Ceiling Granny

I have literally no idea who I’d take as manager just now. Feel like generally in these situations the new manager can make an impact purely by settling players down and taking a ‘square pegs - square holes’ approach. With the squad being as it is, even that’s not so easy. Really, we need someone who can put a rocket up/put arm round/massage egos of players that need it, identify who’ll be least bad at left back, persuade the centre halves to play like they’ve met, invigorate the midfield, get the strikers scoring and do it almost immediately. Maybe that person is out there, but f’d if I know who they are.

After we knew Alan Burrows was away that was kind of it for me in that if he’s not here it really doesn’t matter where he’s away to. We have a role to fill here and that’s the focus. Bit of chat earlier about the board, the make up of the board etc. Fwiw I have a bit of sympathy (or at least understanding) for the board at a level like ours. By and large (this isn’t specific to the board at any given time btw) it’s made up of people who have been successful in business, and this is good because like it or not a football club is a business, but they’re not spending their life focusing on football. Where I think the issue with a club of our size comes in is that when a manager (or chief scout or whatever) comes to the board and says “I’ve found this player, he’ll cost X, how about it”, with the best will in the world none of the board members have the time to study the team as it is, watch hours of footage of (let’s face it) lower English league players, and decide whether it’s a good decision to sign them or not. All they can really do is decide on backing the manager or not. I think this is a pretty unique situation to clubs of our size - bigger clubs and the board have probably heard of more of the “targets” without research being required, and similarly at smaller clubs where a lot of players come from within Scotland there’s a fair chance the board will know what they’re dealing with. I think this is why I’m not totally against a director of football role in the right circumstances. Someone with the time/knowledge/expertise to stress test what a manager is asking for, but equally have the time to know/get to know the finances and other day to day decisions around the club so they can balance what’s needed v what’s being asked for v what’s realistically do-able. However, I do understand that this is an idealised scenario (and doesn’t really get us any further forward in the here and now).

Finally gave up on this today. Used to be a must if not getting to the game, now it’s unlistenable. Motherwell are rotten enough without listening to sportsound for updates.

If there weren’t already big massive neon signs, this should be the indicator to the board that tactically Hammell is lost. I wasn’t convinced on him taking on the managerial role, but wasn’t unhappy. It’s obvious now though that it just hasn’t worked. Someone said further back in the thread (sorry I can’t mind who) that he should have had someone with more experience than Kerr beside him to lean on, and I think with hindsight this should have been something the board insisted on when giving him the gig. For me, it’s all the best Hammy - still love you as a player, but it’s time for someone new.

Absolutely rotten last night. Still think Malpas era was worse (4-1 at East End Park still annoys me), but there’s not a lot in it. Most concerning for me is players who have been together a while now (so discounting the new guys) looking like last night was the first time they had met. We had the overall feel of group stages of league cup levels of “right, so we’re doing what”. The subs had a bit of hit-and-hope without any real plan of what we were going for other than to make a change. Positional awareness at times was rotten, and switching players about the midfield wasn’t helping. Goss, for me, is offering nothing and the drop in Slattery’s game is frightening.

Glad this was brought to my attention, I’d have went DO DO DO…. Thank you for preventing an embarrassing situation

I have a similar memory, maybe not as strong as ragdolling but enough that that Obika/tequila song was ingrained in my head for days (so he must have been playing well enough for the song to be oot)

Interesting quote at the end of the Obika announcement “With Mikael picking up his injury, we needed a new focal point up top. “

I’m not sure diversifying by following the likes of pro/anti Brexit/union/Airdrie type people is comparable with following Andrew Tate tbf

Like others, I was hoping to get our “business done” nice and early in the window. The squad we might be left with tomorrow is giving me the fear. I can’t see us getting out the trouble we’re in with Spittal hiding from tackles for the rest of the season. I’m far from in the know, but the fact I’ve heard no whispers about “so n so met so n so’s dugs cousins owner who said that Stevie Hammell told their pal…” is making today fairly boring.

Thanks for the summary! I guess these two paragraphs together could be the issue. It’s all well and good to plan/anticipate a strong youth team coming through - but how do you stop bigger teams (especially with the budgets in England) swooping in before they reach first team. I don’t know the answer to this, but I guess it’s something we’ll need to give a lot of consideration to.

Charity third kit Click

Good day out, in the next round, clean sheet and not as cold as anticipated. I’ll take that.

Agree with what’s been said above RE Shields. Was happy to see him come in, it’s nice to sign someone from the championship in the hope they can do a job (though to be fair my “good” judgement has also included thinking (hoping) Martin Grehan(?) could do a job). Shield has put plenty effort in, it’s just not worked out - these things happen and if/when he leaves he does so with my best wishes.

This is true. Maybe I’m just hanging about with grumpy b******s. Maybe it’s just because usually when you’re chatting pre/post match someone has thoughts/ideas on how if they were the manager they’d change x, y or z and it would make a big difference. Just now it seems a bit more we have the squad we have and they’re playing the way they’re playing and how do you fix that?

I think this is it, we don’t really seem to be hugely worse than at least a handful of other teams. Problem, for me, in terms of putting that into perspective is the general apathy around the place just now, and I’m not really sure how you get rid of that. It’s probably why I was so behind the risk of the Moult signing as at least it was something to let yourself get a wee bit excited about and there was definitely a buzz about in general chatter.

Thanks for the summary, I’m all in on the pakora

I’ve not read through the whole chat, but I was talking about exactly this at the weekend. We’re somehow not shipping loads of goals, but a high percentage of the ones we are conceding are ridiculous.