crazylegsjoe_mfc

The league cup group stages definitely do make the summers harder for a manager of a club like ours to achieve a rebuild. We've got 17 first team players on the website at the moment (18 including Lennon Miller). Regardless of transfer activity, it looks massively unlikely that McGinley or Butcher will be fit to play Elgin, which leaves us down to 15 players. I imagine in that fifteen, there are some players who don't feature greatly in Kettlewell's plans - Maguire, Danzaki, Shields, Mugabi and/or Lamie and maybe even Tierney - but he's going to have to strike a balance between getting his squad in place for the season and having a team to field in the League Cup games. Maybe we'll start to see a flurry of activity with the players due back next week, but it has been very quiet all in on the rumour front too.

That's where I'm at with it. He didn't ever look out of place, but he was never unanimously first choice. As much as he'd have been in my team like he has under Kettlewell, I don't think there'd have been a massive difference had Slattery been starting and Deano was on the bench. I don't begrudge him moving on at all, but us getting a few bob for a player I'd imagine we'd be able to replace seems preferable for all.

Brian McLean is their manager now too. He and Ross Forbes would have just about coincided with each other at Motherwell in the 2008/09 season. I was also surprised to see Peter Grant Junior plays with them too. I remember he was really being talked up when he came through at Falkirk, I hadn't heard much about him in years.

Herve Bacque and Mats Lungdren can be added to the list too. Herve Bacque was pretty good on Championship Manager 3 I recall though.

Semih Aydilek was another one. McGhee openly admitted he'd never seen him play before signing him on loan, he never saw a single minute.

Back to Moult, it's a hard no from me. I was in the no camp last summer, but I must admit I got taken in by the nostalgia and romance of him coming back once it happened. Sadly, he looked perfectly able when he was on the pitch, but the two moments for me that cement my stance are when we played Celtic and Van Veen got injured at half time, but we had to bring Shields on because Moult couldn't manage a full half and the fact that he's not kicked a single ball since his solitary start broke him. It would be different if he'd went away and played after he'd left us, but he hasn't. If we are signing someone as a backup, I'd rather we signed someone who could come in for that player if they were playing badly, not come on for them with 15 minutes to go. He seems like a top man and was a special player for us first time round, so it's gutting for him this is how it's turned out, but we need to let this one go.

Remember it doesn't always tell the full story

I'm now in the line of thinking that we basically don't expect any out of contract player back, so that list was more or less telling us all of them have left, especially with only two weeks of the close season left. I don't think we should let Goss or Casey dictate their pre-season start date like Scott McDonald used to. Obviously, Johnston & Cornelius' offers are still on the table so we get compensation when they go.

I definitely see him turning up for pre season two weeks tomorrow and reckon there's a chance that he'll play the first league cup games. I guess a lot of interested teams won't have the onus to have him there by the start of July.

I guess we'll never know the real truth. Hammell very much prioritised the signing of wingers when he came in. Was he either identified as a bad player or a bad egg straight away? I'm not so sure. When Kettlewell comes in, decides to change the shape and already has recent signings Danzaki, Aitchison and Crankshaw already surplus to requirements, it becomes difficult for him to achieve a clean slate. I do agree that he's unlikely to be blameless in the situation and could have done things to make the situation better. I think some people's opinion / reaction to him is a bit OTT.

I kind of feel sorry for the narrative on Morris - the guy literally played one full league game for us. I'm not saying I'm not pleased the situation is resolved and I'm not saying that he ever impressed me but it's not his fault he was signed by a manager who got sacked before the season started and further to that it's not his fault that Alexander got sacked. I get how he's a figurehead of sorts for the demise of Alexander, but if I was him I would certainly feel hard done by about how much of a scapegoat I'd become.

The clubs communications are woeful if you ask me. The season ticket prices are obviously rising significantly next season and on the group chat I'm in with 'Well fans, the incentive to buy a season ticket has been questioned. If you don't get the early bird, a season ticket costs £395 for the John Hunter stand, where we all sit. This season it has cost £21 to get into a game. The season ticket works out at £20.79 per game - meaning you'd only need to miss one game to lose money. Several of my mates are now questioning (or refusing) their renewals due to this. Has anyone ever made a bulk purchase of that amount to save 21p a time? I sent the club an e-mail a few weeks ago, asking them to clarify what the gate prices are going to be next season, as the saving at face value really isn't worth it. I got absolutely no reply or acknowledgement. That's one failure in communications. Secondly, I've heard murmurs that the gate prices may be going up. If that's the case, why not shout it from the rooftops to aid your season ticket campaign? Say a gate price is going from £21 to £25 for example - why not publicise that the savings you'd make compared to paying at the gate? Second failure in communications. If the gate prices aren't going up - then the strategy of the season ticket prices really needs questioned. As much as we all have an emotional attachment to Motherwell, at the end of the day, it's still a business and we are still customers. They should be marketing the value of the actual product, rather than trying to patrionise us, during a cost of living crisis, with an image of the Ravenscraig whilst asking for more money. I don't want or deserve to know the inner workings of the club as a 'Well Society member, but I at least would like when I ask a question about the bread and butter, to at least be dignified with a response. That's a wild sidetrack from players being offered contract renewals, but talk of shite comms from the club clearly triggered me

After Scott McDonald signed in late February, we actually had a decent enough record of 18 points from 12 games and we had handed out a couple of doings to Accies and St. Mirren and got a few other decent results. We were down there because of our form under McCall and that spell Baraclough had where we won one point in eight games. That gave me a bit of encouragement that we had enough ability to do it. What did concern me was playing Rangers at Ibrox in the first leg. However bad Rangers may have been, the Ibrox hoodoo was hanging over us and given I'd watched the probably the best Motherwell team I've seen lose there to Sandaza & co in Division 3, I was sure that would play a part. I actually think the XI that played the play-offs was a strong enough team, but bizzarely enough, the only twice we fielded that exact XI was in the two legs of the playoffs. McDonald, Pearson and Johnson were bascially the three signings that saved our season and whilst McDonald was ever present, it seemed like we were often missing one of the other two.

My take on that retained list was as expected, the biggest job for Kettlewell will be moving on players who aren't out of contract. We seem to have extended the deals of O'Donnell, McGinn, Mahon and Efford on the fly. I'm guessing that O'Donnell and McGinn were activated by clauses, hence no official announcement. With Efford, I'm assuming we are either doing the right thing, or Kettlewell thinks there is a player there. With the out of contract players, I reckon we have offered Cornelius and Johnston deals (which they've no intention of signing) to protect our compensation rights. Beyond that, I see Goss and Casey being offered deals, which I think there's more chance of Goss signing than Casey.

The job that Kettlewell has done has been nothing short of remarkable. When he took over we were joint bottom with Dundee United. We finished the season 19 points ahead of them. He's only lost two games out of fourteen and has a win rate of over 70%. If we had this form over the full season (I know we never would, but for context) we would only be about 10 points behind Rangers. All without bringing his own players in, Paton aside. I know this summer in the transfer market, particularly with Van Veen offski, will be a big challenge but you have to say so far he's done quite an incredible job. I'm glad we left Holloway to chat brexit with Farage.

I've obviously sensationalised it in my head

I very rarely buy football tops these days as a man in his 30s, but I bought the lumi one. I'm not sure if I liked it as a kit, or that I have a proper nostalgic connection to the first one from 1997/98. That was my first season with a season ticket, my dad bought me the top after winning the 50/50 draw after we beat Dunfermline in the lead up to Christmas and I watched us beat Rangers 2-1 a day before my birthday wearing it, courtesy of a Willie Falconer diving heider. It's a shame that all lumi 2.0 has is Mandron's double in Arbroath.

If Dundee Utd were to beat us 4-0 and Kilmarnock beat Ross County 4-0, Utd would finish 11th on goals scored. Wasn't there a 7 goal swing in England for a playoff place a couple of seasons ago? My memory is telling me it was maybe Nottingham Forest who lost their spot as a result.

I would take Arfield. After a lovely three months of playing people in positions they are comfortable in, I'm not going to start advocating putting square pegs in round holes again, but I guess he could offer us a degree of flexibility were we to change formation, with him having played out wide before. Spittal has been a revalation since Kettlewell has come in though and I'm wondering if Arfield would be suited to one of the two deeper roles in a 3-5-2.

I was confused by the red card too. I'm pretty sure I remember Shaun Hutchinson cementing someone wildly a few years back and getting away with it because the flag was up. The laws may have changed since then right enough and us getting the free kick might suggest they didn't think he was offside. It was a joke how long VAR took anyway. I didn't want to celebrate our goal tonight initially, despite the fact there was nothing visually wrong with it. I know not VAR but still on officials, that's nuts Spittal never got booked. We were brutal tonight and given we've had a fair bit of joy against Jack Hamilton before, it's frustrating that we made him a spectator in a team that had 10 men. I thought Furlong was quite easy beat for the equaliser by Devlin too. Poor night's work, but just casting my mind back to a 1-1 draw there at New Year that'd have bored you tears which was actually one of our better games under Hammell.

I can't understand why anyone would have much beef with him... He's looked fine to me when he's come on for brief stints. For starters, he seems to be able to run with the ball at his feet, which Shields couldn't do. I think Shields got a lot of heat before he went out on loan because he was starting most games and we were doing badly. I find it hard to get worked up about a guy only getting the odd 10 mins cause Van Veen has been sensational.

From the club's Instagram photos I could see that Johnston and Furlong were both training today, so that might be significantly less disruptive than first feared. If Furlong is available, I'd just bring Blaney in for Casey and Cornelius for Paton. I don't think we stand to gain much from dropping an in form SOD for Johnston.

The last time that was tried he lasted less than a minute

I'm under no illusions that we will ever be chasing 2nd whilst making a loss ever again. I just mean theoretically, spend the majority of our budget on a starting XI rather than a big squad. For example, when Grezza was tying himself in knots last season with his team, we had Donnelly, Grimshaw, Cornelius, O'Hara, Shaw, Slattery, Goss, Maguire and Tierney all competing to play in central midfield. By my reckoning, only 15 players have started a game under Kettlewell and 8 of them (Kelly, Butcher, Casey, McGinn, Furlong, Goss, Spittal and Van Veen) have started every game. I would love to see us replicate that over a season, but it involves a lot of luck with injuries and getting the transfer business spot on. I do agree that doing this in replacing 23 league goals from one man may prove to be difficult. @Handsome Devil - we signed Jack Aitchison permanently from Barnsley, which in any case would've prevented us punting him back down there. We'll still be paying Crankshaw's wages (or whatever % we were when he was here) so I assume he must have been a bad egg of sorts to be punted like that.

I think when asked about Obika and Mandron, Kettlewell gave a very good diplomatic answer. I think it would take quite a set of circumstances (like Morelos at Rangers) for a manager to publicly declare that a player was being shown the door. The answer definitely translated more to "we are evaluating all options" rather than "they are both being offered deals". I wouldn't be surprised if we perhaps kept one of them, but I really can't see both. With Aitchison, I am astounded that anyone has the ability to have marked him as shite. He started two league games (one out wide) in which proved to be the last two games for a capitulating manager. Since then, his biggest run out has been 24 minutes. It's actually been a luxury that Van Veen has been so good that we've not actually really needed to use him. I can't see Aitchison himself wanting to stay anyway, he featured far more for Barnsley in the first half of the season than he has done since signing for us. I would love us to run with a smaller squad next season and not have to rip it up and start again in January. I know @Desp alluded to the McCall days yesterday, where we'd have about 14/15 senior players and the rest of the bench filled with youth players. If we worked on getting as much quality in to our first XI as possible, that would be a preferable route for me. I'm just not sure if since then the quality of players we are able to attract is lesser and we try and sign more players in hope that by the law of averages we'll be able to field something of a competitive team. I think McCall was also fairly lucky in that he only ever really lost Steven Saunders to a long-term injury.