Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Dosser1886]

Issues with the dud forwards signed lies fully with Kettlewell. Appreciate we aren't exactly flush with cash but is that selection of crap really the best he could come up with. Anything happens to Mika and we're done.

Tactics have been well and truly sussed and have zero confidence that we have the players on the books that would let us change it in any way. Back to hopeless humps up the park to useless forwards who despite their height have zero abilty to head or control a football.

Outmuscled the whole game all over the pitch, powder puff attempts to get the ball.

Special mention to Slattery and Wilkinson who were especially awful. Slattery was bossed the whole time he was on and resorted to pathetic attempts to go down and get fouls that never came. Thankfully hooked at half time.

Goals were comically, depressingly bad .

Glad that Kelly has paused contract talks, maybe gives us the chance to get him out the door and spend is large wage, by our standards, elsewhere. He is a total liability, offers nothing and distribution has been and still is awful.

[ropy]

15 minutes ago, 'WellDel said:

My head neatly exploded at that one. Ball looked within easy reach if he just stayed on his feet, instead he had a needless mad lunge/slide and carried it out for a goal kick. Put the tin lid on an utterly honking performance from him. Huddy.

 

 

 

 

The ball hadn’t come to him so he stopped, he didn’t anticipate the pass from Biereth and had lost momentum.  Inertia defeated him and a desperate lunge ensued.

[fat_tony]

56 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

Wilkinson is utter shite. So bad.
Shaw is also utter shite.
Obika has been injured so long I can't mind how bad he was. He certainly wasn't worth a new deal I remember.

Mika and Bair is my thoughts for top 2

Wilkinson up top alone I think has the same problem KVV had under Hammell, in that we're lumping the ball up and not getting anyone close to him in the event that he does win it. I'm not saying he's even on the same planet as KVV but I can understand how we didn't get anything out of Wilkinson playing him that way. He looked brighter in the second half with Biereth alongside but was obviously struggling a bit given his lack of game time. I think there's *something* there, if we can get him fit and not just stick him up top on his own against 3 strapping big CBs.

I'm with you on Mika and the Bair. While he's a very limited footballer, Bair does seem capable of linking the play and with Biereth's movement this is looking like our best front pairing to me.

Shaw can f**k off back to whatever hell hole we borrowed him from.

[ropy]

Shaw directed a header close to goal, so that’s something.

Technically he got an assist by holding the ball up and putting in a cross field pass, so that’s something else.

He fell to his knees when a ball was landing on his head in front of goal.  Odd.

I’m beginning to like Bair, let’s get behind the project.

[MurrayWell]

Overall the signings have been bizarre, recruitment really needs looked at imo. Absolutely get that there's never a guarantee with signings at this level but I feel like we're stacked with too many "projects" again. 

Since Hammell took the job we've signed 23 players (I think), of those I think it would be fair to say Butcher, Casey, Penney (maybe), Furlong, Biereth, Spencer and perhaps Bair (albeit a project) have brought something. Biereth looks a level above, thankfully. 

The rest either haven't played enough to know what they can do (which might be in itself an indication) or look absolutely brutal. The hit rate really isn't great and the tactic does seem to be to just keep signing bang average folk, to support the small number of quality players, and hope for the best. 

EDIT: I do think the signings issue goes back to before Hammell, just couldn't bring myself to relive the Alexander era. 

Edited November 2, 2023 by MurrayWell

[Allroy for Prez]

One of those mornings where  you wake up and instantly wince as you remember the score from the night before.

[eliphas]

Someone can maybe dig the post out.  But I half remember a Ross county fan describing to us on here what I'm slightly worried may be transpiring. 

Something along the lines of Kettlewell starting out alright, saying all the right things, getting stuck in a system and eventually being sacked because there wasn't really an avenue out of it / resistance to change it....if anyone cares to go back a few hundred pages.

[ropy]

Looking across the season I look for us to be gaining a point a game.  Right now we are slightly ahead of target.  A positive?

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

1 minute ago, ropy said:

Looking across the season I look for us to be gaining a point a game.  Right now we are slightly ahead of target.  A positive?

It was the case for much of last season and is probably the case now that as much as we are struggling, there are fortunately several other poor sides in the league. We've now gone one full round of fixtures (notwithstanding games in hand) and only four points separate Europe from the play-offs. You could almost say that it's so tight that the first round of fixtures have been "free" in a way that if from 4th down to 11th, no one is doing that well, no one is doing that badly compared to anyone else.

That said, Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen points totals probably reflect their European endeavours. You could probably expect at least Hibs and Hearts to have marched up the table after the second round of fixtures. I'm not sure if fans of other teams are in their threads talking about how their recruitment was bad and how they have no plan B, or if they all done that at the start where we picked up 10 points in 4 games. Momentum is obviously massive in football and it's alright talking about where St. Johnstone are, but over the past five we are the league's worst side.

Kettlewell obviously has done more than enough to deserve the chance to correct our form, but a win to halt this run really does need to come soon. I think back to last season and think of us winning three of the first four games (like this season) and having a home game where we created lots of chances but got beat in the middle of September (Hearts last season, St. Mirren this season) which sparked a barren spell. I just hope it's not happening again.

[well fan for life]

That last night and about 85 minutes of Saturday has been complete fucking garbage. I think it's now becoming obvious that we need to change something fundamental. The 5-4-1 isn't working at all. 

We hooked Slattery & Mugabi at half time, and rightly so. The former put in arguably the worst performance in a Motherwell shirt he's had, the latter just doing his usual. You could have drawn names out a hat, but those two were particularly shit. 

Spencer at left back is torturing me as well. The guy simply does not have a left foot so moves are almost breaking down as he tries to shift it to his right foot. Stick him on the right and we'll work it out from there. 

And as for Liam Kelly? I hope he's got that cap framed because there's nae chance he's ever getting near another one. He should have done much, much better on Saturday and for that Duk header I've no idea what he was up to. I'm sitting in the Cooper stand and the entire time that ball was on its way into the box he looked like a lost boy. 

[Neil86]

Said it after the Livi game, this season reeks of last season Under Hammell.

we started well, we got points on the board, we then had some hard luck stories, Dundee utd 0-0 last season, battering hearts and getting beat 3-0, and then we couldn't buy a win for about 5 months.

it's a carbon copy.

we have no plan B, our only width is 17 year old Luca Ross, so we can't change it up too much. The only change in shape we can facilitate is to fire in another striker.

[Casagolda]

2 hours ago, well fan for life said:

And as for Liam Kelly? I hope he's got that cap framed because there's nae chance he's ever getting near another one. He should have done much, much better on Saturday and for that Duk header I've no idea what he was up to. I'm sitting in the Cooper stand and the entire time that ball was on its way into the box he looked like a lost boy. 

We’ve kept the least clean sheets in the league. Liam Kelly has the lowest save percentage and is 2nd bottom of goals prevented only behind 38 year old David Marshall. An absolute hologram of a keeper. 

Personally, I was shocked the same defence that shipped 5 goals to Livi/Ross County was picked apart again last night. Or that SODS and Spencer in their respective roles didn’t work(again). Or that the guy who very clearly said when he signed that he wasn’t a target man, was utterly hopeless up front on his own as we shelled high balls towards him. 

Absolutely dreadful performance, right up there with anything witnessed under Hammell or Alexander. Genuinely can’t remember the last time we shipped 4 at home to a non OF side. Not only that but we also offered virtually nothing as an attacking threat until Aberdeen went into cruise control for the last 15 mins. 

A big 3 games coming up for Kettlewell, by hook or by crook he has to stop the rot and dig up a win from somewhere. 

Edited November 2, 2023 by Casagolda

[dingdong1929]

3 hours ago, eliphas said:

Someone can maybe dig the post out.  But I half remember a Ross county fan describing to us on here what I'm slightly worried may be transpiring. 

Something along the lines of Kettlewell starting out alright, saying all the right things, getting stuck in a system and eventually being sacked because there wasn't really an avenue out of it / resistance to change it....if anyone cares to go back a few hundred pages.

Wasnt me that said, but I agree with it.
Would also add recruitment was always a concern (even more so than normal for County).
Was part gutted - part delighted to see Ketts do so well with you at the start, but deja-vu now.
Hope he turns it around, hes a good guy, and I do think theres something there.

Edited November 2, 2023 by dingdong1929

[Swello]

The weirdest thing - and something I'll never understand as long as I watch football - is how every player on a team on a given day forgets how to control the ball and overhits every pass - it was doing my nut in last night. It was a good pitch in benign conditions and everything was broken from the first whistle. Confidence has taken a kicking obviously - but that can't be all - the whole thing just felt unprepared.

Also - a 10 minute delay for a referee to put some AAA's in his wee headset is a new low in "modern fitba is shite"

[Handsome_Devil]

I can live with a few stinkers, it's the nature of our level, but what's hugely alarming is the problems were recognised by everyone... Wilkinson sole striker, the eggs in the basket of binning all wingers etc.

I'm not going to call for SK to be sacked any time soon even if results don't improve. Getting out of the doom loop of surviving with a large credit card bill which leads straight into a new relegation battle requires the tolerance of a bad season.

But if the next two don't show improvement, he seriously needs to rip it up and start again, and go into January aiming for a complete refresh.

[well fan for life]

5 minutes ago, Swello said:

The weirdest thing - and something I'll never understand as long as I watch football - is how every player on a team on a given day forgets how to control the ball and overhits every pass - it was doing my nut in last night. It was a good pitch in benign conditions and everything was broken from the first whistle. Confidence has taken a kicking obviously - but that can't be all - the whole thing just felt unprepared.

Also - a 10 minute delay for a referee to put some AAA's in his wee headset is a new low in "modern fitba is shite"

Also with everyone's confidence being shot to ribbons it's meaning nobody wants to take any sort of responsibility for anything. All 4 goals could have been avoided by someone, anyone, taking a bit of ownership. The third particularly as after Casey makes that last ditch tackle either Miller needs to boot that to f**k or Scotland International Liam Kelly needs to be coming out to claim that like a freight train. Instead we've got 11 hopeless cases staring at each other.

[Ron Aldo]

14 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

I can live with a few stinkers, it's the nature of our level, but what's hugely alarming is the problems were recognised by everyone... Wilkinson sole striker, the eggs in the basket of binning all wingers etc.

I'm not going to call for SK to be sacked any time soon even if results don't improve. Getting out of the doom loop of surviving with a large credit card bill which leads straight into a new relegation battle requires the tolerance of a bad season.

But if the next two don't show improvement, he seriously needs to rip it up and start again, and go into January aiming for a complete refresh.

Why do I feel like we've been saying something like this every season for years? 

[thisGRAEME]

16 minutes ago, Ron Aldo said:

Why do I feel like we've been saying something like this every season for years? 

Because we're not a well run club, HTH.

[ropy]

Every goal was a tap in, only Duk had to try, and that was merely a stretching of the neck muscles.

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

Last season under Hammell he persisted with his 4-2-3-1 despite the fact he wasn't getting much from his wingers, we had three right backs, one of whom had played a lot on the right of a back three. On the side, Penney looked better going forward than he did defensively. Van Veen was scoring a decent amount despite sometimes looking wasted as a lone striker. Several people called it on this forum that 3-5-2 would be perfect for the squad that we had so it certainly wasn't a surprise when Kettlewell played that way - at least there was a theory of a way out.

With this season's squad, it seems that we are playing people in their best positions, but they're just not good enough. I don't see how we could change the shape of this team. We don't any wingers so 4-3-3, 4-4-2 and 4-2-3-1 are out. We've got enough midfielders to play a diamond, but there would be question marks about the defenders getting up and down. With a back four, who do we put where? Probably from our current system, Butcher and McGinn are first on the team sheet, but would you play a back four with those two in the middle who are, by trade, a holding midfielder and a full-back?