Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[well fan for life]

I can't help but feel these review of the season posts on the socials are missing a couple of bits & pieces. Can't quite put my finger on what, though. 

[eliphas]

1 hour ago, welldaft said:

Harsh maybe. But I am mainly going on my thoughts as to his performances when he played for us. This is a million miles away from being a Josh Morris or even Connor Shields situation. I was not hoping he left, but now that it looks like he will I am not overly upset. If anything it gives us more leeway to bring in another player. 

As I said I wish him all the best, but whilst I hope we could retain the likes of Casey and Furlong I also hope quite a few in contract players move on as we need to try and get better replacements for those already in the building. A club our size and with our resources that is quite the challenge of course. 

Think that's it. 

The squad is bloated in certain areas. 

Would I rather keep Cornelius? Aye. 

Would I rather we didn't have Maguire, Danzaki, Mugabi, Shields et al on the books next season to allow me to offer a bit more to the players I actually want to keep for example. Also aye. 

Feels like we will lose 1 or 2 who maybe would have stayed had we had funds not being taken up by the rather big squad. 

Such is life unfortunately 

[capt_oats]

2 hours ago, well fan for life said:

I can't help but feel these review of the season posts on the socials are missing a couple of bits & pieces. Can't quite put my finger on what, though. 

Took 20 mins yesterday and had a nice time watching this and I'll tell you what, watching our goals from this season taken entirely out of context paints a weird picture.

Like, setting Kev and Spittal aside, it's interesting how *involved* in stuff players like Slattery, McKinstry and even Tierney feel in terms of chipping in with goals, assists, secondary assists and what not.

Edited June 12, 2023 by capt_oats

[craigkillie]

14 hours ago, Antiochas III said:

Compared to us?  Is that a serious question?  

The league is ranked worse than ours by UEFA, and their average crowds seem to be about 15k, it's a bit like joining a Hearts or an Aberdeen rather than taking an enormous step up. Andy Irving is a regular for a top half side in that division.

[Kapowzer]

For me with Cornelius it just feels like the perfect adage of "familiarity breeds contempt" but from three groups.

With the fans he was always around in the past 3/4 seasons, fan as a boy, however never seeming to make the position his own. Can't fault his endeavour just execution at times which not enough give leeway due to his age, development and stop/start nature of his involvement.

WIth the club/management maybe it was felt as a youth being promoted he is an extra body at the cheaper end of the scale than someone brought in from outside. Maybe his connection would tie him for longer, certainly didn't when McKinstry got the chance to move to Leeds initially.

Finally from his point of view, he probably feels he just needs to spread his wings and not be taken for granted. New challenge, new environment, fresh line drawn in the sand. It seems others out there rate him higher than many of us have. Can't help but feel in the demise of the previous regime he was being sidelined at the preference of other players who offered little more if any and certainly without his desire to get a result which for me was an oversight. But there was plenty of them at the time.

I wish him all the best and hopes he pushes on, I don't think that was going to happen here. Maybe he would have altered his thinking if Hammy wasn't appointed last August. But if that was the case there'd be a case for us not putting Johnson out on loan and securing an extension. Sliding doors stuff however.

[Swello]

3 hours ago, well fan for life said:

I can't help but feel these review of the season posts on the socials are missing a couple of bits & pieces. Can't quite put my finger on what, though. 

Was laughing at the December/January one - the slimmest of pickings.

I think a Shite of the Season series where you tweet out all the stuff that made us all grumpy b*****ds would be excellent content. They could have template where one of the 4 pics just said "fucked it against 10 men" or "Sol done for pace at the winning goal".

[Marinello]

1 hour ago, craigkillie said:

The league is ranked worse than ours by UEFA, and their average crowds seem to be about 15k, it's a bit like joining a Hearts or an Aberdeen rather than taking an enormous step up. Andy Irving is a regular for a top half side in that division.

Can't agree with the Hearts/Aberdeen comparison. I took in SG's match away to Austria Vienna last months. 

SG who finished 2nd being loadsamoney RB Salzburg impressed as a very accomplished side.  Would put them on a par with Celtic perhaps above them. 

Max would have a helluva job getting into that team.

[well fan for life]

15 minutes ago, Swello said:

Was laughing at the December/January one - the slimmest of pickings.

I think a Shite of the Season series where you tweet out all the stuff that made us all grumpy b*****ds would be excellent content. They could have template where one of the 4 pics just said "fucked it against 10 men" or "Sol done for pace at the winning goal".

I like that Kettlewell just appeared in January/February and simply nothing happened to get us to that point. 

 

[capt_oats]

15 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

Would be a rather substantial upgrade, of sorts. Different kinds of player though.

Cheers for that. I wondered how they'd compare.

I suppose the caveat is that Turner has been playing at a level below and Cornelius has also had half a season with an inexperienced manager who, it seems, didn't really know what to do with him.

Speaking about him broadly;

Taking a quick look at his record in the 28 games Hammell was in charge; he made 22 appearances of which he started 10 was subbed on in 12 and was an unused sub 6 times. Compare that with the fact that he started 8 of SK's first 9 games in charge and only really lost his place after he picked up an injury.

I find it weird that anyone would argue that he hadn't established himself as a first team regular though.

In honesty I think he's unfortunate in that a lot of what he's good at (beyond the fact that he's clearly a good enough player to hold his own at this level) and probably one of the main reasons he's valued by someone like Kettlewell is intangible stuff that just flies over the head of your average punter in the stand.

Basically, this thread was littered with folk complaining about the balance of the midfield when Hammell was relentlessly chucking Goss, Slattery and Spittal out on to the park asking them to do whatever the f**k it was he was up to. Kettlewell's first game in charge had Cornelius dropped in and he played the full 90 - long story short, you can argue about whether he just added legs/energy/whatever but on a basic level he was able to execute in the way the manager wanted and I'd imagine that's why he became a fixture for Kettlewell.

He was a part of the midfield that helped get the best out of both Goss and Spittal in a way that Hammell's attempts simply couldn't.

That's not to say he's irreplaceable or anything but similarly it feels churlish to just dismiss him.

As I say, absolutely fair fucks to him if he's got other options that he wants to take up. Looking at the report linking him with other clubs from the start of April the clubs quoted were Charlton, Bolton and Barnsley - would I be surprised to see him rock up at any of those clubs and do them a turn? Tbh, no - if Nicky Cadden can get a run in the Barnsley side then there's no reason Deano couldn't kick on in a similar way.

Edited June 12, 2023 by capt_oats

[well fan for life]

1 minute ago, capt_oats said:

I suppose the caveat is that Turner has been playing at a level below and Cornelius has also had half a season with an inexperienced manager who, it seems, didn't really know what to do with him.

FTFY

[Dosser1886]

On 11/06/2023 at 13:41, Casagolda said:

I see Cornelius is the first of those out of contract to declare he’s off. 

Slightly surprised, he was the one of those out of contract that I thought might actually stay. I imagine Goss, Johnston and Casey will all follow suit shortly before we’re due back next Monday. 

Some of the games he spent more time trying to pull his hair over his receiding hairline than actually get stuck in, St Mirren when O'Hara bo ragged him the whole game springs to him. Not that fussed, if he's off tbh.

[Onthefringes]

2 hours ago, Dosser1886 said:

Some of the games he spent more time trying to pull his hair over his receiding hairline than actually get stuck in, St Mirren when O'Hara bo ragged him the whole game springs to him. Not that fussed, if he's off tbh.

When was this? O’Hara had to get out his back pocket to get in the dressing room is my recollection.

I get he’s not rated by some who aren’t decision makers but, at least keep it factual.

[Antiochas III]

4 hours ago, craigkillie said:

The league is ranked worse than ours by UEFA, and their average crowds seem to be about 15k, it's a bit like joining a Hearts or an Aberdeen rather than taking an enormous step up. Andy Irving is a regular for a top half side in that division.

And they'll play in Europe 10x more matches than we will in the next 3 years.  And have done the previous 5...

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

The league cup group stages definitely do make the summers harder for a manager of a club like ours to achieve a rebuild.

We've got 17 first team players on the website at the moment (18 including Lennon Miller). Regardless of transfer activity, it looks massively unlikely that McGinley or Butcher will be fit to play Elgin, which leaves us down to 15 players.

I imagine in that fifteen, there are some players who don't feature greatly in Kettlewell's plans - Maguire, Danzaki, Shields, Mugabi and/or Lamie and maybe even Tierney - but he's going to have to strike a balance between getting his squad in place for the season and having a team to field in the League Cup games.

Maybe we'll start to see a flurry of activity with the players due back next week, but it has been very quiet all in on the rumour front too.

[craigkillie]

10 minutes ago, Antiochas III said:

And they'll play in Europe 10x more matches than we will in the next 3 years.  And have done the previous 5...

OK, but the champions of Latvia or Albania will also play more matches than most small Scottish clubs in the next few years, and it doesn't mean they're better or bigger clubs.

[Kapowzer]

7 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

OK, but the champions of Latvia or Albania will also play more matches than most small Scottish clubs in the next few years, and it doesn't mean they're better or bigger clubs.

16k stadium, average attendance 9.5k, Austria GDP 480Bn which is 2.3x our estimated, 9m population to 5.5m. I'd say the additional makes ad and TV revenues higher and therefore commercial income are way in excess of here. But yeah we can use the champions of Malta or Gibraltar as a no context comparison.

So in short, yeah a step up.

His agent is the hardest working in World Football so I doubt he'll end up there.

[Antiochas III]

15 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

OK, but the champions of Latvia or Albania will also play more matches than most small Scottish clubs in the next few years, and it doesn't mean they're better or bigger clubs.

I should have said non-qualifiers but if you don't think Sturm Graz are better than anything we have to offer that doesn't play their home games at either Celtic Park or Ibrox then I might know a guy that could sell you a bridge.  

Edited June 12, 2023 by Antiochas III

[capt_oats]

51 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

The league cup group stages definitely do make the summers harder for a manager of a club like ours to achieve a rebuild.

We've got 17 first team players on the website at the moment (18 including Lennon Miller). Regardless of transfer activity, it looks massively unlikely that McGinley or Butcher will be fit to play Elgin, which leaves us down to 15 players.

I imagine in that fifteen, there are some players who don't feature greatly in Kettlewell's plans - Maguire, Danzaki, Shields, Mugabi and/or Lamie and maybe even Tierney - but he's going to have to strike a balance between getting his squad in place for the season and having a team to field in the League Cup games.

Maybe we'll start to see a flurry of activity with the players due back next week, but it has been very quiet all in on the rumour front too.

As things stand, I think this is how it looks based on the sort of line-up we saw at the end of the season, apparently Wilson and Connelly have re-signed but f**k knows...we're still in the Season In Review on the Motherwell socials:

Also, that's McKinstry released by Leeds.

https://www.leedsunited.com/news/team-news/31546/leeds-united-2023-24-retained-list

Edited June 12, 2023 by capt_oats

[eliphas]

As a slight aside - when I clicked on your Wilson link there I just glanced and assumed it well explained Craig Moore retweeting Wilson's maw. But it's actually Ozzie Craig Moore. Wonder what the connection there is?

[capt_oats]

14 minutes ago, eliphas said:

As a slight aside - when I clicked on your Wilson link there I just glanced and assumed it well explained Craig Moore retweeting Wilson's maw. But it's actually Ozzie Craig Moore. Wonder what the connection there is?

It seems he's an agent these days.

I'm guessing it's this agency as Wilson's on their books along with a few others - Charlie Reilly who's just signed for Dundee being one of them.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/451-football-consultancy/beraterfirma/berater/10631

Edited June 12, 2023 by capt_oats