bobbybingo

Starting but not finishing, again. Subbed before the hour.

I would've thought the best indicator of how the rest of the season will go for us and our relegation rivals is how it has gone so far. You could measure that by checking how many points each team has amassed up till now, since it's the number of points that will determine who stays up and who drops, nothing else. Seems bloody obvious, but obviously not everyone considers it the most relevant statistic.

Fair enough. That would certainly be a big call. You'd have to hope sacking Kettlewell wouldn't piss the players off for starters.

You're right, it's not your job to find a new manager, but I didn't actually ask who you wanted because, as I said, we all know they would promote from within at this stage. That's if they sacked Kettlewell, which Weir made pretty clear wasn't happening. It's been a poor season so far, no doubt about that, but we won't finish bottom and are currently at least 4 points above the play-off place - that's allowing for Ross County winning their game in hand and taking our far superior goal difference into account. In the last 5 league games we've picked up 8 points more than the bottom 2 and at least 4 more than anyone else in the bottom 6. Taking all that into account, do you honestly feel it would be worth rolling the dice on Frail, Foster, Clarkson or the currently unemployed and mega cheap Mr X at this point of the season?

You know who the new management team would be, we all do. Do you believe they'd do a better job?

If I've read it correctly, David is talking specifically about the folk who disappeared between Tuesday and the back of 9 on Friday. Yourself, and most of the others who want Kettlewell out don't fall into that category.

I don't think anyone suggested Imrie is a managerial great or that he should've replaced Alexander. But Morton got the better of us on Friday and they're the only non Premier team left in the cup. Obviously, his players followed the instructions they were given.

I don't disagree with anything you said and I could never criticise anyone who's had enough.

We've been to 4 cup finals in the past 20 years, which is good going for Motherwell, historically speaking. And our league record over the past 3 decades would equal that of most eras. No happy clapping involved, those are just facts.

As I alluded to in the next sentence you didn't quote.

If we had gone through we'd have been ball 7 and drawn away to Celtic. I know....

Och well, would've been a trip to Parkhead.

I've already acknowledged this was his second game against us. That's the only fact. Why you think they won and we lost is opinion. What's Dougie Imrie's disciplinary record as a manager?

You're right. Feels like an awful long time ago now.

He's turning out to be as big a pain in the arse as a manager as he was a player. Interesting that a relative rookie was able to beat us tactically at the first time of asking when an old hand like Levein couldn't do it in 3 attempts.

When you lose 2-1 to a team who had 1 shot on target....

We can start at Carlo Ancelotti and work our way through to Walter Zenga.

Yeah, they should always be planning ahead, but like the players, identifying decent targets is the easy part, getting them to come here is problematic.

Agreed. What's done is done, but Kettlewell needs to be using Vale and the other guys going forward. I could understand why he was loathe to use subs when the bench was almost devoid of decent options, but it's looking stronger now, so let's see them getting a fair run out.

On the bright side, Vale's already scored two more goals than Van Veen. He definitely needs to be given his chance.

On Wednesday, yeah.

I always suspected the players' attitude got us through that play-off rather than anything Baraclough did. Makes me wonder about their attitude in the games prior to that, right enough. Summed up by Ainsworth - very capable when he could be arsed. This lot are undoubtedly of a lesser standard but their attitude's been pretty good in most matches, Dingwall and last night being obvious exceptions. Just need to hope they get over it sooner than we will.

They would, but they still finished in the play-off spot. You could probably say the same about every team who were in the Premier then and now.

Could we find a better manager than Kettlewell? Absolutely. Could we find worse? Absolutely. The first thing we need to ensure this season is our survival in the Premier. Finishing 11th would be potentially disastrous, so any decision taken at this time has to be taken based on the likelihood of that happening, not how attractive our play is etc. That's why I think the summer would be the logical time for change, if change there's going to be. A look at the table shows we're not at the Hail Mary stage right now, and as far as alternatives go, I've yet to hear anyone put forward a realistic and exciting option. I get what you're saying about the board not taking big decisions because they're off soon. It's out there now, everyone knows it's happening - that uncertainty must ring alarm bells with any manager offered the job.

No idea. I haven't suggested sacking Kettlewell, but I would've thought people who do want him gone might have some clue as to who they want. If he did go right now, I don't think there's much doubt they'd replace from within, so we're probably looking at Frail. There was a lot of talk about Ian Murray a few weeks back when Raith were doing well, but after 5 defeats on the bounce, I've read a lot of their fans criticising him on social media. Same stuff as we mump about - poor signings, poor team selection, poor tactics, no plan B. Even if we wanted him, he'd cost us, having just signed a 3 year extension. If we can get some money into the club there's a chance we can go after a slightly higher level of player, which might attract a slightly higher level of manager. Without more spending power we're looking at rookies or folk like John Hughes, guys who'll take any job just to get back into management.