joewarkfanclub

Great to see wee Al doing so well down south. I must admit, I did wonder how he would cope with the physicality down there. There was no doubting his ability or attitude, but I did wonder if he would be quick/athletic enough to shine down there. He has clearly worked very hard on improving all aspects of his game. Would be great to see him in the Premiership. As for Furlong, I was really impressed with his performance on Saturday. Armstrong is a very difficult opponent, and he never gave him a sniff. He also managed to get the balance right between defence and attack. If we can get him on a permanent contract it would be a very good bit of business.

They seem to be the opposite of what we were under Hammell, when our goals against wasnt horrendous, our goals for was decent but we still somehow conspired to be 2nd bottom of the league on goal difference! The building blocks were clearly there, but Kettlewell takes a lot of credit for turning our results around........

Really enjoyed that yesterday. Thought we thoroughly deserved the 3 points. Killie knocked the ball about ok but never really threatened our goal. Their best chances were at set peices. VAR really is a joke. I think its time for some serious fan demonstrations to rid us of it. 4 minutes to confirm 2 decisions the referee clearly got right is ridiculous. The Goss challenge was right in front of us and was nothing more than a 50/50 and a coming together. Never a red card. And the offside is pretty clear also. Thought KVV was unplayable yesterday. Some of his first touches were sublime and his nutmeg, I think it was on Ash Taylor, was just ridiculous. If he had scored that it would have taken the roof off the East Stand. Glad we are finally safe. All efforts must now focus on getting KVV to the 30 goal mark. No Motherwell striker has managed that in my lifetime. Im 54.

Morning all. Can I take this opportunity to withdraw all my previous comments about KVV and his attitude / body language during Hammells darkest hours. The big man can do whatever the ##ck he likes and its absolutely fine by me! Absolute masterclass yesterday. My favourite was the nutmeg on big Taylor. If he had scored that chance I may have spontaneously combusted. He did seem very emotional at the end of the game. Seriously hope it was just exhaustion and not something more personal. The big man will be a loss next season, really hope he gets the 30 and gets carried shoulder high off the pitch on the last day of the season.

Definitely between Slattery''s free kick and Max. Im gonna give Max the benefit of the doubt and say he meant it. Top finishes for both!

Looking forward to this. Killie will bring a good support and will have had a real shot in the arm after the St Mirren game. We are coming off the back of a great result at Celtic Park and KVV has his eyes on the 30 goal mark, which would be quite incredible after the season we have had. Add in, 2 weeks to prepare specifically for this game and some of our injured players getting serious minutes for the reserves over the last week or so and there should be lots to look forward to. And it will get us away from the Coronation for a few hours!

Absolutely against this idea for all the reasons given. The big 2 already have too big an advantage over every other team in the country. We dont need to be handing them another. Time we started making decisions for the benefit of ALL of Scottish football instead of just 2 clubs (and those with delusions of grandeur). The pyramid system was one of the few things the games administrators have got right over recent years. It needs to be allowed to function fairly and based on merit, not finance.

I guess we have to give the board some credit for getting that right. Albeit there werent many credible alternatives.....

I like our story and the whole "Made of Steel" thing. It gives us roots in the community and the football club is one of the few things left that still binds it together. That said, there was nothing new or interesting in the season ticket ad that we havent already seen before to really get the juices flowing for next season. I do wonder whether it was all a bit premature and could have waited a couple of weeks until we were mathematically safe. We could have maybe then leaned more heavily on our unbroken run in the top flight. Re how the club has been run, I agree that with hindsight there have been a number of clear and obvious errors, but as others have said, much of it has been down to circumstance and done in good faith. It certainly feels like we are in a transition period. The multiple vacancies require to he filled and the squad will again be re-structured in the summer. I feel pretty positive about that going forward as it looks like we will be doing all this still as a top flight club and with a manager who seems to have a handle on things and is getting results playing in a reasonably entertaining fashion. He certainly hasnt split opinion in the support like the last 2 did, so hopefully the trajectory continues to be upwards!

Anything less than £500k for KVV would be bonkers. If we hold him to the last year if his contract he needs to replicate this seasons form to get the move he craves, but he will go for free and all the money goes in his and his agents pocket. Given the league placings at stake and the corresponding moneys available, anything less is short changing us.

Och where's the fun in that! Most of our signings are decidedly "meh"...... Its nice to get a "thinking out of the box" player to salivate over until he plays his first game and we realise he is shite!

Stick my name in the box. If Kev is pissed at me, Im happy to discuss it with him. Im sure after a frank exchange of views we can laugh about it and raise a glass to him being our undisputed POTY!

This is one of those games where you learn whether your team is one you can trust. Form book says Motherwell win. But we have all been there before and fell flat on our face. Will Kettlewells.Motherwell be any different?

Im loving his pressers. They ooze positivity and leave me feeling pretty confident about the game. Only problem with that is Im a Motherwell and Scotland fan, so feeling confident doesn't sit easy with me!

Given that you appear to be referring to one of my posts on SO, I kinda feel the need to defend myself here seeing as I would appear to be getting lumped in with some of the more negative elements of our support. I did describe KVV as a huffy manchild who downed tools (in certain games) but never at any point did I suggest he did it deliberately to get Hammell sacked (or that I hated him). Im actually a huge fan of KVV. He has fantastic natural ability and his goals have been crucial in keeping our heads above water this season. Those things have never been in doubt. Some were advocating that he was a waste of a jersey and should have been dropped. I wouldnt have gone that far as we literally have no one else to score the goals required to keep us up. However, I did question his attitude as a senior player at a time when Hammell needed him the most. There were several games when his body language was absolutely awful and he simply wasnt being a good team mate. I think its fair enough to call that out. Of course there may have been mitigating factors unknown to most supporters, but surely its possible to see the positive attributes of a player whilst calling them out if you feel they arent giving everything for the team? FWIW, I do realise that if KVV did everything I wanted from him he simply wouldnt be at Motherwell as a bigger club would be paying him way more than we can afford. So to summarise. He cant run, he cant jump, sometimes his attitude is bad. All he does is score goals.....

Youve pretty much summed us up. Under Hammell, we looked much nicer on the eye for large parts of the season. But we were too nice, we lost too many soft goals and it was killing us. Kettlewell has come in and basically employed low risk safety first football. We clear our lines and play what football we can in the final third. Butcher and Casey coming in in the window have plugged the holes at the back and Obika, limited though he is, has allowed KVV to re-discover his mojo. Still early days, but we already look a far better bet to survive than we had previiously. Brophy is a player I like a lot. He has always caused us problems with his movement at Killie and St Mirren. Youve donr well to get him in.

Well her brother is/was/pretended to be.....

Kettlewell until the end of season. The other 2 are too much of a gamble to spoil the momentum he has started to build........

I think we played significantly better in the 0-3 game and created numerous chances. Poor finishing and Craig Gordon put paid to us getting anything from the game. That and the fact that we played too open that day and allowed ourselves to get picked off. Its a fine line to tred between pragmatism and entertainment. But I did fair enjoy that today, so I guess we got the balance right!

All of a sudden things feel good again. Unbelievable how quickly Kettlewell has turned things around. Feels risky to upset this momentum with 2 such huge games coming up next. Either leave Kettlewell in charge for the next 2 games or just give him it until the end of the season and be done with it. Neither McCann or Holloway have any experience of the Scottish game and you wouldnt imagine much knowledge of our squad (or our opponents). Neither appointment would be risk free. Should be a healthy travelling support for Rugby Park next week. Lets keep things going........

Good point.

If you know a good shrink though, please message me their number. I didnt say my mental health wasnt suffering.......

Youve clearly read my Steelmen Online posts, so you know thats not my position.

And Im one of them. I prefer to call it the reality of running a fan owned football club. But fill your boots!

It remains to be seen how much impact any of our signings will make, but these numbers could be telling. United have some quality in their squad but Killie and St Johnstone are taking a big gamble. Livvy too havent done any real business, although they should have enough points in the bank already to cover any possible slide in form. Could be an interesting 2nd half of the season.