Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Well Fan]

23 minutes ago, eliphas said:

I think the narrative of Kettlewell only keeping Kelly in goal because of a chance of getting to the Euros is a bit strong to be honest. 

It's more likely to be he thinks dropping him will either completely rock the boat eve further with the defensive set up and/or Oxborough isnt a decent alternative. 

If there is any manager of the last few years who really doesn't give a f**k about how players feel it's Kettlewell I'd say 

It was really only an assumption I made. No inside information behind this comment whatsoever. 

This being the case, Oxborough should be playing the next match in goal. 

Ever ball into the box gave me the fear last night and every ball to Kelly's feet had me in palpitations. 

Kettlewell will live and die by his decisions. It's up to him. 

I will say that the transition through midfield at times has been controlled and nice to watch. 

But please, sort out the defence. It's killing us on a weekly basis. 

 

[eliphas]

Just now, Well Fan said:

It was really only an assumption I made. No inside information behind this comment whatsoever. 

This being the case, Oxborough should be playing the next match in goal. 

Ever ball into the box gave me the fear last night and every ball to Kelly's feet had me in palpitations. 

Kettlewell will live and die by his decisions. It's up to him. 

I will say that the transition through midfield at times has been controlled and nice to watch. 

But please, sort out the defence. It's killing us on a weekly basis. 

 

Aye there was no direct inference to anyone - to be honest I didn't know it was you that said it first or if it looked like I replied to you. 

[Ron Aldo]

On Kelly, he clearly isn't going to be dropped but something needs to be done. 

He's shown himself to be a good keeper at this level. I agree that his form in his initial loan spell was probably an anomaly in that he was playing out of his skin but I also don't think that his current position (statistically the worst keeper in the league) is a reflection of his ability. His mean level should be a solid keeper at our level which his current performance levels are way below. 

You hear of sports psychologists being brought in when player's confidence is shot or they're going through a bad spell (on or off the park). I have no idea if this is something the club would consider or whether it would even work but it's surely worth a shot. Putting Kelly in every week while he makes mistake after mistake isn't fair on him or the rest of the team. 

[Pettigrew]

32 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

Interesting.

I dunno man, it kind of feels like we're reaching Samson/Griffiths here. Griffiths was probably hopeless, but we got immeasurably better defensively simply because he wasn't Craig Samson who gave everyone PTSD simply by being there.

I thought Butcher's reaction to the 3rd was very telling in that regard last night.

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

46 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

Interesting.

I dunno man, it kind of feels like we're reaching Samson/Griffiths here. Griffiths was probably hopeless, but we got immeasurably better defensively simply because he wasn't Craig Samson who gave everyone PTSD simply by being there.

That was the one which sprung to mind for me.

There's obviously the famous Man Utd one where Jim Leighton got dropped for the FA Cup Final replay for Les Sealey. Ferguson said that Sealey's confidence compensated for him being a lesser goalkeeper than Leighton with the state of mind Leighton was in.

I guess it depends what kind of character Oxborough is in that scenario.

[CoF]

Are we the shitest decent Motherwell team in a while or the best shite Motherwell team in a while?
 

I wish they’d hurry up and decide so I know how to feel. 

[thisGRAEME]

6 minutes ago, CoF said:

 the best shite Motherwell team 
 

This will always be Craig Reid Motherwell, undefeated, champions for life.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

1 hour ago, thisGRAEME said:

Interesting.

I dunno man, it kind of feels like we're reaching Samson/Griffiths here. Griffiths was probably hopeless, but we got immeasurably better defensively simply because he wasn't Craig Samson who gave everyone PTSD simply by being there.

I was already wound up last night until the Aberdeen TV cameras cutting to Samson on the bench just about sent me over the edge.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

I'm not saying Kettlewell is totally blameless for last night/the goalkeeping situation but losing one league game in two months with a goalie who chucks one in most weeks... impressive?

[Blink182]

9 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

I'm not saying Kettlewell is totally blameless for last night/the goalkeeping situation but losing one league game in two months with a goalie who chucks one in most weeks... impressive?

It's a strange scenario that sums up this strange season.

I've also got this feeling that Kettlewell will end up being our manager for years to come, no idea why I think this but just get that vibe. 

[YassinMoutaouakil]

6 minutes ago, Blink182 said:

It's a strange scenario that sums up this strange season.

I've also got this feeling that Kettlewell will end up being our manager for years to come, no idea why I think this but just get that vibe. 

Aye it feels like the club are hoping he'll have a similar sort of term as Robinson after the Alexander and Hammell eras which both felt pretty short-term even at the time imo. Probably fair enough if he does manage to keep us up relatively comfortably. 

It's actually a year today since Kettlewell's first interim game. It's been a fucking long year.

[Al B]

Played 46

Won 19

Drawn 14

Lost 13

Scored 74

Conceded 58

One 7th place finish (with more points than the team in 6th), and currently 7th, potentially one decent win away from top 6. There's absolutely no way whatsoever that Stuart Kettlewell isn't the Motherwell manager for the forseeable future given those numbers.

Given (I think) everyone's hope is for us to have someone in place for a lengthy period to actually build, and that the numbers above include what's considered his shit/not good enough/sack him/launch him into the sun period, I'm not really sure what else we'd be looking for here. The nature of a lengthy period of stability and building something is that the initial phase is the lowest point otherwise what are you building on, so I can't for the life of me think what the end goal must be if you want the start of a build to be better than that!

It's skewed obviously as it includes cup games and is a few more games than our football season but just for a very rough illustration (and I'm just trying to avoid doing any actual work even though I'm back from lunch), if those numbers above were a season that would have us on 71 points with a GD of +16.

Edited February 15 by Al B

[Handsome_Devil]

16 minutes ago, Al B said:

Played 46

Won 19

Drawn 14

Lost 13

Scored 74

Conceded 58

One 7th place finish (with more points than the team in 6th), and currently 7th, potentially one decent win away from top 6. There's absolutely no way whatsoever that Stuart Kettlewell isn't the Motherwell manager for the forseeable future given those numbers.

Given (I think) everyone's hope is for us to have someone in place for a lengthy period to actually build, and that the numbers above include what's considered his shit/not good enough/sack him/launch him into the sun period, I'm not really sure what else we'd be looking for here. The nature of a lengthy period of stability and building something is that the initial phase is the lowest point otherwise what are you building on, so I can't for the life of me think what the end goal must if you want the start of a build to be better than that!

It's skewed obviously as it includes cup games and is a few more games than our football season but just for a very rough illustration (and I'm just trying to avoid doing any actual work even though I'm back from lunch), if those numbers above were a season that would have us on 71 points with a GD of +16.

If you take away four LC and two SC games you have P40 W16 D13 L12 which I about 58 points over a 38 game season I think.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

What are we thinking-lose at Tynecastle, go 2-0 up against Celtic and draw 2-2, go 2-0 down to Livi and draw 2-2?

[MurrayWell]

1 hour ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

What are we thinking-lose at Tynecastle, go 2-0 up against Celtic and draw 2-2, go 2-0 down to Livi and draw 2-2?

Hmm not enough drawing there for us. 

[Luke92]

I always try to talk up our league but is it just me or are 95% of the teams in the league this year utter shite?

It's usually tight around parts of the table but at the moment it feels like we are being saved at the moment by the fact the rest of the league is just as bad as we are. If you look at our league positon, on paper we are doing fine, but if you dig into the performances and goals conceded etc its been absolutely rotten.

How you can get beat in the way we did on Friday and then go 3-0 up at Aberdeen then make an arse of it. My conclusion is, we are awful at defending and other teams around us are just as bad (Added to the mix, Aberdeens strange lineup in the first 30 mins last night) My overiding feeling is, when the going gets tough or there is any type of adversity these players crumble. I keep thinking back to that Raith game last year and we have over half the team involved that were there that day. I think it's clear what is required

On a totally unrelated note off the park, I see Hibs are the latest team to adopt safe standing. I know this was assessed before and if i recall correctly was 'too expensive', so I presume this will be bottom of the list given the current situation. With that being said, given our influence on current fan culture in Scotland (and being fan owned) i have been surprised that we are lagging behind other clubs

Edited February 15 by Luke92

[well fan for life]

1 minute ago, Luke92 said:

On a totally unrelated note off the park, I see Hibs are the latest team to adopt safe standing. I know this was assessed before and if i recall correctly was 'too expensive', so I presume this will be bottom of the list given the current situation. With that being said, given our influence on current fan culture in Scotland i have been surprised that we are lagging behind other clubs

I think it was investigated for the East Stand but was prohibitively expensive as you'd more or less need to knock it flat and build a new one. I'd imagine the only stand that you'd be able to do it in, really, would be the Cooper but I don't think the club would bother tbh. 

[Handsome_Devil]

8 minutes ago, Luke92 said:

I always try to talk up our league but is it just me or are 95% of the teams in the league this year utter shite?

It's usually tight around parts of the table but at the moment it feels like we are being saved at the moment by the fact the rest of the league is just as bad as we are. If you look at our league positon, on paper we are doing fine, but if you dig into the performances and goals conceded etc its been absolutely rotten.

It's certainly been like that since 2022 when we and Dundee United were surely the worst ever European qualifiers (through the league).

But the thing about quality, you only care - notice possibly - if you're on the lower end of the scale, whatever it is. It's clear everyone from fourth down is again utter guff but should Killie/St Mirren/Dundee make Europe, they will (quite rightly) not give a f**k en route to giant inflatable and silly hat store and declare it one of their best seasons ever.

[thisGRAEME]

11 minutes ago, Luke92 said:

I always try to talk up our league but is it just me or are 95% of the teams in the league this year utter shite?

Same. I'd generally remain positive about the whole thing but there's a bunch of clubs doing really stupid things.

It's telling that Hearts, Kilmarnock and St. Mirren feel miles clear of everyone else, simply through being competent. I don't think any of the three of them are remarkably good (Shankland aside, who is a current nonsense), but none of them do the stupid shit that the other 7 sides below them are. Robinson and McInnes are good, sensible managers doing good sensible things with the budgets and players available to them, and reaping the dividends of that.

Livi are running out of road, Ross County appointing an absolute dick who calls the whole squad shit, St. Johnstone for some reason not only not fumigating the place post Davidson but actually just maintaining a coach in MacLean, Aberdeen and Hibernian burning through cash on actually good players, but appointing folk without a single wrinkle on their brain to manage them, and then us.

Dundee an outlier here because they look decent, but then it's Dundee, so it's always just around the corner.

[Swello]

1 minute ago, thisGRAEME said:

none of them do the stupid shit that the other 7 sides below them are

We've had a number of high league places and euro qualifications that were more or less based on taking advantage of other club's problems (Hearts, Hibs and Utd going for multiple tours in the lower leagues, Rangers ceasing to exist, etc) - and at the moment, it's the same thing but we're obviously not in a position to take advantage as we've been on a dip of our own for the past couple of years..

One thing that is good about our league is that the Top 6 (and europe qualification) practically never works out the way it's meant to.