Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[ATLIS]

2 minutes ago, ropy said:

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.

That was the thinking of most Livi fans a wee while ago but I think the nature of this run has turned a lot of people. If we were to get relegated by a closely run race, then most could probably stomach it and give him another crack - but it looks like we're sinking with a whimper. He's playing players out of position while playing an eye bleeding version of hoofball. It's not even the fun Brexitball we had before, it's just hoof and hope. Not a lot of pressing or intensity. 

So far in his interviews he's came out and slated Bruce Anderson (despite him getting zero service), while he's let Nouble and Shamal George go on uninterrupted. He's paid a near club record fee for a goalie that can't catch a ball  Paid Tom Parkes 2.5k p/w (highest earner), for 15 appearances in 3 years. He bangs on about budgets but he's made a lot of dodgy choices on players. The good ones are usually standouts, like Dykes but he's become obsessed with the player selling model. Anyone that has a half decent season he's attempting to punt publicly in the media. Even at that, I've no clue where the 2m for Dykes actually went. 

Wait a few weeks and it'll be Penrice he's wanting offers for next  It's a shame for the boy because he's one of the few great players in a very bad Livi squad. Probably the only real pass marks have been Holt and Penrice on a regular basis.

He's got pretty solid youth players in the squad in Lawal a Nigerian U20 regular, 3 sub appearances. Stephen Kelly, 10 Scotland U21 caps, 498 minutes in the league from 1710. Steven Bradley, recent call up to Scotland U21, 136 minutes. None of them get a look in, he'll publicly take digs at them too. Then he's taking digs at the fans. A lot of the goodwill towards him has been washed away with the decisions he's made.

[capt_oats]

1 hour 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.

I know that there's been speculation about what type of contract Martindale does/doesn't have but traditionally a "rolling" contract means that you'd be due to pay him up for a set term (usually a year) from the point that notice is served - you don't get to just chuck his stuff in a box one day and say "f**k off Davie" with no compensation due - it'd cost you a year's salary or whatever the agreed period is.

The "rolling" part of it is that it "rolls over" every day so to speak.

Edited December 28, 2023 by capt_oats

[eliphas]

6 hours 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.

Aye I'd agree. I'd happily keep Wilkinson and punt Obika and Shaw ahead of them to be honest. 

Kettlewell isn't scared of just managing a player out to free up wages a space though. 

[ATLIS]

13 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

I know that there's been speculation about what type of contract Martindale does/doesn't have but traditionally a "rolling" contract means that you'd be due to pay him up for a set term (usually a year) from the point that notice is served - you don't get to just chuck his stuff in a box one day and say "f**k off Davie" with no compensation due - it'd cost you a year's salary or whatever the agreed period is.

The "rolling" part of it is that it "rolls over" every day so to speak.

To be fair I'm just making the assumption that it's rolling, his last contract was just never renewed. When he talked about it he just said he doesn't have a contract, which I can't see being true. He's a good guy, I don't even think he'd take a payoff either, unless something goes spectacularly sour. 

Realistically who'd want to take over a Livi side with no money and court cases hanging overhead? I've been saying Rhys McCabe but not even sure if he'd take it. There's not many names floating about that are great, Brian Rice probably the worst of the lot.

[capt_oats]

Biggest non-story going here tbh...

However what *is* interesting is that he's saying he wants to add a couple on top of what we already have:

Quote

“At this stage we know we’ll Probably have that opportunity to bring in maybe one, possibly two, and I suppose if that number increases in any way it could only be by one or two players moving on, which may free something else to come in.

“But I’ve said all along, we don’t sit here with a lot of players, we don’t sit here with a mass of bodies sitting in this building.

“As much as I could limit players going out the door, because I need to see, ideally, if we could add one or two to what we already have.

“I mean that in quality but also in numbers, just to give us strength in depth and more options in games, and to protect and ward against what has been a wee bit of a challenge for us in the number of injuries we’ve faced since the start of the season.”

Link

Feels like it's of note because it's essentially saying that we have budget to bring in a couple (given folk were losing their shit after mis-interpreting McMahon's quotes the other week) and also that he thinks we're short on bodies...no fucking shit Sherlock.

Bring him home.

Edited December 28, 2023 by capt_oats

[Handsome_Devil]

3 hours ago, ATLIS said:

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

Aye but when Livingston were so obviously desperate to sell him I don't think you can blame his agent.

He's clearly a very interesting player. I did find it curious when Livi (and fans) were talking about £1m for him and defending his lack of goals by saying he was a winger not a striker, there seemed little done to convert him into that old inside forward type you'd back to hit double figures. Because for all his strengths, he never looked to me (limited view ofc) as a £1m winger either.

Is he out of contract in summer? Would love him at FP if real bids don't materialise.

[ropy]

14 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Aye but when Livingston were so obviously desperate to sell him I don't think you can blame his agent.

He's clearly a very interesting player. I did find it curious when Livi (and fans) were talking about £1m for him and defending his lack of goals by saying he was a winger not a striker, there seemed little done to convert him into that old inside forward type you'd back to hit double figures. Because for all his strengths, he never looked to me (limited view ofc) as a £1m winger either.

Is he out of contract in summer? Would love him at FP if real bids don't materialise.

Can we unsettle him with a Friday night bid?

[Scooby_Doo]

3 hours ago, ATLIS said:

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.

I'd be astonished if we'd offered that sort of money.

[ATLIS]

1 hour ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Aye but when Livingston were so obviously desperate to sell him I don't think you can blame his agent.

He's clearly a very interesting player. I did find it curious when Livi (and fans) were talking about £1m for him and defending his lack of goals by saying he was a winger not a striker, there seemed little done to convert him into that old inside forward type you'd back to hit double figures. Because for all his strengths, he never looked to me (limited view ofc) as a £1m winger either.

Is he out of contract in summer? Would love him at FP if real bids don't materialise.

Bit of both, no idea if he came to the club and made the point that he wanted to leave or we tried to say to him it was time to move on. To be fair to him, he is a winger, best attribute is just running at folk and getting into the box. 1m value, probably not. Yeah out of contract in the summer

53 minutes ago, Scooby_Doo said:

I'd be astonished if we'd offered that sort of money.

As would I, but was something I'd heard from someone that's usually spot on with stuff like this

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, ATLIS said:

Bit of both, no idea if he came to the club and made the point that he wanted to leave or we tried to say to him it was time to move on. To be fair to him, he is a winger, best attribute is just running at folk and getting into the box. 1m value, probably not. Yeah out of contract in the summer

It's very much a case of me looking from the outside in but it kind of feels like Livi/Martindale lost the run of themselves with the Dykes deal and were framing Nouble in the same way hoping for a similar outcome.

There's definitely an art to cashing in on an asset.

If you've brought a player in on a sales pitch that is essentially based on "we'll give you a profile and won't stand in your way if an offer comes in" then it's difficult to square going public quoting £1m when it's clear that the player just isn't in that bracket and the way Livi/Martindale have played things with Nouble just feels really messy and it definitely hasn't done anyone any favours.

It's understandable if the club/Martindale knew these court cases were in the post and were holding out hoping to cash in on the player but even allowing for some context it still feels like it's been really badly played.

We learned that lesson early on and there are kind of echoes with Nouble and our experience with Marvin Johnson albeit I'd argue that McGhee and the club were very much playing the game and the fact we ended up selling him anyway (and banked close to £1m all in) kind of backs that up.

Also, us "playing hardball" so to speak pretty much fucked us that season as we didn't have time to get his replacement over the line:

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/marvin-johnson-being-held-ransom-8736132

That experience essentially recalibrated our approach in terms of working with players, their representatives and quoting realistic fees in terms of player trading.

In fact, I seem to recall a few posts from Livi fans making comparisons between us getting a deal done for KVV early and Martindale's approach with Nouble.

Actually, was Martindale not talking to the press about us getting that deal done in one of his increasingly frequent 'woe is me' monologues as well?

Edited December 28, 2023 by capt_oats

[ropy]

Nouble just needs to claim he has a gun to his head.

[redstarcvedza]

Wonder if SK now in Guinness book of records for manager with longest winless league run without losing his job

[Gallus Numpty]

35 minutes ago, redstarcvedza said:

Wonder if SK now in Guinness book of records for manager with longest winless league run without losing his job

A fair bit to go yet. There may be longer runs, but Derby County going 32 games without a win in the 2007-08 season springs to mind. Billy Davies was in charge at the start of that, but Paul Jewell was in charge for the latter 27 of them (24 league and 3 cup games), and then lost the first game of the next season for a total run of 28. They did win their second game, though.

Edited December 28, 2023 by Gallus Numpty

[ATLIS]

16 hours ago, capt_oats said:

It's very much a case of me looking from the outside in but it kind of feels like Livi/Martindale lost the run of themselves with the Dykes deal and were framing Nouble in the same way hoping for a similar outcome.

There's definitely an art to cashing in on an asset.

If you've brought a player in on a sales pitch that is essentially based on "we'll give you a profile and won't stand in your way if an offer comes in" then it's difficult to square going public quoting £1m when it's clear that the player just isn't in that bracket and the way Livi/Martindale have played things with Nouble just feels really messy and it definitely hasn't done anyone any favours.

It's understandable if the club/Martindale knew these court cases were in the post and were holding out hoping to cash in on the player but even allowing for some context it still feels like it's been really badly played.

We learned that lesson early on and there are kind of echoes with Nouble and our experience with Marvin Johnson albeit I'd argue that McGhee and the club were very much playing the game and the fact we ended up selling him anyway (and banked close to £1m all in) kind of backs that up.

Also, us "playing hardball" so to speak pretty much fucked us that season as we didn't have time to get his replacement over the line:

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/marvin-johnson-being-held-ransom-8736132

That experience essentially recalibrated our approach in terms of working with players, their representatives and quoting realistic fees in terms of player trading.

In fact, I seem to recall a few posts from Livi fans making comparisons between us getting a deal done for KVV early and Martindale's approach with Nouble.

Actually, was Martindale not talking to the press about us getting that deal done in one of his increasingly frequent 'woe is me' monologues as well?

Pretty much spot on to be fair, no one was really that interested in him during the summer. I think we all made peace with him going, Martindale even stopped playing a formation with wingers in the mindset he was away. 

I think getting as much as we did for Dykes skewed his player valuations a lot. Dykes was absolutely tearing teams apart though, he had Chris Jullien on toast every single game. Hold up play, goals, he basically had the lot to succeed in a Livi team. Nouble is more of a flashes of brilliance player, but 1m was never realistic. The model of building up one player to be a hero each season to sell on isn't sustainable. 

I can't imagine banging on about how skint we are constantly is going to make teams think we have what it takes to sit on an offer and wait for them to come back with more money. If anything it'll end up with folk throwing 50k at us and thinking we'll take it - Martindale did say he had some 'time wasters' enquiring about Nouble

Edited December 29, 2023 by ATLIS

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

1 hour ago, redstarcvedza said:

Wonder if SK now in Guinness book of records for manager with longest winless league run without losing his job

You don't even have to go that far back in club history for an equal / worse record.

We've currently equalled 15 games without win from the 1995/96 season.

It took us until the 17th game of the 1988/89 season to win, along with failing to win the final three games of the previous season, puts that run at 19 games without a win. That's the next record in our sights if Saturday doesn't go to plan

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Could Nouble play LWB? Give Spittal a break 

[crispy]

Nouble isn’t a natural finisher and I don’t label him a striker. It doesn’t seem to be working having him try to win the ball / defend or do something with it deep in our half. 
For context, A few seasons back we played Stevie lawless as wing back and, to a lesser extent, Steve Lawson both of whom you wouldn’t expect that to be listed as their best position but did well.

 

[capt_oats]

Oh...I mean, Pape's deal is up in January.

[Gianfranco]

1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

Oh...I mean, Pape's deal is up in January.

Yes please.

 

Has Max J been playing much in Austria? If we could get him back on loan and the bold KVV. 

Edited December 29, 2023 by Gianfranco

[Allroy for Prez]

Surely Allan Campbell would enjoy another stint in ML1 rather than warming the bench at Millwall?