StAndrew7

It has, 6 weeks old today. It feels like 6 months and simultaneously 6 weeks and 6 days and 6 hours and 6 minutes and 6 seconds

Popping out from my hiatus to add some pedantry... It wasn't extended; it was changed to be a "rolling" contract, so it's actually protecting the Club and makes getting rid of him easier as we won't have X years cash to pay him...

To be fair to @steelboy here he makes a good point. When you look at our statistics in a bit more detail it highlights the following: We failed to score in 13 league matches last season, so more than a third of our games. 25% of our goals scored came from three matches; against Ross County home and away and Livi at home (14 of 56). That increases to 20 of 56 (35%) when you add in two 3-1 wins against Livi. Yes we were third highest scorers in the league, but looking slightly deeper into that shows it was due to a handful of games, rather than it being consistent across the season which is what you want. We were absolute dugshite going forward for long periods last year and it showed. Of the 13 times we didn't score, we lost six of them by one goal and drew one of them. So you'd (rightly, imho) argue that consistent goal scoring to the same level over the entire season would have seen a far better league position for us.

Maswanhise has a club controlled option in his contract already, so no worries there:

Saw a few folk post about it on socials recently, it looks decent! Not been myself yet.

This morning at 7am for me. And agree with other sentiments, both are excellent.

His injury history isn't good either.

It worked pretty well for me on my headset. I did anticipate a few issues relating to the call so gave it a bit longer and it settled a bit. Definitely something to be sorted for future meetings, though. Favourite bit of the unmuted masses was the guy having a go at the organisers because it wasn't ready and took a while to get started and the main PC was muted and it wasn't professional and that it's not that complicated... When he's unmuted himself and is clearly at work and chatting to a customer about it all. 😂

I think you had to let them know you were attending online in the questionnaire that came out; did you reply to it if/when you got it?

Chat on P&B is we had this guy playing for us as a trialist against Everton. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawanda_Maswanhise Can't see it myself, he's a winger. 😨

I seem to remember Caldwell saying that he trusts Dawes and Kettlewell to figure out who they want and he then sorts the deals thereafter. I think it was mentioned in one of his interviews in May or June. Not entirely sure he has as much input as some would like to think he has, beyond going and executing what the other two want.

I include myself as a "partially" lapsed fan. I've been to Edinburgh City and Montrose this season, so 40% of them; I reckon I probably make it to about 30-50% of our home games and the odd away trip over a season. I had a season ticket as a boy, then stopped it when I started doing first aid cover with St Andrews at the games. When I stopped that never took up a ST again. Part of that was financial, part of that was down to not being able to attend games for personal reasons. There was a decent thread over on P&B about "Your Limits" and I said that for me, a ticket package of a run of home games with a bit of a discount would be ideal. For example, I now know that I won't be at many games over the next couple of months, as the our first baby is going to arrive any day now. But come November/December/January I'd definitely think about buying a 3-5 match package to cover games I know I can make and can have a plan around.

Aye, given Nicholson seems to be out for a longer time, we absolutely need some creativity in there. It was good to see Callachan and Sparrow on the bench at least. You'd have to expect that come September about 50% of those starting yesterday won't be in the regular XI; Wilson, Casey, Blaney, Halliday and one of Moses and Robinson. I do agree with others that Davor playing in a midfield with a back three doesn't make a lot of sense; his role in there is somewhat nullified by having the three CBs. It worked for the most part last season, but I'd argue that's because the two playing in front of him were more dynamic/able to take the ball from him and drive forward, which we simply don't have right now. Playing Miller as a 10 also isn't working; he's our most creative midfielder of those fit (obviously) but he's far, far more effective playing as a deep lying playmaker in a three, with a ball winner and a 10 in front of him.

You can't show compassion here, this is a football forum. WE. DEMAND. PERFECTION.

Aye. It also feels like having additional staff in the background watching replays, keeping an eye on live stats/information/replays to let Kettlewell focus on the game as well. They can then give him the information he's after to help better inform any decisions he wants to make.

Fair comments. I think on Foster, if that's how he's behaving I agree it's not ideal, particularly for developing youngsters. Reminds me a bit of the chat around Hegarty back in the day. Foster did have a (very) short spell as a player/coach in the USA but I'm not sure that counts for much of anything. The 19/20 year old point is an interesting one; Kettlewell said at the AGM that there was an entire group of youngsters we had to let go because they just weren't good enough to compete for first team places; which begs the question why they were still on the books for so long. It does explain why we went from first team youth players in Max Johnston to Lennon Miller; a drop of what, 3 years in age terms? Also, I think Kettlewell is on record saying that we don't have the finances available (currently, anyway) to run a Reserve/B Team system, so we're basically working within the constraints of that. I do think there's a lot to be overhauled across the Youth Teams; it also raises questions on Hammell when he was Head of Youth Development. Particularly when he had 4 years of time in the role and we've barely seen youngsters come through and it's absolutely his fault we lost Johnston in the manner we did. I think the Loan Manager/Analyst type role is a good start to try and make sure we get our players out there and playing.

Well, you've clearly decided he's not based on what you've said there, so please do enlighten us as to why you think that's the case? And by getting the most out of our players, what d'you mean? What's the success criteria for you? I understand that, and as frustrating as it is, I'm not convinced many (if any) of them who left would have gotten into the team. Reece McAlear went to Norwich, played one game, went on loan and went to Tranmere for a couple of years. He's now at Livingston. @Kmcalpin has already mentioned Rice, who is no doubt earning a shit tonne of money but is probably looking at Lennon Miller thinking he could have been playing alongside him and regretting it. Unfortunately we can't control what allegiances or kind of money youngsters get offered elsewhere. I think we can demonstrate what we can do for them in terms of development, first team appearances and moves to bigger and better things. One thing I do think would help massively is an improvement in our training facilities; the pull of a better training ground with incorporated facilities would be huge (pool, gym, canteen, physio facilities etc.). That's expensive, sure, but it'd also help attract first team players, you'd expect.

Genuinely interested here; who, other than Max Johnston, have you seen from our recent academy/prospect releases or losses go on to perform at the same or higher level than the first team?

The Society AGM will be live on Zoom for folks who can't attend, I guess that might get recorded?

I think the former will be handled by Seddon and hopefully Kaleta. I agree that we definitely still need a 10 and I'd hope we show a similar level of spending/ambition in bringing in a key role, but time will tell... On the 3-year thing, not sure he'd have signed for much else given his family situation. It gives him some stability and also means if we sell him on in 12/18/24 months he'll be worth more. Particularly if we know there's interest and we can trigger his extension.

https://x.com/MotherwellFC/status/1818270328243868007

Aye, I was going to say similar. I would argue that when he came in more and more last season around October onward, we finally started to show a bit more solidity in the middle of the park in comparison to before. I thought he was one of the main reasons Spittal was able to go on and have such a successful season; he freed him up from having to play more of a complete midfielder role. I agree with @steelboy that his range of passing is limited. As I see it, his job/role as set out by Kettlewell is to win it back and give it to one of the wide centre backs to go and play it forward, or out to one of the wing backs. I don't think it's his fault they're absolutely shite at distributing the ball and using it once he's won it back. Hopefully with McGinn and Balmer coming back in (we can but hope and pray Casey is a back up option this season) we'll see an upgrade in terms of the overall distribution. I would like to see him try and take a chance with forward passes a bit more often but every time I saw him look up yesterday there was... no option other than Miller showing. Wilson and SODs were pedestrian breaking forward and when they did they barely got beyond their man. I did think a lot last year and already am this year, do we miss Goss, for all his other failings? Having an anchor/deep lying playmaker like him made a huge difference. Also, as much as I'm frustrated/infuriated by him and his lack of composure, we actually, somewhat terrifyingly, missed Harry Paton's energy yesterday. At least you can rely on him getting the ball to feet and driving forward at defenders; we sorely missed that kind of play yesterday until Wells came on. It was so passive and pedestrian; if that's how we're going to set up this season, it's going to be a long, hard slog in the bottom six yet again. Hopefully it's not, particularly once injuries are healed and we can field our starting XI. I would argue that of those starting yesterday, only one of the back five, and one of the midfield would/should be regular starters for us this season.

Genuine question here; why have you got such a dislike for Davor? Every time I see him play I think he does everything that's asked of him; he wins the ball back then passes it on to someone who's more creative (I accept that playing alongside Halliday, that's a bit of an oxymoron) and protects the back 3 as best he can with very little support. It's not his fault he's not Pirlo/Modric/whoever winning it back and spraying passes about to our forwards and wing backs. Particularly when our wing backs are utter dog shit and none of our strikers are able to hold the ball up.

Michael Stewart had the best line on that during commentary. Something akin to: "There's definitely contact there from the centre back and keeper, they don't win the ball, but it's not a penalty for me." 🤣 Just on that; I think Robinson needs a goal and he'll gain all sorts of confidence. You could see for the penalty claim that he just wasn't that confident taking the ball forward/round the keeper. Hopefully that comes with a goal or two, bit like it did for Bair.

He didn't immediately present his case for a starting position, I agree. I was impressed at points with how he looked up and tried to get Moses in behind. He played a great ball round their defence that was just slightly over hit, that was probably one of our better attempts at a forward pass like that for the whole game. There's definitely something there but I agree with you and @wellfan; he reminds me a bit of Gent last season. He'll probably be introduced slowly and start to stake a claim around October/November.