Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[one m in Motherwell]

Oooft, the club’s timings with their tweets really don’t take into account the mood of The Thread, do they?

[dezz]

I see Ketts subtle tactics to move on players he doesn't want have evolved from passive aggressive comments in press conferences to designing very unflattering artistic impressions for social media posts. He's done Joe dirty with that picture. Good work.  

[welldaft]

11 hours ago, MurrayWell said:

I'd take Clark over Efford, but we could really do without another injury prone forward. 

Fletcher would be the best option of the names we've been linked with and a good signing for our system IMO, but Is there anything in that chat or is it just because he's been linked before? 

Of all the dumb things we could do as a club right now is try to sign a forward with a history of injuries. I mean have we not learnt our lesson ?

Right now I would take Connor Shields back on the basis that he can walk and run most weeks. Scoring is a bonus.

I still hope we get Fletcher but it seems strange that this was mentioned months ago as a possibility. Probably a combination of wages and him waiting to see what offers materialise. Of course as a free agent he can also wait until after the window closes. But if he does want to play in the top flight with a team that may be successful and not too much upheaval we would seem an obvious choice.

[capt_oats]

I'm also not sold on Nicky Clark although that's very much a *me* problem as he's one of those players I just have an irrational dislike for. That said, I stand by my point that he really doesn't look like the type of player that Kettlewell has gone for over the summer.

Ideally we swerve that one. If it's even an option.

That said I'm curious as to how the injuries to the 3 forwards and the not-even-subtle-now plan to launch Joey Efford impacts our strategy as far as what we're actually looking for now:

• Wilkinson - *minimum* 1 month
• Biereth - 3 months
• Obika - December

Basically are we looking for options that will just get us to January or have we realised that regardless of what happens it looks like we're not going to be able to rely on Obika being fit so want someone in that will see us for the season?

We've currently got Bair as a recognised senior striker, Kettlewell was saying that he ideally he wants to run with *at least* 4 (which makes sense as we play with 2 up). Does that put us in the market for 2 (assuming Wilkinson is actually back in a month) or 3 until January?

Based on the "1 in, 1 out" situation we've been operating Lamie leaving frees up one space but based on Kettlewell's comments about wanting balance we clearly need another LWB as well - feels like we'd need another 2 out to get what we need.

[Handsome_Devil]

18 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Basically are we looking for options that will just get us to January or have we realised that regardless of what happens it looks like we're not going to be able to rely on Obika being fit so want someone in that will see us for the season?

I think we'll do one till the end of the season (or beyond) and one till January and reassess there.

I'm sticking with my prediction of three in, two out (ignoring youths) before Friday.

You can question who SK has signed but he's been phenomenal at getting the bodies out and getting in what we need on paper. I don't really see any reason for that to change in the next four days.

Whether those guys are good enough to keep us up/reach Europe is then a different matter.

[For Your Pies Only]

Not keen on Clark at all.

I'm more curious about the Tierney situation tbh - I'd say there's an argument for recalling him from loan, either to play as a second striker - wee man / big man etc - or as a 10 in a midfield four, if getting another (decent, non-injury prone) striker in proves to be an issue.

[ropy]

47 minutes ago, welldaft said:

Of all the dumb things we could do as a club right now is try to sign a forward with a history of injuries. I mean have we not learnt our lesson ?

Right now I would take Connor Shields back on the basis that he can walk and run most weeks. Scoring is a bonus.

I still hope we get Fletcher but it seems strange that this was mentioned months ago as a possibility. Probably a combination of wages and him waiting to see what offers materialise. Of course as a free agent he can also wait until after the window closes. But if he does want to play in the top flight with a team that may be successful and not too much upheaval we would seem an obvious choice.

If it’s wages then we have avoided paying him in July and August and realistically only need him to cover Sep - Dec when some of the injured may be back or we can bring in a more cost effective resource.

[eliphas]

46 minutes ago, ropy said:

If it’s wages then we have avoided paying him in July and August and realistically only need him to cover Sep - Dec when some of the injured may be back or we can bring in a more cost effective resource.

Aye let's not kid ourselves Shields is any good for us or him. He's also happy in India earning some cash for a while.

Fletcher + 1 other striker who offers something different has to be the target imo. That other striker I wouldn't be disappointed if it was more a number 10 style player to give us options.

Edited August 29, 2023 by eliphas

[Stevie Kirk]

I’m not all that  keen on Clark though 492 appearances and 158 goals tells me he will bag a few if we can keep him fit. Doesn’t appear to have been in the St Johnstone squad recently so not sure if he is still injured/ rehab or fell out with the new manager.

[Allroy for Prez]

I’ve always thought Clark was ok but didn’t realise he was so injury prone so it’s got to be a non starter considering how signing players with previous injury problems has faired so far this season.

[capt_oats]

26 minutes ago, eliphas said:

Aye let's not kid ourselves Shields is any good for us or him. He's also happy in India earning some cash for a while.

Fletcher + 1 other striker who offers something different has to be the target imo. That other striker I wouldn't be disappointed if it was more a number 10 style player to give us options.

Aye, Fletcher is the main one for me purely on the basis that the #9 is essential to the way we play and as @thisGRAEME spoke about on the pod yesterday when you see how we're set up he feels like as good fit as we'd get for what we're looking for in that role.

Make it happen Ketts.

We're 3 league games into the season and we've seen that post-KVV the shape we've got still broadly works - the tweaked 2nd half on Saturday being a good example of that.

At this point in the season with the team having had a run of games it's a lot clearer what we need from the #9 and arguably the "wHeRe aRe teH gOaLs cOMiNg fRoM??????" shouts seem a bit less of a concern given we've scored in every game we've played bar one.

The 2nd striker is a bit more of a lottery in so much as, right now, we need someone who's good enough to start and not a lot of time to get something sorted. I suppose the selling point in our favour if we're making a pitch to someone who's out of the picture at their club then at the very least we're offering pretty much guaranteed game time between now an January rather than a squad role.

In that respect we're probably in a bit of a beggars can't be choosers situation though and tbh the Oli Shaw rumour that was kicking around last week sounds very much like the sort of player Kettlewell might go for - that's not an endorsement but it feels like a realistic example of the sort of bracket of player we might be looking at.

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

In Clark, surely we can't even be considering someone who last played in February to come in because we have an injury crisis?

[Neil86]

See these Random Motherwell fan, announce moult, annoucnce spittal accounts on twitter, it feels impossible to keep away from them. Block one something new emerges, never ending.

[capt_oats]

22 minutes ago, Neil86 said:

See these Random Motherwell fan, announce moult, annoucnce spittal accounts on twitter, it feels impossible to keep away from them. Block one something new emerges, never ending.

The worst part of it is that you have other accounts engaging with them so even if you block/mute them the responses to their shite still get thrown up when you search Twitter.

[capt_oats]

I don't know if there's anything to read into this in a #numbers sense but I see we've moved Ewan Wilson from the First Team page to the Development Team on the official.

https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/squad/first-team/
https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/squad/development-team/

Edited August 29, 2023 by capt_oats

[Swello]

49 minutes ago, Neil86 said:

See these Random Motherwell fan, announce moult, annoucnce spittal accounts on twitter, it feels impossible to keep away from them. Block one something new emerges, never ending.

When Tweetdeck was still usable, I set up a search on the word "Motherwell" and instantly regretted it - there were 4 categories of posts 

1) people trying to wind up "Random Motherwell Fan"

2) Old firm supporters nursing grievances from random games from the last 15 years

3) Traffic, Crime and power blackouts in Motherwell, East Cape

4) All the abstract expressionism

Stopped doing that.

[welldaft]

Looking at the 1st team squad even with 21 players it seems very light in numbers. 

18 outfield players of which 3 are injured and 2 are surplus to requirements (McGinley and Efford). Leave us with 13 players to choose 10 from. How in any way is that sustainable ?

5 midfielders- 4 of which were on the pitch 2nd half v Killie. All it would take is a couple of injuries / suspensions in that area of the pitch and we would be equally as screwed as we are currently up front. 

Before the window closes I would say we would need 2 forwards, 1 or 2 midfielders a LB and CB (cover for Lamie). So another 4 or 5 players. Highly unlikely perhaps but what I think we need. Of course we probably need to move on another couple for that to happen. If not then the best we can hope for is probably a forward, midfielder and CB/LB. 

[rowsdower]

7 hours ago, dezz said:

I see Ketts subtle tactics to move on players he doesn't want have evolved from passive aggressive comments in press conferences to designing very unflattering artistic impressions for social media posts. He's done Joe dirty with that picture. Good work.  

Oh man, just saw that, we're petty bitches now

[capt_oats]

As it stands this is the depth chart based on the current First Team squad + Ferrie:

Clearly the two spaces are needed for the strikers but if Efford and McGinley were to find takers it'd offer up a LWB space and I suppose there's a conversation to be had about midfield since we have a duty of care for Lennon Miller - we're not going to be asking him to be playing 40 odd games this season (surely?).

Would 4 bodies in and 2 out be too much in 3 days or whatever it is we have left in the window?

[Phillips455]

Seen that we have sold out the Hearts game allocation (including the lower end bit).