It's great that we've had different people make an influence off the bench each time, with bowman, bigi and tanner all coming on and leading to goals in the last few weeks.
Boring trivia - that was meant to be an extended fight scene, but Ford had the shits so they did that instead. Dunne's attempt at working while sick didn't work as well.
The "playing better than results suggest" and "only losing by the odd goal" is textbook relegation fodder. I've seen a few motherwell teams with the same problem, just that one win good spell away from getting it right, then it's February and we're in the shit.
There's also the motherwell tradition of ending other teams bad runs, so I might adjust my earlier prediction and go for a draw.
2-1 good guys, Moult and Bowman. Thomas to get red for fighting with Erwin over who gets to take a penalty, which Erwin misses, but then they get another one later which they score after Erwin gets subbed.
If we have no money in the bank we'll also be in the championship. We have to balance putting the best possible team on the park with having a sustainable financial model that keeps us in the top division.
The other thing to consider is that although the Marvin Johnson deal has worked out, there is no guarantee that everyone we sell will go from strength to strength and command a bigger fee a few years down the line. You just need to look at the number of young Scottish players that end up coming back up here after a couple of years of reserve football.
There is a point there though, we can't get a sell on as well as a development fee. So we could sell him for 500k now and get another 25% of hopefully a few million down the line, or we can let him go at the end of his contract and only get the development fee.
Personally I'd go with the latter, as I think 2 years of cadden is more valuable than the potential sell on amount.
Tait has scored 2 and set up a few, and despite his defensive misgivings (and that he is clearly under instructions to be more attacking) we have won more than we've lost. He also had a load of assists last year, so I'd say he has proved himself as a starter, whereas Plummer hasn't done anything. Frear also hasn't done anything to suggest he can play on the right, and since his game is about getting to the byline and getting crosses in, he'd be better on the left.
I'm pretty sure that by the end of the season frear and tait are going to be way up there in assists.
I think there has been talk of bigi nursing an injury, but I had expected him to be the one we'd be raving about by now, but he hasnt met those expectations yet. I still expect him to be pretty influential as the season goes on though.
I still think fisher will come good, but bowman's improvement has been welcome when fisher and tanner haven't lived up to expectations (yet).
Kipre has been really good, and dunne has been interesting, but a lot is going to depend on who we replace Ben with. If we were looking for a defender anyway, and now the possibility of losing him, we really need someone with a bit of experience to replace him and a right sided center back/wing back hybrid to push tait.
So we'll sign two strikers tomorrow
Has any other player caught on with the fans as quickly as Kipre has? If we are guaranteed a Kipre for every Blyth, do we keep singing young guys released by Leicester?
A bit disappointed for Campbell, but the manager has been full of praise for rose, so he's obviously doing what is asked of him, whatever that is.
I like the front pairing, hopefully it's a straight 2 up top.
Hateley did great for us. We're always going to find a problem with someone in our team, even when it's the most successful team many of us have seen.
Tait is doing what is asked of him, I.e the manager has emphasized attack as a priority for the full/wing backs. In that respect he's doing great considering the number of assists he has made, and 2 goals so far this season.