fizoxy

Prob this. Solidarity with palestine though.

Well everyone is spouting the unbelievable 33 man squad pish, so I'll keep going.

Can definitely see a number going out. As per my post at the start of the week, we generally make signings on a one in one out basis, with most of this year's outs being injuries, of which we have 9, and 10 if the Vale rumor is true (and add the likes of Slattery and Nicholson on limited minutes due to injuries). Callachan, Watt, Tavares, Vale, Moses seem like candidates to go. Miller potentially for other reasons. Can't see mair hanging around with his broken hand either. Can definitely see a number going out. As per my post at the start of the week, we generally make signings on a one in one out basis, with most of this year's outs being injuries, of which we have 9 (10 if the Vale rumor is true), and add the likes of Slattery, Paton and Nicholson on limited minutes due to injuries. Callachan, Watt, Tavares, Vale, Moses seem like candidates to go. Miller potentially for other reasons. So, out of the 33 we have, 10 aren't available, some for a considerable time. With 9 on the bench you need 20 for a matchday squad, so we're sitting at a surplus of 3 available players. Two of whom are Moses and Koutroumbis. If we want the much mooted squad of 23, then tomorrow we'd have 2 subs and making the rest up with kids. On the strikers, we signed Stuparevic, Robinson and Stama. Two of those are injured and one isn't up to scratch and was sent out on loan (whether that changes next season, who knows). Watt is clearly done, and Moses is a chaos sub at best. Tavares is injured and Vale is suspended and maybe injured too. Before we signed armstrong we had Watt, Moses and JT available. Not giving us any options on the bench. Of the three that have come in, 2 have replaced Stama and Robinson. The third suggests someone is off. Signing Stuparevic, Koutroumbis, Callachan and Tavares all seem like legit mistakes, the first two are just how it goes, the other two are plain dumb. Also, I doubt we're keeping mair with his broken hand. So, out of the 33 we have, 10 aren't available, some for a considerable time. With 9 on the bench you need 20 for a matchday squad, so we're sitting at a surplus of 3. Two of the squad are on limited minutes, and two are Moses and Koutroumbis. If we want the much mooted squad of 23, then tomorrow we'd have 2 first team subs and making the rest up with kids. On the strikers, we signed Stuparevic, Robinson and Stama. Two of those are injured and one isn't up to scratch and was sent out on loan (whether that changes next season, who knows). Watt is clearly done, and Moses is a chaos sub at best. Tavares is injured and Vale is suspended and maybe injured too. Before we signed armstrong we had Watt, Moses and JT available. Not giving us any options on the bench. Of the three that have come in, 2 have replaced Stama and Robinson. The third suggests someone is off. Signing Stuparevic, Koutroumbis, Callachan and Tavares all seem like legit mistakes, the first two are just how it goes, the other two are plain dumb. Balcombe also doesn't look great. If we sign any more forwards by Monday (unless 2 go out), I'd say logic is out of the window, but you can't always sign the players you need in the perfect order. Hopefully a midfielder that isn't a child is one of the remaining signings. Why we don't have any young players that can step up, or why we aren't using them, is it's own discussion.

It's hard to look for any strategy in a season where at least 8 of our signings have been to cover for injuries, or to cover for the cover. I don't believe we were going for quantity at the start of the season, but I'd rather we bring in loan players for cover than take on someone full time that could bleed into next seasons budget. We're in a good spot to clear out once this is done, and we aren't onn the hook for too much should the worst happen. However, signing permacrocks is a bad idea in any situation.

If we can get away with 12 players, we might just turn this around.

He was possibly involved, but the point of having Daws is continuity, so good to see that in effect.

Frail mentioned they're still trying to recruit.

Assistant manager somewhere I believe

Is our best chance of the manager unifying the fanbase to get someone we all hate?

I'm guessing Huguton is via bookies odds, which isnt worth much. He'd be an excellent appointment, but probably still has some better paying jobs in him yet.

Any suggestion of Duncan Ferguson is pure ignorance. Some people remember him prancing up and down the touchline for Everton and think we need that "passion", and don't bother to look at his actual record. He relegated ICT, had them playing eye bleeding football, and signed his own son who was hopeless Of all the names I've seen so far, I'd rather have kettlewell back.

There's always one or two that get themselves linked with a job just to get their name out, and that's what Arnold strikes me as. He has had good success, and I have to imagine he's out of our range. I don't know much about his style though. Not sure what owen coyle has done in the last 10 years to deserve to be linked. No chance of McGlynn, he's months away from promoting falkirk, and took a few years to build that side. Brown is building experience, and is probably viable, but he did sign a new contract when he rejected St J. Naismith had shankland to thank, then rue. He did have the curse of Europe to deal with, but his recruitment wasn't great. Lennon seems more like an until the end of the season thing, but there's a section of our fans that will be sick in their mouths. There will be a few of the media darlings linked as well, and at least one who has no chance will rule himself out because if the fan abuse. I'll nominate Kevin Thomson for that spot. This is a chance for a brand new executive team to put their stamp on things, and it's a good opportunity for someone to come in, figure things out, scrape us the points we need, and hit the summer with a clean slate. However, this has Frail until the end of the season written all over it.

Lambert has some job with Dortmund where he gets to live in Australia https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/newsbirmingham/paul-lambert-reveals-he-has-landed-new-job-ten-years-after-aston-villa-sacking/ar-AA1xWFnY?ocid=BingNewsVerp Coyle manages an Indian team after leaving queens park a couple of years ago.

Clubs will be lining up for SK with his record, so he shouldn't be out of work for long.

Greg Anderson and Tom Feeley from the WS https://thewellsociety.uk/2024/11/06/fresh-leadership-for-motherwell-and-well-society-boards/

I guess it depends on what was said and when. If SK has thrown away a top division management job for it, it obviously bothered him. I'm sure there could be other factors involved, but defending our support unconditionally is as bad as those sticking the boot in in the press. If the club didn't state the reason, and SK stated it in the press instead, it looks like a cover up from us. It is also clear that the club didn't want him to go (whether folk like that or not) so they'll be just as pissed as Kettlewell is. More might come out over the next few days, but in the meantime the only person who knows what has gone on is SK, and maybe some club officials.

He's going to try the exact same thing at his next 5 clubs now.

To he fair, SK resigning must have saved them a fortune on bedsheets and duct tape, so why not.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/trainer/verfuegbaretrainer/statistik/

Neil Lennon is also a shite manager.

Good point on the players still playing for him, which seems to have been the case, outside of the rumored bust up with Casey. There could be some fallout there, and it will take a strong person to manage that. The fact that 2 managers in a row have left us due to abuse from the fans is embarrasing. It's way too convenient for us to dismiss it as spin or scapegoating. I do think there is a shade of managing his own brand and leaving at the right time, but we're kidding ourselves if we think the abuse didn't happen.

New thread time!

Ok, here goes. As far as who we've signed, that's up for debate as to who is good and who isn't. As far as filling areas of need, it has been pretty organized and methodical, outside of signing Vale and Tavares when we needed 2 midfielders. All rough working based on the website, but coming into this season we had: GK - Ox (re-signed), Connelly WB - Wilson (kind of), SoD CB - Blaney, McGinn, Casey Mid - Slattery (re-signed, injured), Miller, Nicholson (re-signed), Davor, Halliday, Paton FW - Moses, Bair Youth (that looked like they might get games at the time)- Ferrie, Ross, Wells. None look to be worth worrying about, which is a shame, I'd prefer to have 3 of our own youth products on the bench. So we needed: - a goalie, - 2 WBs, - at least one CB. - at least one midfielder - at least 2 forwards I might be off in the order here, but pre season we signed GK - Hegyi WB - Seddon, Johnny K CB - Balmer, gordon Mid - Callachan, Sparrow FW - Stuparevic, Robinson At the time, we thought maybe one defender too many, but that balmer and Gordon were good gers, then..... Mcginn injured pre-season So logically, as expected. We filled holes in the required positions, and left with a squad of 23 outside of the younger players, so room to add 1 or 2, with bair expected to go, and mcginn injured. Consensus at the time was that callachan was a bad signing, Sparrow was bench fodder, and Robinson was a good call. July 11th - koutroumbis out for months - Down a RWB July 15th - Kaleta joins - Back even on RWB July 16th - Theo Bair sold for actual money - Down a striker July 26th - Harry paton injury (and should have been a pen) - Down a midfielder July 30th - AP signed - back even on strikers Nicholson injury mentioned on August 5th - Down 2 midfielders Callachan injury (big fucking surprise) reported on August 8th - Down 3 midfielders Blaney out 6 weeks on August 8th - Down 2 defenders, but we signed two, so covered. August 13th - Watt came in - ok 5 strikers, maybe that's enough Aug 14th - AP injured for 6 weeks - Down to 4 strikers, uh oh Aug 19th - Maswanhise joined - back to 5 forwards, yay August 29th ish - Tavares and vale joined at the end of the summer window - 7 forwards now, wtf? Aug 20th - Stuparevic sent out on loan - Just the 6 forwards now - still down 3 midfielders 3rd Dec - Robinson out for season - only 5 strikers left 20th Dec-ish - Nicholson back - Down 2 midfielders 30th Dec - mcginn back, yay 31st Dec - Miller injured for months, well baws. - Down 3 midfielders 1st Jan ish - AP out for some time, double baws. - 4 forwards, bare bones 1st Jan ish - where's Jair? - 3 forwards 6th Jan - Slattery back, wooo. - Down 2 midfielders 7th Jan - Kai andrews signed - Down 1 midfielder 11th Jan - Ox injured -Down one keeper 11th Jan - Hegyi recalled by west ham - Down 2 keepers, oh no 11th Jan - Mair signs, Connelly recalled - back to two keepers, for now phew. - 13th Jan - Mcginn injured for months again, fuck - Down a cb Jan sometime - seddon injured for months, again fuck - Down a wb 24th Jan - signed armstrong - 5 forwards, but vale suspended, Moses ill 23rd Jan signed balcombe 23rd Jan - Connelly sent back on loan - back to 2 keepers 23rd Jan - Mair injured - one keeper again 23rd Jan - Connelly temp recalled - 2 keepers again 24th Jan - signed Dom Thompson - back even on WBs So numbers wise, outside of the vale and Tavares signings, we've tended to replace what we've lost, other than midfielders. Stuparevic and Johnny K not being up to scratch hasn't helped. I'd say that if it wasn't for injuries we wouldn't have signed Mair, Balcombe, Kaleta, one of Gordon or Balmer, Andrews, Armstrong, Thompwe'reat least one of Watt/Tavares/JT/vale. If we sign Mcghee then I'd say we're covered numbers-wise. He probably covers CB too. As such, I don't think the signing policy has been chaotic or scatter gun in itself, the fact that we have needed to sign replacements for replacements has meant we really are scraping the bottom of the barrel for incomings. With AP due back, and just signing Armstrong, I wouldn't expect another striker unless someone goes. Saying that, we did have 7 at one point. Moses and Slattery were Ill at the weekend, but could see Moses moving on. Looks like Tavares and Watt will stay unless their parent clubs want to play them. They don't. So the scope for outgoings are Miller and any of those up in the summer on pcas, ie Casey. The only incoming loans we can make have to be u21 due to rules. In conclusion, outside of selling someone, I don't think we need to be online on deadline day. Unless someone else gets injured.

The board, who have WS representatives on it.

The answer to the first question is pretty easy, we've had a crazy number of injuries this season, and we need a matchday squad. If we didn't bring in replacements for the injured players, this place would be in meltdown. Thankfully we have a lot of players out of contract and a large number of loans, so the bloat will be gone soon enough. Also, piss would boil if we just brought in a couple in January. How that window is fetishized is a problem in itself. As with all clubs, our recruitment has been hit or miss. I'd love to see how we are (objectively) compared to other teams at our level when it comes to that. We tend to just see the good players the other teams sign and focus on our own shite. We got money for KVV, Bair, Sol, woolery, got a solid 2 years out of spittal, somehow got biereth for 6 months, and have generally done well innthe loan market, particularly for full backs. There's a fair amount of dross there, but I'm not sure if that's more than normal. Also, when you're signing replacements for replacements, you're naturally not getting the best. Our first choice lineup looks pretty good, and it's a shame we will never see it. Add AP, Miller, Seddon, and McGinn to this team and most of us would be pretty happy. I will say, our midfield recruitment this season was piss poor, relying on multiple players with a poor injury history, another who still had another six months out injured to go, and an 18 year old we were sure to be selling. I'm more concerned about the injuries, but even there, there has been a number of contact injuries from games, which are hard to prevent. Signing known injured players and accumulating injuries from training is more of a problem.