Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[witchfindergeneral]

Decided to head through late yesterday to pay tribute to Hanlon & Stevenson  Haven't seen highlights yet.

Thoughts on the players:

Kelly - Before the pen was asking Casey which way to go for the penalty.. surely that's homework he should have done himself. Didn't cover himself in glory with their goals.

Halliday - horrendous

Gent - Best defensive performance he's had for us but his booking seemed to reel him in. Offensively he was rubbish.

Miller - our best player by far last night

Spittal - would've been better off scrapping with Hibs players for Jambo brownie points

Davor - played more forward passes than his entire motherwell career so far

Paton - tidy footballer with ball at his feet but infuriatingly poor with passing and shooting

Bair - seemed to have switched off last night, well taken goal

Nicholson - was busy but didn't offer too much

Moses - needs a lot of work, his touch is horrendous

 

Hibs the better team from about 30 mins in, deserved to win. Need a big response on Sunday now. Would love to help get rid of St Johnstone.

 

[capt_oats]

3 minutes ago, witchfindergeneral said:

Need a big response on Sunday now.

I mean, do we? Really? 

It's an absolutely zero stakes game for us.

[Handsome_Devil]

2 minutes ago, witchfindergeneral said:

Miller - our best player by far last night

He had one pass to SOD, first time with the outside of his foot, which was outrageous but tbh it's startling just how good his technique is in comparison to virtually everyone else, with the exception of Spittal who is perhaps between him and the rest of the pack. He usually hits the ball in just the right way to keep it hugging the ground and - a thing I personally love - passes are hit hard, meaning the opposition have less time to react and the receiver has more time and space (assuming in our case they don't just miscontrol it obviously).

There are no doubt a tonne of things which could go wrong in his development and there'll probably be some ups and downs but everything you see about him screams destined for the very top.

[well fan for life]

13 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

To give this a nudge given they've opened it to non-WS members.

My assumption here is that the uptake has been quite poor and I'm kind of not surprised. I mean I'm sure we'd all have a kick about on Fir Park but TWO HUNDRED POUNDS is a steep, steep price at a couple of weeks notice. Even the shirt included you'd have got for cut price in the club shop recently doesn't get you much tangible value back for your outlay.

Also it seems very short notice, understandable as they'll be ripping the park out in the summer, but how many folk are going to last out a full half without blowing their doors, never mind a full 90?

It's a nice idea but I think the WS have made it very difficult for themselves on such a tight timeline.

[witchfindergeneral]

9 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

I mean, do we? Really? 

It's an absolutely zero stakes game for us.

aye, to boot St Johnstone out league

[MurrayWell]

10 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

I mean, do we? Really? 

It's an absolutely zero stakes game for us.

I'd like a bit of a response, thought last night was a particularly poor performance tbh, but aye we don't need one and there's nae point over reacting about a team who have ultimately done their jobs this season. 

Bottom six has been a mixed bag for us, alluded to it last night, but a crap result like that might be a timely reminder of the work that's still to be done, following a couple of good results. Folk tend to get carried away one way or the other when it comes to recent displays. 

Would be nice to finish the season with a win. 

[capt_oats]

13 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

My assumption here is that the uptake has been quite poor and I'm kind of not surprised. I mean I'm sure we'd all have a kick about on Fir Park but TWO HUNDRED POUNDS is a steep, steep price at a couple of weeks notice. Even the shirt included you'd have got for cut price in the club shop recently doesn't get you much tangible value back for your outlay.

Also it seems very short notice, understandable as they'll be ripping the park out in the summer, but how many folk are going to last out a full half without blowing their doors, never mind a full 90?

It's a nice idea but I think the WS have made it very difficult for themselves on such a tight timeline.

Aye.

Going by the sign up page on Eventbrite the uptake has kind of plateaued and I guess it's for the reasons you've given. There's probably only a pretty narrow demographic who are WS members, are fit enough to last 60 mins and have a spare £200 to chuck at it.

I mean, I'm IN as I'm bang in the middle of that particular Venn Diagram but I can see how it may have ended up a bit tougher than they might have expected.

Tbh, clearly they have to cover themselves in terms of liabilities etc but I wondered if the note that @Desp highlighted re: "This is a physically demanding event – you must be healthy enough to take part" has possibly put folk off.

Similarly I guess the idea of cutting about the park in front of a small crowd might not be for everyone if you're dugmeat at fitba'.

7 minutes ago, witchfindergeneral said:

aye, to boot St Johnstone out league

But we wouldn't be booting them out the league. They'd be going into a play-off.

[Busta Nut]

11 hours ago, thisGRAEME said:

Just play Davor for f**k sake man.

Midfield is an absolute shambles without him, mainly because he's replaced with Halliday who remains less than impressive.

 

11 hours ago, Handsome_Devil said:

He's now behind the sacred Harry Paton as well now.

But aye, Davor, Miller, Spittal should be the three. I bet Paton will start ahead of him on Sunday though.

It's almost like Kettlewell has reverted back to the points where we were shouting for other players to play, in their positions that the whole support could see was needed. But not wee SK, no.

Halliday is baws. utter baws. 
I'm sure the "always look on the bright side", we love drawing by the skin of our teeth 15 times a season mob will be on to talk about a preseason for him.



We've been utter shite since the beginning of September. Livi and Ross county have kept Kettlewell in a job as we've pumped them in the second half of the season. 
We were chatting in last night about signings and how it has worked out for some but not others. I don't think overall we've been bad in the transfer market this year. Our downfall has always been Kettlewell for me. 

[Handsome_Devil]

Just now, capt_oats said:

Similarly I guess the idea of cutting about the park in front of a small crowd might not be for everyone if you're dugmeat at fitba'.

I'd encourage anyone swithering to go for it, playing at FP once - even in a largely empty ground and you're shit - is something you'll remember.

No doubt there'll be some giggling in the stand but so what, it'll pass quickly.

[witchfindergeneral]

2 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

 

It's almost like Kettlewell has reverted back to the points where we were shouting for other players to play, in their positions that the whole support could see was needed. But not wee SK, no.

Halliday is baws. utter baws. 
I'm sure the "always look on the bright side", we love drawing by the skin of our teeth 15 times a season mob will be on to talk about a preseason for him.



We've been utter shite since the beginning of September. Livi and Ross county have kept Kettlewell in a job as we've pumped them in the second half of the season. 
We were chatting in last night about signings and how it has worked out for some but not others. I don't think overall we've been bad in the transfer market this year. Our downfall has always been Kettlewell for me. 

I like Kettlewell. But I think his tendency to overthink/put square pegs in round holes is a massive issue though. Last night we are chasing and he takes SOD off for Davor and still keeps his 3 at the back. Then all the midfielders are just running around aimlessly.

Hopefully over the summer he gets players that will give him different options and he actually uses them.

[thisGRAEME]

14 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

It's almost like Kettlewell has reverted back to the points where we were shouting for other players to play, in their positions that the whole support could see was needed. But not wee SK, no.

I'd assumed we're trying to get Paton back into the Canada squad a) for him and b) it earns us more money, which fair enough really.

Last night just stank man. There are some dreadful players in that Hibs squad and we did nothing to offer a hint of pressure on them. No, I will not be losing sleep over them but it was an absolute wet fart of a performance. 

[Busta Nut]

14 minutes ago, witchfindergeneral said:

still keeps his 3 at the back

For all the subs Kettlewell had made throughout the season. The formation changed about twice.
Blair Spittal was moved to wing back too many times rather than change the shape for example. 

[Dosser1886]

38 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

I mean, do we? Really? 

It's an absolutely zero stakes game for us.

Professional football players, you would hope, would like to end the season on a high especially in front of a home crowd. Also a bit disrespectful to the other teams shitting themselves to avoid the playoffs if they didn't put a real shift in. So yeah I do hope for a response on Sunday.

[Dosser1886]

26 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

Our downfall has always been Kettlewell for me. 

Thankfully, he has managed to keep up but, like yourself, jury still massively out with the guy for me as a coach.

[witchfindergeneral]

1 minute ago, Dosser1886 said:

Thankfully, he has managed to keep up but, like yourself, jury still massively out with the guy for me as a coach.

As a coach i'd say he's very good. He's improved the offensive players and that could be something that makes us an attractive prospect over the summer.

Our downfall all season has been the defence and we all know it needs improvement. But there are also things you can't account for i.e Kelly clangers/constant SOD handballs/pish refereeing/heids gone red cards!

[Handsome_Devil]

6 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

We've been utter shite since the beginning of September. 

We definitely were but if you or anyone else is still using that as a reason to berate SK you've obviously made your mind up and will simply never be swayed. Which is your fair call but I don't really understand why the September to December spell of being shit is considered defining.

From February to early September - about six months of football - we were at worst solid and often very good.

The next 3.5 months were utter toilet, no question.

The last five months have had a couple of stinkers but basically we've been solid, won at at Ibrox, came from two down to win 3-2 at Dens, scored five twice and four once. We've picked up points at a rate (caveats ofc) that would probably get us top six if replicated over 33 games.

Nobody's saying we're Barcelona but would many folk would have done much better? Probably not.

There's no doubt he made errors and still does, his undying passionate love for Paton gives me the fear. And he may well be shit next season, in which case we'll duly bin him in autumn.

But looking at his overall record so far, in terms of points, goals, signings, player development, being wildly against him because of 25% being shit compared to 75% demonstrably very good just seems extreme to me.

[StAndrew7]

31 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

For all the subs Kettlewell had made throughout the season. The formation changed about twice.
Blair Spittal was moved to wing back too many times rather than change the shape for example. 

This would probably be my biggest criticism of him.

I've yet to see evidence of a Plan B, outside of throwing on players and moving them about to continue with a system that just wasn't working. I hope we sign some players to at least have the potential to change to a 4-2-3-1 / 4-3-3 with some wingers/wide forwards. I know that's a bit of a luxury for us, but it at least would give us something else to try when the 3-4-2-1 isn't working, or to surprise the opposition etc.

[StAndrew7]

1 hour ago, Handsome_Devil said:

I'd encourage anyone swithering to go for it, playing at FP once - even in a largely empty ground and you're shit - is something you'll remember.

No doubt there'll be some giggling in the stand but so what, it'll pass quickly.

I would probably have given it some serious thought if I'd been given the opportunity as a non-member a few months ago; a week's notice just isn't enough time for me (that and I'm nowhere near fit enough currently).

Edited May 16 by StAndrew7

[Swello]

I can't go from saying - "it's a meaningless game" to being raging when we lose it, so I won't do that. I'm not sure what you can tell from last night other than the fact that we were playing against a better team than Saturday, our level dropped pretty considerably as soon as we went behind to a farce of a penalty and everyone's view on our defence, goalkeeper and manager will remain unchanged.

Last night was (jointly with that night in Dingwall), our worst defeat of the season and one of the very few games where we've been completely out of it - so I don't feel like it's significant in any way. If we beat Saints on Sunday (and I think we'll do that), then our bottom 6 has been fine.

 

[Al B]

"Lads, I've got a cracking idea for our next Youtube video!"

"Ah nice one! What's the plan?"

"Well, we get Liam Kelly to sit and describe to everyone who watches it, in intricate detail, the tricks he uses to try and fool a penalty taker into going the way he wants him to"

"Ahhh that's a winner! Let's get it filmed"

 

*several days later*

 

"I can't believe Maolida didn't fall for my fake one way then dive the same way move! He just rolled it into the empty side!"

 

We're SO  Motherwell sometimes it's almost a parody.

Edited May 16 by Al B