone compared to whatever the f**k Hammell was asking them to do. Hammell was fixated on a 4231/433 and it hung the likes of Goss and Slattery out to dry in the centre of the park. Goss is more a deep lying playmaker than a traditional defensive midfielder - which is why I'd guess Hammell brought in Butcher as some Hail Mary to try and fix our midfield. Either way, Kettlewell came in changed to a 3412 with Butcher at the centre of a back 3 behind Goss, Cornelius and Spittal all central in midfield it gave us much better balance and allowed Goss to effectively play as a deep lying #6 which let him just get on the ball and ping passes about the park to pick out the likes of Max Johnston and James Furlong in the advanced wingback positions. The other thing is that although Goss isn't Callum Butcher the way Kettlewell changed our shape meant that Goss was able to do us a turn on the defensive side by winning the ball back, making interceptions and starting counters. In fact, the goal we scored against you guys on Saturday was actually textbook of what we were doing last season except with Lennon Miller in the Goss role and O'Donnell in the same sort of area Johnston was getting into. My take on Goss has generally been that it felt like a natural point to part in so much as he'd probably got what he wanted from us and we'd got a decent turn out of him. He was excellent in the games he played for Kettlewell and fitted what we were doing perfectly but there was also enough doubt about him that he could just as easily revert to the version that would have seen us happily chase him. Edit: I see @Al B has already got there to say a similar thing in far fewer words.

India has been the rumour all summer but nothing has ever been confirmed. No mention of which team or anything like that. Kettlewell spoke about him a while back and the gist was that we had made him an offer but couldn't really wait around on him and the player wanted to explore other (more lucrative) opportunities (or words to that effect). This was from July 7th:

According to a WaybackMachine archive from back in January his contract was up in May so I take it the Watford move had probably been in the works for a while. I notice he wasn't given a squad number this season (which makes sense if he was OOC) but equally wasn't included as out of contract in the squad update unlike Dunachie, Hunter, Spiers, Connelly, Johnston, Wilson, Devine et al.

Craig Moore at it again.

Really good interview with Tierney here btw... https://www.extratime.com/articles/31638/ross-tierney-ive-never-played-in-england-before-so-its-a-different-challenge-but-i-always-think-i-can-do-well/ Quotes about Motherwell in the spoiler below: I for one am shocked to hear that things "weren't great" behind the scenes when Hammell was there.