Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[MJC]

10 minutes ago, Londonwell said:

I'd have the play off season down as one of my favourite ever. The *** battering will live long in the memory and more than made up for the turgid shite that came before it.

This season's just a bit, meh. At least now with people frothing at the mouth over Mcghee we've got a bit of excitement.

The playoff final went a long, long way to covering up for how bad a season we had had beforehand. That season was an absolute cluster f**k for the club, on and off the park, right from the word go, but the nature of the playoff win and who it was against naturally meant that we look back on it in a different light.

This season has been just turgid and McGhee and his attitude has done nothing to help matters.

Oh aye, and there is not a prayer that McGhee would have won that playoff for us two years ago. Like McCall, he would have had us beaten before we ran out the tunnel in the first leg.

[Dons_1988]

The playoff final went a long, long way to covering up for how bad a season we had had beforehand. That season was an absolute cluster f**k for the club, on and off the park, right from the word go, but the nature of the playoff win and who it was against naturally meant that we look back on it in a different light.
This season has been just turgid and McGhee and his attitude has done nothing to help matters.
Oh aye, and there is not a prayer that McGhee would have won that playoff for us two years ago. Like McCall, he would have had us beaten before we ran out the tunnel in the first leg.

I'm coming at this from virtually total ignorance so apologies but I am genuinely interested.

Is it the case that unfortunate cup draws in the league cup and to a lesser extent the Scottish cup added to the disappointment?

Realistically top 6 could still be achieved which wouldn't be that bad would it? Or is 6th not seen as much given the bottom 7 all seem to be fairly poor in terms of consistency.

[MJC]

The Cup draws this season - Rangers in both Cups, away to Celtic in the League Cup - certainly didn't help matters, especially given we got hammered against Celtic and shot ourselves in the foot twice against Rangers, so having no Cup runs yet again certainly did nothing to help our season.

Add to that we haven't been able to get any sort of positive run going at any point this season and the football we are playing is utterly dire. We have a manager who works on basically a part time basis and shows zero ambition against any side that is or that he perceives to be stronger than us and his lineups and set ups reflect this. And the least said about his attitude and some of his bonkers, ridiculous comments in the press the better.

All in all it's just been a poor, poor season for us, and the frightening thing is that we could yet sleepwalk ourselves into the playoffs or worse.

Edited February 16, 2017 by MJC

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Just copying what I said on Steelmen but there's a lot in our fanbase that just lose any objectivity or rationality when it comes to Mark McGhee, and use everything as a stick to beat him with. Some of it is just complete double standards- he's been widely accused of not caring enough about the club, yet when he's clearly hurting after defeats- like the Ibrox interview, or last night's antics- he's apparently an embarrassment to the club and we hear all the "I won't be back" shite. Or he's accused of being simultaneously too arrogant and too defeatist at the same time. If this was just in reaction to last night's capitulation it might be justified but it's literally every time we lose a game.

It's a weird season, where there's 4/5 teams far superior to the rest, and if Mark McGhee can continue to beat the teams around us and finish lower midtable then I'm perfectly happy with that from a season that's been more about stability and bringing through and developing young players than anything else.

[mjw]

Is this 'he's in Brighton more than Motherwell' chat still going on?
McGhee has proven to be a dick of a man on a number of occasions but this season had a simple target-stay up.
We're starting to head in the right direction financially and seem to have a decent amount of sellable assets and the new TV deal coming in seems to be a bonus.
I'd be interested as well to see how many fans who weren't coming back until Malpas,Brown,McCall,Barraclough were gone actually came back.

[thisGRAEME]

44 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

I'm coming at this from virtually total ignorance so apologies but I am genuinely interested.

Is it the case that unfortunate cup draws in the league cup and to a lesser extent the Scottish cup added to the disappointment?

Realistically top 6 could still be achieved which wouldn't be that bad would it? Or is 6th not seen as much given the bottom 7 all seem to be fairly poor in terms of consistency.

 

Cup draws were a shiter, no question, and yes, there's no reason why we can't finish top six.

December up until saturday is a collection of fucking horrible fixtures for us; Celtic home and away, Rangers home and away, Aberdeen home and away, two trips north to Inverness and Ross County, Accies away where we've won once in about forty years.

Hearts (H), St Johnstone (A) and Killie (H) inbetween that clusterfuck, we kind of did okay in 2/3 of those. We've now got a run of games that defines our season.
 

[Swello]

I think there is a danger that we can go mad after last night's debacle - but maybe worth remembering that there was a very similar level of doom last season at this time after we got beaten 2-0 by Killie - which had things looking far more hopeless than they are at the moment with us being a point from safety and 6 points off the Top 6. Things will be worse after the defeat this coming saturday but it's not wrist-slitting time yet...

 

[MikeyWellFan]

In what way are we showing a lack of ambition? Because we haven't binned our manager?

Of course not.

It's more our long term vision which which I find lacks ambition.

He was a completely underwhelming appointment and despite doing a decent job last season in terms of survival, I just feel we'll go nowhere as a club under him, both in the league and the cups.

I'm not saying we should be challenging for the title or anything ridiculous but the excitement isn't there and it's just a thoroughly depressing experience right now.

[thisGRAEME]

1 minute ago, MikeyWellFan said:

Of course not.

It's more our long term vision which which I find lacks ambition.

He was a completely underwhelming appointment and despite doing a decent job last season in terms of survival, I just feel we'll go nowhere as a club under him, both in the league and the cups.

I'm not saying we should be challenging for the title or anything ridiculous but the excitement isn't there and it's just a thoroughly depressing experience right now.

 

I get that, but that's where we are just now. It feels like we're fighting on about four fronts at the moment, and only one of them is sticking eleven out on a Saturday. 

Underwhelming is one way of looking at it, but given that we'd gone from McCall - a possible risk that turned out pretty well, on the whole, to Baraclough - a massive risk which blew up on us, you've got to look at where we were when he came in, to where we ended, and where we could've been. 3rd bottom, 7 points from 8 games, and binned from the cup by Morton, after scraping past East Fife. We couldn't take another risk.  

I do actually agree that we aren't likely to progress under him massively, but I reckon what we need is a steady hand to get us through paying off our debt, and keeping us in the league, until the full transfer is through to the society. At that point, we can start to look forward, but at the moment, that's got to be the priority. 

[Del_Superwell]

In fairness for me any ambition was done the day we decided fan ownership was happening, its now all about just surviving as a club in the top flight, producing some good youngsters to sell on for money and bring in a few players like yer moults etc to develop and sell on.  

The benchmark club for me is St Johnstone a squad that have some experience but also good honest hardworking pros that get the job done, but what they have that we don't is a manager who plays players to their strengths and a proper owner that can facilitate a decent calibre of signing for them.

[Mr Hahn]

55 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

Cup draws were a shiter, no question, and yes, there's no reason why we can't finish top six.

December up until saturday is a collection of fucking horrible fixtures for us; Celtic home and away, Rangers home and away, Aberdeen home and away, two trips north to Inverness and Ross County, Accies away where we've won once in about forty years.

Hearts (H), St Johnstone (A) and Killie (H) inbetween that clusterfuck, we kind of did okay in 2/3 of those. We've now got a run of games that defines our season.
 

I can think of 4, our back four to be precise.

We're the worse defensive team in the league IMO as shown by the fact we've conceded the most goals. We are utterly permeable at the back and any team with any ability can take advantage of the huge quantity of howlers/bad positioning/lack of communication we have in there. Add this to the fact that in most of the games I've seen us this season we've set up fairly defensively, trying to stifle the opposition. That entire strategy relies on being solid at the back.

I'm not as doom and gloom as some. We have some excellent players at this level, McDonald, Moult, Cadden, Pearson but I agree to an extent with MJC. Certain players seem to be certain picks based on their past and aren't providing. Hammell, for all he's been an quality player for Motherwell and it makes me sad to say, is finished. He's had an absolute stinker of a season. McManus is not giving us value for money at the moment and christ knows where the rumours about Heneghan getting a move in January were coming from because he's been absolutely atrocious at times this season.

In addition, the midfield and defence have zero cohesion. The ease with which Aberdeen found space between those two last night was frightening. I've watched a lot of Aberdeen this season, they're not that creative so for the likes of McLean to be able to saunter around unchallenged between our lines beggar belief. This comes partly from the management I think. I haven't seen a noticeable pattern of how we actually set up week to week to allow the midfield to get some consistency and we look utterly lost in that area of the park. Other than trying to park the bus against some of the better teams, how do we actually play? What is our plan?

[Swello]

"Ambition" in football seems to be a shorthand for "money". John Boyle showed more ambition than any other owner before or since and almost put us out of business. I think we all need to be realistic about how ambitious we can be - under McCall/Dempster for instance, we were loss-making and running unsustainably, even as we finished runner-up 2 years running and in that time, scarcely brought in a transfer fee despite having one of the best 'Well teams of the last 25 years.

I think a long term ambition where Motherwell run on a sustainable basis, prioritise youth development & the community and aim to comfortably stay in the top league is a good and achievable one - but it will likely involve a lot of mid-table finishes of the type we will probably get this season, which doesn't seem to satisfy a lot of people. There is simply a budget limit that we will operate under - and therefore a level of player that we bring in that limits where we can go, exceptional seasons aside. The fact that we've been in the top league for 30 years is a minor miracle as none of our peers have done that - and we should never take it for granted. 

[mjw]

In fairness for me any ambition was done the day we decided fan ownership was happening, its now all about just surviving as a club in the top flight, producing some good youngsters to sell on for money and bring in a few players like yer moults etc to develop and sell on.  
The benchmark club for me is St Johnstone a squad that have some experience but also good honest hardworking pros that get the job done, but what they have that we don't is a manager who plays players to their strengths and a proper owner that can facilitate a decent calibre of signing for them.

There was probably a few years there where we were the benchmark for other clubs in the league. Things go in cycles and it might only take a club offering Tommy Wright a step up to set St Johnstone back.

[mjw]

Underwhelming is one way of looking at it, but given that we'd gone from McCall - a possible risk that turned out pretty well, on the whole

It turned out pretty well on the pitch and in league finishes but its probably what wasn't going on at that time that left us a mess we are still coming out of.
Its up for debate though whether that was McCall's doing or Leeane Dempster's though.

[Londonwell]

2 hours ago, MJC said:

The playoff final went a long, long way to covering up for how bad a season we had had beforehand. That season was an absolute cluster f**k for the club, on and off the park, right from the word go, but the nature of the playoff win and who it was against naturally meant that we look back on it in a different light.

This season has been just turgid and McGhee and his attitude has done nothing to help matters.

Oh aye, and there is not a prayer that McGhee would have won that playoff for us two years ago. Like McCall, he would have had us beaten before we ran out the tunnel in the first leg.

I'm probably what you'd describe as a McGhee fan. The way he guided the club after Phil's death (a fact that is forgotten all to readily by the people who assume him an arsehole) will stay with me to my dying day. Yes, I know a lot of shite came after it with him whoring himself out to every club under the sun but we're Motherwell ffs, get over it. (By the way he also turned down the Hearts job) 

In saying that, I have been critical of his tactics in the past and certainly have been this season. I agree, there's not a fucking chance he would have gotten us through that play off, he holds the old firm on far too high a pedestal. In many ways we were lucky to have someone who didn't really know Scottish football at that time and was willing to play counter attacking football against 'them' to perfect effect. About the only thing Baraclough did right in his time here.

Imo McGhee will beat enough of the other diddies around us to keep us up. So should stick around until at least the end of the season. Do I trust him after that, well to a certain degree circumstances at the time will dictate, but no, probably not.

Genuine question to the McGhee out brigade. Who would you replace him with? Craigen? 

Edited February 16, 2017 by Londonwell

[mjw]

I worry about Craigen being a choice now given that he can be bent right out of shape by Chris Sutton on a weekly basis.
Apart from him I've seen John Hughes and Alex McLeish mentioned on Motherwells Facebook page. f**k that!

[capt_oats]

Just now, mjw said:

I worry about Craigen being a choice now given that he can be bent right out of shape by Chris Sutton on a weekly basis.
Apart from him I've seen John Hughes and Alex McLeish mentioned on Motherwells Facebook page. f**k that!

Seems quite remarkable that folk who probably seethe every time McGhee responds to a question he's asked about Celtic are wilfully touting John "I take great pride in seeing him (Ryan Christie) wearing the Hoops" Hughes for the gig.

I've said this before on Steelmen (and maybe here) but I think Craigan would be absolutely mental to give up his job with BT and our u20s to take a first team management job. He's got a fairly decent situation as it is giving up a steady TV role where he only has to put up with one roaster in Chris Sutton vs having to deal with the absolute arseholes that constitute a section of our support seem like a no brainer to me. Similarly McFadden seems like he's in the assistant role by default simply because he was at the club and we wanted to keep him around so it was a happy coincidence that Robinson left. Pretty much every press conference he's done he's talked about still wanting to play.

I'm fairly sure there would be a decent range of applicants for the position when/if McGhee leaves. I'd hope we've learned from the Baraclough disaster. Assuming we stay up this season then I'd like to think that the club are a lot clearer about what they need from a manager. I'd have thought we'd end up looking at someone with a bit of experience either way.

[Radford]

15 hours ago, Del_Superwell said:

The benchmark club for me is St Johnstone a squad that have some experience but also good honest hardworking pros that get the job done, but what they have that we don't is a manager who plays players to their strengths and a proper owner that can facilitate a decent calibre of signing for them.

St Johnstone only spend what they earn, there is no outside investment.

[Ludo*1]

St Johnstone only spend what they earn, there is no outside investment.

To be fair though, St Johnstone is one of a very small number of clubs in Scotland that can rely on income outwith match days. Although Mcdiarmid is a bit of a soulless shitehole, moving from Muirton to there is probably the best bit of business St Johnstone have ever done.

[Swello]

I see Faddy is up at the presser today - I hope McGhee has a decent excuse and hasn't shat it and sent his assistant out to face the music...