one m in motherwell

#teambetty

Eh?

Good points. To my mind though, I can't see Boyle simply wanting to throw the club away to the first group who come waving a wad of cash. The only issue is if the Society is really not working, in which case we're in the unenviable situation of not being able to turn down investment, wherever it comes from.

I suspect that's shite. As with a few others, his agent will have floated his name without any real consideration of budgetary constraints and whatever else is behind the scenes. Would be great if true though! Next...

True, although he did reasonably well at a time when we had bugger all resources (likewise at ICT I suppose too). I'm not saying he's some tactical genius, but might be the one to instil a bit of much-needed passion in the squad.

Yes, like naming random managerial candidates. Much more worthwhile.

I'm not sure. Look at how much work McGhee had to put in with the squad over the close season in order to get them into shape - remember this was largely the same squad as the Malpas 'experiment'. I'd probably go for Butcher until the end of the season, if nothing else for his motivational qualities.

If we were appointing in the close season I would think we might be changing our aim slightly. The fact is, we need someone to make a difference now rather than bring in someone relatively untested who would need time to put his own theories/regime into place. As I've said before, an old head for the rest of the season to steady the ship, with a younger number two who could take over next Summer might be the way forward.

Dindeleux!

But…we've got Dom Thomas! All joking aside, Cathro could be a brilliant appointment. Can't see it though, sadly.

I wouldn't be averse to Laszlo. For some reason he always struck me as having done a reasonable job at Hearts, but was a victim of the mentalist that was Mr. Romanov.

Definitely, but unless we have another email from the Society begging for the cash to stump up for his compensation, I can't see it...

Coyle may be a shout from a shop window point of view, but I think he may be a bit big for it now. McGhee is an absolute no - the stick he got after leaving us for Aberdeen burnt any bridges that may have existed (although FWIW I think he wouldn't be a terrible shout, if only in the short term). As I said on one of the other threads, we have a knack of appointing folk from out of nowhere, and ideally that would continue. Although I'm not sure we have the luxury of time here - we need someone to come in and stop the rot, and get us a few places up the league. It may be a shout to get an older hand in with a younger assistant, with a view to 'grooming' them for the job next year. Whatever happens, it's clear that fundamental change is needed at most, if not all levels of the club, and I just hope that the club realises this as an opportunity to do what's required. I really fear for us if we simply decided to promote from within. The current squad has more than enough about it to be finishing at least 7th or 8th, but we need to get things right quickly to have any chance of doing something worthwhile this season. Top six would be a phenomenal achievement, but at the moment I'd settle for tenth.

Yes, those that thought his time was up frogmarched into his office this afternoon, penned a resignation letter, and forced his reluctant hand to sign it. Jeezo. The guy at least had the integrity to realise that he'd perhaps done all he could with the club, and the time was right to go.

The club has a track record of left field appointments, and I can't see that approach changing. The only thing would be whether or not they decide that we can't gamble, and go for a safe pair of hands to get us through the rest of the season. We've always been reasonably fortunate in that we've been in reasonably good nick when a new manager is required, but given the state we're in at the moment I'd question whether we're the draw we once were...

There must be something pretty significant going on behind the scenes with Ainsworth if McCall is persevering with playing a defender at right wing. It's utterly bizarre otherwise. I could just about imagine him as a wing back, but even still… I'd always thought that playing players in their natural positions, no matter their age or experience, was a bit of a no-brainer.

Just seeing that Lee Clark has been sacked. Fuck it, get him in and bring Randolph back too.

Your first paragraph is probably what all of us on here would assume to be the standard Motherwell manager's job advert, but sadly we've never really had that since Butcher. You're spot on regarding the quality of the league, but I just don't think we'd really be able to attract the type of manager that you mention. If we're talking about the lower leagues, I would imagine Ian Murray would fit the bill, but if we are potentially looking at paying off McCall then there's next to no chance of us paying compensation to another club. As per, we'd be looking at someone who isn't in work at the moment - Steve Lomas was mentioned, which isn't a bad shout. No doubt Owen Coyle will be mentioned too, but what about Craggs? Ultimately, the biggest stumbling block is going to be the complete lack of financial 'wiggle room' that any new manager is likely to get. Yes, McCall has done wonders with a tiny budget, but we're looking at the budget being even less if the attendances continue to fall (and fall further still if we don't make the top six).

I'm totally scunnered with the entire thing. I suppose the default option in these situations is to punt the man at the top, but realistically, how much will that actually change with the squad that we've got? It's painfully obvious that we just don't have the resources to adequately replace what we lose each summer (whether that's Faddy/Hutch/Nicky Law/whoever). There are a variety of reasons for this that have been well covered in here. From my own viewpoint, we're a side that have ridden our luck in terms of 'general misfortune' over the past couple of years, and even when we've been playing badly we've at least looked like there is a degree of invention within the team that could create something. This season has a totally different feel. Many of us thought that last year would be a struggle after losing so much over that summer, but we pulled performances out the bag in the manner I mentioned above. This year however, the same players just don't seem interested. I'm not sure if it's purely down to some of the more senior players being another year further down the retirement slope, or whether we've just not been able to coax the same level of teamwork and organisation out of the new bodies that we've brought in, but it reminds me of our year under Malpas. I do think that perhaps Stuart McCall has taken us as far as he can (a cup run or two would be nice, but that's not exactly been a strength in recent times), but I'm struggling to see how a new man would really be able to reshape things much until the summer. Sadly we don't have the means to bring in six or seven new players in January to plug the gaps. I think McCall will be here until the summer, and we just have to hope that somehow we can get ourselves out of this. Long shot at the moment though.

The fundamental problem is that we've not had a proper pre-season. Other than the Fulham game, we had a hurriedly-arranged match with Betis and little else. Seems to me that we were (for some unknown reason) trying to use the Stjarnan games as 'stand-ins'. Why we thought they were another Havnar Boltfelag I'll never know... It's been something that's always struck me about us, we never really seem to play many pre-season friendlies. Not sure if it's just been more noticeable over the past few years because of the European games however. Sutty will come good, everyone will. A couple of wins under our belts and we'll be up and running.

Ah, good point. Would like to see him get involved for more than the usual 10 minute cameo, Erwin and Leitch seem to be benefitting from more gametime (early days yet though, clearly).

I notice Thomas wasn't on the bench last night, is he injured too?

And here's me thinking Reid did pretty well last season.

What I'd call our first team squad is incredibly thin. There are a number of players in the U20s who will quite happily sit on the bench as cover for a position or two, but I'd hardly consider them as part of the first team. So, on that reading, we've got depth in numbers terms but nowhere near what we need in terms of actual first teamers. As for the defence, we definitely do need experience. I'm not seeing too many folk currently at the club who could slot in to replace Hutch (and I'm deliberately discounting Ramsden in that. I think we're kidding ourselves if we think he'll stay injury free this season). Cummins and Kerr just don't cut it.

That's a fair point. The likes of Erwin, McHugh and Leitch have been knocking on the door for wee while now and deserve a chance, with McHugh being the exception to that (I just don't think he's got what it takes at this level). Thomas and a few of the younger guys have popped up on occasion but I wouldn't be entirely comfortable with relying on them with such a thin squad - unless we were accepting the fact that we have a couple of lean years in order to blood these young guys into hopefully more sellable assets in a few years time. However, given the state of the club financially I'm not sure that's an option. We have strength (ish) in depth in most positions other than up front, but we do still need a wee bit of experience at the back (and up front too) to bring the younger guys on.