Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[capt_oats]

3 hours ago, weemac said:

I think what is now becoming clearer each week is that Michael Stewart is ITK as f**k. 

One of the more interesting aspects of the Ally Gorrin Impact is that he's precisely as he was billed by Robinson when he signed ie: he gives us more "ownership" in the midfield.

@well fan for life mentioned it on the match thread in so much as it may well have been by design we've ended up with the Campbell, Gorrin, Turnbull midfield 3 which is probably fair when you consider that win, lose or draw Robinson spent last season banging on about how we needed to "look after" the ball more in possession. Either way Gorrin's probably one of the summer signings worth reappraising.

Ironically, despite him still being our top scorer Danny Johnson's one who's probably gone the other way.

[Gianfranco]

The midfield 3 has been so good that Andy Rose is a forgotten man.

[well fan for life]

One of the more interesting aspects of the Ally Gorrin Impact is that he's precisely as he was billed by Robinson when he signed ie: he gives us more "ownership" in the midfield.

[mention=3435]well fan for life[/mention] mentioned it on the match thread in so much as it may well have been by design we've ended up with the Campbell, Gorrin, Turnbull midfield 3 which is probably fair when you consider that win, lose or draw Robinson spent last season banging on about how we needed to "look after" the ball more in possession. Either way Gorrin's probably one of the summer signings worth reappraising.

Ironically, despite him still being our top scorer Danny Johnson's one who's probably gone the other way.

 

Of the summer arrivals I’d be wanting Gorrín on longer terms and Johnson to be packed straight back to Gateshead.

 

Truth be told I love the bold Ally Gorrín. He’s class af in possession but absolutely loves cementing folk in 50/50s. All the time in the world for it.

 

Edit: I reckon what we’ve got with Gorrín is what we thought we were going to get with Bigirimana but that turned out to be a total bust.

[buddie06smfc]

It's a shame players like Graham and Gallagher seem to take advantage of that to get better deals elsewhere, but that's where football is just now.

You’re only kidding yourself on with this naive nonsense. That’s everyday life. It’s not a shame, it’s reality. Most people would do the same, it’s not a job they’re going to maintain for the rest of their days.

[Swello]

43 minutes ago, buddie06smfc said:

You’re only kidding yourself on with this naive nonsense. That’s everyday life. It’s not a shame, it’s reality. Most people would do the same, it’s not a job they’re going to maintain for the rest of their days.

More than that, it's pretty much explicitly what players are paying agents to do - play clubs off against each other to get a better deal for the player. Every club regularly misses out on targets for this reason - it's just rarer that the "losing" club goes public about it, which makes me think that there was some additional stuff involved in this one..

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Joe Chalmers has just scored a goal of the season contender. The end is nigh.

[Casagolda]

Robinson didn’t seemed too impressed with Wright’s comments anyway.

Quote

St Johnstone manager Tommy Wright revealed on Friday that the Livingston central defender’s agent informed him his player has agreed to a move to Fir Park but the Motherwell boss dismissed his fellow Northern Irishman’s comments.

“I don’t discuss transfers so it’s not a one-off for me and I never have,” Robinson said.

“I don’t speak about other team’s players or my transfer plans in public so I’m surprised that other managers have. We will just keep our business to ourselves.”

Might just be me but I reckon if we have went out and agreed a deal for Gallagher, Aldred’s already told Robinson he won’t be back next season.

By all accounts returning to us wasn’t his first choice this summer but Bury were struggling for suitable takers. If he’s on a free and on the back of another stellar season for us, you’d have to think he wouldn’t be short of decent offers a bit closer to home in League 1/League 2.

Hopefully we can get Hastie signed up for next season but that seems to have gone quiet. Imagine big Ally Gorrin and Grimshaw will also rightly be getting offered new deals as well. Can see Main, Frear and McHugh being among those to depart this summer though, along with maybe one or two of those under contract. 

Edited March 3, 2019 by Casagolda

[dezz]

If we have agreed a deal to bring Gallacher in I would agree that it seems more than likely Aldred will be away. It’d seem a bit overkill to have Dunne, Gallacher, Hartley, Maguire (assuming he extends) and potentially all or some of McHugh, Mbulu and Aldred.

 

I’m sure he was rumoured to be on good money at Bury so wouldn’t be surprised if he got a decent league one club after his performances for us.

 

[capt_oats]

2 hours ago, Casagolda said:

Robinson didn’t seemed too impressed with Wright’s comments anyway.

Might just be me but I reckon if we have went out and agreed a deal for Gallagher, Aldred’s already told Robinson he won’t be back next season.

By all accounts returning to us wasn’t his first choice this summer but Bury were struggling for suitable takers. If he’s on a free and on the back of another stellar season for us, you’d have to think he wouldn’t be short of decent offers a bit closer to home in League 1/League 2.

Hopefully we can get Hastie signed up for next season but that seems to have gone quiet. Imagine big Ally Gorrin and Grimshaw will also rightly be getting offered new deals as well. Can see Main, Frear and McHugh being among those to depart this summer though, along with maybe one or two of those under contract. 

It may not mean anything other than someone was fannying around with the CMS of the website but when I was checking Hartley's contract expiry I noticed that Hastie was (briefly) added to the first team squad. He had originally been listed as a midfielder on the Reserves but the first team page had been updated to include him but was then refreshed from the below around an hour or so later so he's now showing as a Forward on the Reserves page.

Fwiw: prior to Turnbull's extension being announced his profile had been updated from the Reserves to the First Team (and Newell's loan was published early by mistake).

As I say it may mean f**k all or it could be we planned to announce something but decided that running a news story on a Friday night is pretty daft (or the #content wasn't ready or such) but either way the screenshot is here.

Edited March 3, 2019 by capt_oats

[Gianfranco]

I wonder if we’ll get to see a fully fit McCormack this season.

[Casagolda]

1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

Hard to look at that and not think a complete overhaul will be required this summer in that particular department. 

Think Johnson’s the only one there actually under contract for next season and he’s had even less league minutes this year than Sammon.

 

[capt_oats]

12 hours ago, Casagolda said:

Hard to look at that and not think a complete overhaul will be required this summer in that particular department. 

Think Johnson’s the only one there actually under contract for next season and he’s had even less league minutes this year than Sammon.

Aye. Johnson feels like the new Bowman to me tbh. Though he's our top scorer I don't think Robinson is remotely convinced by him and he's behind Main, Scott, Sammon and presumably McCormack if he was fit. Which is further down the pecking order than big Herbalife ever was.

He doesn't really fit with the way we're set up at the moment and that doesn't look like it's going to change given we went to Parkhead and made a very decent fist of things with a 433.

There are quite a few first team players who if we're offering them anything then it'll more than likely be on reduced terms (Main, McHugh, Frear, Tanner).

Here's a broad overview of the squad/contract situations:

Contracts offered (confirmed):

• Jake Hastie
• Barry Maguire

Loans expiring:

• Tom Aldred
• Gboly Ariyibi
• Conor Sammon
• Ross McCormack

Out of contract:

• Christian Mbulu
• Carl McHugh
• Chris Cadden (injured)
• Elliot Frear
• Liam Grimshaw
• Alex Rodriguez Gorrin
• Craig Tanner (injured)
• Curtis Main
• George Newell

Reserves with first team appearances expiring:

• Adam Livingstone
• Liam Brown

Contracted first team players not getting starts:

• Peter Hartley
• Danny Johnson

Pre-contract (unconfirmed):

• Declan Gallagher

Edited March 4, 2019 by capt_oats

[Gianfranco]

Danny Johnson is a strange one. He has goals against the bigger sides but doesn’t suit this formation. I wonder if he’s worth a go on the wing off the bench.

[capt_oats]

23 minutes ago, Gianfranco said:

Danny Johnson is a strange one. He has goals against the bigger sides but doesn’t suit this formation. I wonder if he’s worth a go on the wing off the bench.

Going by the interviews he gave a while back he seems to simply see himself as a goalscorer. Which, is fair enough as it's his game but I guess it's also part of the problem.

Robinson's after more from him in terms of his all round game but he's looking at it as being the case that as long as he's scoring goals he's doing his job.

It's a bit of a shite situation that's not really anyone's fault.

When he signed we played 2 up front and he was chipping in with goals. The formation's changed in a pretty organic (and effective way) and it's just not a good fit for him. He doesn't have the physicality of Main, Scott or Sammon and though he doesn't have the height a fully fit McCormack would have the technical ability that he'd be able to get by as the central forward in the 3.

Quote

"I've always said the goals are always going to be there it's the other part of my game that I need to develop and obviously I'm working on them to get them up to my goalscoring abilities though I do believe my goals will pull me through more than my overall game."

 

 

Edited March 3, 2019 by capt_oats

[Busta Nut]

With two (and a half) games to look back on, there was plenty to discuss when Sparra was joined by Busta, Jay and BBC Sport Scotland’s Scott Mullen.

 

https://www.mfc1886.com/mfc-podcast-2018-19-episode-30/

[well fan for life]

13 hours ago, capt_oats said:

Going by the interviews he gave a while back he seems to simply see himself as a goalscorer. Which, is fair enough as it's his game but I guess it's also part of the problem.

Robinson's after more from him in terms of his all round game but he's looking at it as being the case that as long as he's scoring goals he's doing his job.

It's a bit of a shite situation that's not really anyone's fault.

When he signed we played 2 up front and he was chipping in with goals. The formation's changed in a pretty organic (and effective way) and it's just not a good fit for him. He doesn't have the physicality of Main, Scott or Sammon and though he doesn't have the height a fully fit McCormack would have the technical ability that he'd be able to get by as the central forward in the 3.

 

His repeated line of "I'll score goals which will see me alright" is an interesting hill to die on for him. Now fair enough he had a good record at Gateshead and has scored a few for us but we aren't really a team that can afford a guy who wants to stand in the penalty area and poach. He needs to work on his all round game in terms of holding up the ball and working alongside teammates and it sounds like Robinson's told him as much but it's falling on deaf ears.

It says something about the striking options that when Main was out for whatever reason you want to believe, we opted to play an 18 year old in his first start ahead of Sammon & Johnson. 

 

[Londonwell]

More speculation this morning of clubs looking at Hastie.

It will be interesting to see how his on-field play adapts to this higher profile. From what I saw of the Killie game he was being doubled up on, which nullified his threat. If he's to become a top player he will have to learn to overcome that. 

[Swello]

1 hour ago, well fan for life said:

It says something about the striking options that when Main was out for whatever reason you want to believe, we opted to play an 18 year old in his first start ahead of Sammon & Johnson. 

I think the fact that Scott is in ahead of Sammon is purely with an eye to the future, as I think despite the fact that he's not worked out for us, Sammon is a more accomplished player than Scott at this point. This is precisely what Robinson should be doing and shows that the outside chance of a Top 6 place is not the main thing for us.

He's playing ahead of Johnson simply as Johnson is not in the least suited to be being a lone striker as the County game demonstrated conclusively.

Whoever said that the centre forwards are the area needing the biggest overhaul in the summer is 100% correct - we need to get that bit right and our requirements have completely changed assuming we start next season using the same shape as now.

[capt_oats]

#YoungMotherwell X Scotland

Edited March 4, 2019 by capt_oats

[Del_Superwell]

3 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

#YoungMotherwell

Great to see our young talents being recognised, cant remember the last time we ever had 4 players in one squad,  only thing that can top this off for me now would be Hastie signing his new contract.