star sail

I have listening to the Sportscene analysis a couple of times now and I actually don't know what point they are trying to make. Faddy is rambling. He seems to be aggrieved about the fact that the decision has gone from no free kick to red card. What he does not say is that the decision not to give a free kick in the first place is where the controversy stems from. How has John Beaton looked at that challenge in real time and decided it was fair? Ex players like McFadden and Stewart should be applauding VAR for situations like Saturday because it protects players from the incompetence of Scottish referees. Player safety should be high on their agenda. That could have been a leg breaking tackle on Saturday. I actually believe that Watt did try to pull out of the challenge at the last second but it was still high and still dangerous. There does not have to be intent for it to be red. Mugabi's red card last season was an example of just that. I wonder if the BBC pundits purposefully take an opposing view to play devils advocate. Certainly McFadden sounded like he was struggling to justify his own position on the incident.

A very poor Rangers team that had humiliated us at Ibrox in the league cup the season before under McCall. I could not believe his (McCalls) talk before that game about us having to be at our best and them having an off night to get a result. We duly got thumped 3-0 from memory. I genuinely believe that Baraclough was the only manager we have had over the last 20 years that could have got us that result in the playoff. He brought a fresh mindset when we needed it most. Craig Brown, Alex McLeish, Mark McGhee, Stuart McCall etc would all have had us beat before a ball was kicked. It's the Scottish football way. We owe Baraclough a debt of gratitude that some Motherwell fans seem to lack the good grace to give him.

It seems to be a bit of a Scottish Football obsession about beefing up to handle the physicality of the game . I remember the Russian team that came to Firpark a few seasons back (was it Krasnador?) and it struck me how many of them looked more like African distance runners than traditional football players.. They ghosted past a Motherwell side that were made to look very static. Admittedly that was a fairly expensive team from memory. Certainly it showed that pace and athleticism can be ask effective as strength. If Tierney adds too much weight he might lose some of the other strengths in his game. Topically, I remember watching Louis Moult for the first time up at ICT for that seasons opening game and feeling that he looked a bit lightweight. Wes Fletcher looked the better option that day. To counter my own argument, I think Moult did some physical conditioning in that first year and did become more robust.

Did you see Mo Salah's misses against Bournemouth last week? If it can happen to a world class striker then it can happen to anyone. I think KVV spoke of gambling addition rather than any kind of mental health concerning the pressures of the game but regardless if he has openly discussed any problems it is poor form to then use it as a stick with which to beat him.

Delighted with this. It is a bit of theatre apart from anything else which is what football is all about. I have a hunch this is going to work out very nicely. Put it this way IF Moult and Van Veen can play in the same team and IF they can strike up a decent partnership then it is happy days

Moult is only 30 so, if fit, would have a few good years left. If he passed a thorough medical and was given the opportunity to get match fit over a couple of months, who is to say that he could not recapture the form of old. I think a player's environment had a big part to play with some players, particularly strikers. An injury free Moult would be well worth the risk.

I don’t want to be negative or borrow worry but I am concerned that Man Utd might poach Hammell for the soon to be vacated Man Utd job?

Well, Well, (Super) Well who would have thought it!! What a result. Third place . Europe beckons!!! What could possibly go wrong. Congratulations Stevie Hammell. Absolutely brilliant!!

I agree with much of what you both say. The board are damned if they do damned if they don’t. Being a board member or a manager of a team like Motherwell presents significant challenges and it is so easy to be an anonymous armchair critic. I think Alan Burrows in particular has been a huge positive for the club over the last few years and the Board have done a remarkable job of picking the right man at the right time over the last 15 years to ensure our top flight status. The naysayers criticising manager after manger does get wearing after a while. Alexander is actually the first manager since Maurice Malpas that I completely lost faith in. For me the Sligo result and performance was unacceptable. I just get a sense this time that this is the most crucial of appointments and the most challenging to date. I would be delighted and impressed if they have called this one correctly. There is no doubt that it is a very tough call to make. If there is a man that I would want to be successful, Stevie Hammell is the man but I do have the fear for him. He has a really tough task ahead of him.

I suppose the point I was making is that if they had absolute confidence in Hammell they should have given him the job two weeks ago. For player recruitment alone, two weeks is a long time. Appointing someone out of necessity is not what you might want and as a by- product brings the risk of failure. I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive. Nobody is arguing that they deliberately ignored somebody they considered more capable.

Agreed. I think most if not all of those that have voiced concern have also expressed a wish that he succeed. Having had 24 hours to digest the news, I have to admit that I can’t help but feel a little underwhelmed. For me, if Hammell is the man then why was he not the man two weeks ago? He has been at the club a long time. The board will know his strengths. If integrating youth development into the first team is the way forward, good, but that seems to be a decision they have stumbled upon in the last few days rather than one that is part of an ongoing process. I do worry that they have been surprised by the lack of interest in the job and that Hammell is the fall back option. It is most certainly a risk given his lack of first team management experience. Where I think we are all agreed, is that we do wish him all the very best and if his appointment is successful I don’t think there is a single Motherwell fan that would begrudge him that success. I think what has been voiced is a concern that a great servant to the club may have inadvertently been thrown to the lions and that a reputation built over many successful years be tarnished.

Best wishes to Stevie Hammell. It will be interesting to see how much patience his long service buys him with the support if he does not get off to a flying start. Interesting as well to see who he signs to strengthen the squad. I wish him good luck. I think he might need it because he has a mighty job on his hands.

I suppose it is possible that she is helping the board with the final selection process. If they were making final decisions last night it would not be unreasonable to imagine that she was involved in that process, particularly if she maintains good relationships within the club. In recent times she worked with Neil Lennon at Hibs just to add some more baseless uneducated fuel to that fire.

I would be excited by Lambert. I was surprised by the negativity when he was mentioned last week. The fact that he does not appear to be in the frame suggests that we could not afford wage demands. I would also be excited by Neil Lennon. The chat on him has been fairly polarising today but he has managed at the top level in the game and would be a very interesting consideration. Again I don’t think we could afford his wages even if he was a good fit. I would have been fairly excited by Malky MacKay and actually if it turns out to be Simo I will be reasonably excited by that too. I guess I am just easily pleased.

I thought Mark McGhee was an exciting appointment first time round. A manager who had success in England and who was a fairly big name at the time. His first six months were fairly sensational. I don’t think that can happen these days. The gulf in pay is so vast between the bigger names in England and the incentives that we could offer that I just could not see a big name manager coming to us to either resurrect a career or see out there days for the love of the game. Somebody mentioned Neil Warnock somewhat jokingly before. That is the kind of name that would be exciting but it would never happen. I am not sure that Mark McGhee in his post Wolves days and Neil Warnock now equate but it does seem as if the days of big name managers have passed for teams like us.

Fair enough. I am sure that you don’t have a prejudice against mental health issues and you have said that you have no problem with his Celtic connection. It is a bold statement to make to write to the club in protest about a potential manager so I think that more than anything was what maybe caused some misunderstanding. I remembered Leeann Dempster saying that she very much regretted the circumstances surrounding his leaving Hibs. I got the feeling that it was an admission that it was not all Lennon’s fault but I know little to nothing about it. Bolton were a shambles of a club financially and were very poorly run so again I am not sure if it a true reflection of his management abilities. He may not even be in the running so let’s not waste any more of a sunny Scottish afternoon arguing about it.

Well said.

You have mentioned nothing of a very successful first spell. I think as a person he has his demons. He has talked about battles with depression and he did indeed have a hard time after his second spell at Celtic. The board of Motherwell would have to decide which version of Neil Lennon we would be getting. On form and in a good mental frame of mind he would be a coup for our club. I suppose there is always the possibility of a man that could self implode but this is life. I don’t doubt that there would be an element of risk attached. All the names mentioned have risk attached for different reasons. If we were to accept that Neil Lennon was the biggest risk, he may also produce the biggest reward. I must be as bigoted as the next man however because the mere suggestion of a Barry Ferguson/ Bob Malcolm dream team made me want to be sick! For what it is worth I am tending towards Simo Valakari. A young manager with a love for the club that has proved himself in Finland. That he has no association with Rangers or Celtic also does have it’s merits. With Neil Lennon it would never be boring good or bad. Not long before we will know.

What are your objections? I understand that he can be an abrasive character but if he had the skill set to turn the team around and bring a bit of excitement football back to Firpark, would that not be a good thing? My worry in these situations is that an ex Celtic man would be less palatable to small sections of our support than say a Terry Butcher ( a man that was also fairly abrasive in his time) or a Stuart McCall. I always defend the club to Celtic fans in particular who make the claim that we are a mini Rangers. Our support is generally mixed and it is a source of pride to me that we don’t carry the religious baggage of either of the OF teams. Appointing a polarising character like Lennon would underline all the more that we are a club that is not shackled by religious and political prejudice. It is not a reason to appoint him but I don’t think his football history should be a reason not to.

Lennon would be a great option for the club. I don’t think it is possible to successfully manage players like Scott Brown if you are a dud. If Craigan rates him and thinks he would be a coup for the club, I would go with that endorsement. I have not heard Craigan speak so positively about a manager since Jim Gannon. Lennon gave Celtic some great European nights against bigger teams with better resources, eg Barcelona so he can motivate a team when they are underdogs.

I have no axe to grind here. I like O’ Donnell as a player and he seems like a decent guy. I was very proud of his achievements in the Euro’s and would love to see him regain his form. I am not protecting GA either. The Sligo result is one of the poorest in the clubs history and he had to go. I would say though that it is splitting hairs to argue that the issue is not that he was dropped to the bench but that he was not reinstated. Mugabi’s confidence was clearly affected by the Hibs sending off. Up until that point I don’t think anybody would have argued with Mugabi’s inclusion. If he continued to show well in training is it not possible that GA stuck with him so as not too shatter his confidence completely? Maybe, maybe not. The point is that we have no idea what goes on behind the scenes. Shoehorning conclusions into a situation because it suits a particular rhetoric is all well and good but it does not make it fact. The other point I was making is that as a group Motherwell fans should be the very last people to criticise when it comes to poor treatment and a lack of backing for Stephen O Donnell.

O’Donnell is a really strange one with our own support and also the Scotland support in general. I had a conversation with a Celtic fan during the Euros where he stated that SOD should be nowhere near the Scotland Team and that Patterson should be playing. When I asked him if he had seen Patterson play he answered no. That was a Celtic fan backing a Rangers player he had never seen play. Stranger still, there were Motherwell fans arguing the same thing. At a time when we should have been proud to see a Motherwell player in a Scotland shirt, we seemed determined as a support to undermine our Captain. Having not backed him in a Scotland shirt and having been almost vitriolic in their criticism of his performances in a Well shirt it is all the stranger that SOD being dropped from the starting 11 is now used as proof positive of Graham Alexander’s poor man management skills. If SOD has suffered a crisis of confidence that has impacted his form in recent months there is a very obvious reason for it that could have nothing to do with Graham Alexander. The beauty of being a football fan is that we get to absolve ourselves of all responsibility, no matter how badly we behave at times, whilst pointing the finger at anybody and everybody we whimsically wish to blame instead.

I don’t know if Hammell is the man for the job or not but what today has shown me is the short term, reactionary thinking that is all too prevalent in football. Last week Hammell was the man for the job ( with some) because we won. This week he is not because we lost. What if Collum had awarded one or both of the penalties yesterday and Motherwell had won the game? Would Hammell get the job on the basis of six points from two games despite the fact that it is fine margins ( a decision from a referee etc) that often win and lose these games? The club will know the qualities and abilities of Stevie Hammell and that will not have changed regardless of the results both this week and last. My suspicion is that the club don’t see him as being ready just yet. If they did they would have given him the job before the St Mirren game. I think they will consider him as an able assistant very much like Lasley. In many ways the results of the last two games are irrelevant. As Spit it Out has just said above Malky MacKay is the best we could hope for. I can’t see that happening sadly.

Agreed. I am sure everybody would wish him the very best but it would be a horrible thing to watch the support turn on him if results went against him. If football clubs were really serious about youth development his current role is one that should be highly paid and highly valued. Maybe not as highly paid as first team manager because of the responsibility involved but it should be a prestigious position held by a first rate coach. I think the point I am making is that if this is not the time for him to take the top job he should be nurtured and rewarded for his current role and backed all the more to make youth development front and centre of the clubs philosophy.

A Herald article this morning with Paul Lambert with a couple of quotes from him. Speaks very highly of the club and definitely implies that he would be open to an offer. I think he would be a great option if we could afford him.