Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[welldaft]

2 hours ago, eliphas said:

Danzaki not in Holland as far as I can see in the pics. Anyone noticed him? 

Some good news at last . Clearly he was a speculative punt. But one that appears to have not paid off. 

Ketts was clear in that his fitness needed to improve. I hope we have reached a mutual agreement. Of course if we have we will be the last to know .

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

You shudder when you think of us starting at Starks Park with Danzaki on the right, Van Veen on the left and a midfield duo of Spittal and Tierney.

 

[capt_oats]

2 hours ago, eliphas said:

Danzaki not in Holland as far as I can see in the pics. Anyone noticed him? 

I just assumed he'd be there as he was in a fair number of the photos from Dalziel Park last week (there are a few on IG with him cutting about in the background too).

36 minutes ago, welldaft said:

Some good news at last . Clearly he was a speculative punt. But one that appears to have not paid off. 

Ketts was clear in that his fitness needed to improve. I hope we have reached a mutual agreement. Of course if we have we will be the last to know .

Disagree that he was a speculative punt.

We apparently spent ages jumping through hoops to sort out the necessary paperwork to sign the laddie (see tweet from Burrows below). He's also here on a 2.5 year deal until 2025. These aren't the things you do for a speculative punt IMO.

Also, as @crazylegsjoe_mfc says Hammell chucked him in straight away.

It hasn't worked out and it probably hasn't helped that within a couple of of weeks the manager who signed him was emptied and his replacement set us up in a shape that pretty much made him redundant along with McKinstry and Crankshaw (only losing 2 games in 14 in the process). You can put it down to Hammell being wildly out his depth and completely fucking it but either way it seems clear that we absolutely prioritised his signing.

Edited June 26, 2023 by capt_oats

[Handsome_Devil]

I know we don't need to relitigate it at all, but spending months bringing in an attacking midfielder we didn't need only for him to be so shit he's not even a viable squad player is some cracking symbolism for the Hammell era.

You feel like you've made peace with it then suddenly the desire to bang your head into the wall returns!

[Cloontang]

The Herald reporting that Craig Brown has passed away.

[well fan for life]

I get that the change of shape etc has maybe been a bit of a problem for him but him not even been fit enough(or whatever) to even make a squad isn't a great look on him. I'd be massively unsurprised if we come to some sort of agreement that sees him get hunted in the very near future. 

[capt_oats]

[Swello]

45 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

The "fight" he had with John Boyle on the touchline was one of the highlights of that season, brilliant stuff - and he was the only Motherwell manager that knew how to play in Europe.

We'll not mention the manner of his move to Aberdeen.

[supermarv]

Could be wrong as the comments about Danzaki from SK weren’t great, but could him not being in Holland be a Visa/ passport issue? As it took us long enough to get him over here.

[well fan for life]

5 minutes ago, supermarv said:

Could be wrong as the comments about Danzaki from SK weren’t great, but could him not being in Holland be a Visa/ passport issue? As it took us long enough to get him over here.

Next bit of #content is going to be Riku reenacting that Tom Hanks film The Terminal but in Schipol airport. 

[KirkySuperSub]

6 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

Next bit of #content is going to be Riku reenacting that Tom Hanks film The Terminal but in Schipol airport. 

Or Steve Martin in 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles' at the Avis desk...

"I want a fucking car, right fucking know!"

[Swello]

22 minutes ago, supermarv said:

Could be wrong as the comments about Danzaki from SK weren’t great, but could him not being in Holland be a Visa/ passport issue? As it took us long enough to get him over here.

I don't think it's that as Japanese citizens don't need visas for Schengen countries when visiting.

I think there is something fairly simple going on - Ketts knows that the more contracted players that are surplus to requirements that can be moved on at a low cost to us, the greater his chances of making us successful next season. He's got an interest in making these players feel that it's to their benefit that they move on as they won't be playing - so he's not going to be that diplomatic about it.

It's not just Danzaki either - he made similar types of comments regarding Shields in press conferences - but Danzaki is a harder one to move on as it's unlikely that he'll have a queue of clubs in the UK desperate to take him off our hands and so we would presumably have the reverse of the hassle that we did getting him here as we try to find a club in Asia.

[Lobby Dossar]

6 hours ago, welldaft said:

. Clearly he was a speculative punt. But one that appears to have not paid off.

You don’t give speculative punts a 3 year deal !!!!! 

[well_said]

6 hours ago, Cloontang said:

I can't make him out in this picture from this morning.

It's a shame tbh, he got that Esteban Casagolda style build-up but sadly it appears that he is honking. I wonder how Hammell stumbled across him in the first place.

Didn't pots of glue recommend him?

[capt_oats]

7 hours ago, Cloontang said:

I can't make him out in this picture from this morning.

It's a shame tbh, he got that Esteban Casagolda style build-up but sadly it appears that he is honking. I wonder how Hammell stumbled across him in the first place.

Tbh, I'd imagine Hammell's said to the recruitment lads "I realise we'll have literally no left back but I want (another) attacking midfielder. Give me some options." and the bold Riku has popped up and we've asked around about him and decided to go all in.

He was on loan at Brisbane Roar so he was playing with Tam Aldred and had been a team-mate of Scott McDonald. There's the possibility we got some sort of reference from Steven McGarry as well.

It's probably worth pointing out that he had a really good first loan spell with Brisbane - he scored 9 in 26 games or something like that.

Edited June 26, 2023 by capt_oats

[eliphas]

To be fair, I managed to catch him in his last (I think) Brisbane game one Saturday morning on the telly when we were rumoured to be signing him. 

My comments are back in the thread somewhere but looked decent enough/fine. Not great but certainly not pish enough to be bombed out completely. He definitely doesn't fit in the current system. Maybe the issue is the way ehs responded to that. 

Edited June 26, 2023 by eliphas

[welldaft]

1 hour ago, Lobby Dossar said:

You don’t give speculative punts a 3 year deal !!!!! 

Not if you know what you are doing.

My use of the word speculative has created a wee reaction for whatever reason . Maybe I should have used the word risky instead. Jesus I wish I had ! 

Virtually every player we sign is speculative. It may be based on lots of knowledge, but with the money we can afford to pay every signing carries a risk as to whether they perform for Motherwell or not. 

At the moment it looks like a rather big mistake. 

Edited June 26, 2023 by welldaft

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, eliphas said:

To be fair, I managed to catch him in his last (I think) Brisbane game one Saturday morning on the telly when we were rumoured to be signing him. 

My comments are back in the thread somewhere but looked decent enough/fine. Not great but certainly not pish enough to be bombed out completely. He definitely doesn't fit in the current system. Maybe the issue is the way ehs responded to that. 

See there's an aspect of this where I'm still very much at the benefit-of-the-doubt stage. Not in the sense of whether it'll work out or not, it already feels like a bust, but just generally about the whole situation he finds himself in.

He's still a young guy (23) who's moved halfway round the world to a new league and a new culture. You'd expect there would be a period of adjustment. That's before you even get into the whole playing fitba' side of things.

He was chucked straight into an absolute fucking car crash and the manager who signed him, who was wildly out his depth, lasted another fortnight.

If you take Kettlewell at face value when he mentioned Danzaki had been carrying an injury then that can't really have helped either.

We announced Danzaki on January 28th at that point we had the following forward/attacking midfield options already on the books: KVV, Shields, Mandron, Spittal, McKinstry, Tierney, Crankshaw and Lennon Miller...

Our options at left back amounted to playing Paul McGinn out of position.

Obviously Shields was subsequently loaned out but we immediately brought in Obika after Mandron's injury so either way Danzaki ended up as our 9th option in that area of the park - and it was a process that took "months" (in Burrows own words) to get him in the door.

I get that it worked out in the end in the sense that we got Furlong in the building and Butcher arrived to erm..."fix our midfield" but where we are now is Kettlewell picking up the pieces of what he's inherited.

As @Handsome_Devil said on the other page, it's really not something we need to re-litigate, but still...fucking hell.

Edited June 26, 2023 by capt_oats

[Antiochas III]

Any news if we're promoting any new Academy Graduates to the Youth Team this year?  

[Lobby Dossar]

1 hour ago, welldaft said:

Not if you know what you are doing.

My use of the word speculative has created a wee reaction for whatever reason . Maybe I should have used the word risky instead. Jesus I wish I had ! 

Virtually every player we sign is speculative. It may be based on lots of knowledge, but with the money we can afford to pay every signing carries a risk as to whether they perform for Motherwell or not. 

At the moment it looks like a rather big mistake. 

Sorry mate wasn’t having a go … … From what I’ve heard the guy can’t kick his own arse 

So someone at the club fucked up Big Time