Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[capt_oats]

12 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

So, Ricki Lamie then?

Noticed the Livi bois talking about it in their thread...I mean it's not a massive surprise given Gallagher's been a success but is interesting on a couple of levels.

Obvious one is that he's a pal of Gallagher (and Watt's it seems going by #TONY's IG stories from the weekend), the other is that he's a left sided centre back which presumably means one or both of Hartley and Dunne will be out the door.

Edited February 26, 2020 by capt_oats

[Gianfranco]

Left sided centre back is definitely our weak spot at the moment. I’m not really sure how good Lamie is? I haven’t really noticed him in our games against them.

[Busta Nut]

What's this? A rumour? A confirmed pre contract?

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Tbh I'm still clinging to the faint hope that Tam Aldred gets tired of living in a fiery inferno 24/7 and comes home.

[capt_oats]

8 minutes ago, Gianfranco said:

Left sided centre back is definitely our weak spot at the moment. I’m not really sure how good Lamie is? I haven’t really noticed him in our games against them.

He was on the bench in the last game but played the full 90 in the 2-1 at Fir Park and the 0-0 on the opening day. https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/ricki-lamie/leistungsdaten/spieler/216270

It appears he's "fallen down the pecking order" according to the story in the Record (and the Livi thread as well tbf). I see he can double up at LB too.

4 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

What's this? A rumour? A confirmed pre contract?

Scott Burns in the Record running a story suggesting we're interested in him on a PCA. https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-transfer-news/rickie-lamie-wanted-motherwell-stephen-21579097

Edited February 26, 2020 by capt_oats

[well fan for life]

35 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Tbh I'm still clinging to the faint hope that Tam Aldred gets tired of living in a fiery inferno 24/7 and comes home.

Judging by his Instagram posts he looks like he's having a shite time over there with all that good weather and amazing places to see. 

[RandomGuy.]

1 hour ago, Gianfranco said:

 I haven’t really noticed him in our games against them.

Hes that good...

I was desperate for us to for him, before we got McCart, so presumably that's why you've targeted him

[LIVIFOREVER]

2 hours ago, capt_oats said:

Noticed the Livi bois talking about it in their thread...I mean it's not a massive surprise given Gallagher's been a success but is interesting on a couple of levels.

Obvious one is that he's a pal of Gallagher (and Watt's it seems going by #TONY's IG stories from the weekend), the other is that he's a left sided centre back which presumably means one or both of Hartley and Dunne will be out the door.

Gallagher was one of our first choice CB's, Lamie is either 4th or 5th, does a decent job at LB too though and has been a great utility player for us, filling in at LB or playing CB whenever needed, and never letting us down. Robust defender that gets stuck in and is good in the air.

Aaron Taylor-Sinclair has claimed the LB spot ahead of Lamie, and Brown and Guthrie are an established CB pairing now, and with Efe Ambrose signing then Lamie drops down to the same place as Lithgow, either just in front of him or also behind him, depending on how Lithgow does once he's back from illness and injury problems. Tbh i'd like to keep him at Livi for being a useful squad player, has done well for us the last couple of seasons.

[capt_oats]

24 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

Gallagher was one of our first choice CB's, Lamie is either 4th or 5th, does a decent job at LB too though and has been a great utility player for us, filling in at LB or playing CB whenever needed, and never letting us down. Robust defender that gets stuck in and is good in the air.

Aaron Taylor-Sinclair has claimed the LB spot ahead of Lamie, and Brown and Guthrie are an established CB pairing now, and with Efe Ambrose signing then Lamie drops down to the same place as Lithgow, either just in front of him or also behind him, depending on how Lithgow does once he's back from illness and injury problems. Tbh i'd like to keep him at Livi for being a useful squad player, has done well for us the last couple of seasons.

See there's loads of that that would make sense for us. As has been mentioned left side centre back has turned into a massive problem position for us as Hartley's gone off a cliff and Charlie Dunne has been out injured since summer (and missed half the 18/19 season as well) both are out of contract at the end of the season so there's a chance (probably a pretty good one) that we'll be looking for 2 players in that area of the park.

Jake Carroll's our left back and is now out for the season and possibly into next season after he did his achilles, Richard Tait's been our cover there but he's out of contract as well and has struggled for game time at right back generally. So a utility player who naturally covers the left side ticks boxes - and should probably be something we look at regardless of Tait's situation.

Given there's been a quite clear disparity in success with recruitment this season ie: the more 'known' (Polworth, Gallagher etc) have been more successful than the punts (Hiya Sherwin, Hiya Christy, Hiya Christian, Hiya Bevis)....it made me wonder if that would inform the sort of targets we're looking at with a view to PCAs - lessons learned and all that. I'm curious to see if we might shift towards more 'known' players having been burned by The Friendly Ghost who was the cherry on top of the assortment of dross we've managed to acquire by taking on "projects".

We've already been linked with Jordan White and now we're apparently looking at Lamie. I mean absolutely fair fucks if we're basically looking at signing former ICT and Livi players or both in the case of White but in a broader sense it'll be interesting to see how it all pans out - Robinson's become a bit one note when trying to explain this shitemare of a run "we're inexperienced, young team, we'll make mistakes" being the go to and there's no doubt we've been naive but I'm curious to see how we address that with the sort of players who'll be available on our budget.

Edited February 26, 2020 by capt_oats

[ATLIS]

I've been saying this since last year but honestly Lamie isn't good enough for us. If he manages to wing a move to you then it'll be ridiculous. He's still learning at this level despite being here two years. I was excited when we signed him up but he's just too prone to letting guys past him whereas Guthrie and Brown (and seemingly Efe) are all way more solid than Lamie is. He played his best football for us at LWB in a 352 so not sure if that's something you'd be exploring but even then in every position he'd play for us he's about 4th or 5th choice.

[LIVIFOREVER]

He's done no bad at CB this season when called in to play there, was him and Guthrie playing there when we beat Celtic 2-0 at home, and again in our 3-0 win against Killie, 2-0 win at home to Hibs, a few more that have been draws and defeats, but on the whole he's been decent playing CB, and is a useful player to have that can also play LB. Since the winter break Brown has been signed on loan and formed a solid partnership with Guthrie though, and now Ambrose has signed, so Lamie isn't likely to be playing there unless we get a couple of injuries.

[Ron Aldo]

The fact that Lamie is behind Aaron Taylor-Sinclair at Livi suggests he might not be that good.

[ropy]

ATS is a poacher now 

[crispy]

Lamie wins plenty in the air and is a good option for flicking something on from a kickout. Its true that he’s down the pecking order now but he’s a nice option to sure things up if we end up under siege by the old firm.
His best mate in footie is Tony Watt, if I remember the podcast rightly. I think they played together at a younger age. Much like with Gallagher, it’s a move to a bigger club and likely for more cash so I could understand it if not for that alone.

[Casagolda]

13 hours ago, Ron Aldo said:

The fact that Lamie is behind Aaron Taylor-Sinclair at Livi suggests he might not be that good.

To be fair to Taylor Sinclair, he’s scored as many League goals in 2020 as Motherwell have. 

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

32 minutes ago, Casagolda said:

To be fair to Taylor Sinclair, he’s scored as many League goals in 2020 as Motherwell have. 

Can only imagine how delighted he looks when the ball hits the back of the net!

The talk of Lamie seems a bit more underwhelming when you find out he's a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none and down the pecking order at Livi. Don't get me wrong, there's every chance he'd improve a backline with Hartley and Mugabi in it.

It would be a no brainier to offer a fit Dunne a new deal for me, but you can't ignore the amount of games he's missed and the recurring nature of his injuries.

Surprised to hear that Lithgow seems down the pecking order from what the Livi fans on the thread have said. Every time I seen them last season, that back three seemed the constant of the team and I thought after losing Gallagher and Halkett, they'd have been relieved to keep one. Fair play though, they seem to have kicked on again.

 

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

The talk of Lamie seems a bit more underwhelming when you find out he's a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none and down the pecking order at Livi. Don't get me wrong, there's every chance he'd improve a backline with Hartley and Mugabi in it.

It would be a no brainier to offer a fit Dunne a new deal for me, but you can't ignore the amount of games he's missed and the recurring nature of his injuries.

Dunne's an odd one in so much as he clearly has the size, pace etc, at 27 he's still a good age and by all accounts was the preferred parter to Gallagher at the start of the season but on top of the obvious injury stuff he's not someone you'd say was comfortable on the ball - and I'm not 100% he'd be a fit for what we're trying to do going forward, that said beggars, choosers, better the devil you know and all that.

Going by his IG he had been spending a fair amount of time back down in London with his family while he's been injured (which is absolutely fair enough). He's had a shite time of it lately.

As I said yesterday the interesting part for me is where we end up looking for players given the roles we have to fill (not accounting for any sales) and how/if it's informed by our recruitment this season.

Spoiler

• Gallagher - Livi
• Polworth - ICT
• Carroll - Cambridge United
• Sloth - Silkeborg
• Hylton - Solihull Moors
• Long - Blackpool
• Seedorf - Wolves u23s
• Ilic - TSV Hartberg
• Manzinga - Sporting Chatelet
• MacIver - Ross County u20s
• Mugabi - Yeovil
• Watt - CSKA Sofia
• Cole - Wigan (loan)
• O'Hara - Peterborough (loan)
• Ndjoli - Brighton (loan)
• Arrons - Newcastle (loan)

Looking at the distribution that's 16 players: 

• 5 Scottish players
• 2x EPL (loans) 
• 1x EFL Championship (loan)
• 1x EFL League 1
• 1x EFL League 2
• 2x National League
• 1x EPL u23s
• 3 from the EU (2 of whom had been trialists)

As it stands we've got 11 first team players OOC (2 currently out on loan) and 3 loans expiring, in terms of areas of the park that's:

• 2 goalkeepers (1 currently out on loan)
• 4 defenders (2 FB, 2 CB)
• 2 midfield (2 CM)
• 6 forward (3 CF, 3 wide forwards)

I suppose the question is where we'd be able to get value. Pre-contracts for folk like Polworth and Gallagher seemed like a definite shift from a few seasons ago when we were focussing on the National League after Johnson and Moult had done us a turn.

Also, there's an element where it seems an end of a cycle...what we're looking for from players in terms of quality now is different to where we were at the first major Robinson rebuild (which is when we signed guys like Dunne & Hartley).

For reference...here are Transfermarkt's expiring contracts by league:

• Scottish Premiership
• Scottish Championship
• EFL League 1
• EFL League 2

Edited February 27, 2020 by capt_oats

[Neil86]

How up to date that list is I am not sure, Liam Grimshaw still on it for example. Few players you would obviously take, pittman and maybe less so lawless at Livi however i suspect they would have much better offers on the table than us, Lawless maybe the only player we have let go in the last 15 years that you could say has been a success? probably quite an unpopular opinion but Gogic loves doing the dirty work at accies, we could do much worse, templeton too but I reckon he quite enjoys being at accies and he isn't getting any younger

Championship wise, we were linked with Daniel Harvie of Ayr a while back who is also out of contract, a left back. 

Ali crawford is also out of contract at Bolton, no idea of how he done down there?

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

Dunne's an odd one in so much as he clearly has the size, pace etc, at 27 he's still a good age and by all accounts was the preferred parter to Gallagher at the start of the season but on top of the obvious injury stuff he's not someone you'd say was comfortable on the ball - and I'm not 100% he'd be a fit for what we're trying to do going forward, that said beggars, choosers, better the devil you know and all that.

Yeah, his ability on the ball is another thing to consider. He did start the season as Gallagher's partner but if I remember correctly, Hartley had already kinda taken his place - Dunne played LB against Accies and was then on the bench against Hibs before he went for his op.

I guess it's not impossible that we might end up seeing a total refresh of our centre-back options in the summer. Can see us trying to cash in on Gallagher with a year left on his deal, letting Dunne and Hartley's contracts expire and realising giving Mugabi a contract extension was a brainfart and somehow trying to punt him.

Dunne and Tait do both strike me as "better the devil you know" in terms of knowing they can both do a job and fearing what the alternative may be given some of the dross we signed this season.

[andylivi1]

Lots of talk about Ricki Lamie moving to you guys and I notice there has been a bit of chat already in here, i was approached to give my opinion on what I thought of him, can give it a read here.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/local-sport/motherwell-target-ricki-lamie-profiled-21588569