star sail

Celtic, Aberdeen and Motherwell are the only three teams to have maintained top division status over the last 40 years. That is a significant achievement.

I think you are being hard on yourself here and giving Wellfan and those who share his views too much credit. On not sacking Kettlewell after the winless run,you were right, he was wrong. History has now proven this to be true. The proof being that the fortunes turned around last season and we did not get relegated. Like it or not that is a significant marker of success for a team like Motherwell. We have not had a manager leave Motherwell on his own terms since Craig Brown in 2010. In the 15 years since, every manager has eventually been sacked and on average lasts about 2 years. It is easy to back the sack the manager horse. It is the form horse by some considerate distance and these stats will be mirrored in teams up and down the SPL. Kettlewell is approaching two years in charge now. Probability alone tells us his time is nearly up. Being a football manager in this division is very difficult and they have a very short sell buy date. It does not take a visionary to predict that a manager will be sacked. Hang in there with that message and 9 times out of 10 you will be proven correct often sooner rather than later.

You are doing a very good job of supporting Kettlewell and by association the team. It is difficult swimming against the tide. I really hope you prove to be right. I just get a sense now that we may be heading down an all too familiar road and that Kettlewell's time may be running out. It feels like deja vu from the last days of Baraclough, Robinson, Alexander and Hammell in recent weeks. There does come a point where maybe we have to start considering the possibility that not all managers are rubbish and that the challenges run a little deeper. Keep fighting the good fight.

Oh man!! I think I am throwing in my towel now too. You just get a sense when the wheels are coming off and I never really got that sense during the long losing streak but the team had to make a statement today and they have not been able to do it. The manner of the defeat rings alarm bells too. I have fought the good fight but I am raising the white flag. If he does go now, what is for certain is that we are turning over managers at an alarming rate. I still believe that this says more about the challenges of the job than it does about the incompetence of what is a growing list of managers.

Yes, it was maybe a little unfair to quote your post to make my point. It was just the comment at the end I was referencing. Everything else you said seemed very reasonable. Apologies.

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.

Is this what you mean by colourful and robust. Each to their own. I don't think I have a problem if all I am suggesting is that the manager of the team we support be treated with a little more respect, particularly when he has contributed significantly towards keeping us in the top division. As you well know, social media is powerful, perhaps more powerful than the man shouting obscenities from the stand and it can create a tone, positive or negative, supportive or toxic, that can influence outcomes. Steelmen Online does not exist in a vacuum.

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.

The support certainly made it feelings clear at the end of the game yesterday but I don't think he has lost the support. I know that it is unpopular to focus on it but this team are currently sitting in the top half of the league. Results cannot be that bad if that's where we are. Motherwell were one of only four teams to make it to the semi finals of the league cup , the top 3 teams in the country holding the other 3 places. It would be a very brave board that would sack a Motherwell manager with that track record in any season We were one of ( I think) only two top division teams that drew Premier league opposition away from home in the he Scottish Cup in this round. We are out, Kilmarnock are also out. We have no right as a support to expect that a victory yesterday was a given. Of course Kettlewell is feeling the pressure. He and his team were booed off yesterday in a season where he has lost his best player to injury and but for a few decisions going against him in recent weeks ( Rangers at home for example) could be sitting in an even stronger position in the league . He has a budget that is a fraction of most teams in the league. I think he has a right to feel harshly judged. The fans have a right to withdraw their support if they choose to do so but I hope they do so with an element of perspective and realism being taken into account.

Where to begin. Start with the positives: great to see a big travelling support and commendable that they generally stuck with the team until the final whistle when they ( rightly) showed their displeasure at the performance. Sam Nicholson and Callum Slattery looked like football players and hopefully they will have more to offer as their fitness improves. The big negative for me is the way we start games. It is so passive. Today was a Scottish Cup game with a big away support and the team were once again really flat. This needs addressing because it sets the tone of the game and it is happening too often. Regarding Kettlewell past, present and future. He has proved to be the right man for us to this point. Keeping us in the division twice, a League Cup Semi Final and a top 6 berth in the league are proof of this even if there has been disagreement on the style of football on the way through. 9 injuries today are significant. A squad with limited resource cannot absorb that kind of set back without it affecting performance. It does not make the performance today acceptable but neither can it be ignored. The big misconception about the future is that there is a magic bullet somewhere out there that is going to fix things. There is not a single football team out with Celtic that plays good football in Scotland. Teams may show flashes of decent play but generally the league serves up mediocre semi professional tripe every week that passes as entertainment because of the emotional connection we have with our team. St Johnstone were rotten today, just slightly less rotten than us. Let's not kid ourselves that Valakari has them playing free flowing football. Teams up and down the country packed with journeyman pros will be serving up similar eye bleeding fare and passing it off as entertainment. Some supporters will accept it because they win this week, others will moan about how terrible their team is until all is forgotten when they win next time out. I have watched Motherwell in Cup games for 45 years and what I witnessed today, I have witnessed before, often against lower league opposition. Morton, Ayr United,Albion Rovers,Raith Rovers, Mypa, Stjarnaan to name but a very few. Different manager's, same outcome. If I am stupid enough to keep paying my money in the future ( as I will be)I will see it again no matter who the manager is in the coming years. There is nothing ( other than the vagueries of very short memories) to make a valid case for sacking SK as a result of today result or results so far this season. I am still gutted tonight right enough.

I find the perspective of some of the comments on here regarding the disallowed goal and SK reaction to the decision a little strange. We are allowed as fans to be biased in favour of our own team. It is part of the game to look at the world through Claret and Amber specs. Rangers have made an art form over decades of putting pressure on match officials so that 50/50 decisions get viewed 55/45 in their favour. They have piled on the pressure since the league cup final and it has gained traction in the press. This is designed to make it more difficult for match officials to decide against them in future games (particularly the next OF game). They do this because it works. No conspiracy, no agenda on the side of the referees, it is just human nature to balance a decision on it's potential repercussions. The question I would ask is had the roles been reversed would Oxborough have benefited from the same decision in the same circumstances when the score was 2-0 or 2-1. I don't think he would because it would have been a tougher decision for the VAR officials to make. That is just the laws of human nature and it is a law that the OF are very good at working to their advantage. I welcome SK showing the passion, the frustration and standing up for his team and his club. I find it odd that some don't seem to share his passion given the Motherwell bias that is our right as subjective, irrational football fans. In a different circumstance, the goal could have been given. You can guarantee that had Rangers been disallowed a similar goal they would make plenty of it and another strongly worded statement could have been making it's way to anybody who would listen.

Some thoughts on last night. First of all, that playing surface seems to look better every time we see it. It is now a thing of real beauty and really adds to the sense of occasion on a night like last night. I was reminded of how Firpark can be one of the best grounds for atmosphere in the whole of Scotland. It brought back a sense of nostalgia for big nights in the past at Firpark. I think what is particularly noteworthy is the amount of late goals we are scoring. Successful teams do this and it is a habit that is very nice to see. Congratulations to everybody involved at the club. You can see what it meant to the players and the coaching staff in the video posted above. I think the momentum has been building to a night like last night for some time. Happy days.

The Daily Record represents everything that is horrible about football in the West of Scotland. I cannot remember the last time that I looked at a story in that rag. It will be at least 20+ years ago. No interest in promoting Scottish football in general and every interest in the promotion of one particular club at the expense of all else. Out of sight , out of mind is the best policy with that type of journalism.

Once again, it shows just how difficult it is to be a football manager of one of the smaller teams in the league. Some very experienced managers have tried and failed with teams in recent years, Tommy Wright, Owen Coyle, Malky Mackay, Craig Levein to name a few. Proof to me yet again that SK is doing very well to keep Motherwell's head above the water.He must be one of the longest servicing managers in the league. The life span of managers at clubs is bonkers.

I agree with what you say about the Scottish psyche when it comes to winning football matches. It is no coincidence that we lost to Poland and Portugal with late goals. Hungary in the Euros was another example. There is a weakness in the mindset in Scotland that seems to make us terrified of success. The national rugby team displays the exact same flaws. It is not specifically a Motherwell problem as you say yourself but as Motherwell fans we can we guilty of thinking with that Scottish defeatist mindset. I'm not sure though that is proof that SK should have been sacked after 15 winless games. The positive end to last season and the good start to this season is a bigger factor in suggesting that it was right to give him time during that difficult spell. I would imagine that quite a few Aberdeen fans will see Motherwell as their bogey team. We have a habit of inflicting some painful defeats on them so why not continue that trend by ending their winning start to the season. 1-2 Motherwell.

I agree with what you say about his technical ability and creativity but he would be one of those high risk signings that Kettlewell has been slated for in recent times. I must admit though I would still find it an exciting proposition if KVV did come back just to see if he could reproduce the magic one last time. I think the odds would be against him regaining that form though.

Excellent result. I really hope the team can push on from this and have a sustained run of good form. It feels like this performance has been some time in the making. Well done SK and the players. Maybe the patience shown by SK for Halliday is also starting to pay off.

Signing risky players is a product of the limited market SK has to shop in. Young players that show potential but have not performed yet are a risk. Bair was a risk that worked. Good quality experienced players that but for a few injuries would be completely priced out of our market are a risk. Louis Moult was a risk that did not work out for Stevie Hammell. He then did work out for Dundee Utd. Veteran players that have reached the end of their careers that we could never have dreamt of signing when in their prime are a risk. Callum Patterson may be an example of that. Andy Halliday is a risk that I still think could go either way. Remember we missed out on Robert Snodgrass a season or two back. A perfect example of a player we could not have afforded but for the fact that he was in the twilight of his career. He did not exactly set the heather on fire on his return to Scotland so even he would have been a risk that may not have worked. Look at Van Veen going to Kilmarnock. It was a risk that did not work and I would imagine it was a fairly expensive one for Kilmarnock. Let's say that Ryan Jack is training with us and SK can see in training that he is significantly better than the midfield players we have. He is gaining fitness and stays injury free The option is there to offer him 6 months/ 1 year. Would SK really be off his head to consider this? I think the problem sometimes with the arguments you put forward wellfan is that you fail to recognise the significant restraints that Motherwell and SK work under. SK has to gamble sometimes. It is the nature of being financially one of the smaller clubs in the top league.

How do you fluke a top 6 finish?

Stephen Robinson got us to two cup finals in a season losing to Celtic both times. He also had us in 3rd place when the league was terminated due to coronavirus. You only have to look back at the threads at that time to see that a minority of the support were moaning about him then. I think the word imposter was a favourite back then too. We will never, ever get a manager that will satisfy that minority of our support. I am sure that every team has them.

Now that's a Propper own goal!! Let's hope it unsettles them.

Agreed. I think that is something that is always overlooked. It takes weeks to build fitness back to a competitive level after an injury. In Hallidays case, the notion that he will be fully fit and match sharp after a month of pre-season at his age is very optimistic. He has to get minutes on the pitch and we may not see him coming into his own until September/October. I fear for Slattery's return as well. He will be given about 5 mins to get match fit before the knives are out.

I don't think there is anything we have seen so far this season to change the perceptions of individual fans from the end of last season. Those who wanted Kettlewell sacked last season are already building the rhetoric to hold that same position this season. Those (like me) who thinks we are playing a waiting game and that it could still go either way for Kettlewell and the team are still playing a waiting game. It is too early to really say. Halliday will need time if he is to come good this season. He also needs time on the pitch. The new players need time to settle. The positives are that we are unbeaten in our competitive games ths season. (in 90 mins) and we looked better than RC. Interestingly the BBC Text commentary noted some surprise that there was boos coming from sections of the Well support at full time. I think the hangover from last season may be skewing our judgement of what the early season looks like.

This is a very good summary of the season. I think there has actually been a consistency to the season that is overshadowed a little by the winless run in the winter. Without dazzling or ever really being comprehensibly thumped it has generally been a mediocre season. This seems strange to say when we have been really competitive against the OF and we got th long awaited league victory against Rangers Looking at Kettlewell's record as a whole over one and a half seasons, I think there is reason to believe we have the makings of a decent manager who will improve with time. He reminds me a little of Derek McInnes, never sensational, never completely at sea just steady making incremental improvements. If that incremental improvement continues Wellfan could get his wish of a top 6 finish and I think it is reasonable for him ( and all of us) to set that as the next target . Overall I think the club has reached an equilibrium just now that will serve as a good basis to push on to greater things. I am excited for next season but then I am a self aware happy clapper. Looking forward to my hands being red raw next season.

Goal difference of +1 is non too shabby. We have lost alot of games by a single goal this season.