Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[capt_oats]

4 minutes ago, Swello said:

I'm going to call "utter bollocks" on that one - Kenny Miller is so far from the profile of player that we have been going at, it's simply not credible. Robinson himself on more than one occasion  has said that there is no point having guys at 21 and 36 in the dressing room as they have nothing in common. 

^^^ This.

I could understand Robinson perhaps wanting to add a bit of experience to the side this summer but by that I mean late-20s or at worst early 30s.. He's mentioned a couple of times now about us having the youngest squad in the league but to follow up purposely gutting the squad of all our over 30s with signing a 38 year old who as Ludo*1 says will be 39 in December seems unlikely.

We seem to have a pretty solid profile of player we're looking to recruit Kenny Miller ticks absolutely none of the boxes.

Aside from those rational reasons he's also clearly an utter c**t.

[crazylegsjoe]

Miller is a strange one, as a Scotland player, I actually quite admired his attitude and commitment to the cause once upon a time (even if his finishing was perhaps not so good), but strangely he seems to be more badly behaved as a senior pro. That's at least two Rangers managers who've had an issue with him, not to mention getting involved in that bust up in Da Claudio's in Bothwell after an Old Firm game last season.

Having just turned 30, Carson and Hartley are our oldest players, so you wouldn't think he fits into the dynamic of what Robinson is trying to build. Furthermore, he hasn't had a prolific strike rate this season (5 goals in 23 games)  in a team who despite their problems, probably create more than chances than us, so I don't think we could sign him relying on goals. He's also had injury problems this season, after which he's struggled to make it back into the Rangers team.

If we could sign him now (which we can't) and he was eligible to play in the cup final (which he's not) and we took him on a short term deal in case anything was to happen to Bowman or Main, given Ciftci can't play in the final, I could perhaps see the logic in the signing, but as that's not possible, I'm happy to say it's a story with no quotes written by the same nonsensical rag who similarly linked us with Will Flood last year and that we can put it to bed.

[Swello]

The only note of caution is that the article is written by Andy Devlin, who is a 'Well fan and has been very accurate about us in the past - but I'm sticking to my initial opinion.

[nsr]

That would be an absolutely bizarre signing unless he was hoping to gradually move into a coaching role or something.

[Busta Nut]

Miller can f**k right off.

[capt_oats]

I’m sure Robinson will be asked about Miller at the press conference today so you should be able to get a feel for whether there’s anything in it or not.

[Desp]

1 hour ago, crazylegsjoe said:

Miller is a strange one, as a Scotland player, I actually quite admired his attitude and commitment to the cause once upon a time (even if his finishing was perhaps not so good), but strangely he seems to be more badly behaved as a senior pro. That's at least two Rangers managers who've had an issue with him, not to mention getting involved in that bust up in Da Claudio's in Bothwell after an Old Firm game last season.

Having just turned 30, Carson and Hartley are our oldest players, so you wouldn't think he fits into the dynamic of what Robinson is trying to build. Furthermore, he hasn't had a prolific strike rate this season (5 goals in 23 games)  in a team who despite their problems, probably create more than chances than us, so I don't think we could sign him relying on goals. He's also had injury problems this season, after which he's struggled to make it back into the Rangers team.

If we could sign him now (which we can't) and he was eligible to play in the cup final (which he's not) and we took him on a short term deal in case anything was to happen to Bowman or Main, given Ciftci can't play in the final, I could perhaps see the logic in the signing, but as that's not possible, I'm happy to say it's a story with no quotes written by the same nonsensical rag who similarly linked us with Will Flood last year and that we can put it to bed.

Spot on again, Joe.  I think appointing Mark McGhee to the coaching staff would be a more popular appointment than adding Kenny Miller to the strikeforce.

My only criticism (and you know me Joe - I'm not one to be pedantic...) is that Da Claudio's is in Motherwell.  It was Da Luciano's in Bothwell.

[crazylegsjoe]

16 minutes ago, Desp said:

My only criticism (and you know me Joe - I'm not one to be pedantic...) is that Da Claudio's is in Motherwell.  It was Da Luciano's in Bothwell.

Can't be the first occurrence of someone getting their Da's mixed up in Lanarkshire.

[capt_oats]

22 hours ago, crazylegsjoe said:

Very fair counter points. I agree that he started his spell very well for us, which you do highlight in your examples. When he was contributing such as the games against Accies and Dundee, I was thinking to myself "he could really be a player when he gets match fit". However, after his "settling in period", I feel he has regressed if anything. He was trying things in his first few games that I thought would come off when he was match fit. However, now he has played more games, I still feel these aren't coming off (see Saturday's Zidane turn). He still lacks urgency and holds on to the ball for far too long.

For what it's worth, I don't think Main and Bowman is a long-term option of a partnership. I'm fairly pleased with Bowman getting a contract extension, but that's on the basis I see him being a lesser version and backup to Main, not a partner. Based on what I have seen of Ciftci this season, I could probably live with him being an option next season, but not a first pick. Taking that into consideration, it's a no go for me as I doubt any wage he would accept would reflect that of an option, but instead more of a first pick. Our squad doesn't require too much work this summer I wouldn't say, but signing a more dynamic partner for Main, who isn't Ciftci, is probably number one priority for me.

You could argue last summer signing Bigi was heralded as something of a marquee signing, yet he hasn't made the impact we would have hoped. I fear a permanent signing of Ciftci could go down that path too.

To go back to this but without wanting to turn it into a Ciftci pro/con thing, I absolutely agree with the point in bold.

Given we were in for a striker on deadline day that fell through (rumoured to have been Shay McCartan from Bradford. McCall confirmed it was a Bradford player at least) and also Robinson saying as recently as last month that we were looking at free agents it seems clear that the feeling is that we should have had another striker to add to the mix. That's been borne out by how light we look up front ahead of the cup final.

Broadening the conversation but at the risk of stating the obvious, I've felt this season has really highlighted that we need better quality up front. Granted there were other players missing but in the 7 games Moult was out in December we only scored 4 goals with the various permutations of Bowman + Fisher/Tanner/Petravicius/Newell. It'd suggest that the drop off from Moult to the other strikers was too great. Whether that was dictated by budget or circumstance IDK.

That's largely why I was raising the question re: budget yesterday. To me Ciftci is a player who's a realistic shout for us to sign (assuming he can come to an agreement with his parent club) in terms of potential he's better than we could generally afford precisely because his form in recent seasons has gone off a cliff but generally speaking for a mid-table Premiership side he's still a better option than Fisher, Petravicius or Newell to play alongside Main (I don't think I've seen him play alongside Bowman). Results have shown that, even without him playing at the same level he was at United.

However we still need another striker to add to the mix and I'd argue that the other striker also needs to be better than those players I've listed who stepped in through December. In recent seasons we got away with being utter trash at the back because we had 2 decent quality strikers in Moult and McDonald who helped pull us through. Ciftci falls squarely into the mercurial category for me (which, I'll be honest, is why I like him as much as I clearly do) so it raises the question for me as to who we could realistically add as Ciftci's going to be inconsistent, that's a given.

What I think we can all happily agree is that it shouldn't be Kenny Miller.

Long story short, regardless of whether Ciftci signs next season or not we still need a couple of better players added at least one of whom needs to be a striker. Either way I'd imagine these will be our markets:

Championship
League 1
League 2

Alternatively we could just #announceAnichebe.

Edited April 19, 2018 by capt_oats

[Desp]

2 hours ago, crazylegsjoe said:

Can't be the first occurrence of someone getting their Da's mixed up in Lanarkshire.

[MJC]

12 hours ago, capt_oats said:

^^^ This.

I could understand Robinson perhaps wanting to add a bit of experience to the side this summer but by that I mean late-20s or at worst early 30s.. He's mentioned a couple of times now about us having the youngest squad in the league but to follow up purposely gutting the squad of all our over 30s with signing a 38 year old who as Ludo*1 says will be 39 in December seems unlikely.

We seem to have a pretty solid profile of player we're looking to recruit Kenny Miller ticks absolutely none of the boxes.

Aside from those rational reasons he's also clearly an utter c**t.

One of the big changes for the better this season has been the drastic lowering of the age of the squad and overpaid and over the hill players such as McManus, Pearson & McFadden have been removed from the squad and replaced by much younger players. 

Signing a 38 year old Kenny Miller who would basically be out for one last payday would be a major backward step and I hope we stay well clear.

[capt_oats]

A lot of talk about improving and making the squad stronger and knowing what we need in Robinson's press conference today.

 

Edited April 20, 2018 by capt_oats

[well fan for life]

http://www.mfc1886.com/mfc-podcast-2017-18-episode-33/

Grant Russell has made quite an impression since arriving at Fir Park. In this special episode of the podcast he joins Sparra to discuss his time at Motherwell so far including the ‘Time for New Heroes’ campaign and the incredibly successful #Pete6 video, as well as the difficulties that came with back-to-back controversial fixtures with Celtic.

Grant also outlines his visions going forward including a new club website, online ticketing, cup final/ season ticket campaigns and much, much more.

This is absolutely magic. Grant Russell has absolutely set a benchmark for others in the league in terms of #content. His point about humanising the players is absolutely bang on.

Also I’m already buzzing for the next “Time for New Heroes” video as the last one was astounding.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Kenny Miller was complete bobbins for Scotland and scored roughly 35,000 goals against us for Rangers.  I utterly despise the c**t. 

[thisGRAEME]

3 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Kenny Miller was complete bobbins for Scotland and scored roughly 35,000 goals against us for Rangers.  I utterly despise the c**t. 

Thank you.

[Swello]

19 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Kenny Miller was complete bobbins for Scotland and scored roughly 35,000 goals against us for Rangers.  I utterly despise the c**t. 

I'll never forget his wee hard-man face in the comedy fracas after the comedy playoff win - just look at it.

Lionel would have kicked his c**t in.

[rambunctious]

God I miss Lionel so much

[MJC]

1 hour ago, Swello said:

I'll never forget his wee hard-man face in the comedy fracas after the comedy playoff win - just look at it.

Lionel would have kicked his c**t in.

That brawl was Fraser Kerr's finest moment in a Motherwell shirt imo. He was a very underrated contributor to that fracas.

Edited April 19, 2018 by MJC

[Gianfranco]

Kenny Miller is a thundercunt and I don’t like him.

[Mr. Brightside]

And who is that hiding in the top left corner [emoji848]