Stu92

Bit off topic, but does anyone know if Lasley is still part of the coaching team? Don't remember seeing anything official that he'd left, but haven't seen anything of him lately.

Could SOD be away after his Euros stint? If so I don't know if someone with Zuk's experience would be the answer, but it would be one possibility as to why we were looking at right backs. Would love to see Max get a bit of game time this season. I had always been of the impression that he was a left back primarily that could fill in at right back? Probably wrong on that one.

Steve Clarke would be mad not to pick him.

I couldn't agree more with the defence of SOD throughout the Euros. He was there on merit. Played absolutely superb against the English and was generally fine against the other two teams barring a few awkward moments. You really can't blame him for looking nervy at times when you see the shite directed his way by his own fans and his own nation's media, when his only crime is being a better pick than a Rangers youth player. As someone else alluded to earlier in the thread, I get the feeling that there is a degree of impostor syndrome with him whenever he plays for Scotland. In lieu of any other obvious contenders from leftfield, Patterson will almost certainly be the Scotland right back for the next wee while. O'Donnell is 29 while Patterson is 19. I suspect the transition will take place over the next qualifying campaign, with Patterson getting a few token run-outs for Rangers in the lead-up to squad announcements. Which I am okay with if he turns out to be half as good as made out to be, as I generally try to keep my Scotland hat and my C&A specs for separate occasions and wouldn't want the national side to be detrimentally affected just to prevent an OF player getting a game. I don't see Clarke being the type to pander, but think in the interest of bringing in new talent and being seen to move the national team forward he'll make the call soon. The above is all said with the caveat of never having seen Patterson play, other than the 10 minute cameo against Croatia. He looked positive when he got the ball, but also lost it twice by running down a blind alley or diving in and leaving space behind. That's maybe about the same number of times O'Donnell lost possession across 260 minutes. Potential is there, but on that brief viewing not ready (in my opinion) for international competition football. I actually tried to find a highlights video of NP prior to the tournament starting to see what the hype was all about, but all I could find was a compilation of him playing youth football and that one goal against the Belgian side . The fact that the fan boys still couldn't cobble something together suggests how little senior football he has actually played. On Turnbull, quite surprised we didn't see him off the bench in any game. This is pure speculation on my part but I wonder if the occasion perhaps got to him and he didn't train as well as he could've? Similar to with us and when he first moved to Celtic, it took him a fair while to establish himself in the team. Both Robinson and Lennon made similar claims about how he needed time to adjust, etc, I wonder how much of that was true and how much was defending their stance to not play him. It'll be interesting to see how he features in future squads where the 'win or bust' thing isn't quite so strong.

Interesting to see that Amaluzor has signed a 1 year deal but Woolery on a 3 year deal. Woolery does seem to have more experience, but I wonder if this sort of separates the two between the "he'll come good and we can sell him on" and the "total punt, we'll make a call at Christmas" categories.

He scored from a not too dissimilar position against the Dutch and had already hit the cross bar in this game. I agree that he should've moved it to the right, but hindsight is a wonderful thing and you can understand why he went for goal himself. How often do we (both as Motherwell and Scotland supporters) moan about players not shooting enough when they have the opportunity? As said previously, I think that more blame lies with Hanley and Cooper for conceding than it does Marshall or Hendry. When Hendry steps out with the ball, that should be the cue for the other two to take a step back and shuffle over. If Hanley is starting five yards deeper then Schick doesn't get to hit it first time. It is glaringly obvious when you see the view from behind the goal.

Criticism of SOD is pretty unfair in my opinion, and as others have said it is entirely because of Patterson's club team. I've said it since long before he was a Motherwell player, but for all that O'Donnell may be limited technically he is an entirely competent defender and Clarke was entirely correct to pick him over an untested teenager in a game of this magnitude. Claims of not offering anything going forward are also a bit off the mark, he got forward plenty yesterday just with little reward. Criticism of Marshall also pretty unfair. Virtually every single goalkeeper in today's game will take up a similar position when everyone is that far up the field. I don't necessarily blame Hendry for taking the shot on, but there should've been a bit more discipline from Cooper and Hanley to drop a few yards back to the halfway line. We were starting to build a good bit of pressure on them after half-time, but ultimately just a rush of blood has cost us as defensively we switched off.

I feel like I'm missing something really obvious, but what's the story with him and his missus?

I would be surprised if St Mirren were 10th, they've spent a few quid this season trying to break the top 6. Quaner for example was allegedly on 20k a week at Huddersfield before he joined them, I can't see him moving to Paisley for anything within our wage structure.

Excuse my ignorance but I've not been online in a few weeks now and so have missed a lot of the chat over players leaving and falling out of favour, etc. What's the story with Polworth and Seedorf? Their absence from matchday squads has been pretty noticeable since GA came in, but didn't know if there was any back story or simply GA not rating them.

Irrelevant really. The original post was regarding how they had both improved in recent weeks/months, which I don’t think many would argue with.

And you could put that down the red card. I find it quite telling that Polworth hasn’t been in the team since.

Hesgoal not working for me, anyone with alternatives?

Re: midfield sitting too deep. I put this down to confidence. How many times in the last year have we gone into the final 20 of a game and ended up dropping points? You hear it spoken about often, how teams retreat those extra few yards when mentally not in a good position. It’s a vicious circle though, as dropping deeper in turn results in losing more goals and herein lies the problem. Hoping that this will fix itself through winning games. Was overall very pleased with the game. Don’t think anyone had a bad game, with most having a good game. The midfield three were very good, but for a couple of slack passes and some poor set piece delivery in the second half I thought Maguire was up there as a MOTM contender. The top three were unplayable at times, the second goal was great link up play between several players and I thought we looked really dangerous on the counter. It’ll be good to get Gallagher back in the team.

I thought that we could only sign free agents now? Will be some other left field player I imagine.

If we’re talking about improvement relative to other clubs, I’d say we’ve improved more than those closest to us. Accies have signed a striker with 9 games in the championship this season without scoring, while Ross County have sold two of their better players on deadline day and brought in Jordan White. We’ve kept our better players and added experience and depth to a squad that was already performing far below its potential.

The thing that disappoints me the most about our deadline day dealings is the complete lack of announcements made in front of Motherwell landmarks. Not a single bridge to be seen.

At least you’re honest about it!

When was the last time we made an ‘inspiring’ signing? Ross McCormack?

It is always difficult to sign players of high quality given our budget relative to most of our competitors. It is always difficult to get rid of our poorer/underperforming players. It is even more difficult to do either during January. The ongoing pandemic probably doesn’t make things any easier. But aye, let’s just say that our dealings this window have been due to a lack of ambition or willingness to push the boat out. I know close to nothing about the players we’ve signed, and so will reserve judgement. But I do think our squad looks better than it did on 1st January. There were plenty of games towards the end of the year where we had zero options off the bench, whereas we probably have options to mix is up a bit now. We also have a lot of games coming up in a short period of time, we need numbers to keep it fresh and avoid burn-out/injuries. A Polworth alternative would’ve been nice, but other than that I’ll trust that GA and those running the club have a better handle on things than anyone on this forum.

Nolan seems a good signing on paper. Experienced, versatile, etc. Hoping he helps to tighten things up, as we’ll be fine once we stop giving away the customary avoidable goal in every game we play. Read the wee bio on the official announcement and it makes reference to him being able to play anywhere across the back line. I’m doing 2 plus 2 and getting that Nolan is our new right back.

BBC reporting that there's another signing to come.

Any suggestions?

I remember seeing somewhere when he signed that it was an initial 6 month loan, with a pre-contract/made permanent after that. I don’t think Alexander would’ve had much say on Crawford tbh.

Absolutely. He gets beaten with the ‘Livi reject’ stick far too often and unnecessarily. Quite pleased he’s signed on permanently, have thought he’s been one of our more competent performers of late.