Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[ropy]

Perhaps it’s only Celtic and Hearts that haven’t lost in the league since the last week in December, plus us.  We are doing alright recently, I hope a cup disappointment doesn’t derail the good current record.

The cup record above makes me think how often the shout of ‘Motherwell always…….’ goes up.  But usually the squad is completely refreshed within 3 years, how can the sins of one squad be revisited on the next? 

[well fan for life]

I walked out of Cappielow at full time on Friday night with a mixture of disappointment but also feeling like that went exactly the way I expected it to go. Fair fucks to Morton for looking like a team that wanted to win a cup tie. Our squad of duds & shitebags never looked at all up for it. 

It's disappointing because there's not a single fixture to look forward to now. We should scrape into 10th, hopefully. We should then have a new CEO, Kettlewell's contract is up in the summer so we can shake hands and move on. Most of this fucking terrible squad are out of contract as well so the same goes. I'd keep Spittal and that's about it. So it would be nice if we could have a bit of stability in the running of the club which might have a knock on effect on the playing squad. 

 

 

 

[capt_oats]

9 hours ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

Ineptitude whilst clear favourites in cup ties is far from exclusive to this group of players and staff. Again, I may be speaking out of turn here as I've seen very little of Friday's game, but from what I've read, the post mortem seems to have a lot in common with the post mortem of most of those other 27 matches I mentioned. 

Tbf, I don't think think this is even an energy that's exclusive to cup ties. Clearly the lower league aspect is, but speaking very broadly it feels like we're a team/club who'll just fail to turn up against teams rooted at the bottom of the league on a fairly regular basis.

I don't mean that in the cliche you hear from fans across the country that "we'll help out a team on a poor run" it's more that oftentimes we seem to fail to deliver in games in which we'd be classed as favourites. I'm obviously being selective here but even this season the two results that have fucked us are us losing to both Livi and County.

I don't know if it's a mentality/culture thing or not but we feel like a club who find it difficult to to deal with any sort of 'expectations'.

[Handsome_Devil]

19 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

I don't know if it's a mentality/culture thing or not but we feel like a club who find it difficult to to deal with any sort of 'expectations'.

Dunno. I'm very dubious about this losing mentality criticism 'as a club' thrown around by some. More logical is that if you don't have money to buy good players ,of course the ones you do sign are more likely to succumb to pressure. I'm not convinced we 'blow' things more than anyone else and when you look at certain things, we're excellent - for example I can't once remember being in a race for Europe and not getting it done. And by virtue of being in it, there are expectations - as opposed to, say, turning over Hearts and Aberdeen in semi-finals.

Although as a random aside, I do occasionally wonder if plastering '91' all over the walls helps or hinders at times, similar to what Wilkinson did the the pictures of the Leeds glory days when he took over.

As for the league, again I dunno if I'd take more out of it than what it is. At the start of the season, I said regardless of how much money Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen spent, there was no way we'd go 0/27. Similarly, no matter how bad the teams at the bottom are, unless we're in an exceptional season, it's highly unlikely we'd go 23/27. From eight games against the biggest other dross this season we're P8 W2 D4 L2 - to me that's utterly non-descript rather than an underlying problem (of mentality - it's a big problem defending set pieces!).

Edited February 12 by Handsome_Devil

[Gallus Numpty]

42 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Although as a random aside, I do occasionally wonder if plastering '91' all over the walls helps or hinders at times, similar to what Wilkinson did the the pictures of the Leeds glory days when he took over.

I'd be surprised if it has any effect at all, tbh. It happened so long before most (all?) of the players were born that it might as well be referring to 1891. I certainly couldn't give a toss about anything that happened 33 years ago at the company I work for.

[CoF]

7 hours ago, ropy said:

But usually the squad is completely refreshed within 3 years, how can the sins of one squad be revisited on the next? 

I mind reading an article about a pot of soup in Japan that's been simmering for 45 years, the chef just adds new ingredients each day but it's essentially the same soup. I think that's what's going on here. 

 

Edit:- I Just found out it's called a 'perpetual stew'. We are the perpetual stew of football. 

Edited February 12 by CoF
New exciting info

[well fan for life]

5 minutes ago, CoF said:

We are the perpetual stew of football. 

This should replace the absolute lie about improving peoples lives.

[MurrayWell]

I would agree that we seem to have a bit of a mentality block, compared to other similar sized/smaller teams, but have no idea if the stats actually back that up. 

Weird feeling since Friday's match, obviously really disappointed with the performance and result, although as others have said it had no feeling of surprise or shock. 

Also, while I've defended him and at times genuinely felt sorry for him, given the hand he's been dealt, I think I'm done with Kettlewell now. I mean that in the sense that I wouldn't bin him now, seriously don't see the point of that, said before I think he'll probably keep us up. But would back a new CEO coming in and deciding to go in another direction. 

We all know Kettlewell likes the sound of his own voice, but some of his pre-match stuff really wound me up last week, felt he was overly confident after one really decent result. Also can't say I'm a fan of him having to tell folk how humble he is all the time. 

We should have said "thanks and all the best" to Alexander at the end of the 2021/22 season, this has a similar feel to it for me. 

 

[Handsome_Devil]

13 minutes ago, Gallus Numpty said:

I'd be surprised if it has any effect at all, tbh. It happened so long before most (all?) of the players were born that it might as well be referring to 1891. I certainly couldn't give a toss about anything that happened 33 years ago at the company I work for.

Aye, probably. I expect most don't even notice but I'm not convinced the few who do won't find it additional pressure rather than extra motivation.

[thisGRAEME]

16 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Dunno. I'm very dubious about this losing mentality criticism 'as a club' thrown around by some.

You'd probably argue that the Lasley/Hammell/Clarkson generation has had more of an effect than any other group of players on present day Motherwell FC.

Taking it from Hammell's debut in April 2000, I make it two league wins against Rangers, and five against Celtic.

Now there is of course, a significant portion of that period where they have just been miles better than us, and fair enough, but as much as guys like McCall got stick for rolling over to them in bigger games and the like, I always felt there was a degree of resignation or acceptance from those squad that 'they'll beat us' before a ball was ever kicked.

I always think there has been an element of 'it'll do' around Motherwell, and while that's fairly prevalent throughout Scottish football, but yeah. I do think mentality plays a significant part.

[well fan for life]

23 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

Now there is of course, a significant portion of that period where they have just been miles better than us, and fair enough, but as much as guys like McCall got stick for rolling over to them in bigger games and the like, I always felt there was a degree of resignation or acceptance from those squad that 'they'll beat us' before a ball was ever kicked.

I'm not angry about Friday night. But even the mere mention of that game when they had been relegated to league 2 and we were literally top of the league and McCall had us shitting the bed from about a week before the game gets my blood gently simmering. 

[Handsome_Devil]

19 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

You'd probably argue that the Lasley/Hammell/Clarkson generation has had more of an effect than any other group of players on present day Motherwell FC.

Taking it from Hammell's debut in April 2000, I make it two league wins against Rangers, and five against Celtic.

Now there is of course, a significant portion of that period where they have just been miles better than us, and fair enough, but as much as guys like McCall got stick for rolling over to them in bigger games and the like, I always felt there was a degree of resignation or acceptance from those squad that 'they'll beat us' before a ball was ever kicked.

I always think there has been an element of 'it'll do' around Motherwell, and while that's fairly prevalent throughout Scottish football, but yeah. I do think mentality plays a significant part.

Maybe... you'd need to compare how we stand in relation to everyone else there. And while our win record against them is obviously honking, we take enough draws that i don't think it's particularly fair to say we just turn up and accept defeat. We've taken something from the Old Firm every completed season since Rangers returned to the top-flight.

[capt_oats]

58 minutes ago, MurrayWell said:

I would agree that we seem to have a bit of a mentality block, compared to other similar sized/smaller teams, but have no idea if the stats actually back that up. 

Weird feeling since Friday's match, obviously really disappointed with the performance and result, although as others have said it had no feeling of surprise or shock. . 

I think it was @Casagolda who mentioned that the way the Morton game panned out the other night was exactly the way it tended to go when Imrie/Accies used to get a result against us and I think there's a lot to be said for that take.

In that respect it feels like there are certain types of fixtures that, for whatever reason, we don't really seem to adapt to.

By my count, our H2H with Accies over the last 39 games going back to 2008 has Accies winning 15 with us winning 16 and 8 draws (lifted from SofaScore).

I mean, with respect to Accies that is a lot closer than you'd expect it to be given respective league finishes over the 2008-2021 period.

[MurrayWell]

Judging by Kettlewell's comments today, there's absolutely nae chance Kelly gets dropped. 

"He's a consistent performer for this football club", I suppose you could argue that's not an incorrect statement...

All for managers defending players, but Kelly literally has a save percentage of 43% this season, and is one of our higher earners, he's not been good enough for a while now. First goal on Friday was laughably bad, if it was a one off folk would be giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Edited February 12 by MurrayWell

[Handsome_Devil]

8 minutes ago, MurrayWell said:

Judging by Kettlewell's comments today, there's absolutely nae chance Kelly gets dropped. 

"He's a consistent performer for this football club", I suppose you could argue that's not an incorrect statement...

All for managers defending players, but Kelly literally has a save percentage of 43% this season, and is one of our higher earners, he's not been good enough for a while now. First goal on Friday was laughably bad, if it was a one off folk would be giving him the benefit of the doubt.

I forget who mentioned it earlier but I suspect the reason Kelly gets a constant free pass is the back-up hasn't impressed enough in training. Other than the comedy conspiracy theories, there's not much other explanation.

[Desp]

1 hour ago, MurrayWell said:

Also, while I've defended him and at times genuinely felt sorry for him, given the hand he's been dealt, I think I'm done with Kettlewell now. I mean that in the sense that I wouldn't bin him now, seriously don't see the point of that, said before I think he'll probably keep us up. But would back a new CEO coming in and deciding to go in another direction. 

This is exactly where I am as well after Friday night.  It now feels like the summer is time for a complete refresh of the club, from top to bottom.

I think SK can pretty much walk away with his head held high, after keeping us in the league in two difficult seasons, but I don't see him being the man to take us forward.

[MurrayWell]

7 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

I forget who mentioned it earlier but I suspect the reason Kelly gets a constant free pass is the back-up hasn't impressed enough in training. Other than the comedy conspiracy theories, there's not much other explanation.

I'm sure he is decent in training aye, but for me it's more that he has been good previously, so perhaps a case of sticking with him in the hope that form returns. He's been rotten this season though. I don't think there is any conspiracy to it either. 

We've not seen enough from Oxborough to know if he'd actually be any better, so not really sure I'm on board with the calls for him to be our number 1 now. 

[Handsome_Devil]

1 minute ago, MurrayWell said:

We've not seen enough from Oxborough to know if he'd actually be any better, so not really sure I'm on board with the calls for him to be our number 1 now. 

Yeah, I meant that Kettlewell has seen enough - every day in fact - to decide Oxborough isn't better.

As much as managers can be stubborn, they do also tend to be ruthless when their own job prospects are on the line. Throwing in Oxborough would almost be a no lose for SK in terms of the support so you need to assume there's reason for it.

[capt_oats]

3 hours ago, Handsome_Devil said:

I forget who mentioned it earlier but I suspect the reason Kelly gets a constant free pass is the back-up hasn't impressed enough in training. Other than the comedy conspiracy theories, there's not much other explanation.

I think there's also the argument that he's the captain as well. @Quatermass mentioned it a few pages back but assuming he has some sort of presence amongst the group I can understand why, given our current situation, Kettlewell would be hesitant to disrupt that by dropping Kelly.

Especially as others have pointed out no one has any real idea as to whether Oxborough is any good (regardless of whether or not he's our 2nd highest wage )

It's a less disruptive route to back him and hope that keeps everyone onside. Which, ngl, I absolutely get.

3 hours ago, Desp said:

This is exactly where I am as well after Friday night.  It now feels like the summer is time for a complete refresh of the club, from top to bottom.

I think SK can pretty much walk away with his head held high, after keeping us in the league in two difficult seasons, but I don't see him being the man to take us forward.

This is very much where I am as well. I mean, I've alway felt that Kettlewell's had a kind of supply teacher energy to him and it depends on who else is available to come in but I think you could definitely say that Kettlewell has done the job he has been asked to do when he was parachuted in.

However the job he was asked to do and taking charge of a refresh aren't really the same things.

Edited February 12 by capt_oats

[Stevie Kirk]

As others have said Friday’s shitshow was entirely predictable and bizarrely I did not feel any anger or embarrassment either at the game or in the hours afterwards.

The financial gap between ourselves and the likes of Morton Airdrie Hamilton is not so great in the grand scheme of things that we can just turn up and expect to win. That game was Morton’s cup final they were all 100 percent on their A game and Imrie had obviously watched us enough to know how to nullify our strengths. The fact we would have got Celtic next round kind of compounded my overall apathy to it all.

We just need to hope that County don’t bring in some managerial saviour and we can keep them at arms length till the end of the season. I think it’s going to be a bit of a rollercoaster on that front and we are going to be biting our fingernails till the very end.