MelvinBragg

I know this is never going to be a popular view around here but watching the Crystal Palace match and it's convinced me that I'm right when I say the jester top would have been fine with shorts of one colour...

The main problem with our business this summer is that pretty much every signing was a gamble. Before anyone jumps down my throat here, I know we tend not to sign "sure things" but last summer among other signings that were gambles we signed Paul McGinn and Blair Spittal, two players with track record at our level. This summer? Obika: Gambling on his injury record. Wilkinson: Just returning from a serious injury. Bair: Unproven at SPL level. Souare: See Obika. Casey: Missed preseason. Loose cannon without Butcher alongside him. Biereth: Unproven and just returning from injury. Zdravkovski: Coming from abroad, always a gamble. Paton: Injured again.. If we had signed a couple of players of a similar level to Spittal and McGinn without horrendous injury records, I'd be a lot more confident in the business we had done... EDIT Oh, and the chat about Van Veen is absolute nonsense. He had no intention of staying here...

I have no real issue on gambling on a quality player with a patchy injury record if it means we get a player of a quality we wouldn't otherwise be able to. But you can maybe afford to do that with one signing and have more durable if slightly lower quality backup. But (and we should have learned this last season with Moult and Aarons) you can't have too many risks in the one squad.. Souare's backup is a guy who hasn't played in a year so he didn't feel confident starting him. I'm not saying that they'll all miss loads of games but it is a huge gamble...

Recovering from an injury. Which is fine if his recovery is straightforward. But there's no guarantee that's the case. Obika will miss more games than he plays, Wilkinson and Efford both coming back from long term injury, Bair apparently wasn't able to train properly between Dundee and Hibs, Souare has barely kicked a ball for the last four seasons. Taking a lot of risks for a guy that wants to run with a smaller squad..

I make that three this summer alone...

Because that guy doesn't have 90 minutes in him yet...

Irrespective of your opinion of Barry Maguire, with his leaving we're a bit light in midfield. I know Kettlewell wants to run with a smaller squad but we have five midfielders, one of whom is just about to turn 17. With Slattery's habit of picking up a suspension and the chance of injuries, should we expect a midfielder to come in this window..?

I've seen nothing confirmed but a lot of strong rumours suggesting November...

Hearing some unconfirmed young Irish wing back rumours. Person who told me couldn't remember the name but said it wasn't Furlong. Anyone heard anything...?

Not sure, but I suspect extra time. Need to give the big teams every opportunity to get the job done...

I went for Bevis. Biereth certainly made a huge impact but given how much we had heard about Hibs attackers, the back three never really gave them a chance. And Mugabi is easily the most maligned of said back three so I went for him...

He had an injury with ourselves last season. But he seems to have featured more consistently than Obika over the last few seasons...

If Mandron scores more than 15 goals this season, I'm sure there will be those on this forum who will claim they said we should have kept him rather than Obika. Frankly I wasn't hugely keen on us signing either but I do remember thinking Obika would be the better of the two if we could keep him fit. I remember having this conversation with someone and saying it was a huge 'if'. Right now, sadly that 'if' looks to have been too big. Maybe it's a blip and Obika will be available for 95% of games this season, time will tell...

It says something about the league that you could probably say the same of every team. Including the Old Firm...

Why? What did he say? I haven't seen this week's press conference yet....

I had kind of assumed that Wilson in January was the plan (similar to Johnston last season) and that was the reason that Souare was only a six month deal...

Not wishing to be negative but Souare is a 33 year old with a patchy injury record who has played around 30 games in the last 4 seasons. Might it be that this is as fit as he gets? Is his missing pre season training a red herring on that front?

Injured?

I agree. I'd be inclined to try McGinn there only as he seems to have slightly more of a football brain than the other candidates. What I would say about the defence in mitigation is that we have played five games so far this season and five different back threes. That can't help...

Watching Casey without Butcher is like watching Kipré and Dunne without Aldred or Hartley. He seems to need an organiser alongside him...

I agree but given we've just signed Souare and we have both McGinn and O'Donnell at right wing back, I'm not sure Kettlewell does...

Point away from home first day of the season is never bad. Unsurprised to hear that the wing backs were perhaps culpable at the goal. Neither have convinced against lower league sides so definitely had concerns there before the game.. As I said, given the circumstances, you take the point. Team just promoted in the first game was always going to be tricky. Some previous Motherwell sides would have lost that game having conceded an equaliser when we did...

You have just made Kettlewell's case for signing Theo Bair...

Bair is 23, still relatively young. Moult was 22 when he made his name at Wrexham. Am I convinced Bair is going to score 20 goals this season? Nope but I've been around long enough to know that footballers develop at different speeds and sometimes don't work out at certain clubs..

Anyone want a look at Scott McDonald's goals record before signing for us...