Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[capt_oats]

21 hours ago, thisGRAEME said:

I'll be honest, given the nick of our last three match threads, this place feels like a safe space.

You're right though. Aside from all the nonsense that's flying around about 180 minutes of football in the past five days, we really feel like we're on a real upward curve at the moment.

The last couple of years has had a lot of chatter about how we appear to have been doing the 'right' things off the park, without any kind of result on it. This season has really clicked for us and we're reaping the benefits of the fitness, nutrition, scouting, academy and preparation stuff. After a couple of years of seeing guys breathing out their arse after an hour, I'd take us collectively, in a bleep test against the rest of Scottish football.

Stuff like Robinson coming out today and saying that Allan Campbell wants to be the best at everything, whether its running, press-ups, whatever is just a perfect embodiment of this.

Spending a bit more money off the park rather than on it is something I've advocated for just about every club in Scottish football over the past few years. Instead of burning money on another bang average left back that'll play about four times a year, get a sport scientist in and improve what you've got, rather than trying to get someone in who might improve.

100% agree on that, I'd been trying to think of a succinct way to put it and the best I could come up with is that; we couldn't afford to buy players who affect games like Cadden and Campbell but with the right set up and coaching we're able to develop them.

Craigan's been very good to listen to on the whole development thing too. He covers it in the Podcast interview he did but similarly every post-game interview win, lose or draw he's banging on about making the right choices and how to approach training and games. There's only so much they can do on the coaching side, the rest needs to come from the player. The Adam Livingstone interview in The Herald a couple of months ago was a pretty good read in that respect too.

Clearly for every Cadden and Campbell there's a Slane, Erwin, Mackin and Dom Thomas and more but there seems to be an acceptance of that and the resolution is simply to focus on the players who have the "character" the coaching staff are looking for. We give the players the platform and it's up to them what they do from there. We seem to be willing to be quite brutal about it too.

I was at the u20s Cup game the other month against Burnisland Shipyard and it seemed telling that most of the coaching staff were there. You obviously had Craigan and McManus along with the new u20s strength and conditioning guy taking the team but Lasley, Hinchcliffe and Andy Boles were all sat in front of me in the stand. Clearly Robinson and Craigan have a solid background coaching together but for once it seems like from top down everyone's on same page.

[Gianfranco]

I heard Craigan talking about overachieving in his career because of how hard he worked and how players with more ability faded away to nothing. I think it's clear that message has gotten through to the likes of Cadden and Campbell. Robinson always talks about doing the free stuff as well so they do seem to be singing off the same hym sheet.

[WellView]

McHugh dropped,  Tanner starts - Robinson is going to have a go. 

[killie_lad]

Does Alex fisher not really get much game time with you guys? Thought he looked a really handy player at caley when he got a game but haven't heard anything about him since.

 

 

[WellView]

12 minutes ago, killie_lad said:

Does Alex fisher not really get much game time with you guys? Thought he looked a really handy player at caley when he got game but haven't heard anything about him since.

Great against Celtic last Wednesday, he got a start on Saturday and hooked at half time.  He looks handy, and may ( will? ) get more chances when Moult leaves.  He's one reason why I'm not stressed about potentially  losing Moult next month.  We have Tanner, Fisher and Petravacius available to step up. I think there's goals in them all.  I'm in the sell Moult next month camp. The transfer fee would come in handy and the transfer of Marvin Johnson proved the value of a sell-on clause. 

It's reckoned we earned £900,000 from the cup run.  If we have a decent December we'll be strong top six contenders.  That would make this season a tremendous success . The board made the right decision keeping Moult in the summer, imo the right decision would be to take the money in January. It's a big ask for us to reach two cup finals in the same season, and I reckon we'II end up with more than £900k for Moult over the next couple of years. If he's a hit in the Championship, some of those strikers go for funny money. 

[killie_lad]

You certainly have a good strength to you team and from what I've seen (admittedly limited mainly to highlights and the games against us) fisher seems a good player, I really wanted to see him at killie when Inverness went down.

 

How long does moult have left on his contract and what do you think would be a reasonable price for him? I'd have thought £1m would see him leave but there are people genuinely suggesting we ask for £3m/£10m for Jordan Jones and I have lost all grasp of financial reality

 

 

 

 

 

 

[capt_oats]

Does Alex fisher not really get much game time with you guys? Thought he looked a really handy player at caley when he got a game but haven't heard anything about him since.

Much like Bowman last season it’s a classic case of “he just needs a goal to go in off his arse” for Fisher. He missed an absolute sitter against County in the LC, Bain made a remarkable save from him when he was about 3 yards out in the 1-0 at Dens and Bowman’s made himself a first choice alongside Moult.

There’s also a fair amount of competition with Petravicius, Tanner and Newell all options in the squad. Tanner doesn’t really seem to work as a second striker but it’s been interesting to see Petravicius getting more involvement over the past couple of games.

Fisher’s shown a lot of intelligence in his all round game but as yet there are zero goals to show. He links the play well and he’s a decent option to have but right now Moult and Bowman are the first choice pairing so his best hope just now is a run off the bench. Although, I’d imagine that will change in January.

[CITY1974]

Right lads I know you have grievance s about dodgy penalties and rightly so . And I know non of you will give a flying f**k about Brechin City but check out Morton s penalty against City on Saturday .Makes Celtics look a stonewaller . Just Google Morton v Brechin highlights.My point is referees everywhere are atrocious .

[JamesP_81]

 
How long does moult have left on his contract and what do you think would be a reasonable price for him? I'd have thought £1m would see him leave but there are people genuinely suggesting we ask for £3m/£10m for Jordan Jones and I have lost all grasp of financial reality
 
 
 

He's out of contract in the summer so think he'll definitely be off in January . Would probably have got a higher fee for him in the summer but his contribution so far has more than made up for anything we would have lost up front . Anything near half a million plus a hefty (20+% ?) sell on clause would be outstanding business. If he's in the championship anytime in the next couple of years then there's every chance that his move on could be in the 5-10 mill region!

[MJC]

Hopefully we'll get a decent fee for him if he does indeed go in the transfer window, which I think he will and hopefully he'll move down south as I don't want to see him playing against us, especially for the likes of Aberdeen. His performances in the League Cup games against Aberdeen and Rangers will hopefully add a bit more onto any bid we get.

[capt_oats]

Big fan of Robinson taking ownership of things here. "I should have made more changes and I didn't. So I've learned a lesson from that", "OK isn't enough."

 

[Swello]

Why this on a Tuesday?

[capt_oats]

16 minutes ago, Swello said:

Why this on a Tuesday?

Given it's an in-house interview and the players have had a couple of days off I'd have thought it's just a bit of exclusive #content and getting some stuff out there before the broadcast and print stuff at the end of the week.

[Swello]

Fair enough - as long as they know that they made me feel it was Friday when it wasn't...b*****ds.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

I do have the fear slightly about replacing Moult.  We don't tend to create barrowloads of chances- pretty sure I seen we've got the 3rd or 4th lowest xG in the league- but, in Moult, have got something of a trump card in the league's third best striker.  Fisher, Bowman, Tanner and Sid all have a lot of good qualities but none of them strike me as 10-15 goal a season players, let alone becoming as talismanic in big games as Moult has been for us. 

That said, we do seem to have a habit of losing one striker and pulling another out of nowhere.  Going from 26 goal Michael Higdon to 22 goal John Sutton springs to mind. 

 

 

[capt_oats]

7 hours ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

I do have the fear slightly about replacing Moult.  We don't tend to create barrowloads of chances- pretty sure I seen we've got the 3rd or 4th lowest xG in the league- but, in Moult, have got something of a trump card in the league's third best striker.  Fisher, Bowman, Tanner and Sid all have a lot of good qualities but none of them strike me as 10-15 goal a season players, let alone becoming as talismanic in big games as Moult has been for us. 

That said, we do seem to have a habit of losing one striker and pulling another out of nowhere.  Going from 26 goal Michael Higdon to 22 goal John Sutton springs to mind. 

While we've obviously had plenty of duds in our time (here's to you Theo Robinson, Wes Fletcher, Jacob Blyth, Esteban Casagolda and a cast of erm...dozens) you need to go back to 98/99 to find a season where we didn't have a striker who was in double figures for a season (in all competitions).  

Obviously there's a correlation between a successful side all over the park and chance creation etc so looking back to the admin years there are fewer players getting decent numbers but having read @Kyle's post in the St Johnstone thread about Tommy Wright's signings at St Johnstone the other day then it's fair to say that historically we've done alright with forwards, relatively speaking.

We've had 2 or more forwards in double figures (in all competitions) in 12 of the last 18 seasons.

All competitions:
16/17 - Moult (18) / McDonald (11)
15/16 - Moult (18) / McDonald (14) 
14/15 - Sutton (13)
13/14 - Sutton (22) / Ainsworth (11)
12/13 - Higdon (27) / Murphy (11)* - left in January
11/12 - Higdon (16) / Murphy (13)
10/11 - Sutton (17) / Murphy (12) / Blackman (10)
09/10 - Sutton (14) / Jutkiewicz (12) / Murphy (10)
08/09 - Clarkson (14) / Sutton (12) / Porter (10)
07/08 - Porter (18) / Clarkson (13) / McCormack (11)
06/07 - McDonald (16) / Foran (14)
05/06 - Foran (12) / McDonald (11) / Hamilton (11)
04/05 - McDonald (15)
03/04 - Clarkson (14)
02/03 - McFadden (19)
01/02 - Elliot (12)
00/01 - Elliot (12)
99/00 - McCulloch (12) / Spencer (11) / Goodman (10)

Moult's been responsible for 36% of our league goals this season, he accounted for 33% of them last season and 32% in his first season. For context Boyce contributed 48% of County's last season and Doolan 37% for Thistle.

Given he's actively won us points himself, Aberdeen at Pittodrie the other week being the most recent example, It'd be daft not to be cautious or wary about Moult leaving. However based on our track record it's probably fair to hope that we'll continue to create chances for whoever replaces him.

What will be interesting is whether or not we stick with Bowman, Fisher, Petravicius, Newell and Tanner as our forward options or whether we bring someone in to replace him, when/if he goes (which I think most of us hope he does on the caveat that it's back down south and we get a fee with a decent sell on %). Listening to Robinson talk about us looking to improve the side (subject to finance etc) was curious given that for the most part this season we've had a largely settled side with few injuries and while players like Bigi, Tanner, Fisher etc haven't necessarily been failures in the Lee Lucas or Jacob Blyth sense they've not really cemented their places either.

Edited December 6, 2017 by capt_oats

[Busta Nut]

On 12/5/2017 at 00:50, killie_lad said:

 but there are people genuinely suggesting we ask for £3m/£10m for Jordan Jones and I have lost all grasp of financial reality

Get those people in the bin. FFS!

[well fan for life]

23 hours ago, CITY1974 said:

Right lads I know you have grievance s about dodgy penalties and rightly so . And I know non of you will give a flying f**k about Brechin City but check out Morton s penalty against City on Saturday .Makes Celtics look a stonewaller . Just Google Morton v Brechin highlights.My point is referees everywhere are atrocious .

Mildly off topic for a thread about Motherwell, but I've watched that incident about 10 times and I honestly don't know what that was given for. It wasn't even a dive, it was literally given out of nowhere. 

[ONeils40yarder]

8 hours ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

I do have the fear slightly about replacing Moult.  We don't tend to create barrowloads of chances- pretty sure I seen we've got the 3rd or 4th lowest xG in the league- but, in Moult, have got something of a trump card in the league's third best striker.  Fisher, Bowman, Tanner and Sid all have a lot of good qualities but none of them strike me as 10-15 goal a season players, let alone becoming as talismanic in big games as Moult has been for us. 

That said, we do seem to have a habit of losing one striker and pulling another out of nowhere.  Going from 26 goal Michael Higdon to 22 goal John Sutton springs to mind. 

 

 

When McInnes is appointed as the **** manager, I'd like to think we'll put our contingency plan for losing Moult in place...its absolutely nailed on that Rangers will make a bid for Moult at Christmas if McInnes is in charge.

 

 

[Mr. Brightside]

I don’t think I could handle it is Louis goes to the **** [emoji22]