joewarkfanclub

Helpful hint for Zach Robinson. Dont back into Mikulic and try and wrestle him. You will lose and the referee wont give you any fouls. You will be quicker than him however, so I suggest knocking it in behind and running after it!

Stama not being picked this time round will be good for him and us in the short term. Last break he travelled to the other side of the world and played zero minutes. His move hasnt been straightforward having to relocate his wife and newborn child, getting injured and the aforementioned travel. He really hasnt had any opportunity to settle down and show us what he can do. After this break he will get a run of games and we will hopefully start getting more players back that will allow SK to have us playing in a way that suits him. Long term we need him playing well, scoring goals and being selected for Australia as, I presume, the plan is to sell him on down south for a significant fee.

Aye with Gordon out, there will be a lot more pressure on Balmer and The Ox to deal with crosses into the box.

SOD confirmed out at Gordon suspended. So in the basis that SK wont change from 3 at back Id go.... Ox Casey Balmer Blaney Kaleta Seddon Halliday Miller Wilson Watt Stama with Sparrow Maswanhise and Moses our subs on the 60 minute mark when Halliday, Watt and Stama are burst.

Im no financial guru. But I suspect having all those things included in the development is how you go about financing a new stadium. Beside any private investment, I would imagine there would be numerous government grants etc available for re-development. With all the additional services going in there you might even get a bus route or a train station.

Also some good people appointed to the WS Board. Didnt realise Alison Thewliss was a Motherwell fan.

Lots of youth, talent, enthusiasm and experience there. Look forward to the club making huge strides in all areas as we move forward!

I presume to because he had some dignity after the fact and it keeps everyone in the tent? Otherwise it just appears vindictive and alienates those who were of a similar mind.....

Some really good appointments to the Executive AND Well Society Boards. A broad range of skills and experience now within the club and Society. Hopefully this will be the springboard to showing that fan ownership really does work!

https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2024/11/06/executive-board-update/

Build a Little Birdhouse in My Soul! 😍 Is that too happy clappy? 😆

No. He is saying that despite his faults, our manager might be better than you give him credit for. Re your second point. Thats just a poor trope. Peps a decent guy and Im pretty sure he has won a trophy or two.

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.

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

Good post. I think the manager did get it tactically wrong yesterday. He also got the subs wrong. He would never admit that in public but hopefully he knows himself. Very disappointing but not a sacking offence. The reaction to the disappointment will be important.

I dont disagree with a lot of your post, but I am starting to get a bit fed up with the Happy Clappy tag as i I dont think its remotely accurate. However, given Im clearly in the group assigned the label I will respond. I havent read a single post by the so called Happy Clappy Brigade that professes to be satisfied with the standard of football entertainment we are being presented with this season. In fact most of us are actually quite critical when its merited. Its just usually done in a constructive manner. Defence of the manager under fire from the usual suspects doesn't mean that you think everything he does its perfect. It just means you apportion some realism to the situation. I would love for us to play more attacking football and be more entertaining, but our league position is good and we got to a cup semi final despite being a limited group of players. This is also the same manager that got 28 goals out of KVV and 15 out of Theo Bair. Anyone really saying large parts of that werent entertaining? I view us being a team / squad in transition at present. Im reasonably happy that our keeper and defence have been upgraded. The next stage has to be midfield, after that I think we will be able to assess more accurately whether any of our strikers are any good ( I personally think Stama will turn out to be a find, and at 22 its probably toi early to right off Robinson, regardless of how critical I have been of him thus far). As you rightly say, the time to judge the manager and his signings are at the end of the season. The fact that this time last year Theo Bair had scored 1 goal should be a lesson for everyone.

Im sure thats what he was trying to do when he made those signings......

Ok. Since your keen to answer the question I put to Yodo, which quality holding midfielder and striker would you have signed with the £3m at your disposal? Id also argue whether the squad gets worse with every window under Kettlewell. You were similarly critical of Robinson and Alexander and the players he signed. Kettlewell has got most of them out the door. He has also improved our defence which everyone agreed required attention. Clearly we still need to address certain areas of the squad and I agree signing more quality over quantity is advantageous for a club with our budget, but sometimes the players you want or need arent available and you need to make do with what you can get.

You obviously missed the part where he criticised the manager. Out of interest, which striker and quality holding midfielder do you suggest he signed?

Shite. Forgot about that. It was 2 games. Thats a shame. He woulda had a serious point to prove. Guess its Casey Balmer Blaney unless SOD makes a Lazarus type recovery. I just got a lot less confident about a result.

Just watched the highlights. Can I change my vote? The Ox was outstanding.

Fair enough! 😆😆😆

Im not saying for a minute that our recruitment has been flawless. Obviously you need a strategic plan for your squad, but sometimes circumstances are fluid at a football club and what seemed like a good decision at one point might not later on. I was fine with Halliday on loan last year but I wouldnt have given him a 1 year option. Without it, he may not have come, personally, I dont think that would have been any big loss, but I can see why the manager signed off on it. I wouldnt want to see him getting a further extension past the end of this season. Nicholson was already in the building and looked like he was being prepared as the Spittal replacement in case he went last January. Again Callachan is the outlier as he was the one we had the opportunity to not sign at the time. But Paton and Nicholson had just been injured and Slattery was a long termer. Would have made more sense to go for someone else, I think Gorrin was available, but again, he has had a serious injury as well, so do we know what kind of Gorrin we would be getting?

Nicholson had one serious injury before he signed for us. Should we never sign any player who has been previously injured? Paton literally got studs raked down the back of his achilles v Clyde. So how do you prevent that? Mcginn is 34. But has played over 400 senior games. He is an experienced pro with no significant injury history and most would agree he has been one of our best players for the past 2 seasons and we missed him big time on Sunday. I will give you Callachan, but Im thinking he was a stocking filler and therefore a cheap option as we knew Nicholson and Slattery wouldnt be back in the short term. Players also undergo medicals and are monitored by our medical team on a weekly basis. Are they shite too? Or is it just the stresses and strains put on professional players these days due to fixture schedules result in increasing numbers of injuries due to the pace of the modern game?

I really want Tony Watt to be a success with us this time round. Not least because he is clearly desperate for a new contract with us when his current one with United expires. The downside is he looks nowhere near fit. I really expected to see some improvement by now, but it doesnt look to be there. Now that could be just down to match fitness and if so, a run of games is maybe what he needs. I actually think the way we play at the moment he is likely to be the most effective foil for Stama and Id be tempted to take a punt on it, but only the manager and the fitness team will really know how far off it he is.