fizoxy

Most strikers?

Here is it's attempt at the Clyde game Formation Motherwell should line up in a 4-2-3-1 to balance control and intensity. This gives two defensive midfielders shielding the back four and three attackers ahead. It suits Askou’s preferred style of “dynamic…aggressive” football with layers of playnews.stv.tv. The two holding mids will dictate possession (one likely Elliot Watt – a “highly skilled passer” who “covers ground well”motherwellfc.co.uk – alongside a box-to-box runner like Tom Sparrow). Ahead of them, an attacking trio (Callum Slattery centrally with wide runners) can stretch Clyde’s defense. The back four – O’Donnell at right, McGinn at left, with Gordon and Balmer centrally – provides width on overlaps and defensive solidity. Overall, 4-2-3-1 offers controlled buildup, high pressing, and multiple attacking outlets against the League Two side. Defense (4): RB Stephen O’Donnell; CBs Liam Gordon and Kofi Balmer; LB Paul McGinn. Midfield pivot (2): Elliot Watt (DM) and Tom Sparrow (DM). Attacking midfield (3): Callum Slattery (CAM) supporting as #10, with wingers Sam Nicholson (R) and Lukas Fadinger (L). Forward (1): Apostolos Stamatelopoulos leading the line. Starting XI GK: Aston Oxborough RB: Stephen O’Donnell (captain) CB: Liam Gordon CB: Kofi Balmer LB: Paul McGinn CDM: Elliot Wattmotherwellfc.co.uk CDM: Tom Sparrow RW: Sam Nicholson CAM: Callum Slattery LW: Lukas Fadinger ST: Apostolos Stamatelopoulos Watt and Jordan McGhee joined in summeren.wikipedia.orgen.wikipedia.org; Watt’s arrival gives extra quality and width in midfieldmotherwellfc.co.uk. All listed players are under contract and fit; key contributors from last season (Oxborough, O’Donnell, Slattery, Nicholson, etc.) remain available. Tactical Overview Style of play: Under Askou, Motherwell will play high-intensity, aggressive football with multiple layersnews.stv.tv. In possession, the team will focus on controlling the game through midfield, using short passes and movement rather than only long balls. The double pivot (Watt/Sparrow) will dictate play and recycle possession, while the #10 (Slattery) provides creativity. Fullbacks O’Donnell and McGinn will push on to supply width and overload wide areas. Askou demands “aggressiveness, discipline [and] structure” from his sidenews.stv.tv, so Motherwell should maintain a compact shape without the ball and press Clyde intensely high up. Key tactics: The midfield should press collectively to deny Clyde time on the ball, reflecting Askou’s emphasis on intensitynews.stv.tv. Watt’s ability to cover ground and provide disciplined possessionmotherwellfc.co.uk makes him ideal for breaking up counters and transitioning play quickly. Up front, Nicholson and Fadinger will stretch the defense, allowing Stamatelopoulos to latch onto crosses and through balls. Set pieces will be important – Motherwell have tall, aerially strong defenders – so winning corners and free-kicks can produce goals as they did last year. In defense, the two holding mids must screen the back four to prevent Dunachie or Hilton (Clyde’s strikers) from running in behind. The back line will stay organized, and O’Donnell/McGinn will support the press by quickly advancing on Clyde’s wide players. Matchups & pressing: Key matchups include Watt and Sparrow against Clyde’s central midfielders, preventing the Bully Wee from building play. Out wide, O’Donnell’s one-vs-one battles vs. their left-sided forwards (e.g. Dunachie) will be critical. Motherwell should press up on Clyde’s half when possible – Askou wants the team to “take the initiative”news.stv.tv – but also stay compact enough to prevent quick counters from Hilton or Robbie Leitch. In short, Motherwell will look to dominate possession, probe openings through midfield, and suffocate Clyde with energetic pressing and quality distribution. Opposition Analysis Clyde (League Two) finished 7th last seasonmotherwellfc.co.uk under new manager Darren Young. Their attack revolves around former Well youth and lower-league scorers. Martin Rennie (10 goals in 2024-25) has left, so look for Motherwell youth graduate Logan Dunachie (7 goals in 24/25, now used as a strikermotherwellfc.co.uk) and new signing James Hilton (9 goals for Dumbarton last term) to lead the linemotherwellfc.co.uk. Midfielder Robbie Leitch (6 goals last year) also remains a threat from deeper. Clyde will likely line up in a narrow 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, attempting to attack quickly when they win the ball. The Bully Wee’s strengths are their forward runners and set-piece work. Motherwell must counter by denying service to Dunachie and Hilton – cutting out passes through the middle (using Watt/Sparrow’s pressure) and marking aggressively on the wings. Given Clyde’s lower-division physical style, Motherwell should use quick passing and width to unbalance them. In defense, compact lines and quick switches of play will counter Clyde’s pace. Neutralize their targets (track Dunachie’s movement in behind, crowd Hilton at crosses) and Motherwell should control the game. Clyde threats: Dunachie and Hilton (right footed runners) will attack space, so Watts’s coverage is vital. Dunachie’s pace means O’Donnell or Sparrow must close him down early. Leitch can shoot from distance, so midfielders need to close down any turning time. On set plays, Clyde’s physicality means Motherwell must stay alert. Overall, Motherwell should dictate tempo (as Askou demands) and punish Clyde on the break and from corners, which will nullify the lower-league side’s main threatsnews.stv.tv

Spittal and Bair are good recent examples. We were all clamoring for Ronan Hale as well. In fact, there were plenty of folk after sprangler, who is a more limited player than Watt, but his name sticks out more. If we're signing players from good teams, it would likely be their shite players, so you can't win. There's always going to be something to pick at regardless of where a player comes from so it just comes down to your outlook on things. As stv says, unless a manager has been there a few years, most of the players aren't his signings. Also, we're going to have to get used to the way things work now, in that managers have less of a say in the recruitment process, so there's going to be a mix on guys signed by the recruitment team, with some recommendations from the manager. There's plenty of time for things to shake out, so I don't see the point in folk getting worked up at this point.

He has a good amount of first team games for his age and captained Burton Albion for most of his time there, so has some leadership qualities. Looks like a decent signing to me.

Seddon is injury prone because he was injured last season. Halliday played every game last season, but isn't fit enough because he didn't do that before 🙂

There was a short clip of him in the intro video where he tells Askou "a couple of weeks". Not sure if that's when he's due back, or how long it's been since his last haircut now that his permacrock pal has left .

Scott Tiffoney is pish.

Not the sexiest move, but probably pays more.

The training facilities have been brought up by the club on multiple occasions, and I'm sure there was a project at Muirhouse that fell through in recent years. When you look at what other clubs have, we're way behind in that regard. My assumption is that we'd look to develop something at the location we currently use.

You missed Gordon. 3-4 signings sounds about right. Unless Robinson is due back soon, we need 2 forwards. Maybe Ross, Fadinger, or Wells are considered part of a front 3? I wonder if we will take advantage of the flexible loan thing that starts this year, to keep the young players getting minutes but still being available for us.

I shared this elsewhere, it's a year old, but a decent insight into the guy

He's getting fired for not mentioning them in the headline.

To be fair, we've been linked to 3 players so far (unless im missing someone), and 2 have signed already. Scott Burns broke the sylla story, and he's usually spot on. Still, it's only just talks so that doesn't mean he'll sign. As for the Miller to to OF stories, utter made up shite.

We have a recruitment department that gives us continuity in these situations, and this is the way most teams are going these days. The same goes for our coaching team, who can more than handle the start of pre-season. I don't see that being an issue though as were still under the amount of time it took to get wimmer.

What is Neilsons style? I don't pay much attention to the other teams. Does he have a preferred formation? Also, did he not leave hearts for a job down south the first time around?

https://www.worldfootball.net/player_summary/robert-klauss/

We shouldn't abandon our process because of one unfortunate issue. We aren't the first club to hire a manager from another country in our division, never mind the prevalence of foreign managers across all the leagues in Europe. I don't know how many of those left after 12 weeks because of a family issue, so it's not fair to assume that any manager from outside of the central belt is a flight risk for that reason. There's nothing to say thar out process won't lead us to a Scottish manager, but I don't think we should tear things up off the back of one incident.

We might be able to loan them out if they're fit in time for the windows and don't figure into our plans. But it's very unlikely that we're going to mutual them. Even if we wanted to, I don't know why any of them would give up any of their contract when they face uncertainty after a lengthy injury. At worst they'll not get back to full fitness before their contract ends, and leqve next summer, and at best a couple of them will be fit by January and save us from loaning in some children as deadline panic buys. So I doubt the new manager will be hanging any hopes on them either way.

Seddon played 200+ games in his career, including 30 odd in the season before joining us, so I'm not sure we can call him injury prone. Definitely not in the mould of Sam Nicholson, who is a genuine perma crock. Seddon had 2 injuries with us, and missed games at the start of the season when wilson kept his place. The big injury he had last season was the ankle one that put him out for months, that i think happened in a game. It would come down to how hard those are to recover from long term. I like him, and he's a better footballer than the other options there, he also gives us a good fdw options on the left of defence, whether LB, LWB, or LCB, so I'd like to keep him, especially since decent left bqcks dont grow on trees, but he hasn't played enough for me to be turning up at FP with a pitch fork if he wasn't extended.

I like Casey. He's flawed, but definitely a good defender at our level that would get a game for most teams in our league. Having a defender that can chip in with some goals, and a player with some personality is always nice. On the other hand, our defense overall is poor, so I am not going to be too fussed about anyone leaving it. Not every goal is a defenders fault, but we do have a group of error prone defenders, and not enough going forward to gloss over that.

I'd worry about the time it is taking once we're past this week, as that would put us on a longer timeline than when we got Wimmer, which also had the work permit time built in. The difficulty this time around is that nothing else is happening because it's the close season, and we announced a couple of signings already, so we're just all bored and waiting for info. The other wrinkle is that we have a good chunk of the squad decided, and yet to realize any funds from a Miller sale, so there's no rush on that front. We also have pre season all sorted and organized, so not much to panic about.

It's all speculation, nothing of substance has surfaced from the club or any potential applicants.

They said the process was going to be the same as last time, and we didn't know anything until the manager was announced, so it will be the same this time around. Last time took 3 weeks, I assume it will be similar this time. The papers are too busy with Rangers to do any digging on us, and it seems that the leaky ones are no longer at the club. There has been absolutely nothing to suggest any candidate is in the running, internal or external, just MJC trying to make Richard Foster happen for some reason.

TUSK!

TUSK!