crazylegsjoe_mfc

I was fortunate enough to have a prior engagement and miss Friday, which probably makes me less angry than most, having not wasted any time on it. I don't think that us losing to lower league opposition is acceptable, but unfortunately it's not that unusual. Since I started going to see Motherwell in 1997 (ironically in a cup game against lower league opposition, which went to a replay), I've worked out we've failed to beat lower league teams over 90 minutes 28 times in 28 seasons. Of course there are some occurrences of league cup group games over recent years where the games haven't been "knockout", but still. You can obviously chuck in being knocked out of Europe by Sligo and Stjarnan over two legs as well as poor single leg results against Llanelli, Flamurtari and Coleraine which we managed to recover from, if you want to labour the point further. I don't know how that stacks up against other teams, but it seems high to me. Ineptitude whilst clear favourites in cup ties is far from exclusive to this group of players and staff. Again, I may be speaking out of turn here as I've seen very little of Friday's game, but from what I've read, the post mortem seems to have a lot in common with the post mortem of most of those other 27 matches I mentioned. As desperate as I am to see us win a trophy, I've long since stopped thinking that it's something I need concern myself with this season. My two concerns really now are the money lost from a trip to Celtic Park (given all the talk about finances of late) and the effect on the confidence of the team ahead of the run-in. There is still a bit of me that is content that we had our mare against a lower league club and didn't capitulate against a team around us in the league. We all know where not a great team and we hadn't had a stinker since county away and teams of our ilk do have stinkers now and again. We've made lots of marginal steps forward since then and whilst it's still raw and disappointing, I hope we see it in the context of a game and don't rip it up and start again. I'm not saying I'm against 2 or 3 changes to freshen things up, but sometimes for me, Kettlewell is at his scariest when he's got lots of options to choose from.

Since Craigan and Lasley, we've had a distinct lack of leaders, long serving players who are automatic picks and good centre backs or holding midfielders. They all probably feed into each other.

When I heard murmurs of this at the game on Tuesday, I thought it was nonsense. I've never heard of this happening before. I will qualify this with saying that I don't think Shaw was good for us prior to the break, but I certainly don't think this is the disaster some make it out to be, especially on a lesser wage. I don't think the fans' opinion of him would be as low, if we didn't have such a chaotic use of strikers in general in the first half of the season. There were points where he was one of four strikers being brought on as a sub in a game. When we were playing someone up beside Mika, all four of the other guys got a shot at it and there was never any chance for momentum or consistency. Many were shouting on us to sign just any striker when the window closed. We've done that and people are still unhappy.

I read it on a flight home from Tenerife. I've never really been a fan of Nevin - both from the part he played in our spending years and his "I'm an intelligent footballer who likes music and reading" persona he likes to flog in the media, but to be honest I really enjoyed reading the book. The main reason probably being that I enjoy reading football books and there aren't that many around about Motherwell and this one was really in-depth and added context to a lot of things that happened at the time. I finished it having slightly more sympathy for Nevin on his time at the club than I had previously, but I'm well aware that was how he would've intended to come across and we never heard any other sides to the story.

I find it hard to disagree with any of these points and agree with @capt_oats that last season's back three should be our destination. In defence of not making those changes tomorrow, we've got the opportunity to play the same team three on the bounce, we've had two fairly positive results and some of the players in that XI (Davor, Halliday, Butcher & Gent) look like they are getting up to speed. To start tweaking things in such a big game might not be so wise. I wouldn't be averse seeing Nicholson, Miller, Buyabu and Devine in from the start on Friday, with them being bed in from there.

I agree with all of this. What I would also say, is that if all the January signings succeed in doing is to get another level of performance out of those already here, then you could still consider it to be be a success. Even from the perspective of training - I'm sure things will be more intense and competitive than they were when the first XI would've had to line up against 4 strikers, Oxborough and 6 weans.

I only saw Tommy Coyne towards the end of his time with us and I was just a young child, but he was my first ever hero and made me fall in love with Motherwell and football so he always gets top spot for me. I think Faddy was perhaps in some ways a victim of playing in the wrong era. We're probably only discussing him as a centre forward because he played back when front twos were still in their pomp. When he went down south, all the front twos seemed to be a big target man and a nippy wee guy, of which he was neither. At the same time, old style wingers that played on their strong side, ran past a full back and put a cross in were still a thing, which he wasn't really either. I never thought watching him growing up that his best chance of playing every week in the EPL would be the graveyard shift in a 4-5-1 for Birmingham. I wonder how he'd have got on down there playing as a number ten, or off the right.

Whilst it's being discussed, I always think Scott McDonald is always unfairly overlooked in these discussions. If I was picking my all time XI (97 onwards) it would be Coyne and Higdon up front with Faddy either in the hole or on a wing.

We're torturing ourselves here, now of all times, to be reminiscing over our best strikers

Moult or Van Veen is an interesting debate. I'd probably take Moult into the trenches with me and have Van Veen as the cherry on top of an already good side.

As @Desp hints at above, he needs to want us as well as us wanting him. If we go our separate ways, he would be back on Open All Mics and Sportscene the following week. I know which of the two jobs seems preferrable just now. He'd end up on a coaching (perhaps not managing) role somewhere too. He's taken over here, reshaped a side in danger of relegation and got them to finish a comfortable 7th. He's then been asked to take that team who were struggling to survive a mere three months later, slash it both in terms of numbers and quality and try to get it to survive. If we do survive this season, he could move on with his CV intact. Regardless of the 1 win in 18, All the strikers or no strikers, Spittal at wing-back, Wilkinson in centre-mid patter we've endured, keeping this team in the divison can be viewed as a success. We've got seven players signed for next season (Casey, Blaney, Davor, Halliday, Paton, Miller, Bair). The players who we would want to keep from this squad (Spittal for example), could possibly stay in the division and up their wages if the St. Mirren stuff we're hearing is true. What does he do then? Go out and try and sign circa 15 players? Give new contracts to those not firing with us currently in a "better the devil you know" situation? You couldn't argue with his cahones if he took that on, but you also couldn't argue with him walking away from it. I'm still not sure to what proportion our shortcomings in the transfer market are split between being his fault and being the environment he's had to shop in.

I saw that Scott Burns said we are paying for last January, but for me our current playing budget is probably paying for years of mismanagement. Season 2020/21 - Robinson overloads the squad on forwards and ignores massive gaps in defence. Season 2021/22 - Alexander gets a massive wage bill and spends circa £500k on transfer fees, probably going down the "speculate to accumulate" line, but Slattery and Kelly look set to leave for free this summer. Season 2022/23 - We sack our manager before the league season starts, then overspend letting the new manager bring his own players in, to then sack him after using two of them for the first time (admittedly deservedly so). Season 2023/24 - The manager who performed miracles with the squad he inherited is forced to slash his squad massively, with his first eleven often made up of players who were at the club the previous season, but couldn't get in the starting XI. As for this window, I would sum it up as: Centre-back: Repurposing SOD as a centre-back, where he has looked very comfortable makes perfect sense, rather than entering the market - especially with our track record of signing centre-backs probably since Aldred left. Aside from Sammon's goal, there's also encouraging signs the Butcher of last season is on his way back. Wing-backs: There's been much exaggeration for effect. As per @capt_oats formation thing, I would consider McGinn and O'Donnell as centre-backs now. Elliot is a project. We have aspirations to play Gent further forward. We are now in a place where we won't need to use Spittal there for the rest of the season. Centre midfield: Signing Halliday (as well as Miller returning to fitness) is again another encouraging sign that we won't need to use Spittal as a 6, a sitting midfielder or whatever it's called in FM these days. Forwards: Nicholson will hopefully give us other options and perhaps even allow for a change of shape. Gent could end up being decent in that role too. Vale has potential to be a good signing. Would I have wanted another striker? Absolutely. However, there have been plenty of other times in recent past where our squad has only had two number 9s. I honestly think we will be just about fine this season. It's next season that's giving me the scaries...

I'm pretty sure that we didn't find out we'd signed Obika until the following day last season.

Tam Cowan likes this.

I think the profile of the strikers we signed this summer is an indication of what we can expect. A striker who is playing for a similar club at the same level of us, who's not firing and in need of a fresh start (Bair) An academy striker from down south, who has limited first-team experience, with a previous loan that didn't quite go to plan (Biereth) An English lower league journeyman with a reasonably good goalscoring record, who's not kicked on since returning from injury (Wilkinson) A striker who has played at this level but is out of the picture at a club down south (Shaw) A veteran, perma-crock who scored a few goals for St. Mirren once upon a time (Obika) I jest with the last one obviously, but when it comes down to it, those are the types of profile I think we can expect. Unfortunately we are unlikely to be on the other end of the Biereth situation. I can't foresee a club pulling a player back from a successful loan and sending them to Motherwell. If there's a player who's scoring regularly in say League Two in England, I think the parent club would leave them be, rather than thinking they'd be better off moving up here.

Oh aye, that's spot on. Some quick maths on those statistics would tell you that if he's played 25 times and nearly 1000 minutes that those average out at less than 40 minutes an appearance, so it's not like he's started 25 games. His stats don't look too different to the last striker we got on loan from Blackburn, Nick Blackman, before he came up to us. I don't think we're going to sign any striker today or tomorrow and be wowed by their recent goal return.

I work with a Blackburn fan who had the following to say about Jack Vale. For context, he had never heard of Georgie Gent. yeah i've heard of him, he's alright you know he was going to be one of the next star to come from the academy but just didn't work out not clinical though if a goalscorer is what you're after

I was about to repeat my spiel when we were linked with Halliday about how I can't believe how quickly our fans turn our noses up at these kind of signings, but you have summed it up perfectly. I think at this stage in his career, SOD is suited to the right of the the three centre backs role. Having him able to slot in there, and reduce our reliance on starting Bevis, is an advantage. No harm to the big man, but he is a backup player and he has started 18 of our 22 games this season. Rooney being a "battering ram" for me isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think in a system with wing-backs, I think athleticisim is a good thing. This window isn't going to be about transformational signings, it's going to be about making marginal gains here and there.

Bevis Mugabi and Barry Maguire would be a good fit for St. Mirren IMO.

Looking at strikers we've signed in January, I think only Henrik Ojamaa (7 league goals, 9 all comps in 2011/12) and Curtis Main (5 league goals, 8 all comps in 2017/18) have made a signifcant goalscoring impact between signing and the end of the season. You can of course add Skippy and Faddy getting five goals apiece when they returned in 2012/13 and 2014/15 to the list as post-window signings. We are probably looking at a loan or a journeyman who'll nick a couple and maybe a couple more if things align. What I will say is that this must be up there with the most we've needed a striker in January. Had we not signed Main and Ciftci in 2018 it wouldn't have been great going with Bowman, Fisher, Petravicius and Tanner as your options, but now it's literally Bair and no one else that we have.

I know we all take Steelmen Online and any online similar online source with a pinch of salt, but I've honestly heard that about 4 or 5 different players are our second highest paid. I guess if you start enough rumours about that eventually one of them will be right. Spittal has been outstanding for us and he's probably entering his peak now. I know he has a young family and has never played outside of Scotland, but I wonder if the appeal of playing down south does anything for him. The Championship is unrealistic, but if Jordan Roberts, for example, is doing well in League One, I can't see any reason why Spittal wouldn't. I also wonder if he's on the radar of any of the city clubs that could keep him in Scotland but pay more than a sideways move. Either way, if I was a manager trying to get him to my club, I'd definitely be leading with "I won't ever play you as a wing-back, or a six".

Livingston would need to slightly up their PPG total to equal our points tally, if we lost every single game between now and the end of the season. That's obviously not going to happen (Livi would have to beat us twice into the bargain), but that illustrates the unlikelihood of us finishing bottom. I also say that believing that Livi's current position is indicative of where they should be. Without obviously watching them too closely, it doesn't seem like they're almost there, or like they're playing well in games but just not getting points. Looking at the table (9 points and 14 goals) we are closer to 4th than we are to 12th. That said, I can't ever fully shake off my Motherwell pessimism and think a draw between them and Ross County would make me feel at my safest this week. Watching the game on Saturday, as frustrating as it was not to take all three points, I'd be much happier watching that as a Motherwell fan rather than a St. Johnstone fan. I missed the chance they had at the death, so I'm not sure how close it was, but from what I saw, they didn't really trouble us too much aside from the set piece opener. On the other hand, Paton had two chances he should have scored, Spittal should have scored, Gent had a decent effort and any touch from Gent's fizzed ball across could have caused something. I feel like if we stopped conceding soft openers, we'd sort a lot of our problems out. I think it's going to be tight all in, but how confident I am in escaping relegation will be a lot clearer at 10pm next Tuesday, after playing Ross County at home.

We might be able to add Casey, Blaney, Elliot and Nicholson to the squad, but I doubt any of them will be fit to start. Montgomery will obviously be out, I reckon he'll be replaced by either Miller or Halliday. It was great to see Miller back last week, but if another half an hour gives us more chance of him getting in the XI and staying there in the long run, I'm all for it. The question is then whether Halliday fills in at LWB, or Gent goes back and Halliday plays as one of the attacking midfielders. Could see this one ending a draw.

I definitely think we now take more risks due to our standing at this moment in time. Last season particuarly, thinking of us signing Moult and Aarons. Moult had obviously been brilliant for us previously and whilst Aarons was just getting going on his loan when COVID struck, but he was highly rated and had played in the EPL for Newcastle. If you compare that to who we signed to replace them in the January, Crankshaw and Mandron were let go by clubs in League Two. It's all about risk and reward, but you can see why we done that, given what the alternatives were. However, we've not had much of the reward side of things when we have taken chances.

I think Hammell was out of his depth speaking publicly. The Snodgrass press conference was an early indicator of that. I honestly think he said he was confident Johnston would sign a new deal to get the question over and done with. In terms of squad size, we had much smaller squads when we were half decent and we padded the squad out with younger players. It makes you think that we can attribute a lot of our success then to avoiding injuries to key players. In the seasons where we finished 3rd, 2nd and 2nd, really only Steven Saunders and Simon Ramsden had any injuries of note. These days, any time we've a small squad we seem to get injuries by the load. What's changed between then and now? Is it worse physios? Plastic pitches? Is our smaller budget making us go for players with chequered fitness history? In those days, your bench would be filled with the likes of Page, McHugh, Carswell, ZFA, Moore etc. They all seem a bit more like grown ups, but any youngster on our bench these days is an actual wean. Obviously exceptional cases like Miller can handle it, but I can see why we don't chuck many in. Funnily enough, I can't think of a recent success case of one of our players going south to an under 23s side. McKinstry, Leitch, McAlear and Hall are all playing at a lower level than Motherwell now. I'm not sure if I've missed any?