fizoxy

I'm hoping that we have a "marquee" signing in the works, i.e. our first choice striker.

Who doesn't? Probably the 2 hardest types of player to find, and usually the most expensive.

Spittal and Slattery were both good. I went with spittal. No one was particularly bad, were still disjointed and you could tell who missed pre season.

Blaney in too, so no bevis.

I'm sure there's a pill they can take for that.

I mean, you can sing his whole name to sunday bloody sunday.

Is it a one legged midget clown to replace Lamie?

I think he said himself that he prefers to play at the back now, and I think our system suits him. It also looks like we want our midfield to be mobile and cover a whole lot of yards, which would definitely expose Butcher. It will be inetesting to see who gets the nod for that spot until he's back. Does casey move to the middle? Or is it between lamie and bevis?

I like efford, he played in the friendlies, so maybe we're being careful with his minutes. I wonder if he fits into our style now. He played out wide for us a lot, but I'm sure he was a center forward when we signed him, so you'd think need need him. Saying that, if Ferrie is going to get serious minutes this season, then the likes of efford become costly backups.

We weren't really tested at the back, but a good runout for the squad and it was great to see three youngsters start. Miller looked composed throughout, and I thought Wilson was solid. Ross was all adrenaline to start with, but chilled out as the game went on and gave a good account of himself. He's also rapid, which is nice for a change. Today isnt much of an indicator as to how the season will go, but it will go some way to preparing the squad and building confidence.

Ross is a forward, right? That would make it a 433 or 442.

Looks like Campbell is off to Annan on loan

Does our home strip clash with aberdeen and hearts? If livi are still yellow they're the only club I can see us having to wear the away strip against.

Amber and orange are totally different colors, so I scoff at any sectarian comparisons. However, we should wear it against Celtic anyway.

I wouldn't be surprised if we put Campbell and ferrie out on loan, and maybe a few others, assuming we take care of their contracts first 🙂

I mean, is it not normal for people to to hand back wages when they feel they are not one of the best 11 people at their work? There's always going to be squad players, changes in form, changes in tactics, injuries, etc. Ideally you want 12-25 to be players that could seamlessly switch into the first team, but that's just not going to happen.

I'm not sure there was an attitude problem there, and he did say this wasn't a slight on the players involved. Instead he said he needed a squad of players that all think they can get into the first team. When players aren't fitting into a system or are clearly out of contention for a place, they're not going to be as motivated, and that's natural. I'm not good with the level of vitriol the likes of Danzaki, Shields and Maguire are getting. I dont know why some folk take it personally, the players didnt put the contracts in front of us. The didn't join us or re-sign just to piss about the place, or "steal a wage", they have been unable to force their way into the managers plans for one reason or another, and they'll move on and find their level somewhere else.

One thing I think we can be sure of, based on what we've seen from Kettlewell so far, is that our attitude will be spot on and we will be going out to win. Shit can still happen, but I'm not expecting the GA "treat it like a friendly" approach. I assume this isn't available to view anywhere because of the viaplay shambles?

I understand the approach of scouring the planet for signings to try and find bargains, and that sometimes these guys can be projects that may not pay off. Getting one or two right could bring serious money and mitigate the failures. However, if we're going to sign project players, we probably need a better coaching infrastructure than we have. At least in this case we identified the mistake and cut our losses. The money was spent the day he signed, so once we realized he wasn't up to snuff it was about recouping whatever we could.

We can negotiate the development fee, i.e. take a smaller fee with an add on instead. Pretty sure that's what we did with Campbell.

They need to agree to go to start with. If they genuinely feel that they can work their way into first teams plans they'll want to hang around.

Don't think anyone is going to take the 10, is it not retired?

Goss was very good under SK, and wasn't as bad as made out before, albeit still bad. He found form at the right time (funny that), which probably priced him out of a return to us. I'm not losing sleep over him not returning, partly because him and Slattery can't play together, and we still have Slattery under contract. I think we will still sign another midfielder, but we need to be looking to give Miller more minutes too.

Not our best season signings-wise: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997–98_Motherwell_F.C._season

Our level is so weird that it's hard to predict how players from outside of Scotland will fare regardless of their history. If our top flight was immediately absorbed into the English leagues today based on their level, we'd probably have teams in each division. The style up here is it's own thing too, so sometimes it can undo good players (or known names at least), and others with less glamorous backgrounds can thrive. Wilkinson looks like a number 9, which was what we needed, and he has some moments in his highlight reel that remind me of KVVs. However, I'm a bit wary of the 6'3" guy stating that he's not a target man, which I hope is because he thinks he has more to his skill set, rather than that he can't hack the physical stuff. The recent long term injury is a concern, but he did get 20+ games last season, so maybe not as risky as Moult was.