Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Casagolda]

I think Tait was pretty much liked by almost all Motherwell fans, I can’t imagine many will have a bad word to say about him. 

Never the quickest but he made up for it by having a terrific engine and a first class attitude. Very rarely missed a game and was a model of consistency during his first three seasons.

Sadly this season his form went off a cliff and he lost his place in the team to Grimshaw. When he did play he looked incredibly slow, laboured even in his running and just basically a shadow of himself- despite the fact he’s only 30. I even wondered if he was carrying an injury because the drop off between the previous season and last was startling. 

Would have been happy enough to keep him as cover for both full back positions but by all accounts he wasn’t happy with that role or presumably the reduced wage that would come with it, so decided to go elsewhere. 

Best of luck to him anyway, been an excellent servant and seems like a cracking guy too.

 

[thisGRAEME]

He made Boyata shite himself and he's welcome round mine whenever.

['WellDel]

Best of luck to Tait at St Mirren . All round good guy and stellar servant to the club during his time with us . 

unfortunately for him he'd just lost that wee bit of pace , having never been the quickest in the first place which meant he was no longer a first pick , but was someone I would have liked to keep hold of as an option from the bench due to his versatility.

He's at the age though where he'll be wanting games , and hopefully for him he can get that in Paisley . Best of luck fella.

[Yorky]

Echo all of the above, not sure what happened but he suddenly just lost that edge. He certainly goes with all our best wishes.

[SCDave]

It looked like he bulked up so much with all his crossfit that he found it difficult to run/carry the muscle. He was an assist machine to start with from memory, that also seemed to disappear from his game.
Pretty much echo everything above, wouldn't have minded keeping him on as backup but was never going to get back into the starting lineup.

[Archie McSquackle]

The radio has just announced Tait has signed a 2year deal with St. Mirren which is obviously why the question has been asked.

He didn't suit our style any more as he's lost a bit of pace but I can see him doing well at St. Mirren as they set up a bit differently. I certainly wouldn't have complained if we'd kept him for another year.

[ropy]

2 hours ago, capt_oats said:

That's Jack Brown signed for Albion Rovers having been released from our Reserves. Good luck to him.

 

I didn’t see much of the youngsters last season and don’t remember Jack, but good luck to him, I saw Liam Brown signing on at Edinburgh City, I saw more of him the previous season.

[capt_oats]

Squad numbers announced.

Spoiler

MOTHERWELL 2020/21 SQUAD NUMBERS

1    Trevor Carson
2    Liam Grimshaw
3    Jake Carroll
4    Ricki Lamie
5    Nathan McGinley
6    Allan Campbell
7
8    David Turnbull
9
11
12
13
14    Jermaine Hylton
15    Barry Maguire
16    Bevis Mugabi
17    Sherwin Seedorf
18    Jordan White
19    Liam Polworth
20    Jamie Semple
21    Harry Robinson
22    Liam Donnelly
23    PJ Morrison
24    David Devine
25    Ross MacIver
26    Dean Cornelius
27    Yusuf Hussain
28
29
30
31    Declan Gallagher
32    Tony Watt

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by capt_oats

[Yorky]

38 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Squad numbers announced.

  Reveal hidden contents

MOTHERWELL 2020/21 SQUAD NUMBERS

1    Trevor Carson
2    Liam Grimshaw
3    Jake Carroll
4    Ricki Lamie
5    Nathan McGinley
6    Allan Campbell
7
8    David Turnbull
9
11
12
13
14    Jermaine Hylton
15    Barry Maguire
16    Bevis Mugabi
17    Sherwin Seedorf
18    Jordan White
19    Liam Polworth
20    Jamie Semple
21    Harry Robinson
22    Liam Donnelly
23    PJ Morrison
24    David Devine
25    Ross MacIver
26    Dean Cornelius
27    Yusuf Hussain
28
29
30
31    Declan Gallagher
32    Tony Watt

 

No number for Long at this point.

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

I wonder if #7, #9 and #11 being free means we can expect three more outfield signings.

As the #numberpolis, it annoys me that Turnbull didn't keep 7 and allow Donnelly or Polworth into the first eleven. 

[Archie McSquackle]

Gallagher and Watt being 31 and 32 does skew the picture somewhat. We're not as short as an initial glance at numbers 1 - 11 would suggest.

[capt_oats]

11 hours ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

I wonder if #7, #9 and #11 being free means we can expect three more outfield signings.

As the #numberpolis, it annoys me that Turnbull didn't keep 7 and allow Donnelly or Polworth into the first eleven. 

I wondered the same. All the budget noises that were being made suggested there wouldn't be too much movement but 3 in so far and Robinson talking about feeling we need another two forwards (budget permitting)...

I'm surprised Polworth didn't take the #7 tbh. It was his shirt at Caley.

10 hours ago, Archie McSquackle said:

Gallagher and Watt being 31 and 32 does skew the picture somewhat. We're not as short as an initial glance at numbers 1 - 11 would suggest.

That's it. Looking at this then 2 "play across the front three" forwards and I'd have thought we'd pretty much be done. Lamie can cover LB and Gallagher can cover RB.

Edited June 19, 2020 by capt_oats

[Luke92]

Very vexing Turnbull didn't keep #7 in favour of #8. Thank God #8 is off Watt though.. that was fear. Loving the Vieri 32!

On more serious matters,  I'm glad to hear Robinson echo what most have been saying re bringing in forward players. Hopefully we are going to surpass expectations in regards to bringing boys in. I thought in the current climate we might be extremely frugal but i guess we have offloaded a few decent wages and got money for 3rd place.

I'm also interested to see whether Robinson goes with the same system this season. Regardless of what system he picks I think it's going to be 3 in the middle of the park to accommodate our strength in there. I suspect he probably will stick but a lot probably depends on if we can recruit wingers/forwards of a decent quality.

[capt_oats]

Update on the Academy from Hammell which is interesting given the current climate.

 

[Pettigrew]

16 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Update on the Academy from Hammell which is interesting given the current climate.

 

Response to the BBC gossip item this morning about us and Hibs cutting back on Academy spends given current financial challenges I guess.

[capt_oats]

1 minute ago, Pettigrew said:

Response to the BBC gossip item this morning about us and Hibs cutting back on Academy spends given current financial challenges I guess.

Ah right, I didn't realise there was a suggestion we were making cuts.

As you were I guess.

[Ron Aldo]

St. Mirren have apparently agreed a fee with Peterborough for Mark O'Hara.

[capt_oats]

1 minute ago, Ron Aldo said:

St. Mirren have apparently agreed a fee with Peterborough for Mark O'Hara.

Saw that, tbh it sounds a lot like Barry Fry being Barry Fry.

Quote

"I spoke to Motherwell’s (head of recruitment) Martin Foyle yesterday (June 19) and he said he was determined to get Mark signed up so I told him to hurry up as I’d now agreed a fee with St Mirren for the player.

I have no idea why Mark hasn’t signed for Motherwell already. Martin told me the player’s agent had turned down a three year contract even though they’ve qualified for Europe, but then his agent has been difficult to deal with in the past."

Link

He's transfer-listed, they're keen to get him out the door. We had something in place in principle but circumstances mean he's no longer a priority.

I mean, there's not a lot there that's difficult to understand.

From the sound of Robinson's comments on the socials during the week it's forwards that are our focus just now.

[djchapsticks]

How did he do with you last season?

That article suggests that Motherwell are still very much in the running as well.

[capt_oats]

59 minutes ago, djchapsticks said:

How did he do with you last season?

That article suggests that Motherwell are still very much in the running as well.

There's an element of recency bias when it comes to O'Hara. 

He really began to hit a bit of form after the winter break. He was a big part of turning things round from 4-1 to 4-4 in the SC game against your lot but prior to that up until mid-December you'd have forgotten we'd even signed him. He didn't play his first 90 mins in the league until the 1-0 against Kilmarnock on 21st December.

He's someone that under normal circumstances I think most of us would have been happy to have sticking around.

We were speaking to Peterborough about take him back in April. Robinson confirmed that in an interview on BT (13:30 mins here), Fry had confirmed that we had a deal confirmed 'in principle' back then as well.

As it stands though we've got a midfield of Turnbull, Donnelly, Campbell and Polworth plus Barry Maguire's just signed an extension so it's one of the areas of the park we've got bodies as we've promoted Jamie Semple and Dean Cornelius to the first team now. Donnelly, Campbell and Maguire all fit in the role O'Hara was playing for us.

O'Hara was in the Motherwell Times last week saying that he'd been in touch with Robinson:

Quote

“I spoke to the manager (via text message) last week and Motherwell are still interested,” O’Hara told the Times and Speaker. “It is not doable at the moment but I hope there’s still a chance that it will happen.

“There is no timescale on when Motherwell might come back with an offer. It’s uncertain times so I’ve not got many options at the moment but Motherwell would be my number one option."

Link

Which sounds about right tbh.

Edited June 20, 2020 by capt_oats