Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Casagolda]

10 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

McGhee just seemed to sack the majority of training on to McFadden to take care of. I'd have no issues with this if we had an experienced assistant who'd been doing it for years but, realistically, McFadden was still learning how to manage. 

I’ve often wondered since if that’s why it worked during his first season back, because when he went back down South or away with Scotland it was Robinson who was left in charge. An experienced coach who could follow McGhee’s instructions and keep things ticking over nicely till he came back.

I’ve not got the stats to hand but I’d imagine if you compared McGhee’s league record from when Robinson was his assistant to when Faddy took over it’d make for fairly interesting reading. 

Appointing Faddy as assistant in itself seemed like another lazy decision, by all accounts he still wanted to be a player instead but realistically we all knew he was finished at this level. The player/assistant manager gig seemed like the very definition of jobs for the boys.  

[capt_oats]

5 hours ago, Casagolda said:

I’ve often wondered since if that’s why it worked during his first season back, because when he went back down South or away with Scotland it was Robinson who was left in charge. An experienced coach who could follow McGhee’s instructions and keep things ticking over nicely till he came back.

I’ve not got the stats to hand but I’d imagine if you compared McGhee’s league record from when Robinson was his assistant to when Faddy took over it’d make for fairly interesting reading. 

Appointing Faddy as assistant in itself seemed like another lazy decision, by all accounts he still wanted to be a player instead but realistically we all knew he was finished at this level. The player/assistant manager gig seemed like the very definition of jobs for the boys.  

I've thought the same.

It clicked for me when Robinson did his interview with @AndyRoss for the MFC Podcast just before the cup final last season.

His quote talking about McGhee was was: "Mark made a brave decision because most people bring their own staff with them. Mark was confident enough, he'd spoken to a lot of people about me and was confident enough to keep me. I had a really good relationship. The things that I learned from him in terms of man management in 6-7 months were fantastic and I still use a lot of it now and I watched what he'd done. And he did give me free reign coaching wise in what I was allowed to do."

It kind of confirmed the idea for me that one of the key differences between the two seasons was that Robinson wasn't there doing the coaching.

Stats-wise McGhee was appointed on 13th October '15 and kept Robinson on:

15/16:

He was binned 28th February '17. Robinson was away to Oldham before the season started. McFadden was confirmed assistant on 26th July '16:

16/17:

Edit to add: in terms of the GD in 15/16 I'd imagine it's probably skewed a fair bit by the 6-0 at Tynecastle and the 7-0 at Parkhead.

Additional edit as an afterthought: Here's Robinson's 12 games in charge at the end of the 16/17 season. With the same squad McGhee had (minus Tait and McManus through injury).

Edited September 19, 2018 by capt_oats

[mjw]

No serious injury for Carson lads.
[/url] There he is...
 

Good news.
I thought Gillespie looked steady enough on Saturday to give us less to worry about if Carson was out for a while.

[Lichtie78]

I've thought the same.
It clicked for me when Robinson did his interview with [mention=12133]AndyRoss[/mention] for the MFC Podcast just before the cup final last season.
His quote talking about McGhee was was: "Mark made a brave decision because most people bring their own staff with them. Mark was confident enough, he'd spoken to a lot of people about me and was confident enough to keep me. I had a really good relationship. The things that I learned from him in terms of man management in 6-7 months were fantastic and I still use a lot of it now and I watched what he'd done. And he did give me free reign coaching wise in what I was allowed to do."
It kind of confirmed the idea for me that one of the key differences between the two seasons was that Robinson wasn't there doing the coaching.
Stats-wise McGhee was appointed on 13th October '15 and kept Robinson on:
15/16:

He was binned 28th February '17. Robinson was away to Oldham before the season started. McFadden was confirmed assistant on 26th July '16:
16/17:

Edit to add: in terms of the GD in 15/16 I'd imagine it's probably skewed a fair bit by the 6-0 at Tynecastle and the 7-0 at Parkhead.

What website did you use to get those league tables with the custom dates?

[capt_oats]

1 minute ago, Lichtie78 said:

What website did you use to get those league tables with the custom dates?

WhoScored.com https://www.whoscored.com/Regions/253/Tournaments/20/Seasons/7365/Scotland-Premiership

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Must be some commute from Brighton to Mumbai...

[capt_oats]

Transfer speculation in The Sun today. We're being linked (along with St. Mirren) with a January swoop for 20 year old NEC Nijmegan right winger Morad El Haddouti.

The club (and the Bois) have pretty good ties with Nijmegan eh?

OK...cards on the table, this vague bit of news was just a set up to let me post this...

 

Edited September 20, 2018 by capt_oats

[thisGRAEME]

I mean, I realise this is a bit, in order to post that higdon video and I respect the hell out of you for it, but:

What the f**k are we going to do with a right winger?

[nsr]

Tell me more about top competitties, Sir Michael.

[Swello]

56 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Transfer speculation in The Sun today. We're being linked (along with St. Mirren) with a January swoop for 20 year old NEC Nijmegan right winger Morad El Haddouti.

The club (and the Bois) have pretty good ties with Nijmegan eh?

OK...cards on the table, this vague bit of news was just a set up to let me post this...

 

Love the Higgy.

I'm sure there was someone on here, or on Steelmen, that went all in with the slagging in his early stages with us (Fat! Shite!) but unlike pretty much everyone else, could never admit that he was wrong, even when the evidence was hilariously overwhelming as Higgy passed the 25 goal mark and won POTY 

[thisGRAEME]

35 minutes ago, Swello said:

Love the Higgy.

I'm sure there was someone on here, or on Steelmen, that went all in with the slagging in his early stages with us (Fat! Shite!) but unlike pretty much everyone else, could never admit that he was wrong, even when the evidence was hilariously overwhelming as Higgy passed the 25 goal mark and won POTY 

The bold Steelboy, wasn't it?

Higdon is just about my favourite ever player. A ridiculous high-point in a period of great moments and games.

[Antiochas III]

3 hours ago, thisGRAEME said:

The bold Steelboy, wasn't it?

Higdon is just about my favourite ever player. A ridiculous high-point in a period of great moments and games.

And it wasn't at the start.  He was still saying it as he was winning Players, Player of the Year

  

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Mental that we managed to replace him seamlessly with John Sutton rattling in 22 the next year. Surprised we weren't investigated for PEDs around that era.

[Phillips455]

The Offical SFPL is psoting highlights of previous matchs between teams playong each otger this weekend. Heres ours vsvAberdeen

https://twitter.com/spfl/status/1043115125454983168?s=09

[capt_oats]

Tanner need another operation...[emoji853]

[Casagolda]

Massive blow for us and him.

I still can’t believe Robinson didn’t address this in the summer. I mean it’s painfully obvious we lack a spark in the final third, he’s even pointing out himself in his post match interviews. We had all summer to sign someone, anyone who could offer some creativity in the final third. Instead we signed Sammon and another central midfielder. 

It seems like we were genuinely pinning all our hopes on getting Tanner back fit which was always going to be a risky strategy when someone’s coming back from such an injury. Even more so that we build Tanner up into something he’s not during the time he’s been out.

Even if/when he does come back, you only have to look at Hartley to see it’ll still be another month or two until he’s back near anything like full fitness. 

Edited September 22, 2018 by Casagolda

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, Casagolda said:

Massive blow for us and him.

I still can’t believe Robinson didn’t address this in the summer. I mean it’s painfully obvious we lack a spark in the final third, he’s even pointing out himself in his post match interviews. We had all summer to sign someone, anyone who could offer some creativity in the final third. Instead we signed Sammon and another central midfielder. 

It seems like we were genuinely pinning all our hopes on getting Tanner back fit which was always going to be a risky strategy when someone’s coming back from such an injury. Even more so that we build Tanner up into something he’s not during the time he’s been out.

Even if/when he does come back, you only have to look at Hartley to see it’ll still be another month or two until he’s back near anything like full fitness. 

Can't really argue with that.

Even if we'd signed a "Tanner-a-like" on loan until January or something it'd have meant we weren't wholly relying on him coming straight back and being immediately effective. Which was never going to happen anyway after his knee has pretty much fallen to bits and he's been out for the best part of a year.

The point is, as most of us on here have highlighted, we don't have another player like Tanner in the squad. We've got a handful of technical players but none really do what Tanner does. Bigi's not someone who plays in that area, neither is Turnbull nor Frear. From the way we were lining up in the opening games of the season it feels (to me at least) like we were hoping that Cadden could play the "attacking midfielder" role until Tanner came back.

Which...seems like a misjudgement.

It's unlikely given the relative size of our squad but I wonder if the Tanner news might see us look at free agents.

Edited September 22, 2018 by capt_oats

[Casagolda]

To further emphasise the point that’s another game, another blank and once again we don’t ever really look like scoring.

Meanwhile Sammon was hooked before the hour after another laboured display, Donnelly hooked at half time, Taylor-Sinclair an unused sub as Tait continues to play out of position instead and Rodriguez-Gorrin not even in the squad despite Rose’s absence. 

Anyone still a fan of our summer recruitment policy?

[Swello]

3 hours ago, Casagolda said:

To further emphasise the point that’s another game, another blank and once again we don’t ever really look like scoring.

Meanwhile Sammon was hooked before the hour after another laboured display, Donnelly hooked at half time, Taylor-Sinclair an unused sub as Tait continues to play out of position instead and Rodriguez-Gorrin not even in the squad despite Rose’s absence. 

Anyone still a fan of our summer recruitment policy?

Summer recruitment with the loss of Dunne, Tanner & Kipre isn't looking the best quite honestly (and I was mostly fine with it at the time). Johnson looks like a good signing (assuming we can actually make some chances for him) Aldred is also a player I like and 2018 Bigi is effectively a new signing - but the other guys haven't shown anything at all so far and in a game like today, you'd assume there were some opportunities for the 13-18 mob..

I'm trying to work out how many points I would expect us to have from the start we've had, which hasn't been easy. We are arguably 1 or 2 points worse off than where I like us to be, so it's not panic stations but we are definitely not right, either at the back or going forward and we feel like we're missing a spark at the moment...

[capt_oats]

37 minutes ago, Swello said:

Summer recruitment with the loss of Dunne, Tanner & Kipre isn't looking the best quite honestly (and I was mostly fine with it at the time). Johnson looks like a good signing (assuming we can actually make some chances for him) Aldred is also a player I like and 2018 Bigi is effectively a new signing - but the other guys haven't shown anything at all so far and in a game like today, you'd assume there were some opportunities for the 13-18 mob..

I'm trying to work out how many points I would expect us to have from the start we've had, which hasn't been easy. We are arguably 1 or 2 points worse off than where I like us to be, so it's not panic stations but we are definitely not right, either at the back or going forward and we feel like we're missing a spark at the moment...

The Accies game I'd have been expecting (hoping) for 3 points. Same with Dundee. Aside from that I'd have been hoping to pick up the odd point from one of Hibs, Rangers, Hearts or Aberdeen.

Realistically I'd have us 3 points off where I'd have expected us to be. 4 of our 6 games so far have been against top 6 sides from last season and apart from the Hibs game at Easter Road the other 2 have been narrow (if ultimately toothless) losses. It's a bit shite but for the most part I can take a 1-0 loss at Pittodrie on the chin. What's annoying is the feeling that we haven't really addressed issues that were evident to most of us (and Robinson) last season.

I didn't really have much issue with the signing policy over the summer in the context that we dished out contract extensions prior to the cup final which helped us get a wedge for Kipré. It feels like our investment was chucked in before the transfer window even opened and it's left us a bit hamstrung. I'd be interested to know just how much budget releasing Plummer, Petravicius, Griffiths, Ciftci and Hendrie actually freed up and "what we could have won" with that money. If the chat about St. Johnstone chucking 6 figure salaries at players is anything to go by it's doubtful it'd have been Tony Watt.

Overall we're still lacking a bit of spark and that's kind of where Robinson's fucked it a bit with the Sammon loan and it's clearly been compounded by the Tanner situation (which was always a risk).

Edited September 22, 2018 by capt_oats