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Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons


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Mustve been a great interview to have witnesses.

Journalist: "So Kevin, how do you feel about your goal tally considering there was some fans unhappy with your performances earlier this season?"

van Venn:

fuck-em.gif.354200c5db78792882f345364512bd0e.gif

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3 hours ago, ropy said:

Should we have an honesty box, who criticised KVV?

I am not guilty (I think) I lamented the lack of a striking partner for him, a criticism of team selection.

Stick my name in the box.

If Kev is pissed at me, Im happy to discuss it with him.

Im sure after a frank exchange of views we can laugh about it and raise a glass to him being our undisputed POTY!

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5 hours ago, joewarkfanclub said:

Stick my name in the box.

If Kev is pissed at me, Im happy to discuss it with him.

Im sure after a frank exchange of views we can laugh about it and raise a glass to him being our undisputed POTY!

I'm sure he'd raise a glass with you. I mean, he might then stick it in your neck for doubting him, but he'd raise it nonetheless. 

He must pay a fair bit of attention to his social media as, although having his doubters is undoubtedly true, I've never seen mention of fans being unhappy with him in the papers or mainstream media. He might even lurk on here watching for any dissent or negativity. If that's the case, hiya Kev, hiya pal. !!! I've personally never doubted you for a second and im as honest as the day is long, so there's no need whatsoever to go raking through old posts just to confirm it....  ya crazy, lovable, handsome big Dutch genius b*****d. xxx

Edited by 'WellDel
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After watching the highlights back of Saturdays game I noticed his celebrations, definitely a message sent to that Announce Moult kid.

 

Football is always better when players don't give the typical stock answers to the same predictable questions. I say we let Kev do more interviews and get things off his chest. Wish I was going to the POTY awards night, purely for his acceptance speech alone.

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3 hours ago, 'WellDel said:

He must pay a fair bit of attention to his social media as, although having his doubters is undoubtedly true, I've never seen mention of fans being unhappy with him in the papers or mainstream media.

In fairness you don't have to look particularly hard to find out that a proportion of our online support are absolute mile-oots.

Anyway, in other news...I should fucking hope so:

According to the article: "Motherwell have also opened talks with a number of other players who are also out of contract this summer."

Which, again, isn't really a surprise.

Edited by capt_oats
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Fair play to Kev for actually giving a f**k what Motherwell fans actually think of them.  If I was playing for Motherwell*, even as a Motherwell fan, I'd probably be scrapping with half of the East Stand every other weekend.  

 

 

*I'm 37 at the end of the year, not the quickest, but even I felt I could do us a turn at centre-half until Butcher & Casey walked in the door.

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1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

In fairness you don't have to look particularly hard to find out that a proportion of our online support are absolute mile-oots.

Anyway, in other news...I should fucking hope so:

According to the article: "Motherwell have also opened talks with a number of other players who are also out of contract this summer."

Which, again, isn't really a surprise.

Do we have too many centre backs? Is McGinn the only one out of contract or do we need him to cover right back?  Will we go back to a solid back four rather than the rampaging wingbacks we employ at the moment? 

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1 hour ago, ropy said:

Do we have too many centre backs? Is McGinn the only one out of contract or do we need him to cover right back?  Will we go back to a solid back four rather than the rampaging wingbacks we employ at the moment? 

I mean, I'd definitely be offering McGinn something.

As it stands we've Lamie, Mugabi, McGinn, Blaney and Casey plus Butcher who's listed as a midfielder. That's 6 players for 3 positions if we stick with 3 at the back which doesn't seem too many but it depends whether the likes of Bevis and the Bathgate Maldini are happy being parked on the bench.

The other thing is that our current shape works largely because the wing backs we have are suited to the role they're being asked to do. The 3412 really only works if we're able to replace Johnston and Furlong.

Having said that, I know the recruitment team have taken a bit of a kicking but in Penney and Furlong they seem to have sourced fairly decent LWB options so maybe it's not impossible and I suppose it's a question of whether Hammell had a decent idea of what he was looking for in that position (albeit he played them as full backs).

Either way it feels like it would be mental not to stick with something that has been effective or at least run with it until it burns out but equally there's a *lot* required to fill in the gaps.

I think it was @crazylegsjoe_mfc who mentioned this the other week but only 4 of our regular starting XI over the past run of games are actually contracted for next season.

This is what that looks like (with contracted back ups included so it's not just 7 of 11 empty shirts):

lineup.png.4c8528ac93229a526428bba7326ea187.png

It's worth bearing in mind that 2 of the 16 contracted are currently out on loan (Maguire and Shields) while 2 effectively haven't kicked a baw for the majority of the season (Morris) or at all in McGinley's case.

As a reminder here's who's OOC:

  • O'Donnell
  • Carroll
  • McGinn
  • Johnston
  • Furlong (loan expires - contract at Brighton expires)
  • Casey
  • Cornelius
  • Goss
  • Paton
  • Efford
  • Aitchison
  • McKinstry (loan expires - contract at Leeds expires)
  • Mandron
  • Obika (loan expires - contract at Morecambe expires)
Edited by capt_oats
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Kettlewell said in his Open Goal interview that he picked 3-5-2 based on the squad he had available to him.

Given the parts of this system that don't exist in any variation of 4-3-3 are the two wing backs and the second striker and we are in a situation the wing-backs are out of contract and the second striker is likely to have suitors, that could change how Kettlewell thinks for his summer activity.

It may be that he uses the same pragmatism he did to start playing 3-5-2 to see that the best players he could sign would mould the team into a different shape.

That said, if there was an intention to play with wingers at any point, I imagine McKinstry would have had some gametime by now. Even just a run-out for Spittal or Mandron when we were 3-0 up on Saturday, or I guess it could be simply that he doesn't rate McKinstry.

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2 hours ago, Desp said:

Fair play to Kev for actually giving a f**k what Motherwell fans actually think of them

He's probably got a Good List and a Bad List which he spends the long hours between training sessions ruthlessly maintaining. @Busta Nut has stuck up for him all the way through the season on here so he now qualifies for his choice of a post-match wave or a twitter like by 8pm on a Saturday night. Folk on the bad list like @joewarkfanclub will find a mysterious increase in Dutch junk mail and an unordered set meal for 8 from the chinese takeaway arriving at their door at 11pm on a Sunday.

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28 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

Kettlewell said in his Open Goal interview that he picked 3-5-2 based on the squad he had available to him.

Given the parts of this system that don't exist in any variation of 4-3-3 are the two wing backs and the second striker and we are in a situation the wing-backs are out of contract and the second striker is likely to have suitors, that could change how Kettlewell thinks for his summer activity.

It may be that he uses the same pragmatism he did to start playing 3-5-2 to see that the best players he could sign would mould the team into a different shape.

That said, if there was an intention to play with wingers at any point, I imagine McKinstry would have had some gametime by now. Even just a run-out for Spittal or Mandron when we were 3-0 up on Saturday, or I guess it could be simply that he doesn't rate McKinstry.

On the point about McKinstry I found myself having a look at the summary of the AGM over on Ye Olde Fir Park Corner and it's a trip given what has happened since.

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I absolutely love the development that KVV is on Twitter taking receipts for folk dishing it out. Absolute hero. 

A few more goals and he takes Higdon's crown as the best centre forward since Coyne. 

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Let's not get all revisionist regarding KVV. He has absolutely turned it round and then some and I'm asbolutely fucking delighted at that...he's been absolutely superb. But let's not lose sight of the reason people said he was shite earlier in the season, being mainly because he was shite earlier in the season.

Anyone still criticising him now needs to have a proper word with themselves (and I'm not even going to comment on people openly abusing the guy either then or now), he deserves all the praise in the world currently and he's everything a club like Motherwell could dream of at the sharp end of the team.

But all the things he's doing the right way now, he was absolutely not doing the right way previously. The fact that there was even scope for the improvement that's happened, shows that criticism wasn't wrong (albeit delivered in a very very strange way by a cross-section of absolute weirdos).

He needed to do a LOT of things differently/better, and to his absolute credit he has 100% done that (whatever his motivation for doing so might have been - better coaching/better team-mates/making a point) and is reaping the rewards, as are we.

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