capt_oats Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 (edited) 40 minutes ago, rowsdower said: I can see us sticking where we are as far as strikers go, unless Shaw's injury is bad. Have to imagine we will bring in a couple of defenders and at least one midfielder. If he wants to have this 343/523 as an option then we probably need a wide forward, someone who can play "anywhere across the front 3" to use a Robinson-ism (I think @dezz actually mentioned this on the Terrace Patreon that went out the other week). If we're planning on using 3 forwards with any sort of regularity then only having 4 (one of whom is extremely injury prone) is probably leaving us a bit light and this idea of sticking Slattery in that role can get to f**k. Tbh, it would make sense why Wilko was the one to be let go as he's probably the most awkward fit for that shape from the group of him/Bair/Obika (assuming we actually signed him to play as a second striker) as he's neither a target man nor someone who could play as an inside forward in the way Biereth can and obviously he's the one we've be able to get a taker for. For me we're in the market for a LWB, RWB, CB, a #6 and a forward. Like, I genuinely don't see how anyone could look at our GA column and think the defence isn't a priority. Especially as we're actually scoring goals. Edited January 3 by capt_oats 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gianfranco Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 Fair play to Wilkinson for actually wanting to move to play games. It was quite obvious the Kettle didn’t fancy him when he’s not been playing despite the grim run of form we are on. Well that is 3 out so far. Hopefully we’ll start hearing more incoming rumours soon. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archie McSquackle Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 Wow. We've actually been paid money for Wilkinson. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Aldo Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eliphas Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 28 minutes ago, capt_oats said: If he wants to have this 343/523 as an option then we probably need a wide forward, someone who can play "anywhere across the front 3" to use a Robinson-ism (I think @dezz actually mentioned this on the Terrace Patreon that went out the other week). Enter right winger/forward Robbie Mahon. 6 in 5 king of League One. Welcome Back Robbie. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_oats Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 (edited) 9 hours ago, Ron Aldo said: I mean, I've a lot of time for Nick McPheat's posts but other than having another dig at Daws I'm not sure what that actually tells us other than we have a high player turnover (which isn't exclusive to Daws time at the club). Like, I know what he's implying but Van Veen was signed on Daws watch...he's no longer at the club because we cashed in on him. We sold Big Sol. Sean Goss saw out his contract, Shields found another club because he wasn't going to get games under the new manager, Woolery moved for an undisclosed fee, Joey Efford found another club. I could go on... Of the 19 who have moved on the majority have either moved to other clubs or they've seen out their contracts. As I've said before I genuinely don't think Daws track record is markedly worse than Foyle's was and unlike some of the jobbers Robinson and Foyle brought to the club we're (apparently) not having to pay them off Casper Sloth style. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Other than Wilko actually scoring some goals is him moving on after 6 months any different to Alex Fisher, Theo Robinson, Dean Brill, Jordan White or Sloth who all bounced after 6 months and were brought in with Foyle as HoR? Even in the case of Souaré - the other of the "two permanent signings" who are already away he signed a short term deal and now he's away. Ultimately there has to be some sort of accountability from the manager because it's him that's OK'ing the signings Souaré's injury record was known, we had him in on trial - Kettlewell still signed him anyway. Same with Obika - Kettlewell actually re-signed him. Edited January 4 by capt_oats 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazylegsjoe_mfc Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 I looked up who our permanent signings were and I made it 32 - I assume Mich'el Parker and one other who have been omitted from the list. I didn't think the stat looked great at first, but a whole lot of context is required. In that list of 32, I can break it down in to: Still here - Kelly, Oxborough, McGinn, Casey, Butcher, Blaney, Paton, Davor, Spittal, Slattery, Bair and Obika (12) Out on loan - Tierney, Mahon (2) Sold - Van Veen, Woolery, Wilkinson, Solholm (4) Released - Ojala, Efford, Danzaki, Morris, Shields (5) Contract expired (9) - O'Connor, Amaluzor, Nirrenold, Roberts, Goss, Mandron, Aitchison, Souaré, Parker. I imagine that Tierney and Mahon will probably be added to the "contract expired" list at the end of the season, but still, that means that half of the players signed in that time are either still here, or we've got a fee out of (12 + 4). You probably look at the 5 released and say they all didn't work for varying factors - fair enough. Of the 9 who's contract expired - we only made any effort to keep Goss and of those 9, only Goss was ever signed for more than a year. You could argue that's good business - signing fringe players on low risk, short term contracts and not renewing them. Particularly when we spent this summer rueing the fact we had so many players under contract that we'd liked to have been shot of. Extending deals of players already here has been as big a problem in our squad as recruitment has as well. I don't think our recruitment is perfect, far from, or we wouldn't be in the pickle that we are currently in, but that tweet is quite selective when you look at the data behind it. That metric to measure recruitment does seem flawed when, for example, from last season it includes Jack Aitchison, who was at the club for less than four months, but doesn't include Stuart McKinstry, who was there virtually all of the season. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RandomGuy. Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 The actual hit rate for successful signings is so much lower than people seem to think, and its why virtually every manager will sign/play an experienced proven player over an untested younger players. FWIW of what I imagine a list of "failures" from there would look like, Tierney, Shields, Wilkinson and Aitchison should be classed as good signing who didn't work out, rather than bad signings. Not sure that makes sense. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post JamesP_81 Posted January 3 Popular Post Share Posted January 3 Can confirm that McGinn is an absolute top bloke. Happily came over to talk to my boys and get a few pictures taken and have a bit of a blether with his kids in tow. Not much itk stuff to pass on but he is genuinely gutted about the Hibs result, straight away said they need a good 4-5 players as they're all struggling with losing so many players in the summer , and the dressing room are all still well behind Ketts. 35 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
well fan for life Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 11 hours ago, RandomGuy. said: The actual hit rate for successful signings is so much lower than people seem to think, and its why virtually every manager will sign/play an experienced proven player over an untested younger players. FWIW of what I imagine a list of "failures" from there would look like, Tierney, Shields, Wilkinson and Aitchison should be classed as good signing who didn't work out, rather than bad signings. Not sure that makes sense. Aye I'm not sure what metric would show if a signing is successful but I wouldn't be surprised if other clubs of our size have a similar hit rate when it comes to signings. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busta Nut Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 Some good breakdown of the "failure" of Daws. Too many folk jumping on that tweet. As @RandomGuy. says. There are good signings that don't work. A few of them fall into that category. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MurrayWell Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 (edited) Most Motherwell fans will appreciate that any signing is a bit of a risk and won't get too hyped or down about anyone we're bringing in. Think most of it is optics and PR around "higher profile" signings that makes folk think general recruitment has been terrible, Wilkinson being billed as a KvV replacement, chasing Danzaki for an entire month and hyping him and talking up how good the likes of Ojala and Morris would be... Don't think all of that comes from the club BTW, just an observation that folk are likely to really remember when a signing was supposed to be great and turned out to be absolutely rotten. Edited January 4 by MurrayWell 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_oats Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 18 minutes ago, MurrayWell said: Most Motherwell fans will appreciate that any signing is a bit of a risk and won't get too hyped or down about anyone we're bringing in. Think most of it is optics and PR around "higher profile" signings that makes folk think general recruitment has been terrible, Wilkinson being billed as a KvV replacement, chasing Danzaki for an entire month and hyping him and talking up how good the likes of Ojala and Morris would be... Don't think all of that comes from the club BTW, just an observation that folk are likely to really remember when a signing was supposed to be great and turned out to be absolutely rotten. I think there's a lot in that that's true. In that there's a certain type of fan who has a pretty skewed idea of the level of player we're going to be signing. Although, I could be wrong, it also feels like there's a scepticism/dislike around Daws because it was Alexander who brought him in so when this narrative is being floated there are plenty of folk willing to just go along with it without thinking. As @crazylegsjoe_mfc says our recruitment isn't by any means perfect and my original post wasn't intended to white knight anyone but that Tweet isn't only selective it's actually quite disingenuous and as others have said as a metric it has no real context. Incidentally, Tierney still has a year to go on his deal after this so there's still time for the wee man to come good once Kettlewell fucks off. @RandomGuy.'s post is spot on as well. You look across the likes of Shields, Tierney, Wilkinson etc and for the most part you can see why they were signed. In fact, in the case of Shields he's exactly the type of signing that a section of our support loves to moan about us not making - the "why are we signing players from the English lower leagues? We should be targeting players from Scotland!" crowd. Anyway, to re-up a post of mine from last month here's the comparison between the signings with Foyle as HoR and Daws - make of it what you will. We signed around 83 players (give or take) both permanent and loan during Foyle's 6 years at the club and 44 since Daws arrived in 2021: On 12/12/2023 at 17:18, capt_oats said: On the topic of First Team recruitment here are our signings split by season and HoR in post at the time lifted from an old post and updated a bit, I should probably have put it in a spoiler but it's actually worth having a look at some of the names (there are a lot). Incidentally, I think it's been acknowledged that the deals for the likes of Moult who signed in the early stages of the summer 15/16 window were set up by the previous guy, Gary Owers who was only at the club for a couple of months before Foyle took over in August 15: MARTIN FOYLE Baraclough: 15/16 Theo Robinson, Craig Samson, Jake Taylor (loan), Liam Grimshaw (loan) Total = 4 McGhee 15/16 (winter) James McFadden, Morgaro Gomis (loan) Total = 2 16/17 Ben Heneghan, Richard Tait, Jacob Blyth, Dean Brill, Carl McHugh, Craig Clay, Ryan Bowman, Luca Belic (loan), Lee Lucas, Elliot Frear, Russell Griffiths (loan), Zak Jules (loan), Shea Gordon, Stephen Pearson Total = 14 McGhee total signed = 16 Robinson: 17/18 Alex Fisher, Gael Bigirimana, Craig Tanner, Trevor Carson, Andy Rose, Russell Griffiths, Charles Dunne, Cedric Kipre, George Newell, Ellis Plummer, Rohan Ferguson, Deimantas Petravičius, Liam Grimshaw, Gennadios Xenodochof, Curtis Main, Peter Hartley (loan)/(permanent), Nadir Ciftci (loan), Tom Aldred (loan) x 2, Stephen Hendrie (loan) Total = 19 18/19 Mark Gillespie, Liam Donnelly, Danny Johnson, Aaron Taylor-Sinclair, Alex Rodriguez-Gorrin, Christian Mbulu, Conor Sammon (loan), Ross McCormack (loan), Gboly Ariyibi (loan) Total = 9 19/20 Declan Gallagher, Liam Polworth, Jake Carroll, Casper Sloth, Jermaine Hylton, Christopher Long, Sherwin Seedorf, Christian Ilic, Christy Manzinga, Ross MacIver, Bevis Mugabi, Tony Watt, Harry Robinson, Devante Cole (loan)/permanent, Mark O'Hara (loan/permanent), Mikael Ndjoli (loan), Rolando Aarons (loan) Total = 17 20/21 (Summer) Ricki Lamie, Jordan White, Nathan McGinley, Scott Fox, Stephen O'Donnell, Aaron Chapman, Jordan Archer, Jake Hastie (loan), Callum Lang (loan), Robbie Crawford (loan) Total = 10 Robinson total signed: 55 Alexander: 20/21 (Winter) Liam Kelly (loan), Steven Lawless, Harry Smith (loan), Sam Foley, Robbie Crawford (loan made permanent), Jordan Roberts (loan), Eddie Nolan (loan), Tyler Magloire (loan) Total = 8 NICK DAWS 21/22 Connor Shields, Justin Amaluzor, Kaiyne Woolery, Kevin Van Veen, Liam Kelly, Darragh O'Connor, Mich'el Parker, Callum Slattery, Juhani Ojala, Sean Goss, Sondre Solholm Johansen, Ross Tierney, Jordan Roberts (loan/loan made permanent), Victor Nirennold, Joe Efford, Robbie Mahon, Liam Shaw (loan) Total = 17 23/23 (Summer) Paul McGinn, Blair Spittal, Josh Morris, Aston Oxborough Total = 4 Alexander total signed: 29 Hammell: 22/23: Stuart McKinstry (loan), Matt Penney (loan), Rolando Aarons (loan), Louis Moult (loan), Shane Blaney, Ollie Crankshaw (loan), Mikael Mandron, Riku Danzaki, Jack Aitchison, James Furlong (loan), Jonathan Obika (loan), Dan Casey, Calum Butcher Total = 13 Hammell total signed: 13 Kettlewell: 22/23 (post-January): Harry Paton Total = 1 23/24 (Summer): Jonathan Obika, Conor Wilkinson, Pape Soaré, Davor Zdravkovski, Theo Bair, Mika Biereth (loan), Brodie Spencer (loan), Oli Shaw (loan), Georgie Gent (loan) Total = 9 Kettlewell total signed to date: 10 We signed 83 players from Foyle's arrival (1st August 2015) up to the point we announced he was moving on - 21st May 2021. Which comes in at 2120 days it includes things like making Russell Griffiths' loan permanent and signing Grimmy twice. We've signed 44 players since the summer of 21 when Daws entered the chat - one of those was Kelly signing permanently, he signed on loan while Foyle was still here, same with Jordan Roberts who was on loan then loaned again before the loan being made permanent. It also includes the assortment of ringers we brought in to fill jerseys in the early LC games and opening weeks of Alexander's first full season. Daws was announced 11th June 2021 so he's been in the role 914 days. Again, to echo my own point earlier about the First Team manager being accountable for recruitment you only have to look at Hammell apparently just looking at whichever former player he had handy on his phone or Robinson's policy of signing 2 or 3 in the hope that 1 comes good or his habit of just binning a player out the team after a couple of months and lobbying for replacements or simply Kettlewell signing/re-signing players he knew to be injury risks. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MurrayWell Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 1 minute ago, capt_oats said: As @crazylegsjoe_mfc says our recruitment isn't by any means perfect and my original post wasn't intended to white knight anyone but that Tweet isn't only selective it's actually quite disingenuous and as others have said as a metric it has no real context. Completely agree about the Tweet, think we're sort of saying the same thing just coming at it from different directions. I don't think our recruitment in recent years has been very good to be honest, but I don't think it's been quite as bad as some of the "higher-profile" flops would lead folk to believe. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Handsome_Devil Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 1 hour ago, Busta Nut said: As @RandomGuy. says. There are good signings that don't work. A few of them fall into that category. I would say in fact that we almost never make 'bad' signings in the sense there's a logic behind nearly everyone. And it's the nature of where we are that some will work out and some won't. I'd make an exception for the likes of Souare and obika, whose records made them clearly questionable, but otherwise roll the dice. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
one m in Motherwell Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 Sam Campbell also away - surprised at that, was he not quite well thought of? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busta Nut Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 Think he was, he must have crippled himself 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
well fan for life Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 13 minutes ago, one m in Motherwell said: Sam Campbell also away - surprised at that, was he not quite well thought of? I think so but he was really good in Football Manager a few editions ago and I don't know if that skews opinion IRL. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_oats Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 21 minutes ago, one m in Motherwell said: Sam Campbell also away - surprised at that, was he not quite well thought of? He was linked with a number of PL clubs while he was still in our academy so I guess had a similar kind of hype as Semple - Liverpool, Leeds & Brighton (September 2020) Per the news story about him leaving he had a serious knee injury and missed pretty much the whole of last season. We announced him signing a "short term" deal in June then punted him out on loan to Annan in July. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
one m in Motherwell Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 Aye, I hadn't clocked the injury dimension here. Needing the rumour mill to be clicking into gear soon… 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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