Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[ropy]

7 hours ago, gullane said:

Is this opinion based on previous knowledge? We've only seen glimpses of him. On Saturday, he had two runs where he left defenders in his dust, so he does have pace. He's had a couple of pot shots at goal in previous games. I haven't seen enough to form an opinion but "absolute football terrorist" is an indication DeadStar has clearly seen enough.

I mentioned at the weekend the amount of passing we did on Saturday including some incisive forward moves.  When Aitchison came on he did some direct running which was both different and direct.  Surely we need to be able to mix it up so perhaps he is an option.

[Kapowzer]

Going into next season with essentially the same squad minus the few players that brought the added pixie dust means improving on this years 7th will be an uphill task.

If our summer business consists of offering deals to people already in the building OOC who have performed well in the past 3 months, we're pretty much full up to the squad size SK said was within our means.

While not every one of them will accept, advising a few contracted players there is no future for them and telling them to seek other avenues (similar to what Hibs did to McGinn a year ago) may give him a bit of financial leeway. However, there will be yet more golden handshakes needed to facilitate early departures. Not that I think our business will be complete, I just sincerely hope we just shop better than we have. We have poor windows when we're flush and great one's when our backs are to the wall. Go figure.

Are we going to get offers of £200k for Kelly and Slattery? Doubt it. I guess that would have been the minimum sort of return we would have hoped for when their signatures we secured in 2021.

Guys like Paton, without a club for not far off a year before he signed will be on buttons. He can hold his own in this league and good value to fill a bench seat and used in a pinch. Especially if that saving helps secure a definite starter (Hiya Casey). Ketts will also have to determine if guys like Shields and Maguire really are Championship jobbers or can push on. In the case of the latter this will be his 5th? manager making that call.

Finding a +20 goal striker replacement is what SK will be facing and they're unicorns to the wee teams. We were spoiled with Higgy and Handsome John back to back (Louis probably did it in a calendar year), but in the 10 years since has any of the other non-city clubs had a +20 goal striker? I can only think of Kane Hemmings, Liam Boyce and Stevie May doing it.

[Handsome_Devil]

If Carroll and efford are broken and have to sign new contracts for legal mumbo jumbo to cover use of our facilities...fine. If not, keeping them is madness.

We're not going to bet the house on signing a new 20-goal striker for obvious reasons. If we assume we do find someone around the 15-16 mark as usual, we're then asking mandarin/obika/whoever to add, 8-ish, third choice off the bench a few, a couple more from Goss and a couple from the centre backs at set pieces again.

I'm imagining a massive Moneyball type drawing on the wall of SK's office with a single 30-yarder from SOD being decisive.

[Neil86]

Not sure if it has been picked up on here, the Club certainly won't give us much pre warning.

Motherwell u18's are playing Hamilton tonight at New Douglas Park, 8pm kick off, public can attend (unsure if it will cost)

Accies need a point to secure the Uefa youth league spot, Motherwell can secure the spot with a win.

[Busta Nut]

6 minutes ago, Neil86 said:

Not sure if it has been picked up on here, the Club certainly won't give us much pre warning.

Motherwell u18's are playing Hamilton tonight at New Douglas Park, 8pm kick off, public can attend (unsure if it will cost)

Accies need a point to secure the Uefa youth league spot, Motherwell can secure the spot with a win.

I thought I saw something the other day that indicated we lost 5 nil?

[capt_oats]

2 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

I thought I saw something the other day that indicated we lost 5 nil?

Aye. That also happened.

[Neil86]

8 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

I thought I saw something the other day that indicated we lost 5 nil?

It was 'The young team' twitter account that tweeted about it last night. In fact, it turns out it is a title decider as well as the European spot up for grabs.

[capt_oats]

2 hours ago, Handsome_Devil said:

If Carroll and efford are broken and have to sign new contracts for legal mumbo jumbo to cover use of our facilities...fine. If not, keeping them is madness.

We're not going to bet the house on signing a new 20-goal striker for obvious reasons. If we assume we do find someone around the 15-16 mark as usual, we're then asking mandarin/obika/whoever to add, 8-ish, third choice off the bench a few, a couple more from Goss and a couple from the centre backs at set pieces again.

I'm imagining a massive Moneyball type drawing on the wall of SK's office with a single 30-yarder from SOD being decisive.

[wellboy1991]

10 hours ago, Busta Nut said:

We better not still be given broken people deals cos they are our pals. 

Also we can’t look at keeping two big useless strikers because both of them seem like nice guys and one has a good couple of songs …. 

Edited May 23, 2023 by wellboy1991

[capt_oats]

11 hours ago, wellboy1991 said:

Quite a disconcerting read imo. Not just the Moult side but the overall financial side of it being alluded too. Just as a few of us have said, this year has financially fucked us I think. 

Tbh, I'm not sure it's as dramatic as that. That said, it's clear we'll have taken a hit on this season - I think Kettlewell has said as much himself in so much as it's been a tough year financially for the club. Being on to our third manager that stands to reason.

Like @eliphas I think what SK is saying is pretty much stating facts - we've got 17 players contracted and (I'd assume) will have offers in to the 8 or so players who have been starting regularly for him.

Assuming they all sign (they won't) that gives us a first team squad of 25 which is us maxed out in terms of both bodies and by extension budget. Until there's clarity in terms of who's re-signing and who (if any) we're able to shift then it leaves us in a bit of a bind.

The annoying part is that it's kind of legacy stuff - no shade on the players themselves - but the likes of Maguire, Shields, Mugabi, Lamie and Morris were all signed on multi-year deals/extensions by a previous manager and it's Kettlewell who's now having to sort that out.

Then again, that's the job.

With that in mind, it does raise a question as to whether we've got any PCAs out there. I was sceptical about the McMullen stuff largely because Dundee fans seem to fall over themselves at the vaguest hint of a rumour and also the timeline seemed weird to me - I couldn't see us agreeing a PCA with anyone while we looked like locks for relegation.

7 minutes ago, wellboy1991 said:

Also we can’t look at keeping two big useless strikers because both of them seem like nice guys and one has a good couple of songs …. 

Kind of disagree with that in so much as both Mandron and Obika are pretty key to making the current shape/system work.

The problem is that the other key part is having a KVV or similar that they facilitate.

Edited May 23, 2023 by capt_oats

[well fan for life]

Learning Harry Paton's 25 has been a real shocker today. Lad must have had some paper round in Canada. 

[thisGRAEME]

14 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

Learning Harry Paton's 25 has been a real shocker today. Lad must have had some paper round in Canada. 

He needs to acknowledge his hair is over.  It's over mate. 

[Ceiling Granny]

That Kettlewell piece reads to me very much as “managing expectations”, rather than anything to read to much into.  As has been alluded to, I think our summer very much depends on what kind of player we replace KVV with (assuming he goes). If we go like for like, then maybe we do need a Mandron, if we change it up then not. I think there are a lot of moving parts just now and we’ll need to wait until a few leaving/staying decisions/announcements are made. 

Edited May 23, 2023 by Ceiling Granny

[JamesP_81]

16 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

Learning Harry Paton's 25 has been a real shocker today. Lad must have had some paper round in Canada. 

My boy was asking what age he is when he came on on Saturday. I knew he was a lot younger than he looked so my reply was 28-29. That he's 25 has blown my mind ! 

[well fan for life]

22 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

He needs to acknowledge his hair is over.  It's over mate. 

Two choices for him here, really. It's either nipping down to see Casper Sloth's best pal for a skinhead or book a fortnight in Antalya in the summer. 

[CoF]

53 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

He needs to acknowledge his hair is over.  It's over mate. 

Time to join the Craig Wighton bald at 25 club 

 

 

[Swello]

For a club with our financial limitations (ie - no rich folk involved at all) a season where you punt two managers and have a "rip it up and start again" transfer window in January (even if it's ultimately been the difference between us and our relegation rivals) is going to have a negative effect. On the back of lots of good transfer business, we've been able to ride such things out over the past few years but we are running a deficit - so there's no way things can stay as they are.

On the other side of things - KVV's form is potentially manna from heaven for the club as he was never considered as a saleable asset and selling him alone could fix a lot of the financial wreckage from this season. Max was always seen as the next one to be "sold" but his form also is going to make that come true at this point so that helps too even if it's a development fee.

I would like to see us run with a small first team squad with as much quality as that affords us and rely on our academy types to plug any gaps. Even if circumstances dictate it now anyway - we should be looking in any case to clear the decks and allow the young team to pick up appearances as needed. We've been as good as anyone at integrating young players over the years and there's been very few disasters. We've apparently got a genuinely good crop of young players coming through at the moment - so we should commit to that.

 

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

I think when asked about Obika and Mandron, Kettlewell gave a very good diplomatic answer. I think it would take quite a set of circumstances (like Morelos at Rangers) for a manager to publicly declare that a player was being shown the door. The answer definitely translated more to "we are evaluating all options" rather than "they are both being offered deals". I wouldn't be surprised if we perhaps kept one of them, but I really can't see both.

With Aitchison, I am astounded that anyone has the ability to have marked him as shite. He started two league games (one out wide) in which proved to be the last two games for a capitulating manager. Since then, his biggest run out has been 24 minutes. It's actually been a luxury that Van Veen has been so good that we've not actually really needed to use him. I can't see Aitchison himself wanting to stay anyway, he featured far more for Barnsley in the first half of the season than he has done since signing for us.

I would love us to run with a smaller squad next season and not have to rip it up and start again in January. I know @Desp alluded to the McCall days yesterday, where we'd have about 14/15 senior players and the rest of the bench filled with youth players. If we worked on getting as much quality in to our first XI as possible, that would be a preferable route for me. I'm just not sure if since then the quality of players we are able to attract is lesser and we try and sign more players in hope that by the law of averages we'll be able to field something of a competitive team. I think McCall was also fairly lucky in that he only ever really lost Steven Saunders to a long-term injury. 

[thisGRAEME]

45 minutes ago, CoF said:

Time to join the Craig Wighton bald at 25 club 

 

 

It comes to us all. I reckon my next haircut is my last one, but that's where we are.

_{In a quiet voice}: I actually though Saturday was the best we've seen out of Aitchison by a distance. Was involved, was engaged, could do better, but the first time I've seen something there.

[Swello]

14 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

I would love us to run with a smaller squad next season and not have to rip it up and start again in January. I know @Desp alluded to the McCall days yesterday, where we'd have about 14/15 senior players and the rest of the bench filled with youth players. If we worked on getting as much quality in to our first XI as possible, that would be a preferable route for me. I'm just not sure if since then the quality of players we are able to attract is lesser and we try and sign more players in hope that by the law of averages we'll be able to field something of a competitive team. I think McCall was also fairly lucky in that he only ever really lost Steven Saunders to a long-term injury. 

Much as I'd like to do something similar - we can't really re-create what McCall had - because he had a very small senior squad and he overspent quite considerably so that might be the highest quality team we'll ever put out.