crazylegsjoe_mfc

I'm not saying that's what I want him to do. I just think that it's a big stretch from putting Butcher in there - who's an experienced leader - to an inexperienced player fresh from the league of Ireland. It has also entered my mind that Lamie has been serviceable in the past - not under Robinson or Hammell, but for much of Alexander's tenure he was for the most part, fine. If Goss and Spittal can look like different players under Kettlewell, is it inconceivable that Lamie could?

I don't know if it's just me, but I imagine if Blaney gets a run in the team in this shape, it would be left of the three. If Kettlewell goes for a straight swap, I could see him bringing Lamie (like he did on Saturday).

As much as I understand there's a big nod to the circumstances of being 2 down with quarter of an hour to go, I still think our media team has used a fair bit of artistic licence to call finishing in the top six when we were clear in fourth at Christmas "the impossible"

Combining the last two posts, it will be interesting to see what approach Kettlewell takes next season. We've all heard the KVV to China rumours and it wouldn't surprise me to see that deal go ahead in the summer and if they're going to pay a 32 year old silly money you couldn't begrudge him it. Kettlewell said himself it wasn't a case of the 3-5-2 formation being favoured - rather it suited the squad he inherited. With the three right backs' contracts expiring and Furlong's loan ending, that's a lot of work to get two of the crucial positions in the formation sorted. Furlong obviously won't get near the Brighton team, but it wouldn't surprise you if he uses his loan at Motherwell to get another club in England, like Penney did. The choice of 3-5-2 also probably hinged on Van Veen being able to flourish with a partner and that Kettlewell inherited four centre forwards. It'll be interesting to see if he goes, how that affects things. Particularly as Aitchison, Mandron and Obika expire at the end of the season too.

That's KVV overtaken Moult's best return of 18 in his two full seasons and Faddy's 19 of 2002/03. I make him only the third player in my lifetime to score 20 goals in a season. The other twice we finished second. That makes for very good reading.

To be honest, I think Turnbull has had a really unlucky set of circumstances. He was about the only player to graduate from Sellick's COVID season with any credit and then started off the next season very well before picking up an injury, after which Celtic had signed a few central midfielders. He actually has a very good goals / assists ratio for the minutes he's played this season. He's just unfortunate that Scotland have Jack, McGregor, McTominay, Gilmour, McGinn, Armstrong, Ferguson and McLean all able to a job in central midfield. Gilmour is probably just about earned his place in the squad despite his lack of minutes through goodwill gained from his time in the team from June 2021 - June 2022, but outwith him, it would be tough to make an argument for Turnbull taking any of the rest of their places in the team. In the three formations Clarke has used (4-2-3-1, 3-4-1-2 and 3-4-2-1) you'd probably argue Turnbull would have to be a '10' in those formations and there are probably a good few ahead of him for that role. It's actually, for the national side, a great luxury that we don't actually need a player of his quality at this time. On a side note, this is probably through me being ill informed because I watched Turnbull every week and probably rated Gilmour in my head through his reputation without having seen him much, but a few years ago I would not have predicted out of the three that Lewis Ferguson would be the one doing the best for himself at this point.

Aye, that's kind of where I'm at with it. For all Alexander had many faults, if he got the *numbers* that he did out of Morris, you can surely see why he would sign him again. One of his seasons with Grezza he scored 19 and assisted 17, that's quite simply phenomenal at any level. I don't have anything positive to say about the small sample size that I have seen from Morris, but surely we might have seen a bit more had he got more of a choice. I don't know whether he just got tarred with Grezza's brush too much.

I think one of Kettlewell's biggest tasks next season will be shifting players who are under contract. Only five players (Kelly, Butcher, Slattery, Spittal, Van Veen) who are contracted have started under him so far. That means that for one reason or another Oxborough, Lamie, Mugabi, Maguire, Danzaki, McGinley, Blaney, Morris, Tierney and Shields currently aren't getting in our team and for many of them, I'm not convinced that'll change next season. I know there are caveats like potential and the fact we obviously need a sub keeper, but I imagine he'll be looking to move a good few of them on. I'd like to see how Blaney's potential develops, but if they're not getting in our XI at the moment, do we really need Mugabi AND Lamie next season?

I think that building a squad with a view to playing 3-5-2 is quite tough. Firstly, not only do you need two good wing backs, you also need adequate cover. I think Robinson was very fortunate that Tait was as capable on either side. Secondly, it probably puts a fair amount of your eggs in one basket. Robinson found that again when the system got found out and Elliott Frear was the only option to change it up (obviously in January Gboly and Hastie's purple patch helped navigate that). I think this season we have ended up with a 3-5-2 fitting squad by accident, due to Grezza and SOD's standoff. The fact that McGinn can fill two slots in there and he won't break the bank pushes me towards another year for him, even if I'm less than enthused with his part in the second Rangers goal on Saturday. If we are fortunate to reach a point where we are arithmetically (or at least practically) safe, I'd bump Max for SOD. As much as SOD's career with us so far hasn't gone as well as anyone would like, he's never had a run at wing back before and he's proven to do a job there in bigger matches than he'll ever play for us. That would make us see if keeping him next season is a goer.

Van Veen is thriving as a second striker - he's one of those players that you probably have to accomodate in the modern game when 4-4-2 is pretty much a dead formation. He's not an out and out number 9, he's not a number 10 and he's certainly not effective "off the left". However, even when he was played around those places in Hammell's setup, he was still far from being a problem for us compared to others in the side. One of the biggest changes that Kettlewell has brought for me is that he has looked at his squad and thought "how can I get the best out of this lot?", you're seeing it with Van Veen thriving alongside someone, you're seeing it with Spittal in a role that suits him (Saturday's experiment aside). Hammell picked a formation and tried to mould players into roles that didn't suit them. Van Veen, Shields and Spittal weren't suited to how Hammell was using them and are now all thriving in new roles, albeit Shields a division down at another club. McKinstry now looks sadly a victim of being the only forward suited to Hammell's formation, lad has done nothing wrong but you can't see where you'd put him in. If a guy named "Budget Bergkamp" is at Motherwell - there's obviously going to be caveats with him surrounding consistency, attitude, discipline etc as we've all probably seen at other points. However, I can't help but think at times, as much as I'd never justify a player lacking in application, that I would have shared his frustrations. For me he is far and away our player of the year and I hope next season we find a way to play him up beside a target man again, because it will be very difficult for us find his contribution whilst used effectively from anywhere else.

I started going to games halfway through the 1996/97 season. The first two games I was consicence of us playing Rangers were both at Ibrox - which we accumulated four points in. The title party crashing then that draw where Shivute scored. The first three times I saw us play them in the flesh we got 7 points - the draw that @capt_oats has posted above, the Willie Falconer game floating about yesterday and then Spencer's debut where we won 1-0. We then beat them in the final game of the season that followed. Safe to say my early years (playoffs and league cup semi aside) of Motherwell and Rangers games are far better than the recent ones!

I think if Kelly was ever going to win a cap, with the infrequency of friendlies these days, it would've been against Turkey in November. If Clarke had any faith in using him, he'd have seen how he fared, with Gordon approaching his 40th at the time and Kelly being next in line. The fact that he didn't and then when Gordon got injured, he went out and pursued Gunn tells you what you need to know. Clark has probably pipped him in to second choice on recent form too.

As much as it's a completely laughable piece of refereeing that allows us to score here, Aberdeen fans conveniently left out Russell Anderson equalising with his hand in the game at Fir Park in the January when making their plea...

Good captioning, especially when Cody Gakpo is quite literally next to Van Veen on the list with the same amount of goals

The black lives matter piece was absolutely fantastic, which made it even more dumbfounding that a few weeks later Laura Brannan ignored the anti-racism social media silence and just posted the updates from her personal account that weekend.

I agree with that largely, I didn't see the game minute by minute on Saturday, but particularly in the two home games, Goss was even doing the dirty work reasonably well which I never thought I'd see. If the season ended tomorrow, I'd still be largely in favour of letting him go. Spittal has been great since Kettlewell took over however, his goal and two assists are exactly what I've wanted to see from him.

I guess five of Kettlewell's starting XI weren't really available to Hammell. We all knew Kelly was underperforming, McGinn was passable and Van Veen had a high ceiling but was frustrating us and himself at times. That really only leaves the midfield, which has shown a marked improvement since Kettlewell came in undoubtedly, but for however much better they've been, I think having three centre backs behind them has massively helped. I'd still be wary of this midfield playing with a back four behind them. Aside from that, Hammell's underperformers are largely not being used now. 10 from 12 is great and I don't quite buy into Grezza's opinion that we are safe yet, but the garden certainly looks rosier. It's a shame that our next game is both two weeks away and against Rangers for the sake of our momentum. The three below us all play teams they could conceivably get something from that weekend too, as well as Dundee Utd at an out form Livi this midweek. The following set of games, if we somehow manage to get something from Easter Road that would be great, as the three below us play Celtic, Rangers and Hearts that weekend. If we are sitting with the same or similar gap after the Hibs game I think we can begin to breathe. Also noticed, looking at our games so far this season that we have 30 points, 10 from the first 12, 10 from the most recent 12 and 10 from 60 in between. That was one barren spell.

Believe it or not, that pint over Christmas was my only visit. A mate suggested breaking up the ridiculously long walk from Motherwell train station to the new century. I think I've now been in every pub in Motherwell, bar the war office. I'm not in a rush to rectify that...

I had a pint in the Brandon bar over the festive period - it's still standing. Sounds like the dalziel arms, which has tried to open under a couple of new names since it shut and failed.

As someone who got married recently, I think you'd be shocked at the per head cost of a wedding and I'm pretty sure Ricky Foster would've got married in a nicer gaff than me he's probably saved himself a few quid with the perfume.

You joke, but I saw a comment on the player of the month facebook post the other day where a guy was demanding to know why there was no information on the official site about why McKinstry had been dropped.

There's no defending Slattery making a homphobic remark at a police officer whatsoever. However, I can't help but think that any comment on him playing during the campaign this month is devalued a bit by the fact it was his sixth appearance in the month of February and he had just scored a last minute equaliser against your team. If the point was pertitent, surely it would have been made on one of his previous five appearances.

Kelly treating the ball like a bar of soap and Van Veen deciding to take a touch in the six yard box are definitely gripe one and two, before any offside rule is mentioned.

Ainsworth's exploits in the last week of May 2015 will always hold him in folklore for me, but in all honesty, if he wasn't contributing to his highlight reel, we were as well playing with 10. Don't get me wrong, it's the best highlight reel a 'Well player has had, but he went missing for months on end a few times. I can see why he was a nightmare to a manager.

There's so many variables in it now. We signed a lot of the good players we reminisce over when either John Boyle or Les Hutchison were chucking money at it. Our fully fan-owned budget doesn't lend as well to that. As well as what @capt_oats says about Brexit, there was also a spell where the city clubs were taking it in turns to be a bit shit and we would compete with them for signings. I know he's one that splits opinion, but for example, Stephen McManus turned down Hibs to sign with us. Now it seems completely unfathomable that we could beat Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen or even Dundee Utd to a signing. We've seen that with Snodgrass already this season and even with Tony Watt leaving us in the form of his life for Dundee Utd. When we got linked with Fuchs, as much as the deadline had passed, when I saw it was us and Dundee Utd in for him, I pretty much thought "wouldn't have happened anyway". I've also seen it being banded about that the use of data in football now means that unearthing a hidden gem for a club like us is less likely, because his *numbers* will make him already stand out before a scout goes to watch. So basically the TL:DR is fan-ownership, brexit, teams with more money and technology.