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In the great scheme of things, the referee's poor performance on Saturday wasn't a huge issue. We had other more pressing issues with which to contend. However, John Beaton was very inconsistent. Yes, I recall that very incident which had many fans on their feet in protest. I can't, in all honesty, blame SK for complaining about those decisions. I'm one of those sad fans who dislike stealing yards at free kicks and throw ins and so take an interest in such decisions. Beaton constantly pulled up our players for stealing yardage at throw ins but blatantly failed to do so with St Johnstone who were equally as guilty.

I mean, he signed Bair, Biereth, Furlong, Gent, Spencer, AP, JT, Gordon, Seddon, Kaleta, all if whom seem to be consensus good signings. He has got Miller to this stage, and improved Max and Spittal to the degree that they got good moves. Wilson has flagged lately but it wasn't that long ago we were all raving about him too. He also got a ridiculous tune out of KVV, and an equally ridiculous fee, but we prob don't want to talk about that one much. I know he's signed a fair few duds as well, but I'm genuinely interested to see his hit rate compared to other managers, and what other clubs our size have been selling folk for.

I’m not wanting to get into the tedious area of budgets, begging bowls and poverty pleading so the only thing I’ll comment on is the issue of the South Stand lower deck. So if the seats on the bottom tier are genuinely gubbed how come we can open that tier for games against Celtic, Rangers, Hearts and Dundee Utd in the League Cup?? And if certain seats are damaged then why not block them off and use the rest of the stand? And of course if we know which club and which support are to blame then why aren’t we shouting from the rooftops if that club aren’t paying for the repairs for damaged seats??

I was close to him on Saturday, he didn't say anything particularly disrespectful, it was more getting in face of 4th official. I'd rather he was passionate and animated , the officiating in Scotland is a different level of incompetence tbf, as long as he can afford the fines.

Name-calling is not the same thing as debating, not by a long stretch.

I see Paul Smith is recovering from a heart attack, wishing him a speedy recovery. Him and Andy Walker had a good partnership in the 80's, both ....ahem.....crisp finishers !! 🤪 Get well soon Smudger, will never forget that equaliser in cup at tynecastle in 1987 when you cemented Henry Smith to set up Walker, plus your overhead effort against Rangers in league cup semi in 1987 also

I completely agree. There is a human being at the end of this and if folk think it's ok to sit and name call him - I'm not talking about criticising him - I'm talking about name calling - that's on them. It has nothing to do with Kettlewell. Does it make people feel better typing that he's a bell end? This is facebook stuff not on here but there are people who don't like the guy and want him out - do folk need to name call him to achieve that?

To put things in perspective, I was talking to Joewarkthelegend earlier in the week. We've both been going to Fir Park for decades and we agreed that last Saturday's cup performance was the worst we'd witnessed for many many years. That's how poor it was. We're hoping for changes this Saturday, but above all, a change in attitude both on and off the pitch.

I'd go with a 4-1-3-2. It's slim pickings, but we seriously need to move away from the back 5, put someone in front of the back 4, and try get the middle 3 to feed and support the front 2. If that doesn't work, we've got Slattery and Nicholson to come on at h/t, and maybe Paton too if he's fit. Mair Kaleta/SOD Balmer Casey Blaney/Wilson Davor Sparrow Halliday Andrews Watt Maswanhise

For lack of a better analogy, I think Caldwell was suggesting that the bottom tier is a bit like the Forth Road Bridge. That is, it's not completely knackered or closed permanently, so to increase its longevity we've had to make fans predominantly use the top tier (Queensferry Crossing) unless increased capacity is expected, then both are relied upon. As to your second question, I've no idea, and for your third question, my only suggestion would be that the club could be quietly pursuing legal routes for compensation due to the green twats etc.

Not a regular in the Falkirk team that play in a lower division.

Obviously Mair in goals. Vale suspended? I’d have Wilson and Halliday on the bench. Back 3 of Casey and Balmer plus either O’Donnell or Blaney but per Wee Yin’s observation let’s go with O’Donnell Balmer Casey midfield Andrews Sparrow Nicholson Slattery Maswanhise front two Watt Moses We can bring Kaletta on for Nicholson as he tires. Likewise Wilson for TJ

Not if that's what it takes. I've seen plenty of Motherwell teams that were difficult to play against, and none of them were full of nasty players or big physical units.

In today’s game they probably wouldn’t play him as he didn’t run 10k during a game. Halliday gets away with it as he jogs 10k around the centre circle in 90mins. cooper would run about 1km during a match but create about 40 goal scoring chances. Magnificent player.

not sure we'd sign him if that opportunity came up as we ignore wingers. Poor Davy if he did get signed would be put into a wingback position and get dropped for not tracking back enough

Thanks for the clarification, and I dont disagree with most if it. Modern life in general is far less tolerant than it used to be. Society has been groomed to want the next best thing now and that you dont necessarily have to wait or work hard for it. No doubt Wee Tommy would have found it tough in the current circumstances. I dont think you are in the minority though wanting SK to get it right and turn things around. Ive been beating the Slattery, Nicholson, Paton, Miller drum for a while. I (and a number of our other more patient posters) just think time is running out and the manager needs to show a realisation that there are more ways to win a game of football than the one currently being employed. He needs to buy himself time until his favoured midfield / set up is fit and available to play. Saturday is a must win. Any way possible. I dont care how ugly it is or what tactics require to be employed. But we need to give ourselves some breathing space again. That said, the same passive long ball tactics which have been failing, would be unacceptable.

I wish we could go back and have stats like this for when Tommy McLean was our manager. A list of signed players made by him would have made your eyes bleed and send this forum into a frenzy. i suppose for every hundred duffers he got a Cooper right enough.

Thank you for the first comment. I maybe did not make myself very clear with my comment. It was in response to the very last line of mfc88's post when he said words to the effect that all debate was good. I don't have any issue with there being a discussion about the managers performance or the teams performance. That is what this forum is for. There is no doubt that there is problems to address and the style of football can be questioned. I was really disbondent driving home on Saturday night. The concern I have is the emotive language that is often used and the over willingness to start and resurrect these threads at the first available opportunity. The clamour to get managers sacked has become an ugly reality of modern day football. I don't think Tommy McLean would have made it to the Scottish Cup Final if he managed in modern times. I watched some howling performances from his teams in the time leading up to the heady days of 91. SK has been a good servant to the club. Quotes like 'get him to fuck' and adjectives like imposter and wage thief are personal in nature and grossly unfair for a man that will be putting in a harder days graft than most on this forum. I don't read twitter and other social media platforms but it must be pretty bad if it is notably worse than some of the comments on here. Strangely I feel that the situation this time may be a little more serious than the 15 game winless run but I think this has much to do with a modern culture where tolerance for managers generally lasts about 18-24 months before fans start looking for the new Messiah. I would like to see Kettlewell get time to have a fully fit Slattery, Miller and Nicolson in his team. If performances don't improve then, it may be time to thank him for his service and look elsewhere. I accept that I am now in a minority but I still believe that he has earned the time to try and fix things.

All the best to smudger - must say the overhead kick against Rangers got me off my feet and I was told to behave as was in the Rangers end - how could a young fan contain themselves with such an effort.

Spot on. Sums up my feelings exactly. Current performance is the worry. Focusing on an early season SF and our current league position would be a lot more meaningful if the current signs were also positive. But they are far from positive. It speaks volumes that many fans who were fully supportive of SK throughout last season’s bad run, myself included, are now expressing serious doubts. It is not just those that took an irrational immediate dislike to him that are voicing their concerns on here and at games. Saturday is huge. Result aside, SK and the players need to show that they have it within them to get back on track. Give us something to believe in. Please!

SK is approaching where managers go past their sell by date at a club like ours. We saw it with managers that we look back relatively kindly on, such as McCall and Robinson, and even mclean. You do well, but either get picked off by a bigger club (how fucking dare you), or you stay long enough to run out of luck/funds to take it any further, and you either quit or get sacked. The number of injuries and player sales/leaving under SK during his tenure seems to have him speed running towards this, In addition, at clubs where winning something or signing big names isn't likely, changing the manager is pretty much the only interesting thing that can happen. As such, that's where most folk are going to go when things aren't great. There's little interest in a manager building something over a number of years, or just maintaining a level of stability, because that's fucking boring. Despite "10th and a cup run" being the mantra of many a 'Well fan, the reality is that's just not acceptable by a large portion of our fanbase. A cup run is dismissed if we don't win it, and by its nature, 10th is flirting with relegation, and involves losing more games than you win, which is unforgivable. Now, we could finish mid table, but that has to come with entertaining football, which no one can define. FWIW, I don't believe Simo did anything to out-think SK, they just played the way they have been under him, as he is also a one trick pony, fortunately for him his trick worked against us.

I normally enjoy your posts as they are always thoughtful and well reasoned, but I think you are off the mark with this one. The manager and the team may or may not be in turmoil, I would say thats quite a subjective assessment. But things in the garden are certainly not rosy. We have a squad with 9 injured players, several of them long term, a situation which has been pretty much ever present since the start of the season. The team is misfiring badly and is struggling to create any meaningful chances, far less score consistently. We cant keep a clean sheet. We have a manager who is wedded to a system he doesnt have the players to implement and shows no sign of changing it. The style of football has been terrible for large parts of the season and we just got knocked out of the cup by the worst team in the league without so much as a whimper. Ive defended SK on here for the most part as there has been plenty of mitigation for performances and the circumstances he has had to face. We ARE still in a reasonably healthy position in the league, and until that changes he does deserve the opportunity to turn things around. But lets not pretend its a conversation that shouldnt be happening, because its getting talked about plenty in the stands and in the pubs. Thats not to say the discourse surrounding the subject cant be more respectful. But we shouldnt be comparing this place to Twitter or Facebook.

It's not though. What we often forget is that there is a human being on the other end of this discussion, who is working really hard for the club and who has saved us from relegation in the last two seasons. This thread was started very early in SK's tenure and has trundled on throughout his time at the helm. We are talking about a guy who has a career to build, a family to feed and who is an honest hard worker professional who has done well for this club. The appetite to sack managers is generally distasteful and it is really easy to be smart ( and often anonymous) on a football forum. I am not referencing you in this mfc88, just quoting your last sentence. Sacking manager threads should surface in times when a team is in turmoil. This team is not in turmoil and yet there are fans hell bent on creating instability and a false sense of turmoil. It seems that this is now as much a part of the entertainment as the football itself. I think SK deserves a bit more respect. He has earned it.

Nobody knows where we’ll end up, though. Let’s say we lose this weekend, and Hibs manage a win away at County. Suddenly, we’d drop from 5th to 6th. Would the manager be sacked for that? If so, I’d have some serious questions for the club. Chief among them would be: who’s taking over? I’d assume there’s someone better lined up, ready to step in and make an immediate difference? Because for a club like ours to sack the manager while sitting in the top six would be absolutely baffling. Given all the hand-wringing over a supposed “financial gap” during the summer, I’d also want to know the cost of letting the manager—and presumably his coaching staff—go mid-season. Now, if we were down in 11th, fair enough, that’s a different conversation. But in the top six? Is that really where we’ve set the bar for managers at Motherwell? Have we reached the point where making it to a cup semi-final and being in the top half of the table doesn’t guarantee job security? If so, I’d seriously question the judgement of those making these decisions. For me, it’s about keeping our heads above water, and seeing how things improve once our key injured players are back in the fold. When the season’s over, by all means, let’s reflect on what worked and what didn’t. But making drastic changes mid-season? That should only ever be an absolute last resort.