capt_oats

They've stuck both the goals up on the official Twitter.

He did, but he's naturally left sided. I wouldn't be changing anything at the minute tbh but seeing as Casey's naturally right sided if you were wanting to have both on the park I'd imagine you'd just put each on their natural side either side of Butcher. It seems Casey mostly played right side of a three in USL. I'd definitely be interested to see Blaney get a run ahead of Lamie if it came to it though. As I say, looking longer term it kind of raises questions about where Lamie and Mugabi fit (answer: on the bench).

Aye, with Hammell also seeming to recruit with the exclusive intention of continuing to inflict his 4231 on everyone it's left quite a few spare parts kicking around. It's largely mitigated by the fact that the bulk of the January 9 are either loans or deals until the end of the season so it's not like there's a long term bloat - although there are obviously players contracted beyond the summer with question marks over them. Kettlewell's pivot to the 3412 (which apparently suits the bulk of the squad Hammell had thrown together rather than the shape he was actually playing - who knew?) gives us 2 redundant wingers on the books (plus Josh Morris) along with 3 players for the #10 (Spittal, Danzaki and Tierney). With Casey having made the position his own we've another 2 players who can play left of the 3 (Lamie, Blaney) and with McGinn on the right of the 3 (where most of us argued he should have been playing) we've Mugabi and nominally Casey as alternates for that position. To @well fan for life's point about Casey and Butcher saving us from Ricki Lamie It's kind of hard not to look at the back 3 functioning as it is and come back to the recurring argument on here that neither Mugabi or Lamie should be our starting CBs (regardless of what the bold Ricki thinks) yet 3 different managers (Robinson, Alexander and Hammell) have ended up having to return to the pairing for one reason or another. In Alexander's defence I'd kind of forgotten that he'd clearly signed Sol and Ojala as a fix for that (and in turn put Lamie's nose out of joint) whereas Hammell simply prioritised signing 2 known sick notes rather than bothering to look at his centre backs. We're obviously not out of the woods yet although we seem to be trending in the right direction. Either way, this season has been genuinely weird and hopefully a lesson for everyone concerned in what can happen off the back of a series of poor choices/decisions.

Season 2 is airing now on Paramount+ 2 episodes in.

Finished 2-0

There seems to be a suggestion that Willie Irvine actually scored 20 and was joint top scorer?

Aye. Brian McLaughlin was before my time. That season was 5 years before my first Motherwell game and, as you say, it was in the 2nd tier . When you look at the gap between Pettigrew and Higdon for 20+ as a top flight team (three decades!) you really get an idea of how rare an achievement it is for us - especially when you consider the players we had during that time: McClair, Walker, Arnott, Coyne, Coyle, McFadden, McDonald, Porter et al. Some were closer than others but either way none of them actually did it. It’s been mentioned before but we’ve been spoiled with forwards in the last 30 or so years and it feels like the player we consistently find is the one who’ll get 12-15-ish (and doing that regularly is an achievement in itself). So fair fucks to Kev getting his 20 in *this* Motherwell team and also considering sections of the fan base would’ve been happy to bounce him out a couple of months ago.

Local press confirming... Tbf, he didn't actually do anything wrong as such. Ironically, IIRC one of the reasons he wasn't getting a game for Stockport was that they'd changed to a 352 and he wasn't getting minutes. With McKinstry already here we've already got an option for the wing if we need it and with our other forwards seemingly back to fitness it seems a bit daft for him to stick around if we're not going to be playing the 4231 we presumably recruited him to fit into.

It is, aye. As it stands this is where we are: Expiries: 2023 - O'Donnell, Carroll, McGinn, Johnston, Casey, Cornelius, Goss, Paton, Efford, Aitchison, Mandron = 11 2024 - Kelly, Oxborough, Lamie, Mugabi, McGinley, Spittal, Maguire, Slattery, Butcher, Van Veen, Morris, Shields = 12 2025 - Danzaki, Blaney, Miller, Tierney = 4 Loans expiring 2023: Furlong (Brighton contract expires 2023) Crankshaw (Stockport contract expires 2024) McKinstry (Leeds contract expires 2023) Obika (Morecambe contract expires 2023) To add, it looks like Crankshaw is back at Stockport:

As an aside...with Paton arriving yesterday that's just the 18 players signed this season. Some going given we'd only announced 3 by the time Alexander got his jotters.

I've mentioned before but where we are at the moment kind of echoes the 2nd half of the 18/19 season when Turnbull, Campbell, Hastie and Gboly were all having a lovely time. We had found a shape and style of play that was a lot of fun but also had a pile of players who'd been at the club for a while and were heading out of contract. It kind of felt like they'd got what they wanted out of their time at the club by the time renewals came around (see Main fucking off to Pittodrie, McHugh leaving for India, even Ally Gorrin heading to Oxford despite only being on a 1 year deal and really only breaking into the side properly for about 4 months...then there's Cadden snaking us). With our current situation, as a result of the was we handled January, we've a bunch of players who are only just in the door out of contract in the summer as well (protect Dan Casey at all costs). Either way someone like Goss seems like he fits into that bracket for me. He's been here 2 seasons and done well in fits and starts without actually being consistently good. Coming off the back of an international call up it wouldn't be a huge surprise if he saw this as an opportunity to trade up and make the most of his good form under Ketts. Tbh, what has interested me is that we're at the point now where guys like Lamie and Mugabi still have another year but (rightly) have their arses parked on the bench while the McGinn, Butcher and Casey back 3 picks itself. On the point of trading up, he's not out of contract but as @'WellDel says above, you'd have to think that KVV's agent is working his arse off as I type. I doubt we'd be prohibitive and stand in his way given the circumstances but it begs the question what the going rate for a 32 year old, 20 goal striker with a year on his deal would be?

This is mildly interesting...here are Deano's stats by manager. He averaged 76.6 mins per game under Grezza and is averaging 70.3 mins per game under Ketts. He made more appearances for Hammell but only averaged 41.8 mins per game.

To be clear, I wasn't asking, precisely because of the shitstorm that post blew up into but I had wondered. I mean, at this point, it's hard not to ask the same question as @YassinMoutaouakil.

Honestly, I can't be alone in wondering what @wellboy1991's dog walking neighbour is saying to it these days... In all seriousness, this was the league form for Hammell's last 6 games before he was emptied: The fixtures were: 02/01/23 - Livingston (a) 1-1 08/01/23 - Hibs (h) 2-3 14/01/23 - Ross County (h) 1-1 28/01/23 - St Mirren (a) 1-0 01/02/23 - St Johnstone (h) 0-2 03/02/23 - Aberdeen (a) 3-1 There's an argument that Hammell didn't get much of a chance to use the January 9, albeit the the chance he did get we were bounced out the SC when he tried to shoehorn them into his 4231. In that respect something that has maybe flown under the radar in that respect is that while Kettlewell's clearly using players that Hammell didn't get an opportunity to utilise he's also managed to get a bunch of (new) players to integrate into a shape/system we hadn't been playing is a pretty short period of time. In doing so he's made a decent fist of fixing an aspect of our game that Hammell spent months (literally) scratching his head trying to address. Which is a point that again, you'd think comes back to coaching. I posted the video of SK's pre-match in here yesterday (then deleted as I wasn't really offering any comment on it other than it existing) but the one part that got my attention was him reiterating that he's trying to get players to play to their strengths. I mean...aye.

Hi.

The wee man still doing it.

He's been injured apparently. Ketts mentioned in his pre-match that he's started back in football sessions during the week there.

I'm not sure we do tbh. For me Paton isn't really stepping on Spittal, Danzaki or Tierney's toes. I know @RandomGuy. will have better things to do of a weekend but it'd be interesting to know how Paton compares with Slattery, Goss and Cornelius as IMO they're the ones playing in similar roles (and 2 are out of contract come summer).

In that case, enjoy this 'brief' (26 minute) summary of his 2022...

They were. https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/spfl-star-walks-free-court-29022997

FAO: @YassinMoutaouakil https://www.scottishfa.co.uk/club-academy-matches/?mid=299682

It feels like our record against Hibs is trash (especially at Easter Road) and the fact we've only won 3 in the last 20 games against them home or away in all competitions kind of backs that up (7 draws in that time though). Our form against them since our last win is (most recent first) LLLXXX. Obika's still out which is annoying as he's been a big part of making this 3412 work for us and the Blair Spittal experiment as his replacement didn't really work. Slattery's also out after his red card against the ****. So aye...Hibs win. Fwiw, this was our last win at Easter Road:

Archie starts with a 1-1 draw against Hibs.