Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Wellin]

Just now, MurrayWell said:

Aye, I don't think SOD and Slattery staying will be too much of a surprise, based on recent chat, but canny assume until things are officially confirmed eh?

Slats is on the website so looks like it and theres been speculation that SOD has signed on again. 

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Koutroumbis sounds like he should be able to drive a tank

[RandomGuy.]

54 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Koutroumbis sounds like he should be able to drive a tank

Interested to see how he gets on, as from what little I've seen he reeks of one of the Australian league player who looks good "numbers wise" because of the style of play over there, yet any clips I've seen of him makes him look awful.

[Vietnam91]

1 hour ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Koutroumbis sounds like he should be able to drive a tank

He sounds like he'll have a meltdown at a ballboy for not handing him a towel.

Does he have a topknot, I imagine him having a topknot.

[Busta Nut]

See when we finished 4th/5th/6th, were we overconfident braggart fantasists too?

[Antiochas III]

9 hours ago, Busta Nut said:

See when we finished 4th/5th/6th, were we overconfident braggart fantasists too?

Tbf, we've done it a lot more often than the likes of St Mirren and Dundee in living memory.  They kind of reminds of that one time Accies got top 6...

[capt_oats]

10 hours ago, Busta Nut said:

See when we finished 4th/5th/6th, were we overconfident braggart fantasists too?

I mean, the last time we finished 5th there were legitimate questions being asked as to whether the manager should be binned or not so...

That's not to say there aren't posters on here with consistently terrible takes but that's less a case of overconfident fantasist and more people with bad opinions IMO.

In a general sense? Salt of the earth.

Edited June 3 by capt_oats

[Handsome_Devil]

17 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

I mean, the last time we finished 5th there were legitimate questions being asked as to whether the manager should be binned or not so...

That's not to say there aren't posters on here with consistently terrible takes but that's less a case of overconfident fantasist and more people with bad opinions IMO.

In a general sense? Salt of the earth.

I struggle to explain why - presumably a combination of circumstances and history - but we seem to have comparatively few wild optimists.

If we'd had St Mirren's 22/23 - which was obviously a very decent season all in - there'd have been folks turning up at FP with pitchforks due to the last five games.

Similarly if we finish sixth next year but get absolutely hounded at home in the post-split, Euro six-pointer like Dundee just did, I have no doubt the criticism will far outweigh the praise despite sixth being something nearly everyone would have been delighted with to start.

 

[Desp]

52 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

That's not to say there aren't posters on here with consistently terrible takes but that's less a case of overconfident fantasist and more people with bad opinions IMO.

[capt_oats]

39 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

I struggle to explain why - presumably a combination of circumstances and history - but we seem to have comparatively few wild optimists.

If we'd had St Mirren's 22/23 - which was obviously a very decent season all in - there'd have been folks turning up at FP with pitchforks due to the last five games.

Similarly if we finish sixth next year but get absolutely hounded at home in the post-split, Euro six-pointer like Dundee just did, I have no doubt the criticism will far outweigh the praise despite sixth being something nearly everyone would have been delighted with to start.

Agreed and tbh I'm absolutely here for that.

I've said it before but I'm the sort of sadsack who quite enjoys dipping into single club forums largely for the schadenfreude but a lot of the 'optimism' or overvaluing of other teams amongst their support feels completely alien as a concept.

Just as people like to give Steelmen a kick for the tedious "doom" from the usual suspects it totally swings the other way for a lot of other clubs with folk losing the run of themselves.

I mean, I'll never not be amused at the genuine belief that Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibs fans seem to have that they're "Big" clubs - special shoutout to the lads on the Terrace for consistently tripping on that. I near crashed the car laughing when I heard Tony Anderson talking quite sincerely and earnestly about how Hibs would be a "step up" for Allan Campbell from Motherwell when Wee Al was still at Fir Park.

But aye, I spent a lot of last season looking at folk doing cartwheels about Dundee and bumping on the fact that at the split they'd lost the same number of games as us - a team who were largely viewed as underperforming (which we were).

Edited June 3 by capt_oats

[Desp]

6 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

I mean, I'll never not be amused at the genuine belief that Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibs fans seem to have that they're "Big" clubs -

Tbf Capt, I'd agree with them.  Those three clubs, for me, are definitely big clubs.  I'd say there's only five big clubs in Scotland.  Two massive ones, and the three mentioned above.  There's no doubt, however, Aberdeen, Hearts & Hibs have wildly underperformed over the course of this century.  

I think folk get mixed up between a 'big club' and a 'better club'.  Are Motherwell, Kilmarnock & St Johnstone any bigger than say, Dunfermline, Partick Thistle & Falkirk?  I wouldn't say so, no, but there's no doubt they are considerably better and more well-run clubs than them.

[capt_oats]

1 minute ago, Desp said:

Tbf Capt, I'd agree with them.  Those three clubs, for me, are definitely big clubs.  I'd say there's only five big clubs in Scotland.  Two massive ones, and the three mentioned above.  There's no doubt, however, Aberdeen, Hearts & Hibs have wildly underperformed over the course of this century.  

I think folk get mixed up between a 'big club' and a 'better club'.  Are Motherwell, Kilmarnock & St Johnstone any bigger than say, Dunfermline, Partick Thistle & Falkirk?  I wouldn't say so, no, but there's no doubt they are considerably better and more well-run clubs than them.

Sure, in a Scottish football sense they're relatively big clubs I get that.

In the grand scheme of things though it's a bald men fighting over a comb situation for me. Which is where I find it quite funny.

[Joey Jo Jo Junior Shabadoo]

#TB3

[Busta Nut]

I agree with #TB3. 
Was that a Killie fan that was pushing that patter? Seemed to disappear once they did.

[Swello]

Our support are the most hype resistant of any club in the league IMO - 4 decades of finishing in every position other than 1st is going to do that I guess. I think a cup run is honestly the only thing that gets us going (and even then, we've been in plenty of losing finals in the recent past). 

We can finish 10th or we can finish 2nd and our crowds don't change - it's almost impressive.

[Handsome_Devil]

37 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Sure, in a Scottish football sense they're relatively big clubs I get that.

In the grand scheme of things though it's a bald men fighting over a comb situation for me. Which is where I find it quite funny.

That's basically it for me as well... It can be a fun and sometimes boisterous pub debate if you're in the mood but ultimately who cares. 

There's certainly a current risk the middle three pull away from the rest now they're better run and monetise more but I'm not convinced - mainly because they've nowhere to go, really, they'll always be miles behind the big two and there's simply not enough prizes beyond that to justify spending for long.

For perspective on how marginal all this is, in the modern era - now kicking on to 50 years - we've finished in the top three more than Hibs and been relegated less than Hearts.

Alternatively, we and the clubs who are obviously ranked somewhere sixth to 10th in the country have slogged away for 100 years to win one or two trophies more than East Fife while Queens Park remain one of the most decorated clubs in the country despite effectively chucking it well over a century ago.

Even allowing for taste, getting wound up about who's bigger than who in Scotland seems a hell of a way to spend your time on earth!

[Swello]

1 hour ago, Desp said:

I think folk get mixed up between a 'big club' and a 'better club'.  Are Motherwell, Kilmarnock & St Johnstone any bigger than say, Dunfermline, Partick Thistle & Falkirk?  I wouldn't say so, no, but there's no doubt they are considerably better and more well-run clubs than them.

I would 100% have Dunfermline and Falkirk in our peer group - these are clubs with access to much the same support & commercial stuff as Killie, St Mirren or us were they to be in the top flight. As you say, there is no argument that we are "bigger" in any sense than clubs that happen to be in the 2nd/3rd tier at the moment - and in fact those two clubs are the prime examples of what life could be like for us if/when we finally get relegated and then fail to bounce back at the first time of asking - or we make some bad decisions...

Hearts/Hibs/Aberdeen are clearly bigger in that they have access to support and money that we could only dream about - but up until now the gap between them and us has never been unbridgeable* because the (hilarious) unforced errors these clubs make every few years brings them crashing down in amongst the town clubs again.

 

 

*until now at least. I think Hearts with the additional money they get each year + group stage football could well take them to a place where even a poor season would still see them 3rd/4th.

[Archie McSquackle]

1 hour ago, Busta Nut said:

I agree with #TB3. 
Was that a Killie fan that was pushing that patter? Seemed to disappear once they did.

They were pushing it but it was #TB4 for the teams that had been in the top division for ages. It sort of died when they got relegated because they couldn't push it and no-one else gave a monkey's.

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

2 hours ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Similarly if we finish sixth next year but get absolutely hounded at home in the post-split, Euro six-pointer like Dundee just did, I have no doubt the criticism will far outweigh the praise despite sixth being something nearly everyone would have been delighted with to start.

I was basically typing a big spiel about this, but the TL;DR version is basically that a large percentage of our fans lose all ability to see the bigger picture on the back of a doing, or a small series of doings. Getting in to the top six, particularly when you scrape it, can end the season on a proper downer. The pitchforks crowd who would react to this would, I think, genuinely be more placated by a 7th place finish, with a few decent results against diddy teams, than they would be with a far better financial package, getting pumped on trophy day at Parkhead.

On another note, whatever #TB3 is has gone right over my head, as I thought we'd either signed a left-back or there were some serious #numberpolis issues in the Canada squad.

Edit - I now understand it to be a reference to ourselves, Aberdeen and Celtic not having been relegated for some time.

Edited June 3 by crazylegsjoe_mfc

[Busta Nut]

1 minute ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

#TB3 is has gone right over my head,

(I think) Killie fans started a #TB4 (the big 4) and it was Celtic Aberdeen, us and Killie as we were the only teams to have remained in the top league for the last 30 (or however many it was for Killie) years.

Killie got relegated and the #TB3 was thrown about as a joke for a month but then died off.

Shite but decent internet patter.