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I guess it depends what you mean by moved us forward? I was all for his appointment in the beginning as he appeared to be a more "out of the box" choice than some of the usual suspects, but IMHO he took our football back to the dark ages. It was absolutely fine when he was winning games and he deserves a lot of credit for keeping us up in his first 6 months, but what followed after that was abysmal. He did turn it around, get us top 6 and into Europe (making it absolutely impossible for the board to fire him) but at what cost? Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but if I was going back now, I wouldnt hire him again.

You'd have thought with everyone being so well informed about how shite Kettlewell, the players and our tactics are, that they'd have been able to prepare themselves for the result on Sunday and not get too upset, eh? I do hope that all of the ACLs and other ligaments that have been ripped apart by the knee jerks heal up well. For the record, Sunday was pish. It wasn't season and managerial career defining by any means. He fucked up and he'll hopefully learn from it moving forward. Fifth in the league on goal difference with a game in hand on fourth, four points clear of sixth with a game in hand and two games in hand over seventh, a cup semi-final and all with a team playing shite football without a striker who's scoring goals.

Been saying this past few weeks, I think stama is a player but not being used properly, I think with maswanhise they deserve a run of 4 to 5 games to see if it works......but not if all they get is hoofball

I don't mind Kettlewell but he is a master of his own downfall with some of the tactics he uses he seems to over think things alot of the time and I really don't understand why we bothered to fork out a shit ton of money on Stam to use him utterly appallingly. I am convinced we have a fantastic player in there but the way he is been used due to Kettlewells set ups is shocking but that also comes to not having someone creative in the midfield either.

Who's actually going to do a better job working within our budget? SK has his faults, as do we all - I personally think his substitutions on Sunday were wild and effectively gave Rangers the tie however if we are being brutally honest with ourselves we had no right to be in the semi final given what we spend on wages/players compared to practically any other club in our league, he got us there and for that you have to praise the guy. I think it's also abundantly clear and perfectly highlighted last season when we went on our long run without a win that he has full respect from the players and has yet to lose the dressing room, the same can't be said for his predecessors who lost the dressing room on a similar run to what we were on last year. Nice guy into the bargain, I think we have a decent gaffer at the helm all things considered.

Who knew Craig Levein was such a visionary! 😆😆😆

Yeah teams budget is an important point in the big picture. But its not as black and white as that, and had we given a good account of ourselves, I'd accept that point. But we didn't play in a way that made us test rangers as best we could to make them earn that game. That is our failing in my opinion, and we shouldn't use rangers' budget as an excuse for our failings, otherwise we we are beaten before a ball is kicked. I can totally respect a different view of the game, but that is how I see it. As i said, other recent finals/ semis I've seen us lose out on (thinking of the 2 celtic games in 17/18 as the freshest in mind), I have left the stadium with a totally different feeling of disappointment... not with the feeling that we fell short tactically.

The last manager to actually take us forward was Graham Alexander so maybe you shouldn't be that surprised. A lot of our fans are living in cloud cuckoo land and a lot of them use supporting the club as an excuse to target individuals. The analysis on here in a lot of cases comes down to faces fitting.

Sensible well reasoned posts like that have no place on this forum. SK could win the treble for us, get us to the champions league groups and the usual SK haters on here would still be obsessed with getting rid of him, eat, sleep, rave about SK , repeat.

Don't get beat 7-0. And they worked.

Aye, absolutely. All about 'forwards' nowadays rather than the strikers, Haaland and the two you mention aside. Although the supporting cast around him are so good he can essentially just poach like Lineker did in the bygone era etc. I definitely have issues with Kettlewell's tactics but I do think he's hamstrung by the injuries we have currently. I know it's an excuse but it's glaringly obvious we're missing Paton's ability to carry the ball into the box (something I never thought I'd type, tbh) and Nicholson's creativity.

He’s a Young hard working manager who has built a decent back room team, he’s not went down the old pals route and went for people he didn’t know but knew of their good reputation. A risky thing to do. improved players and made money out them (van veen) Bought Bair and made him Better and made us a million. He’s given young players a chance cementing their place in the first team and improving the clubs survival by inevitably selling these players on, ensuring the clubs financial footing. We are sitting in a healthy position in the league and did well in the cup getting to the semi. Ultimately failing but we weren’t too far off? Still have another cup ahead of us. i personally think he’s doing well as a manager (stats prove that) and would be really curious from the people who want him out as to who they would chose to do better? I asked this last year and we had Courts, Levein and Tommy wright mentioned. Looking at the 3 brought up to replace him I just think thank fk some of our fan base don’t chose managers.

It will be anathema to most Motherwell supporters to give any praise to Rangers but I thought Rangers were actually pretty good off the ball. Their press was good and they won every aerial duel. They made it difficult to get any flow going and they took Miller out the game. On the ball they are still way below where you'd expect a team with Rangers resources to be but the ugly side of the game they did well. However a lot of Motherwell fans simply won't accept that the oppositions performance had something to do with our performance.

Great post.

After lot of thoughts and reading a lot of opinions. I do feel that up to now in the season we have over achieved. Our defence is OK but without mcginn we have no defender to help out in attacking phases and this hurt us on Sunday. Our midfield as most know is very poor and I don't recall 1 game this season where we have dominated. Strikers then have no ammunition but anytime moses is on he looks Our most dangerous and why he wasn't brought on Sunday is really a mystery. We are still in every game that we play apart from celtic other week so if we can somehow remedy midfield with our injured players returning or additions in jan then certainly we can have a gd season.

On our league position - right now it’s very healthy and if this continues then there’s little argument on the manager . The purpose of finishing higher and higher is to get more money and then in turn improve the team/player standard and the club - that’s where the debate can really start at the end of this season when we see the league position against the balance sheet. Whether the happy clappy brigade want to admit it or not the standard on show and the product on the pitch is dreadful to watch but that is a lot down to the how the manager sets the team up. It’s a fine balance of course but yesterday for me and the lack of any standard does stop people coming to fir park. Not many of the extra 4k at the game yesterday will be back anytime soon. Apart from the occasion itself there’s next to nothing to bring them back - a defensive team - a team with no style - hoofball - zero entertainment - a team chasing shadows with no out ball - a team that couldn’t force a save out an opposition goalkeeper with one real chance in 90 minutes - a team with players that jog rather than sprint 5 minutes after they come on - a team with a manager who chooses his own deluded take on proceedings As I said at the top now’s not the time to judge a manager fully , the end of the season is but even the most claret and amber tinted glass wearing happy clappy must see that set ups and performances like yesterday won’t tap into this fan base people at the club and the full society board keep harping on about. We the fans filled the allocation yesterday backed the team and we got zero entertainment and a manger in my opinion who didn’t know how to beat the poorest new rangers team in their history - that mainly due to poor signings and a naivety of what a proper performance never mind the result could have done to attract the floating fan back for more. Pass marks so far for league position but yesterday an epic fail to bolster our fans back to Fir Park rhetoric that’s being pushed by many inside the club/society

Not posted on here in a while but needed a bit of a vent. Overriding feeling is total disappointment and disillusionment. Have seen us play at hampden several times now. Win and nothing else matters. Lose and I've come away with several emotions - annoyed with refs, individual errors, or in the case of the 2018 SC final, just that we lost to a better team. But yesterday was the first time I've come away thinking what is the f**king point. Rangers didn't win that game, we lost it. Say what you like about budgets, this, that the next... valid if rangers play in a way that merits a final spot. Did they?? Continually use these excuses and we are there to make up the numbers, not compete. Can't fault the players for effort, but instructions given to them and the way we set out to compete was pathetic. Out of possession, we stood off and let them have the ball. Rangers are not operating as a good team just now, so we needed to get on top of them. Don't do that, and they still have good individual players who will eventually carve something out given time and space. In possession there was no strategy for ball retention. It was almost always a lump up the park and hope something happens. Bread and butter for souttar and balogun, who dealt with it all day with absolutely nothing else to think about - I don't even remember us winning a header in their half and no one near our strikers to compete for the second ball or shut rangers down when they won it, and it just ended up coming back at us. I wasn't best pleased with our approach first half, but somehow find ourselves 1 up, fans are on their back, they are low in confidence - all boxes ticked so far. Now, a 15 min break for a calm down, reset, recharge and we had 45 mins to simply not let certain individuals play, but it was more of the same and the managers strategy of riding our luck ran out. I do like Kettlewell on the whole, but the way we set out was all wrong and once our luck ran out we needed a change in approach to win that game and it never happened. I can't help thinking had stephen robinson been in charge, the way he sets up to play the OF, we win yesterday. Mentions for kaleta who was excellent and wilson who conducted himself admirably for a young lad playing out of position. Wilson has gone under the radar IMO with the hype around lennon, but hoping he continues to progress and apply himself the way he has been.

The fact that this discussion is even happening while we're sitting 5th with a four-point lead and a game in hand over the team in 6th spot, and fresh off a cup semi-final loss to Rangers is absolutely wild. I see that the usual suspects are moving the goalposts like crazy. They can't complain about us not challenging for top six or a decent cup run, because we're getting that at the moment. It requires some creative thinking and mental gymnastics to keep the narrative going at this stage. So, what are we getting instead? Chat like "shitebag, idiot & donkey," and vague patter about possession percentages, bravery, identity and other intangible nonsense. It all can be summed up as follows:

The thing is nobody knows what players Kettlewell tried to bring into the club at the start of the season. For all we know the players we signed could have been 2nd/3rd/4th choices. I would be more concerned if some of them were his 1st choice though as that would question his judgement or on the other hand could just as easily have reflected our budget constraints. As far as the style of play is concerned have a look through the forums of all the other teams in the SPL with the possible exception of Celtic and Aberdeen and the fans are all moaning about the same style of football and tactics we are. It's more down to the quality of the League which is getting worse with each passing season and it's now more about not wanting to lose rather than win a game. I've watched quite a few non Motherwell games this season and they've mostly been all been turgid shit with each team more interested in cancelling the other one out rather than trying to entertain the fans. If anyone knows of some attack minded free flowing football manager out there who would transform the way we play while keeping within budget and free from relegation then feel free to name him.

Aye ok Scully.