crazylegsjoe_mfc

For Motherwell: Twardzik Grimshaw Aldred Craigan Hammell Lasley O'Donnell Pearson McFadden Sutton McDonald Twardzik is just about the lesser of two evils with Gunnar Nielsen and McFadden and Pearson's inclusions are based on their first returns. I think I started going just after Fraser Wishart's second spell, so that may give him the opportunity to replace Grimshaw.

He's out of contract at the end of the season, so they wouldn't need permission, which I reckon goes in our favour. If they're not going to get a few for him, then surely they won't be too fussed about where he plays. I guess him training with them in the break might have been them gauging whether it's worth extending his deal or not.

He was my first childhood hero, even if I only caught him in his twilight at Motherwell. I was a devastated 8 year old when we let him go, but the fact he scored 15 for us one season and 0 for you the next probably tells me that in terms of his legacy it was probably the right time to go. In talk of Motherwell, Dundee and returning players, I remember being bemused about us taking David Clarkson on trial at pre season, even taking him to Portugal, before choosing to not sign him. Was it his first 8 games for Dundee he scored in? Including the first goal in a win against us. We then signed him the following summer, after the goals had dried up, rather pointlessly as we signed another four strikers after him and never played him.

I think that summer we signed Kelly, for a small fee, on high wages, with the hope we would sell him and I reckon although the wages are probably a bit lower than Kelly's, it's probably a similar scenario with Slattery. He's got a high ceiling and a low floor for me. Prior to hearing about his injury, I thought the end of this season would have been a natural parting of ways. I'd imagine we put him at the higher end of the payscale on the gamble it would make us a transfer fee and now that hasn't come to fruition, I would question if renewing his contract at the same rank of the payscale that he's on currently would be worth it. As for insurance, I don't think it does if he gets injured on our watch. The only time I've heard of insurance coming in to play was when Saunders got injured for the season whilst on international duty with the under 21s and we were able to bring in Clancy for the season with the money.

I understand where you're coming from. Gent to me seems very direct. There's a couple of runs and crosses that he's put in that's reminded me of an old school winger before they all became "inverted" but for some reason, the way wingers are used these days, for some reason, I can't picture him on the right cutting in. That and Ketts dying on the back three with wing backs hill.

I imagine that it will be Penney or Furlong. I imagine Penney (who's unattached) will be an 18-month deal and that would be one less thing to worry about next summer. I'd say from an immediate perspective, Furlong would be better, but he'd likely be a loan and we'd be looking for a left back again in the summer. I actually think it would be harsh to drop Gent, he's come on to a game for me. However, given we've seen three different right backs and Blair Spittal at left wing back this season and we're dead set on a back three, it definitely makes sense to have two.

I'm in the "think he's better than Shaw / Obika but wouldn't spend limited funds on him" camp. I must say I thought he looked outstanding a few times I saw him for St. Mirren last season, to the point I was thinking what great foil he'd have been for Van Veen in a front two. He's obviously had a very patchy career, but in his last spell you'd probably say he was effective for 12 of the 18 months? He had his purple patch, then six months of playing beside Sammon, then six months where he done the donkey work for Turnbull, Hastie, Ariyibi etc to get the glory. I think if we sign him and then spend the rest of the month trying to get a taker for Obika, or begging Barnsley to recall Shaw, then that's a dangerous game. If the rest of our team was sorted but we were lacking a striker, I'd happily sign him, but considering it's the other way around, I wouldn't.

Exactly, there has to be demand to get rid of players and it's rare that top of your list to get rid of would be easy to shift. Wilkinson was also guilty of two of my pet hates (wearing shirt number 99 and taking corners despite being 6ft+) so for those reasons I'm glad he's gone

Shaw can only play for us or Barnsley for the rest of the season and I can't see them clamouring to recall him. Obika is a year older and has shown no signs of being over his chronic hamstring issues. Wilkinson has stayed fit for the most part and contributed some vital goals. We had too many strikers, he was shiftable whilst Obika and Shaw weren't, those are the primary reasons he's off for me.

I know Edinburgh City are a basket case of a club at the minute and it's in the third tier, but given that Robbie Mahon has scored 6 goals in his last 5 games for them and they'll no longer be paying any contribution to his wages (if they ever were), maybe Kettlewell sees him as a cheap option for the bench. Not sure what his football manager stats are like.

I looked up who our permanent signings were and I made it 32 - I assume Mich'el Parker and one other who have been omitted from the list. I didn't think the stat looked great at first, but a whole lot of context is required. In that list of 32, I can break it down in to: Still here - Kelly, Oxborough, McGinn, Casey, Butcher, Blaney, Paton, Davor, Spittal, Slattery, Bair and Obika (12) Out on loan - Tierney, Mahon (2) Sold - Van Veen, Woolery, Wilkinson, Solholm (4) Released - Ojala, Efford, Danzaki, Morris, Shields (5) Contract expired (9) - O'Connor, Amaluzor, Nirrenold, Roberts, Goss, Mandron, Aitchison, Souaré, Parker. I imagine that Tierney and Mahon will probably be added to the "contract expired" list at the end of the season, but still, that means that half of the players signed in that time are either still here, or we've got a fee out of (12 + 4). You probably look at the 5 released and say they all didn't work for varying factors - fair enough. Of the 9 who's contract expired - we only made any effort to keep Goss and of those 9, only Goss was ever signed for more than a year. You could argue that's good business - signing fringe players on low risk, short term contracts and not renewing them. Particularly when we spent this summer rueing the fact we had so many players under contract that we'd liked to have been shot of. Extending deals of players already here has been as big a problem in our squad as recruitment has as well. I don't think our recruitment is perfect, far from, or we wouldn't be in the pickle that we are currently in, but that tweet is quite selective when you look at the data behind it. That metric to measure recruitment does seem flawed when, for example, from last season it includes Jack Aitchison, who was at the club for less than four months, but doesn't include Stuart McKinstry, who was there virtually all of the season.

I was never as big a critic of Lamie as others are and would agree he's a definite upgrade on Mugabi. The problem is that I think Lamie thinks of himself as a first pick and is paid accordingly, whereas Mugabi is happy being the first backup who will no doubt get games over the course of the season and is paid accordingly. I don't know what either get paid, but I imagine the gap in their ability is smaller than the gap in their pay.

I really don't think you can call yesterday "our so called 1st team choice". We literally had to make two changes because two players who started on Saturday were injured. Three others who have been nailed on starters when fit - Miller, Casey and Spencer - were missing too.

Spencer is suspended today.

Barry Maguire hasn't been in Kidderminster's squad for the last 8 games and I can't see anything about him being injured. If that's the case, they're unlikely to want to keep him and the fact that he played 30 minutes as a sub across the Elgin, Queen's Park and East Fife games games means he can't go anywhere else this season now, unless I'm mistaken. Surely we should've had more savvy than to bring a guy we wanted shot of on to run down the clock? With McGinley, it's fortunate he didn't play a single minute with Partick and is therefore eligible to go elsewhere, but unfortunate that due to his lack of impact, there won't be anyone queueing to take him off our hands. I imagine letting Lamie out of loan was pretty much on the premise that was him gone forever with his contract up. Given Casey is already well in to his 6-8 weeks and Blaney is only listed as a doubt for tomorrow's game makes me think that's unlikely. Like Maguire, unless we have a break clause with Shaw, I reckon he'll be with us till the summer as he's already played for Barnsley this season.

With his injury history and failure to make an impact at Partick, I can't see him leaving this window unless it's by mutual consent.

It's important not to get overly excited over our first win in 16 games, I do agree. However bad Livingston may be, we aren't great shakes ourselves and I don't think we have any right to expect, or even want to have that first half performance replicated in the second half. If Livingston nullified us as you say, then it would have been a dangerous game opening up any further with a back three made up of two right backs and Bevis Mugabi. I must admit that I thought the team sheet could've doubled up as a resignation letter. I still don't think that 5-2-3 is the answer, or even a real formation, but the impact on yesterday was probably more psychological. We scored three times in the first half, we went in front and protected our lead, we actually won a game and we went seven points clear of the bottom of the league, massively lessening our chances of automatic relegation. Each last minute equaliser meant less and less for momentum as the dark cloud without a win lingered. Being realistic, I just don't think we'll ever be in a position this season where we can be aggrieved about the second half of a game that we essentially won in the first half.

Wilkinson going makes sense. We've got a surplus of strikers and he's probably the most shiftable of them all. He has scored some important goals and has scored a reasonable number of goals in the English lower leagues in the past for a team to probably take a punt on him.

I really don't get how some on the match thread are bent out of shape about the second half performance. We scored three goals, had another disallowed, as well as two or three other good chances before half time. Instances of us having a first half like that and continuing to play with such fluency in the second half must be few and far between. Today was about finding a way to win a game, having not done so for so long, and we did it. It'll be interesting what happens now. Kettlewell has only really had one long good run and one long bad run as manager. I wonder if this will kick off a good run of form, whether we'll revert to the form that we were in or whether we'll finally see us win, draw and lose games in a more equal proportion.

You don't even have to go that far back in club history for an equal / worse record. We've currently equalled 15 games without win from the 1995/96 season. It took us until the 17th game of the 1988/89 season to win, along with failing to win the final three games of the previous season, puts that run at 19 games without a win. That's the next record in our sights if Saturday doesn't go to plan

Difficult to judge because there was no urgency from Rangers to score at any point in the game, but I thought McGinn looked as comfortable there as anyone else has this season. I'd probably play him there from the start on Saturday.

I think in order for us to get the best out of any of our other strikers, we would need to commit to playing a front two and giving the chosen candidate five or six games in a row from the start. It's impossible to judge any of them in 15 minute cameos where they are either out of position, or playing in some sort of lopsided, game-chasing formation.

The way we are being run at the moment, it wouldn't suprise that much me if we dipped into our reserves and pushed the boat out to get KVV in, paying 5k a week, for him to score about 4 goals in 18 games with us ending up in the bottom two because our defence and midfield are lacking. I also just get the impression that signing him with the pressure of being the great hope to save our season is only going to end badly. The first thing for me that we need to address in January is the balance of the squad. Against Rangers we had 3 weans and 4 strikers taking up 7/9 seats on the bench. Which obviously leads to things like Wilkinson coming on in midfield. I'd obviously expect to see Souaré go. I saw @capt_oatssuggesting that we may offer him a short term deal, but in the summer we only offered Carroll "facilities" rather than a contract - so hopefully that means we've turned a corner in our thinking there. I don't know how much of "one in, one out" we'll need to see. If I'm looking at candidates for the exit door, as I said, strikers are our main area of surplus. No one is coming in for Obika and I'd imagine Bair would stay put. If there's a break clause for Shaw I'd be activating it and I reckon Wilkinson is the type of player - a few decent, important goals but somewhat out the picture - that an agent could find a new home for. Top of my shopping list would be a centre back - be it fitness, form or ability, neither Mugabi nor Butcher have done it so far this season - and players who can play out wide to give us an option to change the shape. Not that I think quality in those areas, in our price range is readily floating about in January.

I don't get why anyone thinks Kettlewell would enter the market for an injury-prone 33 year old...

I was genuinely under the impression Shaw was only on loan until the January window until reading this chat. Not very Christmassy.