capt_oats

Kennedy.

Not much to add beyond what's already been said here. 1st half we showed little movement and our inability to keep hold of the ball or pass to our own man was staggering. Johnson's performance was Straker-esque. 2nd half was better but we still looked pretty toothless going forward. There were a couple of things of note though; - Ripley seemed to be throwing/rolling the ball out significantly more, whilst he did leather the ball down the park a few times it seemed to be much less than I've seen previously. Having said that even throwing from hand he still managed to cede possession a few times trying to get the ball up the park on a counter. - Also, the whole Laing in midfield thing; going back to the close season and our reported interest in Jackson Irvine combined with the fact that we've often been dominated then listening to McGhee's post-match interview, all the attributes he mentioned (height, physicality, breaking up play etc) are exactly the sort of qualities of an Irvine *type* of player. Obviously it's up for debate whether or not Laing is the guy to do that job or not however it'd certainly suggest that it hasn't taken McGhee long to identify the fact that we're missing someone like that in midfield.

It ties in with something he said in that Scotland presser a couple of weeks ago, I had just assumed that the "people who have associations" would have been Craigan or Leitch, he says "a lot of people" so he may well have talked to them as well; "I've been complimented that a lot of people around me and a lot of people who have associations there have suggested that it would be a good thing for me and a good thing for them. "The people there know me and if someone was interested in talking to me I'm sure they would get in touch, but that hasn't been the case." http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34449702 For what it's worth, it seems fair enough that if he was thinking about taking the job then he'd want to get a decent gauge of how things stood and a bit of perspective about the squad and set up.

Also, going by the latest tweet from the club Twitter (which you can see in the shoutbox above), Stephen Robinson's still there as well. https://twitter.com/MotherwellFC/status/654977286853238784

I think it's probably fair to say that for this game most of the instruction on the team will be coming from Craigan. Given Taylor didn't play in either of the games he was in charge for I'd be surprised if we saw him. Law? It could go either way. It'd be a statement of sorts if he drafted in someone like Watt at right back or we saw Cadden on the bench. It'll be interesting to see how McGhee deals with this squad, which of Baraclough's signings he's on board with and what he can get out of them.

The part about the training & stopwatch and whistle was what caught my attention. I'd mentioned before that one of the key things for whoever got the job was that they needed to be able to actually coach.

Don't know if it's been mentioned but that was Lasley on Sportsound earlier this evening being very positive about McGhee (as you'd expect given he's the new manager). Was very much echoing Craigan's statements from a while back about McGhee being the best manager he'd played under.

In the absence of a 3rd "not getting worked up either way" option I went with Yes. As others have said, they got burnt with the Baraclough appointment so it's no surprise that they've gone with someone who's much more of a known quantity this time round. If nothing else, given McGhee's previous working relationship with Craigan and Leitch, it's a logical appointment. There are probably other managers I'd have preferred (though none were seemingly in the running) so in that respect and given the relative inexperience of those who were being quoted as realistic contenders I completely understand the appointment and why they've made it.

At the moment it's been about 2.5 weeks since Baraclough was binned, here are the time lines for previous appointments; McCall > Baraclough = 2nd November 2014 (resigned) - 13th December 2014 (appointed) = 6 weeks (approx) Brown > McCall = 9th December 2010 (resigned) - 30th December 2010 (appointed) = 3 weeks (approx) Gannon > Brown = 28th December 2009 (sacked) - 29th December 2009 (appointed caretaker) = 1 day McGhee > Gannon = 12th June 2009 (leaves club for Aberdeen) - 30th June 2009 (appointed) = 2.5 weeks (approx) Malpas > McGhee = 1st June 2007 (sacked) - 18th June 2007 (appointed) = 2.5 weeks (approx)

And McCall's win ratio at Bradford (in League 2 in England) was 34.59% Craig Brown's win ratio at Preston was 33.96% McGhee's win ratio at Brighton was 28.78% (though he had a much better % at other clubs prior to Brighton) Dickov would by no means be my first choice as manager but a 30% win ratio (at Championship/League 1 level) is actually comparable with some of the better appointments in recent years.

Paul Dickov just added to Skybet odds at 6/1 (edit: 4/1 now) Dickov's 10/1 with Ladbrokes. Gary McAllister down to 12/1 with them as well.

I'm not really sure it can be claimed it's taking ages. The club updated last week and gave a rough timeline of when they hoped to have someone appointed; the end of next week. To spend a week sorting through applications and use the 2 week international break for interviews hardly seems an unreasonable amount of time. I'd imagine there may be other factors at play as well; the United job being available may have meant there were applicants in for both jobs (Mixu? Irvine?), if McGhee is in our plans then the upcoming Scotland games may be a factor, while the situation with Valakari is well covered and beyond that raises the question of whether he's such an outstanding candidate that it would be worth our while waiting to try and get him and even then, run the risk of it not happening which would leave us in heading into November without a permanent manager. Given McAllister only left Liverpool on Monday and has been linked with the job before would that maybe unexpectedly come into our thinking. Who knows? At the moment it's all just speculation and given we've never been a club to play this sort of thing out in the media then it's hardly surprising there's not a lot of news kicking about. I wouldn't expect the club to be sending out updates at every juncture. Beyond making a statement suggesting when they hoped to have someone in place they've been quite right to not run about making statements.

Possibly. Though Valakari's application went in around 24th September https://twitter.com/vatavision/status/647101340271906820 and that statement went out on the 30th. They do say they were spending last week completing the selection process so you may be right. As I say, I've no idea one way or another. However most of the talk from the club following Baraclough leaving was that we were looking to make an appointment fairly quickly. Unless they genuinely think that Simo is the best candidate by an absolute mile I don't really see us waiting over a month before we're officially able to speak to his employer.

You would have thought that the club would have been aware that Simo would be unlikely to leave until the end of the Finnish season given their circumstances (added to the fact he's still under contract). So seeing as they've also gone on record last week as saying they "hope to make an appointment prior to the next game after the international break" (http://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2015/09/30/club-statement-new-manager-update-2/) then that would suggest to me that he's unlikely to be an option and that all the chat that's been flying around is his agent putting his name about.

I know that win % isn't an ideal indicator of success/failure but it's the most easily accessible thanks to Wiki. All the talk of managers relative merits based on previous success at other clubs raised my interest as to whether there was indeed any correlation between a manager who had "done well" at his previous club and his relative success at Motherwell. With that in mind here's a handy cut out and keep reference of our previous managers and their club records prior to joining Motherwell. Draw your own conclusions; Baraclough: Silgo Rovers - 51.16% Scunthorpe - 23.53% McCall: Bradford - 34.59% Brown: Preston - 33.96% Gannon: Stockport - 43.41% Dundalk - 36.11% McGhee: Brighton - 28.78% Millwall - 46.01% Wolves - 40.88% Leicester - 31.37% Reading - 43.17% Malpas: First managerial appointment Butcher: Sunderland (1993) - 30.23% Coventry (1990-92) - 33.33% Black: First managerial appointment Davies: First managerial appointment Kampman: Information not available McLeish: First managerial appointment

Seems fairly reasonable for SJK to say we can't speak to him until their season finishes. Realistically that takes us past the Aberdeen game before "officially" we can even start a formal negotiation. Though I dare say we could speak to his agent or discuss through unofficial channels. Bottom line is we'd still have to wait until then to deal with the club themselves. Whichever way you look at it, that's a pretty long time to get to a starting point. Over a month since Baraclough left and 4 possibly 5 games before we even speak to his employer. All the word from the club when Bara was moved on was that we were looking to get someone in reasonably quickly. Question I suppose the board/club have to ask, and one that's impossible to know the answer to without knowing who the other candidates are, is whether Valakari, with 2 years left on his contract is such a significantly better option than one of the others on the shortlist who may well be free agents and presumably could be appointed quicker. The more I think about it the more I'm wondering just how much of the narrative of our interest (and I'm sure we are interested, to a point) is being driven by Rudi Vata here.

Unless he's simply not updated it, which could well be the case as it's an awful site, Crawford's LinkedIn page still has him involved with the club. That said, if you're no longer working with a particular employer I'd imagine most people would amend public profiles to reflect that. So who knows. As has been mentioned by others I haven't seen him about on match days at all either.

I thought this as well with his stint at Coventry however based on numbers alone he actually did better than I thought at Leeds. 50 games, win% of 50% and +23 GD. My argument would be that what we need is someone who is a good, tactically aware coach first and foremost. Watching us for the last 18 months or so we've notably lacked cohesion, organisation and structure on the park. The fact we still can't defend cross balls and make the same mistakes week in week out is telling. For me, that improves with coaching on the training ground and someone in charge who knows that job. I have no idea whether Gary McAllister would be interested in the job or not or whether he'd be a realistic option. However, as I've said before, with this appointment I think it's essential that the football committee prioritise the applicants coaching credentials over their broader overarching 'community club' criteria.

Well this is a bit awks after all the chat from the past day or so: https://twitter.com/scottmullen87/status/651436909705752576

Yeah, there was a bit in The Herald I linked to earlier as well. Odd quotes, part of me thinks he's at it; he's not ruled it out but it seems he's not applied for it. The club haven't spoken to him but "people who have associations there have suggested it'd be a good thing". I'd imagine the "people with associations" would be staff and possibly players. Despite him being fairly non-committal the fact he's flying a kite about getting back into club management along with his former assistant being currently at the club, with Craigan (who he managed) on the staff along with Hammell, Lasley and Clarkson in the playing squad suggests that it could be quite an easy transition if he were to come back, certainly you'd assume there wouldn't be any need for a major back-room overhaul.

Given the club were saying they were looking to start interviews this week then with SJK being in a title run-in it'd seem fairly reasonable that our reps would go over there to interview rather than have him come over here. Edit: The McGhee quotes are curious, significance is probably in what's between the lines. The club haven't been in touch but people he knows that have associations with both (staff? players?) have said it'd be a good thing for both parties. http://m.heraldscotland.com/sport/13805230.Mark_McGhee_refuses_to_rule_himself_out_of_running_for_Motherwell_job/

Did reasonably well with Preston (40.91% win %), relegated with Sheffield Wednesday (40.68%) after taking over in January but by all accounts they had two winding up orders while he was there. Only WBA (22.73%) was what you'd say was a disaster but given the level it's hardly the worst failure. Preston = 160/330 pts (48%) Sheffield Weds = 85/177 pts (49%) WBA = 21/66 pts (31%)

Acknowledging what's been said above about it being a limited market and it'll change quickly with a few people putting money on specific people that's McGhee now 10/1 from 33/1 on Skybet

Agree totally. He's got by far a better coaching background than the majority of the other names that have been mentioned. Academy director at Blackburn, Newcastle and academy manager at Everton alongside his obvious managerial stints. Would be very happy if he was someone that was being considered. I'd have thought the West Brom job would have damaged his stock a fair bit and he's not a particularly fashionable name so he may be vaguely realistic unlike your Lambert and what have you.

Some highlights of their last game here btw: