Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[ATLIS]

This game on Saturday seems like it's shaping up to be a real El Sackico classic

[Handsome_Devil]

7 hours ago, ATLIS said:

This game on Saturday seems like it's shaping up to be a real El Sackico classic

Would Livingston actually sack Martindale? There'd no doubt be a bounce but long-term I can't see an improvement. And there's no chance we'll do anything till after Hibs.

Since you're here, what on earth is going on with Nouble? You seem to have one of the potentially best attackers for our level then you neutralise him yourself by getting him to play wing-back.

I can't see past a draw on Saturday, we will certainly concede at least once and will probably only threaten when in panic mode chasing the equaliser.

 

[thisGRAEME]

1 hour ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Since you're here, what on earth is going on with Nouble? You seem to have one of the potentially best attackers for our level then you neutralise him yourself by getting him to play wing-back.

 

[eliphas]

11 hours ago, capt_oats said:

I agree and disagree tbh.

I think everyone is on the same page that Shaw wouldn't be here if we hadn't seen injuries to Biereth, Wilko and (I for one am *stunned* this happened) Obika. So if that was the case we've an extra body there.

Even then, solely in a numbers sense, we've 5 strikers (of varying quality and...reliability) which is still kind of manageable given the plan at the start of the season would have been to play with 2 up.

You've 2 players for each position and one extra for cover. I assume in either situation Bair was intended to be either 4th or 5th choice.

However it definitely becomes overkill now that Kettlewell seems to have decided that the box midfield definitely works (and has the added benefit of him not having to drop Paton).

In that case we're clearly starting with Biereth so on the once in a blue moon scenario everyone's fit we're looking at 4 sat on their arse or we're doing objectively daft things like sticking Wilkinson in midfield. Which definitely isn't ideal.

A couple of folk have commented on Wilkinson having been unused recently - I wonder if Kettlewell's taken the huff at Wilko saying to the press that he'd never played in midfield before and had no idea what he was doing.

Wilko has fallen into the 'getting managed out' spot that Kettlewell seems to love and cherish.

Expect some comments about 'Conor has to do more' in a press conference near you. 

See : Danzaki

 

[ropy]

56 minutes ago, eliphas said:

Wilko has fallen into the 'getting managed out' spot that Kettlewell seems to love and cherish.

Expect some comments about 'Conor has to do more' in a press conference near you. 

See : Danzaki

 

But he takes his goals well, versus Obika whose goals hit off him and Shaw who doesn’t do goals.  You would think he was worth a 15 minute stint at the end of games.

[welldaft]

17 minutes ago, ropy said:

But he takes his goals well, versus Obika whose goals hit off him and Shaw who doesn’t do goals.  You would think he was worth a 15 minute stint at the end of games.

This ^

I would start Biereth and Bair on Saturday and bring on Wilkinson and if needs be Obika in that order.

Wilkinson does not have the ability or physique to noise up the opposition like Bair and even Obika has. But if out of all our forward players (minus Biereth) I could choose one to hit the net from inside the box it would be Connor all day every day. 

[Handsome_Devil]

29 minutes ago, welldaft said:

I would start Biereth and Bair on Saturday and bring on Wilkinson and if needs be Obika in that order.

So would I but tbh I've reached the level of struggling to care about the XI, there are clearly no good options.

Still looking forward to Saturday mind, taking the kids to their first managerial protest outside the main stand is always a special moment.

[MurrayWell]

While Bair is limited, I stand by that he gets far too hard of a time from folk and has contributed more than most of our other forward options. Our best run came with him playing, I'd be going with him and Biereth for the foreseeable, unless we get someone else in who is less of a project. 

On the out front, the club should be getting Shaw's loan cancelled if possible, he's brought absolutely nothing. While Wilkinson has shown flashes I wouldn't be bothered at all if he left. I'd expect Obika to be here until the end of his deal. 

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

I think in order for us to get the best out of any of our other strikers, we would need to commit to playing a front two and giving the chosen candidate five or six games in a row from the start.

It's impossible to judge any of them in 15 minute cameos where they are either out of position, or playing in some sort of lopsided, game-chasing formation.

[camer0n_mcd]

55 minutes ago, MurrayWell said:

While Bair is limited, I stand by that he gets far too hard of a time from folk and has contributed more than most of our other forward options. Our best run came with him playing, I'd be going with him and Biereth for the foreseeable, unless we get someone else in who is less of a project. 

100% of Motherwell's wins this season have come when Theo Bair started.

 

 

Just saying

[well fan for life]

Wilkinson is a strange one. There's a player in there but somewhere between the player and the tactics we've got f**k all idea what's best.

I'd start big Theloneus alongside Mika for Saturday. Obika's got a good touch on him but he makes John Sutton look rapid so I'm not sure he works.

Regardless of the result we'll not change anything. Fingers crossed for a miracle in January. 

[ropy]

Given that all our goals are scored towards the Cooper stand should we maybe start with that?

[ropy]

I don’t know what we are going to do with McGinn, therefore I don’t know who the wingbacks will be but they need to support the midfield to allow us to play 3 in there as surely the Livi defence is the one that we want to play 2 strikers against?

Or something else?

[well fan for life]

7 minutes ago, ropy said:

I don’t know what we are going to do with McGinn, therefore I don’t know who the wingbacks will be but they need to support the midfield to allow us to play 3 in there as surely the Livi defence is the one that we want to play 2 strikers against?

Or something else?

He immediately made us look more composed playing in the middle of the 3. If we're sticking with that I think he plays there and we try to reduce the possibility of Bevis related calamities.

[Handsome_Devil]

12 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

He immediately made us look more composed playing in the middle of the 3. If we're sticking with that I think he plays there and we try to reduce the possibility of Bevis related calamities.

I know McGinn offers something on the ball going forward from rcb that Bevis doesn't but not using him there as cover for Butcher to the start the season remains a mystery to me.

[ropy]

14 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

He immediately made us look more composed playing in the middle of the 3. If we're sticking with that I think he plays there and we try to reduce the possibility of Bevis related calamities.

We may have to hold Bevis back as the sixth striker for the last 10 minutes 

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

Difficult to judge because there was no urgency from Rangers to score at any point in the game, but I thought McGinn looked as comfortable there as anyone else has this season. I'd probably play him there from the start on Saturday.

[CoF]

2 hours ago, ropy said:

Given that all our goals are scored towards the Cooper stand should we maybe start with that?

I sit in the cooper and the second I see we're switching ends my whole weekend is ruined. 

[ATLIS]

7 hours ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Would Livingston actually sack Martindale? There'd no doubt be a bounce but long-term I can't see an improvement. And there's no chance we'll do anything till after Hibs.

Since you're here, what on earth is going on with Nouble? You seem to have one of the potentially best attackers for our level then you neutralise him yourself by getting him to play wing-back.

I can't see past a draw on Saturday, we will certainly concede at least once and will probably only threaten when in panic mode chasing the equaliser.

 

There's surely a break point somewhere, he can't just keep not winning and stay in a job. He's on a rolling contract as well so costs us nothing to do it.

Part of the Nouble question is what's wrong with Martindale, overthinking. He's got probably our best offensive player sitting at RWB, although there's more to the story. His agency posted during the summer about 'helping Joel in securing his summer transfer', which obviously hasn't happened. He wanted out and we wanted money, we wanted 1m and the best we got was apparently 350k from Killie, which I'd snap your hand off for now. His head has absolutely gone, I've never seen a Livi first team regular do so little pressing, he jogs about and thinks about getting involved. Part of that could be he's annoyed at being asked to play at RWB, or part of it ends up being that he didn't want to be here past the summer. 

Either way it ends up in a mess like this: David Martindale disappointed as several Livingston supporters boo Joel Nouble | STV News

What Martindale doesn't seem to realise was that the 'sarcastic cheers' at his sub was fans thinking he finally realised that playing a winger/striker at RWB for 80 minutes doesn't work. It things like that that contribute to us going daft spells like 2 goals since September, 3 home goals in 9 games (2 against Motherwell) and long winless runs. I think it was 7 losses in a row? His inexperience is showing, and it doesn't seem like Martindale can handle a team in a spiral very well. He talks about taking responsibility and it being his team but there's not much that changes.

 

[ropy]

24 minutes ago, ATLIS said:

There's surely a break point somewhere, he can't just keep not winning and stay in a job. He's on a rolling contract as well so costs us nothing to do it.

Part of the Nouble question is what's wrong with Martindale, overthinking. He's got probably our best offensive player sitting at RWB, although there's more to the story. His agency posted during the summer about 'helping Joel in securing his summer transfer', which obviously hasn't happened. He wanted out and we wanted money, we wanted 1m and the best we got was apparently 350k from Killie, which I'd snap your hand off for now. His head has absolutely gone, I've never seen a Livi first team regular do so little pressing, he jogs about and thinks about getting involved. Part of that could be he's annoyed at being asked to play at RWB, or part of it ends up being that he didn't want to be here past the summer. 

Either way it ends up in a mess like this: David Martindale disappointed as several Livingston supporters boo Joel Nouble | STV News

What Martindale doesn't seem to realise was that the 'sarcastic cheers' at his sub was fans thinking he finally realised that playing a winger/striker at RWB for 80 minutes doesn't work. It things like that that contribute to us going daft spells like 2 goals since September, 3 home goals in 9 games (2 against Motherwell) and long winless runs. I think it was 7 losses in a row? His inexperience is showing, and it doesn't seem like Martindale can handle a team in a spiral very well. He talks about taking responsibility and it being his team but there's not much that changes.

 

I would have thought that Martindale could suffer a relegation and be allowed one attempt at getting back up.  Of course the club may cut him in an attempt to avoid the relegation in the first place.

We are undecided on our course of action at the moment.