El Grew

Sorry Yorky. I wasn’t having a pop at you there. It was just a general observation.

“The players will learn from this.” “We will learn from this.” “The players must learn from this.” “We will use this as a learning experience.” etc. etc. ad nauseam. Phrases straight from the book of football manager double-talk and drivel that are continually trotted out when teams lose. What a load of tripe. Players at a certain level such as ours, never learn anything and they just continue to repeat the same mistakes time after time. As Bill Shankly once said “Football is a terribly simple game based on the giving and taking of passes, of controlling the ball and of making yourself available to receive a pass.” He also said a football team is like a piano - you need 8 men to carry it and 3 who can play the damn thing. Well at present all we have are piano carriers. Stevie needs to try somehow to get us 3 players. Good luck Stevie.

The Alexander Project. Great title for a novel. Sounds like something Frederick Forsyth or John le Carre would have written. Lol.

Our chairman has been quoted today as saying: “He inspired us with not only his short-term plans to reshape the squad and adapt the style, but his medium to long-term vision around a fully integrated club and we felt this matched how we see the future of the club.” Exactly wtf does “fully integrated club”mean?!

That’s a very good point that’s been overlooked. I always thought Lasley became assistant to Robinson with an eye to the future. However Alexander’s arrival put the kibosh on that. So having opted not to appoint from within on the basis of lack of experience why are we now backtracking?

Alexander wasn’t fired - he left by mutual consent. I think it’s plain the club were surprised at this because they gave no indication they weren’t satisfied with his performance and why would they? With a top 6 finish and qualification for European football they were probably highly chuffed. They had only recently extended his contract, allowed him to cull the squad and bring in 3 new players. So why would they need a plan to bring in a replacement. I believe Alexander “engineered” his exit from the club in an attempt to protect his own image as evidenced by his spin in the media about having preserved the club’s top league status, gotten us into the top 6 and qualified for European football. In his mind it allowed him to leave with nothing but plusses on his CV for his next job. As for the appointment of Stevie Hammell - he was a fantastic player for us and a terrific servant to the club and of course I wish him well and he’ll have my support. However I believe it’s a another gross error of judgement on the part of the board. There’s a vast difference between managing young academy players who, by and large will do as they are told and managing and trying to make something out of a squad of professionals, the vast majority of whom are bereft of the footballing ability required at the level in which they are operating. I wish him all the luck in the world because he is going to need it.

Most will already be aware of it, but Linfield are the Rangers of Northern Ireland. Healy played for Rangers in 2011-12. And wait for this; his first game was against us on 12th February 2011 and he scored the last goal in a 6–0 win and then on 2nd January 2012, he scored against us again with the first goal in a 3–0 win. For those concerned about how an appointment of Neil Lennon might be “perceived” then an appointment of David Healy should raise similar concerns. I honestly couldn’t care less who or what our manager is, but if these really are the options then I’d prefer it to be either Valakari or Hammell or a combination thereof.

Not sure if that will be the case. The currant bun has an article on this: The owner of KuPS has warned Motherwell they will have to pay top dollar to land Simo Valakari. Owner, investment banker Ari Lahti who heads up Ice Capital, isn’t ready to let his gaffer go on the cheap. KuPS lead the Veikkausliiga with 10 games left and are in the semis of the Finnish Cup. Lahti said: “If a situation arose that Motherwell really wanted Simo then a pretty significant compensation would probably be required. As far as I understand we are not in that situation yet and at this stage we are of course talking about a theoretical question. But winning the title is worth at least €1M euros to us. If we win the league championship we seriously bet on reaching the group stages of the Champions League next season. The champions' path to the group stage is significantly easier than others.” Lahti’s firm finances the club from Kuopio and it’s believed they write off losses of six and seven figures every season.

Hope you are not suggesting we are interviewing Maurice Ross!

Speculation rife. Shortlist of 4. Hammell and Valikari definitely on it plus 2 others already under contract at other clubs. If the other 2 already under contract applied, it might be they are looking for a step up.

Allan Stubbs?

Sorry if it came across that I was having a pop at you. Far from it. I agree that comments from both parties may have been inadvisable. However in both cases, I sense a great deal of frustration. O’Donnell perhaps because of the way he was treated by the previous manager and that he couldn’t get a game in what is the the worst first team squad I can ever remember seeing at FP and Stevie Hammell because he’s shocked at the state of said first team squad. Past experience shows that teams that get off to a poor start in this league rarely if ever recover and end up playing their football under pressure all season resulting in relegation at worst and the play-off place at best. So for me, I think it’s an unavoidable truth that if we are to stay in the top flight this season we need to identify and play the best players in our squad, few as they maybe, and take steps to get a few others in to to augment these.

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!