Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[ropy]

Teams have eaten into their games in hand this week, relatively unscathed.

[camer0n_mcd]

2 minutes ago, welldaft said:

Whilst watching St Johnstone v Aberdeen. St Johnstone have been quite decent and just smacked one off the bar at the death !

Looked at respective squad sizes of those teams around us. This is 1st team squad from Wiki and looks fairly accurate and up to date.

St Johnstone = 31 players

Livingston = 27 Players

Ross County = 25 players

Motherwell = 21 players. 

You would like to think we still have another 4 players to join up to at least take us to Ross C levels. Who will probably still add a couple more before the deadline. 

Of course the average wages could be quite different but that is some gap in available resource between ourselves and the Perth Saints .
 

 

Don't particularly think St J played well, both teams were absolutely pish imo.

St Johnstone certainly not afraid of committing a few fouls.

Fully expecting Saturday to be an awful game seperated by a goal.

[welldaft]

4 minutes ago, camer0n_mcd said:

Don't particularly think St J played well, both teams were absolutely pish imo.

St Johnstone certainly not afraid of committing a few fouls.

Fully expecting Saturday to be an awful game seperated by a goal.

They were a lot better in the second half. Both teams were rank in the 1st half. They were very cynical in the last 15 minutes but they were actually all good fouls that stopped certain breakaways. At least 3 or 4 times no less. 

They also have a selection of forwards to choose from. What a novelty. Could come back to haunt us……

Edited January 24 by welldaft

[camer0n_mcd]

Just now, welldaft said:

They were a lot better in the second half. Both teams were rank in the 1st half. They were very cynical in the last 15 minutes but they were actually all good fouls that stopped certain breakaways. At least 3 or 4 times no less. 

They also have a selection of forwards to choose from. What a novelty. Could come back to haunt us……

Only diddy teams have options up front.

['WellDel]

2 hours ago, camer0n_mcd said:

Only diddy teams have options up front.

Diddy teams have options 

Real teams just need Thelonius. 

[Handsome_Devil]

9 hours ago, welldaft said:

Whilst watching St Johnstone v Aberdeen. St Johnstone have been quite decent and just smacked one off the bar at the death !

Looked at respective squad sizes of those teams around us. This is 1st team squad from Wiki and looks fairly accurate and up to date.

St Johnstone = 31 players

Livingston = 27 Players

Ross County = 25 players

Motherwell = 21 players. 

You would like to think we still have another 4 players to join up to at least take us to Ross C levels. Who will probably still add a couple more before the deadline. 

Of course the average wages could be quite different but that is some gap in available resource between ourselves and the Perth Saints .
 

 

I think a 23-strong senior squad is absolutely fine, assuming there's a couple of youths who can handle a few minutes. The teams with high 20s or even 30s have so not because of good planning but they fucked it and need to hit the credit card/next season's budget to have a chance of survival.

If we're spending the money we have and not being naughty, senior guys who are considered the 23rd man in our squad plus are generally going to be Obika/Shaw levels of nobody else wanting them. If there's a mental injury crisis, freebies can still be picked up, if not, I'd save the cash rather than padding excessively.

[RandomGuy.]

9 hours ago, welldaft said:

Whilst watching St Johnstone v Aberdeen. St Johnstone have been quite decent and just smacked one off the bar at the death !

Looked at respective squad sizes of those teams around us. This is 1st team squad from Wiki and looks fairly accurate and up to date.

St Johnstone = 31 players

Livingston = 27 Players

Ross County = 25 players

Motherwell = 21 players. 

You would like to think we still have another 4 players to join up to at least take us to Ross C levels. Who will probably still add a couple more before the deadline. 

Of course the average wages could be quite different but that is some gap in available resource between ourselves and the Perth Saints .

Worth mentioning we've currently got 4 players completely frozen out as they've been told they can leave (Brown, Ballantyne  Crawford, Jephcott), 1 whos allowed to go if they can agree terms on either a loan or transfer (May), and a loanee whos away once fitness issues are cleared (Turner-Cooke).

Sure its been mentioned that once the decks are cleared its a 1 in, 1 out scenario as ~24 players is seen as ideal.

[Handsome_Devil]

6 hours ago, 'WellDel said:

Diddy teams have options 

Real teams just need Thelonius. 

We're just over 48 hours and one more injury or illness away from playing 3-7-0 in a relegation six-pointer

[well fan for life]

1 hour ago, Handsome_Devil said:

We're just over 48 hours and one more injury or illness away from playing 3-7-0 in a relegation six-pointer

Bevis up front. 

[capt_oats]

3 hours ago, Handsome_Devil said:

I think a 23-strong senior squad is absolutely fine, assuming there's a couple of youths who can handle a few minutes. The teams with high 20s or even 30s have so not because of good planning but they fucked it and need to hit the credit card/next season's budget to have a chance of survival.

If we're spending the money we have and not being naughty, senior guys who are considered the 23rd man in our squad plus are generally going to be Obika/Shaw levels of nobody else wanting them. If there's a mental injury crisis, freebies can still be picked up, if not, I'd save the cash rather than padding excessively.

Aye.

In his 40 minute interview I think Weir said something along the lin es of the gap between where we were and an appropriate spend was the equivalent of shedding 4 or 5 first team players. Which sounds drastic but the reality is we probably managed to go some way to achieving that by simply opting out of the Reserves League (which was a farce of a league anyway).

When you look at the number of bodies we've generally carried whether it was Robinson, Alexander or Hammell we've invariably had 25, 26, 27 or even 28 - so it's kind of been normalised but the question is/was why these extra bodies were actually there. What were they actually contributing?

Clearly it's easy to be wise after the fact but it doesn't necessarily mean it should be ignored as a point.

In that respect this season has been a bit of an eye opener in terms of what I assume is historic wastage.

How much value did we actually get from the Petravicius, George Newell, Christy Manzinga and Christian Ilic's of the world?

Robinson's approach of just piling hats on top of hats then cutting them loose at the end of the season contributed to the culture of player turnover we've seen and tbh, without wanting to invoke the Candyman, casting a glance over towards Paisley he's still at it.

Clearly the Covid season was just weird and we had a ludicrously large squad as a result of injuries - I think by the time Alexander got his feet under the desk we had a 35 man first team squad which the subsequent accounts cited an extra £500k spend as a result of the January trolley dash for the likes of Big Weird Harry and erm...Eddie Nolan.

I'd still argue that being overly strict about caps and limiting the manager is something of a false economy if we have funds kicking about but equally it's been interesting to see how efficient we've been in terms of getting players out (especially in light of @RandomGuy.'s point about their squad size and the number of players they're trying to shift).

Edited January 25 by capt_oats

[welldaft]

2 hours ago, Handsome_Devil said:

I think a 23-strong senior squad is absolutely fine, assuming there's a couple of youths who can handle a few minutes. The teams with high 20s or even 30s have so not because of good planning but they fucked it and need to hit the credit card/next season's budget to have a chance of survival.

If we're spending the money we have and not being naughty, senior guys who are considered the 23rd man in our squad plus are generally going to be Obika/Shaw levels of nobody else wanting them. If there's a mental injury crisis, freebies can still be picked up, if not, I'd save the cash rather than padding excessively.

I guess the argument is would you rather be going into a crucial 6 pointer with an inflated squad that you need to offload a few players like St J (as per RG points) or a threadbare squad with one fit forward. You could argue the merits, but the simple fact is that right now St J have a lot more options and depth available.  Clearly some of this has to do with Arsenal being Arseholes and recalling Biereth with little or no warning and us getting 8 players out the door with 4 coming in. 

As I said before we will have saved some money over the piece with the size of our squad or made sure we are right around budget. 

Hopefully we can secure at least 2 decent forwards before the window closes and bed them in asap.

[Handsome_Devil]

57 minutes ago, welldaft said:

I guess the argument is would you rather be going into a crucial 6 pointer with an inflated squad that you need to offload a few players like St J (as per RG points) or a threadbare squad with one fit forward. You could argue the merits, but the simple fact is that right now St J have a lot more options and depth available.  Clearly some of this has to do with Arsenal being Arseholes and recalling Biereth with little or no warning and us getting 8 players out the door with 4 coming in. 

As I said before we will have saved some money over the piece with the size of our squad or made sure we are right around budget. 

Hopefully we can secure at least 2 decent forwards before the window closes and bed them in asap.

Long-term you're definitely better being threadbare for a few games, even if it costs you over one 90 minutes.

St Johnstone, according to the above, are currently paying several folk who are persona non grata so they're hardly likely to impact the game. And yes, there's a chance their senior option 25 might contribute but the likelihood of that in comparison to a kid from us doing likewise (Ross v Dundee etc) certainly doesn't justify the expense to me.

It's been mentioned before that there's a reason why surviving a terrible season often just delays the inevitable and that's you need to repay how you bought yourself out of trouble to begin with. Of course, if it's that or go down it's a risk you need to try, like we did in previous Januarys, but it should be avoided if at all possible.

I would argue that in our particular circumstances, spending wildly to secure 10th is wrong. With 12th probably gone, we should spend to have a chance of 10th while being confident in the playoff, which is more likely to see us avoid this scenario next season.

[redstarcvedza]

12 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Long-term you're definitely better being threadbare for a few games, even if it costs you over one 90 minutes.

St Johnstone, according to the above, are currently paying several folk who are persona non grata so they're hardly likely to impact the game. And yes, there's a chance their senior option 25 might contribute but the likelihood of that in comparison to a kid from us doing likewise (Ross v Dundee etc) certainly doesn't justify the expense to me.

It's been mentioned before that there's a reason why surviving a terrible season often just delays the inevitable and that's you need to repay how you bought yourself out of trouble to begin with. Of course, if it's that or go down it's a risk you need to try, like we did in previous Januarys, but it should be avoided if at all possible.

I would argue that in our particular circumstances, spending wildly to secure 10th is wrong. With 12th probably gone, we should spend to have a chance of 10th while being confident in the playoff, which is more likely to see us avoid this scenario next season.

The normal plan would be to supplement bench with the cream of the Academy. This has been difficult in recent times (with the exception of Miller) because the cream is skimmed away by bigger clubs before they get a sniff at the first team

[Ceiling Granny]

2 hours ago, well fan for life said:

Bevis up front. 

If I saw this in the starting line up, at this stage I don’t think I would be surprised. That’s a worry . 

[JamesP_81]

18 minutes ago, Ceiling Granny said:

If I saw this in the starting line up, at this stage I don’t think I would be surprised. That’s a worry . 

I'd be equally unsurprised if in the same line up Bair was starting at rwb. 

[Handsome_Devil]

15 minutes ago, redstarcvedza said:

The normal plan would be to supplement bench with the cream of the Academy. This has been difficult in recent times (with the exception of Miller) because the cream is skimmed away by bigger clubs before they get a sniff at the first team

Yeah, that's a fair point...as is SK's about not throwing them in when not ready but you do wonder if he's being a little cautious here. You wouldn't throw in a kid centre half to defend a lead to be fair but Ross got his goal and i don't think has been seen since.

[Eliphas Pettigrew]

1 minute ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Yeah, that's a fair point...as is SK's about not throwing them in when not ready but you do wonder if he's being a little cautious here. You wouldn't throw in a kid centre half to defend a lead to be fair but Ross got his goal and i don't think has been seen since.

Yes I was thinking that the other day, strange he hasnt been given a chance since 

[RandomGuy.]

1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

I'd still argue that being overly strict about caps and limiting the manager is something of a false economy if we have funds kicking about but equally it's been interesting to see how efficient we've been in terms of getting players out (especially in light of @RandomGuy.'s point about their squad size and the number of players they're trying to shift).

We've done relatively well at punting some, and its really just the moron deals (Crawford being one of our higher earners sitting on a 3yr deal...) still kicking about. One unwanted player already punted this morning. We've rebuilt our squad the last 2 Summers so having "legacy mistakes" is probably kind of normal.

If rumours are true we head into the Saturdays game with Clark, May, Kimpioka, Kane, Jaiyesimi, Carey, Kucheriavyi, Smith and Connor Smith all in the squad for the 3 attacking positions, and potentially the squad being balanced budget wise (i think theyve effectively just written Crawford off as dead money now and ignoring that).

[welldaft]

We can debate all day the merits of budgetary prudence v lavish overspending. And most sensible fans including myself would always favour the former which I guess is where MFC are at this moment in time.

RG has just listed their forward options - 9 players to choose from v our minimal to non existent choices. 

I hope and expect by the end of the window this will have been addressed.  I just feel somewhere along the line we should have been better placed in terms of forward options.

We could nothing about  Beireth but Shaw, Obika and Wilkinson are firmly on us - Manager / Recruitment etc. Maybe we would have held on to Connor if we knew that Mika was offski.  Either way even having (only) two functioning strikers is far too risky business if one succumbed to injury !

One way or another we have left ourselves woefully undercooked up front and my key point is that could come back to bite us !

 

Edited January 25 by welldaft

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, redstarcvedza said:

The normal plan would be to supplement bench with the cream of the Academy. This has been difficult in recent times (with the exception of Miller) because the cream is skimmed away by bigger clubs before they get a sniff at the first team

1 hour ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Yeah, that's a fair point...as is SK's about not throwing them in when not ready but you do wonder if he's being a little cautious here. You wouldn't throw in a kid centre half to defend a lead to be fair but Ross got his goal and i don't think has been seen since.

There's a catch-22 of sorts in that us being seen to block the pathway of those Academy players who are at the club presumably makes it easier for the "bigger" clubs to pitch for the best from our Academy on top of the increased resources they can chuck at them.

I mean, our former Academy director binned Max Johnston off on loan (again) rather than finding a way to involve him.

Related to oor Max, I picked up on McMahon mitigating his exit as part of the interview the club put out. He was effectively saying that Johnston's rep had made it clear early on that his client wanted to play abroad etc but we still made an attempt to keep him (and anyway we needed make the contract offer for the development compensation).

Fair enough. Although the implication seemed to be that he (probably) wasn't going to sign a new deal anyway.

I suppose I wondered how that squared with a) Hammell loaning him out because we'd ended up with O'Donnell and McGinn still on the books by mistake and b) Hammell sitting in front of the AGM telling folk that he was confident Johnston would sign a new deal.

That's not to say that I think Bailey Rice would've kb'd Rangers because we'd given some minutes to other Academy players but the club has been is an odd practice/preach situation recently where they've been talking about our commitment to giving Academy weans game time while simultaneously loading the squad with landfill.

Edited January 25 by capt_oats