capt_oats

Watching Kettlewell's post-match and I had honestly forgotten he was our Reserves/u18s coach until he started talking about having worked with Ferrie, Ross, Miller etc and knowing what they can do.

6-0 We win a game Tierney scores in. Ferrie and Spittal get braces and Slatts gets a goal.

If we're having a conversation around this timeline and who was brought in to do what then it's probably worth mentioning that Butcher was supposed to be playing in midfield and Hammell was pretty fixed on playing with a back 4. Given Casey is right footed while Blaney's left footed I'd have thought if he was brought in to cover any situation it'd have been to cover Sol having left just as the window *slammed* shut. I wouldn't like to presume but I'd have thought (Hammell's Version) would have been: RB: SOD/Johnston RCB: Mugabi/Casey LCB: Lamie/Blaney LB: McGinn/Furlong

Happy Festivus

Not saying I agree/disagree with this approach but to Devil’s Advocate it Hammell chucked a 2.5 year deal at Blaney who plays the position Casey was covering. Giving him a run there probably allows us to a) get an idea if he’s any good and b) wait for an answer from Casey with a bit less pressure. We’ve also promoted Campbell (another centre back). Sort of the same with Goss/Paton I suppose. Tbh, I’m still sceptical about the idea of committing to Goss. It feels like this probably should be a natural parting - the club has been good for him and he’s (eventually) been good for the club.

The last time was more recent than that. It's Murrant who's down as the contact on the job description here date was April 2017: https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Motherwell-FC-SLO.pdf I mean, not to flog this particular dead horse but how many positions is that we've got that are currently vacant at the club just now?

Found the job description from the last time.... https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Motherwell-FC-SLO.pdf

Did our last attempt at filling the SLO position not see them have a meltdown and resign after something like 2 days? And that was with Burrows still at the club fielding Tweets from his reply guys. As you say, I genuinely can't see what the appeal would be in actually taking that on. I agree with @Blink182's general point that if you're asking someone to do work for you then fucking pay them but I'd be curious to know if it's a salaried position at other clubs who have them in place - I know Celtic and Rangers have their own SLOs but based on scale they're not exactly comparable. The one that springs to mind is St Johnstone as I've seen frequent references to their SLO in their threads and Twitter. Beyond that I'm not sure what other clubs have this role filled. Similarly, is there a reason this is being advertised via The WS rather than the club?

Anyway, as an aside. Mind this? This had passed me by last month... https://www.theposh.com/news/posh-confirm-number-players-available-transfer

This is kind of the thing for me. Like, I realise that if we're talking about players who are considered "deadwood" then they're broadly those for whom mileage may vary. There are a handful of players in the squad that folk just don't like or in some cases made their decisions on very early doors. However when we're talking about guys like Lamie and Mugabi then ultimately they've been fine the problem is that they're never starting players - regardless of what how they see themselves. With the squad the way it is and the way Kettlewell had shaped us up with the McGinn - Butcher - Casey back 3 that put both of them firmly in the "squad player" bracket. When it comes down to it if we were to empty them then as @Handsome_Devil mentioned are we actually going to replace them with any better? Equally, for all I was talking about the squad being 22 23 (I forgot about Paton) players deep 5 of those have been promoted from the Reserves which is precisely what swathes of reply guys give the club grief about in their mentions - especially when someone like Max Johnston turns out to actually be really good.. On one hand they want a pathway for the weans on the other they're getting bent out of shape that we're not out signing jobbers to block that pathway. It's Schrödinger's transfer window. Are we really making an argument that we should be looking to sign someone to cover the fact that Butcher's injured rather than give someone in the squad a shot? That's the sort of approach that's caused us to end up with big, daft bloated squads in the first place. Tbh, I think there's been a conditioning towards the expectation that we see a mass overhaul on an annual basis and it's not just a Motherwell thing. Ironically that's what we consciously tried to move away from in Alexander's first summer window. As others have said, I've no doubt we'll make some signings but this is a very different position to how we were regularly having to carry ourselves under Robinson.

Nah, it was because Craig Gordon got injured shortly before the window closed. This was from 31st January 2018:

Going by Carson's version we'd accepted the offer and everything was agreed in principle but were waiting on Freddie Woodman being confirmed as his replacement but he ended up going to Aberdeen at the last minute instead so we pulled it as we didn't have time to get an alternative in.

As far as budget goes I think it's fair to say that ours is in the same ballpark as our peer group. The payment structures between clubs may vary but when it comes to actual *budget* there's not a massive difference. The problem we have vs others is that we currently have the bulk of our budget tied up in contracted players. Kettlewell referenced this in one of his press conferences at the end of the season. As it stands we've 22 first team players plus the likes of Luca Ross and Mark Ferrie who are away with the team in Holland so regardless of what money we've ended up with for KVV or where Max Johnston ends up - you'd think that money will go to helping cover our Year of Bad Decisions - when it comes to allocating budget we're still hamstrung by the number of players we have in the building. It's a very different situation for us compared to the Robinson windows where we were starting from a point of about 12 - 14 players and it had enabled us to get half a dozen PCAs in the door by the time the window opened.

Jack Aitchison signs for Exeter City.

Pretty much this for me as well. If he's available and up for signing then great - he ticks a lot of boxes. Assuming Shields is one of the "fringe" players we're hoping to offload then in itself signing Fletcher wouldn't preclude us looking at other forward options either. If we're going up against Robinson wanting to chuck money at him and make him his next Alex Fisher/Jordan White type signing then absolutely let them crack on with it.

Fwiw, this was the team for the 2nd half. Barry Maguire in the back 3 is it?

343 with Shields as a #9. Bold.

Good times.

I'm naturally sceptical about any sort of ITK posts from Dundee but this seems to be the position from another United forum. Which I suppose puts United in a bit of a bind if they're actually quite keen not to have a player stuck on their books on a daft wage while they're in the Championship as, without knowing the precise details, it seems a stretch to think that any club is going to match the wage he's supposedly on with them. Beyond that, with the caveats that he was on an appropriate wage for a modest club like us then I'm all for us signing him. Taking a quick swatch at some of his performances last season then it's kind of easy to see why we'd be interested in him to replace KVV as he offers all the hold up/link up side of the game that we got from Kev. On top of that he also played the 3rd most minutes of their entire squad:

See there's an aspect of this where I'm still very much at the benefit-of-the-doubt stage. Not in the sense of whether it'll work out or not, it already feels like a bust, but just generally about the whole situation he finds himself in. He's still a young guy (23) who's moved halfway round the world to a new league and a new culture. You'd expect there would be a period of adjustment. That's before you even get into the whole playing fitba' side of things. He was chucked straight into an absolute fucking car crash and the manager who signed him, who was wildly out his depth, lasted another fortnight. If you take Kettlewell at face value when he mentioned Danzaki had been carrying an injury then that can't really have helped either. We announced Danzaki on January 28th at that point we had the following forward/attacking midfield options already on the books: KVV, Shields, Mandron, Spittal, McKinstry, Tierney, Crankshaw and Lennon Miller... Our options at left back amounted to playing Paul McGinn out of position. Obviously Shields was subsequently loaned out but we immediately brought in Obika after Mandron's injury so either way Danzaki ended up as our 9th option in that area of the park - and it was a process that took "months" (in Burrows own words) to get him in the door. I get that it worked out in the end in the sense that we got Furlong in the building and Butcher arrived to erm..."fix our midfield" but where we are now is Kettlewell picking up the pieces of what he's inherited. As @Handsome_Devil said on the other page, it's really not something we need to re-litigate, but still...fucking hell.