Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[18May1991]

35 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

I actually think we'll scramble to safety this year, maybe through the playoff, but even if so next year is relegation o'clock.

On the other hand, maybe it's just my old age but I'm actually relatively calm about it. The goal of Society ownership is/was to secure the future of the club and it's done/doing that. We've had an insane run, which no one could expect, and if it's our turn to take a hit then so be it. 

In due course things will turn again.

 

I think/hope you’re right about staying up.

I’m with others on this though - in terms of the overall state of the club - it just feels rudderless and a bit of a shambles. That may be grossly unfair and I have no inside line on this whatsoever, just how it feels to me. 
 

Again may be unfair but when Burrows was running the show there was a lot of positivity and you felt like a part of the club, felt like you knew what was going on. That feeling seems to have disappeared. For me anyway. Which is a shame. 

[ropy]

After Saturday, people on here and in the press we’re at pains to stress how obvious it was that the dressing room was united and fully behind the manager.  Hold our beers said the squad.

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

9 hours ago, CoF said:

I think I give him more credit when I look back at 2013 2014 where he took us to second with regular starts from Gunnar Neilson, Lee Hollis, Craig Reid, Simon Ramsden, Paul Lawson, Zaine Francis-Angol, Stuart Carswell and Fraser Kerr. Granted he still had a good core group with Faddy, Sutton, McManus, Hammell, Lasley and Hutchison but that season still feels like a kinda remarkable achievement. I always think McCall was pivotal to success that year as opposed to any luck with the squad. 

No one can deny that it was a minor miracle finishing 2nd with that cast. However, when you look at the financials from that season, you couldn't argue that he wasn't backed.

As someone who was too young to appreciate the early 90s, McCall undoubtedly gave me the best years of my Motherwell supporting life - run to a cup final (cup final itself was boggin, of course), third and two seconds, three seasons of European football including the Champion's League, Higdon winning POTY, you could go on. 

He was the last manager to come in on the back of the previous manager being successful and as I said, he inherited a great team. I feel like we are in a massively different space now. Something always just sticks out with him being a beaten man after the first real bad run he had as Motherwell manager. 

I just don't feel that energy, or trying to recreate history like this is what we need right now.

 

[well fan for life]

5 minutes ago, 18May1991 said:

I think/hope you’re right about staying up.

I’m with others on this though - in terms of the overall state of the club - it just feels rudderless and a bit of a shambles. That may be grossly unfair and I have no inside line on this whatsoever, just how it feels to me. 
 

Again may be unfair but when Burrows was running the show there was a lot of positivity and you felt like a part of the club, felt like you knew what was going on. That feeling seems to have disappeared. For me anyway. Which is a shame. 

I don't think you need an inside line to know that, though. We've lost Burrows, Lasley & Hammell who were at the core of the club for decades and haven't replaced 2/3 of them. We then appointed Derek Weir as the interim while we searched for a new CEO but have not managed to find anyone. He clearly doesn't want the job longer than he absolutely has to so we're unlikely to have any sort of long term plan. 

Kettlewell was clearly given the instruction over the summer to trim our massively bloated squad back, which he done successfully. What we're left with is a squad that is paper thin and a lot of our summer signings are proving to be questionable. We signed a left back who has an injury record as long as your arm and,  shockingly, he's out long term now. We have no other left backs around so we're pissing about sticking right backs over there who look massively uncomfortable. We had our whole midfield operation pinned around a 17 year old and now he's out we are unable to hold onto the ball. The solution? Stick a striker in at centre mid where, shockingly, he was all over the place last night. 

Like I said earlier I'm not even that arsed about binning Kettlewell because we're going to end up in the same place very quickly, imo. 

 

[capt_oats]

1 minute ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

No one can deny that it was a minor miracle finishing 2nd with that cast. However, when you look at the financials from that season, you couldn't argue that he wasn't backed.

As someone who was too young to appreciate the early 90s, McCall undoubtedly gave me the best years of my Motherwell supporting life - run to a cup final (cup final itself was boggin, of course), third and two seconds, three seasons of European football including the Champion's League, Higdon winning POTY, you could go on. 

He was the last manager to come in on the back of the previous manager being successful and as I said, he inherited a great team. I feel like we are in a massively different space now. Something always just sticks out with him being a beaten man after the first real bad run he had as Motherwell manager. 

I just don't feel that energy, or trying to recreate history like this is what we need right now.

I've mentioned this before but my hot take is that Stuart McCall wasn't actually a very good manager.

Like, he was fine and he assembled a good side but his success with us (and he was successful) seemed to be more from vibes rather than good management.

[SteelyDosser]

22 minutes ago, 18May1991 said:

I think/hope you’re right about staying up.

I’m with others on this though - in terms of the overall state of the club - it just feels rudderless and a bit of a shambles. That may be grossly unfair and I have no inside line on this whatsoever, just how it feels to me. 
 

Again may be unfair but when Burrows was running the show there was a lot of positivity and you felt like a part of the club, felt like you knew what was going on. That feeling seems to have disappeared. For me anyway. Which is a shame. 

Absolutely this! Would say this season the door has completely shut on any goings on. Not especially great for those paying WS memberships.

[Handsome_Devil]

19 minutes ago, 18May1991 said:

I’m with others on this though - in terms of the overall state of the club - it just feels rudderless and a bit of a shambles. That may be grossly unfair and I have no inside line on this whatsoever, just how it feels to me. 

 

Again may be unfair but when Burrows was running the show there was a lot of positivity and you felt like a part of the club, felt like you knew what was going on. That feeling seems to have disappeared. For me anyway. Which is a shame. 

Oh it absolutely is, I completely agree and I've banged that drum for a while.

Two things spring immediately to mind. In our situation, we get the club we deserve. If you (generally, not you personally  ) want to change something, try to change it. If not, there needs to be an acceptance that there are, shall we say, dry spells in the available talent pool.

Secondly, we are never happy. We complain about shite players but don't want to spend money on the back-end staff. We complained the community focus went ott, now we complain there's no strategic direction. And so on.

Moaning is obviously not unique to us ofc but as I always say, I hate making these posts without a constructive suggestion. Because seeing the problems is easy, a fucking idiot can do it, but viable plans to fix it are a different gravy. And beyond waiting to stumble into the next upward cycle, I have absolutely no ideas whatsoever.

 

[Handsome_Devil]

3 minutes ago, SteelyDosser said:

Absolutely this! Would say this season the door has completely shut on any goings on. Not especially great for those paying WS memberships.

The Society mail you every week and invite you to do god knows what. It could be better, sure, but if you want better from the club then we need to pay for it and that means less money for players and that means...and so on.

Don't get me wrong, I think we've massively overcut the back office so it's become a long-term false economy but others will have the equally valid view that our budget is so tight every penny should be on the park.

[Desp]

10 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

I've mentioned this before but my hot take is that Stuart McCall wasn't actually a very good manager.

Fucking yaaaassss!  He was, is and always will be a terrible football manager.  Stuart McCall got the absolute golden ticket when he was Motherwell manager.  The weakest top flight in history (Rangers, Hearts, Hibs all out of the league at points and Aberdeen/Utd varying levels of shite) and a Chief Exec who threw money at the football side in a way that would make John Boyle have a word with himself.

His managerial record since the money dried up at Motherwell speaks volumes.  He should be embarrassed that he never won a trophy while at Fir Park.

[well fan for life]

16 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

I've mentioned this before but my hot take is that Stuart McCall wasn't actually a very good manager.

Like, he was fine and he assembled a good side but his success with us (and he was successful) seemed to be more from vibes rather than good management.

I am still fucking raging about the away game at Ibrox when they'd been relegated and we were literally top of the league. From days out we were already giving excuses before we completely shat the bed. 

[thisGRAEME]

1 hour ago, well fan for life said:

Not going to retread old ground but the club is a complete mess from top to bottom and I can't see any of it improving any time soon. 

I am once again standing in the middle of the room shouting about clubs failing managers and players, far more than managers failing clubs, or players.

No idea who's steering the ship, absolutely no idea what comes next, absolutely no idea what kind of longer term vision or plan the club has, other than vaguely to keep the lights on and hope that we stumble across a player now and again. 

[Comrie]

1 hour ago, Ron Aldo said:

Kettlewell has now shown in his 2 managerial jobs that when plan A goes to shit, he's done. 

I think that's pretty accurate of his time at County, when it goes wrong he hasn't a clue how to fix it.

[thisGRAEME]

4 minutes ago, Comrie said:

I think that's pretty accurate of his time at County, when it goes wrong he hasn't a clue how to fix it.

"Do plan A better"

[Handsome_Devil]

12 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

I am once again standing in the middle of the room shouting about clubs failing managers and players, far more than managers failing clubs, or players.

No idea who's steering the ship, absolutely no idea what comes next, absolutely no idea what kind of longer term vision or plan the club has, other than vaguely to keep the lights on and hope that we stumble across a player now and again. 

I think part two there is exactly our plan.

Broadly speaking I agree with part one as well but on a micro level when a manager signs a permanently injured left back, a back-up left back and then plays a right back at left back all through a 12-game winless run, it's hard to keep the bigger picture in mind!

[Allroy for Prez]

Was hoping to log in here and find he was gone. 
 

Sigh……

 

Just watched the highlights and I’m ready to wreck my office at how bad the defending was last night, particularly from Kelly!
 

Jesus Christ lads! 

Edited December 6, 2023 by Allroy for Prez

[Otis Blue]

1 hour ago, Ron Aldo said:

... Kettlewell has now shown in his 2 managerial jobs that when plan A goes to shit, he's done. 

 

18 minutes ago, Comrie said:

I think that's pretty accurate of his time at County, when it goes wrong he hasn't a clue how to fix it.

Hey, wait a minute ... that's Queen's mantra you're pinching there, doesn't Bartley have copyright on that sort of thing?

PS - sorry for popping in guys, just felt like sharing some managerial misery ... 

[MurrayWell]

[Casagolda]

Didn’t see the game and only going off highlights but…

I see we even tried switching SODS and Spencer last night before giving Gent a shot- still didn’t work. Gent came on at half time and in the highlights forced Laidlaw into a good save while creating two good chances for Biereth. Like, I know we’ve said it all before but it’s genuinely mental to me that Kettlewell has got to this stage and he still hasn’t tried the boy there from the start even once. 

I was hoping to be proved wrong last night but one look at that team selection and you knew what was coming. A mental formation/lineup and sadly a predictable outcome. This was his Raith Rovers, complete with Kelly chucking in a couple of goals and playing up to the cameras afterwards again.

It’s just so strange to me that someone like Kettlewell can come in, quickly identify where Hammell was going wrong and fix it. Yet when it’s comes to clearing up his own mess, he’s tying himself in knots and can’t see the woods for the trees. 

[Quatermass]

There isn’t a lot to be happy about. Off the field the Club is a bit of a riot. On the field it’s currently a shambles. In my opinion relegation is inevitable. It was nothing short of a miracle that we dodged it last season. I genuinely thought we would be ok this season as well. Dun Utd in the Championship was a bonus. I’d have preferred Thistle up instead of County but there you go. For me there were a few teams in the top flight in August with questionable management teams. Whilst the same could have been levied at us, the heroics of Feb-May led me to believe we’d be comfortably 7th/8th.

The fall since early Sept has been quite startling and a bit unexpected in exactly how bad it has got. However, is this not our third (maybe fourth?) horrendous run of results this decade?

I think Robinson, Alexander, Hammell and now Kettlewell have all presided over long winless streaks since 2020. They are also getting longer. That speaks volumes. How we have managed to avoid the drop is unbelievable and shows how bad some of the other Clubs have been. 
Livi and St Johnstone are our main competition for staying up this season. By Hogmanay we’ll know whether it’ll realistically be a fight or not.

However, this is not just one bad season where we have been caught out. This is bad management on and off the park for a number of years as well as lots of very poor recruitment.

If it’s NOT this season it’ll be the next or the one after. Relegation in the next three years is close to a certainty imo. We are surrounded by teams who, with a similar size fanbase are better run off the park with full time professionals and clearly have a better recruitment policy.

The main worry is we fall into the same rut that Dunfermline, Falkirk, Accies even ICT have fallen into. 
Not necesarily falling down to League 1 but years in the Championship and that becoming recognised as our level. That’s a real possibility due to the finances we are playing with and no real ‘serious’ people in charge of the Club.

The fact we have went 12 games without a win, the 12th game was the worst result of the lot and our manager looked like a ghost after the full time whistle and there has been nothing but silence leads me to think no one is really bothered at the Club. They accept what the future is likely to be as well.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Quatermass

[well fan for life]

1 minute ago, Casagolda said:

I see we even tried switching SODS and Spencer last night before giving Gent a shot- still didn’t work. Gent came on at half time and in the highlights forced Laidlaw into a good save while creating two good chances for Biereth. Like, I know we’ve said it all before but it’s genuinely mental to me that Kettlewell has got to this stage and he still hasn’t tried the boy there from the start even once. 

While I don't think Gent is a left back by any stretch, it is nuts that we haven't attempted to stick him as a wide player. While we might be hesitant to throw him in as he's a wean you then have to wonder what on earth the point in signing him was.