Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Busta Nut]

I was ok with Marshall. He doesn't get any credit due to that cup final.

 

[Handsome_Devil]

6 hours ago, Busta Nut said:

I was ok with Marshall. He doesn't get any credit due to that cup final.

 

He did atone a bit and Skippy Sunday was a good (near) finish to his career. But he was a shambles in conceding four on the next opening day, not much better in the next couple and then freed to Hibs as coach? I guess that's the thing about goalies, you obviously get longer than an outfield player before the massive decline but when it comes, there's no mitigating it by dropping deeper, playing off the bench as experience etc, you're basically retired overnight.

Re the final, we changed virtually our whole team in a 1-1 at Livingston the week before and Butcher said Marshall had the flu. Everyone went "yeah, yeah," but you look at Hampden and just wonder...but understandably he'd have had to have been on his deathbed to make throwing in the back-up (Corr?) against Rangers seem worth it.

[eliphas]

9 hours ago, Busta Nut said:

I reckon even if Kelly spoke to his defenders we'd be a few points better off. That's speculation on my part of course but I dunno how many centre halves I've heard say "my best period when I was at my best was when *Insert goalie* was behind me talking me

100%. 

Kelly at the start was a big shouter/pointer and definitely better with cross balls. Seems to have either been coached out of him or has had a mega mega loss in confidence. Or both.

[StAndrew7]

14 minutes ago, eliphas said:

100%. 

Kelly at the start was a big shouter/pointer and definitely better with cross balls. Seems to have either been coached out of him or has had a mega mega loss in confidence. Or both.

I'd sincerely hope it's the latter. If our staff are coaching effective, clear and appropriate communication out of our goalkeepers (even if it's unintentional), the lot of them need sacked.

[MurrayWell]

I'd say in general we've seen players grow in confidence, buy into the system under the current coaching staff. 

I get that goalkeeper is a unique position, but I think Kelly is a bit of an outlier here. He's had an absolute horror show of a season, where he's looked like he's constantly second guessing himself. Could it be the case that he's hit his ceiling and we saw the best of him a few seasons back? I'd say it's more likely to be that than coaches telling him to stop communicating and to just do nothing at corners. 

I think Kelly has been a good keeper for us at times (absolutely not this season) but he's nowhere near as good as some of the hype videos from the club would have folk believe, or his reported salary would suggest. Defence hasn't helped this season but, as @Busta Nut said, could some of the shambolic defending be a symptom of having less confidence in the keeper organising it all? 

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

That 4-4 game was his last ever game for us (as well as Scott Leitch's). Smith was in the next week and shortly after we'd signed Meldrum as a number two.

I heard the same rumour about Joe Lewis - but months and months ago. The obvious question would be, if we had agreed a deal to sign him so quickly, why wouldn't we bring him in to train with us. That said, there are so many worlds of finance between the two clubs, it wouldn't surprise me if Man Utd were paying him £2k a week to put cones out and punt a few balls at their reserve keeper. I would be highly underwhelmed if we were to sign him - 36 years old, a year out of football, prior to which he spent a year as second choice to Roos. It has shades of Samson about it.

I remember when Kelly was on loan, we conceded a goal to someone and the slow-mo replay (aided by no crowd noise of course) audibly had him going off his nut at his defence, you do not see that in him any more at all, but it obviously was there once. Most keepers can be seen to be going off their nut at their defences with even each routine save they make, but you see nothing from him.

Gordon Marshall's last game for us actually was that 4-4 draw with Celtic. I thought he was a good keeper overall for us - I don't recall us having many issues with him other than that cup final. I seem to have a memory of his goal kicks going out for shies, but aside from that.

[well fan for life]

1 hour ago, MurrayWell said:

I think Kelly has been a good keeper for us at times (absolutely not this season) but he's nowhere near as good as some of the hype videos from the club would have folk believe, or his reported salary would suggest. Defence hasn't helped this season but, as @Busta Nut said, could some of the shambolic defending be a symptom of having less confidence in the keeper organising it all? 

I don't think Kelly is a good organiser. Towards the end of last season before Butcher's legs fell off we had someone in the middle of a back 5 organising the entire operation. Since we've been lacking this for the entire season it's been a never ending cycle of conceding horrendous goals. Kelly is a good keeper at this level, however he needs someone in front of him who isn't an idiot. 

FWIW though, I think it's best for all parties involved that Kelly moves on in the summer. He'll likely get a decent amount of cash elsewhere, probably could get a regular game. There's a definite lack of any goodwill from the support now too. 

[Archie McSquackle]

For all the talk of an experienced keeper, a lot of them fall into the thanks but no thanks category. It's amazing to think of the number of them who have a long career in game despite everyone thinking they're guff.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

I'm not having that Lewis wasn't a great goalie in his prime but it feels like the time to take a gamble on him was when he got dropped by Aberdeen in 2022, not now he's two years older and hasn't played since. 

He's 36 which is slightly younger than I thought and isn't insanely old for a keeper but unless Ketts thinks there was some sort of extenuating factor for his form going out the window for Aberdeen- an injury he's now recovered from, having a shambles in front of him, etc- it feels like a weird one.

[capt_oats]

On the ‘keeper chat, it’s probably worth bearing in mind that there’s a reasonable chance we could be shopping for 2 goalkeepers this summer - which tbf I think @MurrayWell alluded to earlier.

[Desp]

24 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

FWIW though, I think it's best for all parties involved that Kelly moves on in the summer. He'll likely get a decent amount of cash elsewhere, probably could get a regular game. There's a definite lack of any goodwill from the support now too. 

Agree with all of this, especially the part in bold.  I think when a support loses confidence in their goalkeeper, there's no getting it back.

[Swello]

I know "experienced keeper" is almost a meme by this point - but would there not be some merit in doing what we've done really successfully for every other position and go and mine English academies for someone who is highly promising but needs real games? I know there is an obvious risk involved in that - but I don't see that it would be any worse than getting someone well past their prime and on their way down.

If the big book of rules says that you must have an experienced keeper - get someone like that in as backup to help them along and be able to step in if they need taking out the firing line. 

I think this is almost an easy time to replace our Keeper, it's not Randolph/Ruddy/Gillespie/Sieb we are replacing here after all...it feels like after what we've watched this season,  the only way is up unless we really make an arse of it.

[RostokMcSpoons]

 

[StAndrew7]

3 minutes ago, RostokMcSpoons said:

 

Well that's nonsense. His contract runs out in 2026.

[capt_oats]

4 minutes ago, StAndrew7 said:

Well that's nonsense. His contract runs out in 2026.

The TeamTalk article also said Liam Miller was his Da so…

[MurrayWell]

9 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

The TeamTalk article also said Liam Miller was his Da so…

Lazy clickbait merchants. I did notice the reporter doubled down on the error too, pretty ridiculous mistake to make. Literally going to Lennon's wiki page would be the extend of the effort required. Shocking stuff.

[StAndrew7]

14 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

The TeamTalk article also said Liam Miller was his Da so…

Dearie me.

I wouldn't be surprised if Villa/Bournemouth are interested but bloody hell, lads. Check your facts.

[Desp]

I sold Lennon Miller to Aston Villa in my FM24 game for £7m.  

Make it happen, lads.

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

1 hour ago, well fan for life said:

Towards the end of last season before Butcher's legs fell off we had someone in the middle of a back 5 organising the entire operation. Since we've been lacking this for the entire season it's been a never ending cycle of conceding horrendous goals. Kelly is a good keeper at this level, however he needs someone in front of him who isn't an idiot.  

Butcher, an organiser, out and Mugabi, someone who needs to focus on his own game, in brings a completely different dynamic to a back three.

I think we have looked at our best this season with McGinn organising in the middle, with two more traditional centre backs either side of him. It's just annoying it has taken us until late March to go with it.

Not to use it as a stick to beat him with, but Ketts appeared to stumble upon McGinn as a sweeper by accident / neccesity, the same way he stumbled on the 3-4-2-1 formation with only having one fit striker in September.

 

[Handsome_Devil]

7 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

Not to use it as a stick to beat him with, but Ketts appeared to stumble upon McGinn as a sweeper by accident / neccesity, the same way he stumbled on the 3-4-2-1 formation with only having one fit striker in September.

We tried various combinations in pre-season and the LC group and from that I confidently declared McGinn the only viable candidate to replace Butcher in the middle.

Wrong, obviously, and you could at least see the theory in what we were trying instead.

However, how we didn't go back to what long looked the simple solution until April having shuffled through every other combination (or so it seemed) was definitely odd.