El Grew

Well that was short but not so sweet. In case you missed the Pony Express, Alexander has gone and if I was Stephen O’Donnell I’d be on the lookout for another club because judging by some of the comments on this forum it’s becoming clear that some of our fans want him gone too!

Sure Stevie Hammell has said much the same so why pick on O’Donnell? It’s now becoming obvious that all has not been well on the playing side for quite some time so all we can hope is that whoever gets the manager’s gig can re-unite the players and get the fans back on side again.

Tell you what, if every time a player had a howler or series of howlers he was dropped, we’d be struggling to put 11 players onto the park. In that respect, O’Donnell was far from the worst culprit - Carroll, Mugabi, McGinley, Ojala and Solhom to name just a few, were way ahead of him on that score so I’d venture to suggest there was more to it than that. However if we can afford to keep a player on the bench who has 25 international caps we must be awash with talented defenders and from what I’m seeing that most certainly is not the case. Barring a handful of players, our present squad is shite - Stevie Hammell has recognised this however he has couched it in much more diplomatic language than that.

Thanks for that Graham!

Dictionary definition of ostracise: To avoid someone intentionally or to prevent someone from taking part in the activities of a group. Pretty much think that covers O’Donnell’s treatment.

Reading a lot of the comments on this board re-Stephen O’Donnell make it plain that he’s not a fans’ favourite, for whatever reason. And that’s fine because all fans have their favourites and players they don’t like. He’s now publicly admitted that there was a rift between himself and Alexander without really divulging what caused it. Whatever the reason, Alexander felt it necessary to exclude O'Donnell thereafter from his starting 11. Be interesting to know when this “exclusion” started especially since Alexander had previously been glowing in his praise for O’Donnell as witnessed by his statement of 30th September 2021 when he said “Stephen’s performances along with those of Liam Kelly as vice-captain and the other leaders within our squad set the standard of what we require from our players every day.”

Last week, Graham Alexander was busy getting a pre-emotive strike in concerning his sacking as he was busy telling everybody about the wonderful job he did as Motherwell manager! However as Shakespeare famously wrote “methinks he doth protest too much.” Ah, but wait. For every action there is a reaction and it finally came over the weekend. First, we get a damning indictment on the previous managerial regime from interim manager and ‘Well legend Stevie Hammell who has pulled no punches in stating that he believes the squad needs major surgery. Then, Stephen O’Donnell finally publicly reveals what many suspected - that there was a rift between him and Alexander as he reveals he was stripped of the captaincy and ostracised. A truly damning judgment and indictment on the previous managerial regime and also on those running the club.

There’s a very high probability the clubs that will spend most of the season in the bottom 6 of the league will be as follows: Kilmarnock, Livingston, Motherwell Ross County, St. Johnstone and St. Mirren. I regard this as our “peer group” and anything we manage to get from the clubs in the top 6 will be a (very welcome) bonus. That is the reality of where we are as a club at the present time, and maybe for some considerable time to come as we simply do not have the financial resources that the clubs in the top 6 have. So the challenge for this season for the new manager, is to come top of this group of 6, but failing that, ensure we finish no worse than 10th and, if he achieves either he should be judged as successful. This will gain him time to begin to improve things for the longer term.

I thought the 2nd half today was a big improvement on the 1st half. Cornelius and Tierney allowed Goss to take-up a more central position in midfield which I think suits him better and this allowed him to be more positive and effective. I think it’s obvious a number of the players we have won’t do and so a huge task for the new manager will be trying to shift them on. The biggest problem for the new manager however will be a lack of time between being appointed and the transfer window closing on 1st September.

Nobody asked for your pennyworth.

First, I’m not your mate. Second so anybody that disagrees with you is talking pish? How very democratic of you. So in closing, all I’ll say is va te faire foutre.

That’s 3 of the 4 midfield players Hammell started with been hooked!

You are entitled to your opinion on Goss and I’m entitled to mine so do one!

Case made - Morris and Maguire both hooked at half-time. Won’t be long before Spittal and Goss get the same.

Fourth game of the season and we’ve not scored or looked like scoring a goal from open play in any of them. Another poster described our attack as toothless but Pele and Maradona would struggle to score for us because there’s absolutely no service from the so-called midfield players. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, we simply do not have a creative midfield player at the club. Morris, Goss, Maguire and Spittal just won’t do!

Solhom and Ojala are slower than a sloth on speed!

I wouldn’t trust them to do the necessary due diligence on a lucky bag!

Our midfield retains shape?? You must be joking unless you mean a zigzag shape. I don’t know what your idea of a creative midfield player is but mine is one that plays an attacking support role with the capability to play defence opening passes and create chances for teammates. They should also have a decent range of passing, a good first touch and an awareness of what’s happening around them. As far as I am aware, but I’m willing to be proved wrong, there are no such players in our current squad.

I think Stevie Hammell would be good No.2 for whoever gets the manager job - knows the club and Scottish football inside out.

Oh bully for you. Decry everybody and anybody who has the temerity to offer serious constructive criticism about the team.

Everybody seems to be of the view that we need another striker and that may very well be so. However I don’t care who the strikers are they cannot contribute anything positive unless they get good service and support from midfield. Discounting the farcical friendly in Austria, we’ve now played 4 games and in those 4 games there has been a complete dearth of any creative play from our midfield. We have been and are absolutely dire in this respect. Both previous managers failed to remedy this shortcoming and both adopted back to front football in the hope we’d win second balls in the opposition third. Not surprisingly it failed miserably however Robinson eventually was fortunate that Turnbull and Hastie made the breakthrough and allowed the tactics to change allowing more build-up through midfield. We don't currently have any midfielders at the club who have any creative ability. So before we go looking for another striker we need to look to improve our midfield by adding a couple of footballers who can support our strikers and make passes to their forward runs.

Like the majority I watched the Sligo game game on TV and I have to say that after about 10 minutes or so I thought our players didn’t seem up for it.

Kelly O’Donnell; Solheim; Lamie; McGinn Spittal; Cornelius; Tierney; Mcguire Efford; Shields.

I sincerely hope you are right.

I think the point being made is not that the fans had some kind of insight or inside knowledge about the manager needed to be removed but rather they appeared to recognise that things just couldn’t go on the way they were and that the manager had to be removed. On a related point, the Daily Rancid has an alleged interview with Liam Kelly in which he says that he spoke to Graham Alexander about his leaving. He said the main reason the manager left was because he “felt the toxicity levels directed towards him from the fans weren’t fair on us as players and him and his family.” Reading between the lines I would not be one bit surprised if Kelly put in a transfer request. He does come across as being really pissed at Alexander leaving.