capt_oats

Had a check back on this thread and couldn't find anything from the Hammell recruitment "process" either however I did find this, which is when we were looking to replace Robinson in January 21.

From my POV, I get that the first few days is going to be agents and media pals just launching names into the discourse or idiots amongst the support just putting 2+2 together and getting fish. That's how it works. IMO there's generally been a type of manager that's worked out quite well for us historically in terms of experience etc however the problem with almost all of the names floating around so far is that they're miles from that sort of profile. Add in everyone involved losing the run of themselves and giving the job to Hammell 6 months ago along with Burrows leaving (the one guy on the board who seemed vaguely switched on to the broader football landscape) and it's very much a case of "what are we doing here lads?" I mean...FFS!

Link It's a long-ish running bit. We appointed Alexander, Nicolson published that article. Killie appointed Wright a couple of weeks later. We stayed up and subsequently finished 5th. Wright relegated Killie and was subsequently emptied in the Championship.

Nicely done.

I had concerns about Wright the last time when it was apparently between him and Alexander. Basically my main reservation was that for all he had success with St Johnstone it was at a club he had already been in the building at when he got the job, it was established over time and his 7 years or whatever it was had been at one club. Essentially he had no real experience of being dropped into a new dressing room and positively changing the "culture" which was the job that was being asked after the players had downed tools under Robinson and tbh, everything points to it being a similar situation now. The fact that he managed to relegate Killie from the position he did while Alexander helped us climb the table to a comfortable 8th suggests that there was more to our choice than just the beard/All Saints/skinny jeans combo that got Eric Nicolson wildly bent out of shape. It kind of makes me wonder whether it's been Burrows who has been steering things in that respect. I mean, I'd not be entirely surprised if we leaned "experience" with this hire and it's not a shock in any way to read that it's a short term deal we're looking to offer. I'd just have thought that we'd maybe not exactly be sold on a guy who got Killie relegated from an almost identical position as we're in now.

Re-posted this from last May in our thread but this is basically the profile of managers we've appointed since McLean but with added Hammell. Honestly, when you look at that it's genuinely fucking nuts we gave the job to Hammell. I mean, even Malpas had first team coaching experience.

Broadly I don't disagree but I don't think having SPFL experience is a deal-breaker. I mean, Alexander arrived when we were joint bottom of the league and finished the season comfortably in 8th on the same points as St Mirren. His clubs were Fleetwood, Scunthorpe and Salford. To me we "just" need a good coach who's able to come in and immediately raise standards and generally understand the assignment. It doesn't really matter to me if their experience is in the Premiership in Scotland or League 1 in England as long as there's some sort of demonstrable track record at a half-way decent level there. I've mentioned it before but in a general sense, since I've been watching Motherwell there's been a profile of hire that's tended to work. In fact I'll just re-up the post from May last year with added Hammell...

Lambert's already ruled himself out (apparently), Lennon's not taking a new job until at after April for tax reasons while Goodwin and Ross have presumably just received fairly healthy pay-offs. However, Motherwell have paid to bring in a manager currently being employed by another team exactly once in the last 30 years (Harri Kampman). I'd be surprised if that changed for James McPake tbh.

I think it depends on how proactive the board have been here or if they were still convinced Hammell was going to turn it around at 3pm on Saturday and hadn't given binning him any thought. You'd like to think that it's the former and they've at least had discussions about our strategy here a while back. It took less than a fortnight to give Hammell the job, a week to appoint Alexander and around a fortnight for Robinson. Unless the board had someone lined up I'd have thought we'd be looking at next week as the earlierst to name someone. Tbh, I'm inclined to agree with @welldaft to the point that a short term hire seems like the most sensible move (Huddersfield did the same when they announced Warnock yesterday). If the board are sitting talking about mid-long term plans like being "a fully integrated club" and making appointment on any sort of "vision" or "philosophy" then it's a complete failure to understand the assignment IMO. Get someone in with a fire-fighting brief to keep us up and review at the end of the season when we've presumably appointed a new chief executive and sorted out everything else that we've failed to address this season.

Aye. That was exactly my reaction. It feels like we haven't had one of that type of name appear in ages. Hammell and Valakari were really the only two names quoted last time, Alexander was interviewed and appointed in a week. Disappointed Thierry Henry hasn't thrown his name in yet.

ngl, I've been looking forward to this @thisGRAEME

The full thing is here: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/inside-red-hot-relegation-battle-12266749

Agree with this. Tbh, acknowledging I have zero idea what's going on in the dressing room or on the training ground, when I revisited that Albion Rovers doc I half-wondered if "lazy leg is fucking lazy" was still an accurate representation of Kerr's approach to things. Like, who knows maybe our staff *have* just been shouting at the players and this is the result. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've mentioned this before but it's interesting that Hammell's best run of form came at the point at which he'd been parachuted in and to all intents and purposes he was looking to steady the ship and there seemed to be a reaction of sorts to Alexander leaving (mind everyone was talking about style of football in press conferences and the like). This is us in the league up to the World Cup break: This is us after the best part of a month off and a mid-season training camp that included us getting battered 4-0 by Spurs. I mean maybe I'm being overly snarky but it says a lot that we've come back from a training camp where we got "a lot of good work done" and been demonstrably worse for it:

I'm maybe misinterpreting you but is it actually true he hadn't sought the job? Presumably we didn't force him to put his name forward and interview. Like Craigan he could simply have said that he'd happily oversee things in the interim but was happy with his Academy job - in Craigan's case it was working with Devs and combining that with his media work. Equally we didn't need to give him the job. Pretty sure Lasley had applied 3 times and lost out each time. We weren't obliged because of who he was. Instead Hammell put his name forward and I'm guessing interviewed well enough to be given the job. As I say, I'm maybe misinterpreting you but it's not like he Costanza'd his way into being First Team Manager at Motherwell Football Club.

@Casagolda covered this better than me in a post a couple of pages back but it's not that he stuck by Goss (to use him as an example) that I see as the issue it's the fact that it seemed clear that it wasn't working, the mix wasn't right, our set up didn't play to his strengths but Hammell just...didn't do anything about it. That's true of others as well, not just Goss. Didn't try and change anything just week after week scratched his head, said he was disappointed and then went again with a shape that wasn't working. He was effectively hanging his players out to dry. You can say what you like about players and their relative abilities but if the instructions/tactics they're being told to execute are legitimately making them look bad then that's going to cause issues even if they're in the starting line up and getting their appearance money. That's before you even get to your (entirely correct) point about binning players who had been alright out the team for folk who were literally just in the door. There are clearly questions to be asked about this squad given that's some of them soon to be on their 4th manager in the space of 3 years and a good chunk at least on to their 3rd. There was a downing of tools under Robinson (he alluded to it before he resigned as did Lasley), they did it under Alexander and now Hammell. In SOD's case, IIRC he was one of the agitators in Alessio getting emptied from Killie as well. That's...not a good look. Similarly though, everything points to Hammell simply not being a very good coach for this level. Both things can be true and tbh, that feels like a pretty toxic combination.

Just for fun, here are the currently available managers (according to Transfermarkt) whose last jobs were League 1 and League 2 in England (in the last 2 years). League 1: League 2

It's from McBookie who have Chris Hughton priced in their next Aberdeen manager list despite him being named the new Ghana manager yesterday. It's not a list based on any sort of insight. Tbh, I haven't got a fucking clue who we'd be even considering as it feels like any "profile" we've had in who we're looking at is out the window. As soon as Alexander was mentioned when Robinson resigned then in a choice between him and say, Tommy Wright it felt clear who of the two looked more like a "Motherwell manager" (IMO). For the best part of the last 10 years it's felt like we've had a type. Right now though we could easily end up with a Craig Brown type appointment, a Baraclough or anything in between based on who's doing the interviews. Even more so now that Burrows isn't involved. I mean, Nick Montgomery was a name that appeared when Hammell got the job supposedly off the back of us looking at recruitment algorithms. Weirdly Central Coast Mariners RT'd that article at the time and there's quotes from their chairman confirming it. Part of me thinks we'd be likely to lean towards a safe option in the same was we did with McGhee after Malpas or Brown after Gannon. It obviously wasn't exactly popular but going back to McGhee post-Bara was still a case us knowing what we were getting (and he got us a Top 6 finish tbf). Having said that, there's still a chance that we could go wildly off piste and do something really fucking stupid. Pretty much aye.

Fresh from shilling Billy Davies for the gig Scott Burns has there being a board meeting today.

This is something I had wondered. Like, I know the statement said that McMahon and non-executive directors had begun the recruitment process but who's the actual interview panel? There's a chance I'm totally making this up but I seem to remember it being mentioned re: previous hires that when we interviewed we had other (being polite) more footballing heads involved to provide some guidance.

One year. Link

I was about to say. This is who's left: Kelly, Oxborough, Lamie, Mugabi, McGinley, Blaney, Maguire, Spittal, Slattery, Tierney, Miller, Butcher, Van Veen, Danzaki, Morris, Shields. 16 players.