steelboy

i have been having a think today about how i'll feel about mcghee in years to come and what his influence on our club has been. as much as he's pissed us all off over the last few weeks (or even months) it would be stupid not to recognise what he did for the club. PROS reinstated a sense of profesionalism at the club. he took the most unfit squad in the league and made them the fittest. mcgarry and jim paterson went from fat bastards to actual athletes. turned around clarky and quinn. two years there were numerous threads on this board saying clarky should be hunted and most people had a very low opinion of quinn as well, now they're two of our most important players and will probably either end us bringing us in some cash or making themselves a fortune. obviously the two of them have to take a great deal of credit but mcghee must have played his part got us playing good football. we'll never forget the highs of his first season but even this season when we've been distinctly mediocre we've been decent on the eye to watch and keener to pass the ball than most other teams in the league. hopefully with the new pitch this will continue but we're in for a shock if we get a long ball merchant in as a manager as i think most 'well fans expect it on the deck now. CONS signings - if you consider that hughes and hammell actually wanted to sign for us and that porter only signed because it was less of a drive for his bird than dundee his transfer activity wasn't that impressive. bob malcolm was a disaster, jim o'brien might turn out to be a good signing but we needed to replace mccormack and he came nowhere near and john sutton was the wrong player for our style of play. klimpl was good but wasn't much use but was injured for ages. sheridan and lappin were decent loans but didn't contribute that much, grabbin and the turkish boy were pointless. we only just missed the top six this season and with a wee bit extra strength in depth we probably would have made. young players - didn't play anyone who hadn't made their debut before he arrived more than three times. even in the bottom six games he didn't experiment much and on the final day we had the ridiculous sight of malcolm and mcgarry coming on. we've got noboby aged 20 or 21 coming through and that will seriously hurt us in a year or so's time. imo the worst thing he has done here. tactics - the original formation and style of play were great but his inability to deviate from it was a joke. there were too many baffling choices to go into but very often his inconsistency of thought and ability to make decisions cost us. the man quite often beat himself. overall - the good outweighs the bad, there are memories that will live forever and we achieved and witnessed things we could never have expected this time two years. we should now use this as an opportunity rather than a setback. bring in a manager who will be more commited, will make better signings, will take a longer term view of the club and won't make as many daft decisions by thinkings he's cleverer than he is. our fate is in john boyle's hands now. two years ago the club was being run into the ground and since then he's turned it round in many ways. some things have take longer than others but the club seems to be run well now and i hope JB will go the extra mile to bring the right man in and move us forward again.

i'd buy the club then start banning fans from fir park left right and centre. i'd then redevelop the east stand as a super vip box for the 40 or 50 so remaining fans with jacuzzis, bars and topless waitresses. i'd knock down the other stands and replace them with massive walls engraved with my 'well heroes. apart from that business as usual.

fair enough i just think that soon enough we're going to have to accept that the three of them are going to leave for better things probably sooner rather than later. faddy, pearo, hammell and lasley all left to try and improve themselves and these three deserve that chance as well.

it's not going to happen though. when his contract is up he'll have overs worth far more than we could ever offer waiting for him. he'll know that and so will his agent. why would anyone sign a contract that would end up with them earning less than their potential?

again agree 100%. i honestly believe he'll have learned his lesson from the malpas debacle and will deliver again. there must be plenty of capable people out there who would jump at the chance of being motherwell manager and jb and dempster should be able to seperate them from the likes of mccall, robertson and brewster no problem.

totally agree. but hibs pulled mowbray out of nowhere on the strength of an application and interview. his appointment and first press conferences were roundly mocked but looked how well it turned out. that's what we should be aiming for.

the three of them will be heading south. aberdeen couldn't keep chris clark, there's no chance they'll get any of them. when they leave we'll be in deep shit however.

i don't agree with you at all. malpas and mcghee were about the same level as players. mcghee before he came to motherwell had no managerial achievements which would impress our squad. so they basically started off on the same level. the difference is mcghee demanded high standards of fitness and commitment. while malpas spent very little time at the club and set a poor example to the players. on the park he gave very little guidance and most of his tactics were stick ten men behind the ball and hit it at mcdonald. here's another example. if i became england manager and did exactly what fabio cappello has down to the finest detail it wouldn't have worked, the england players respect cappello and they wouldn't respect me. there are plenty of people out there smart enough to be effective football managers in every aspect except controlling and influencing players. why wenger and mourinho have been able to do this is a mystery.

because players have to respect the manager enough to do what he tells them. look what happened to newcastle when the players lost respect for bobby robson or le guen at rangers. the players at barcelona had looked up to guardiola since they were kids, the same thing goes for walter smith at ibrox and when mcghee came into motherwell you can guarantee the players were getting him up on wikipedia and finding out what he had done in the game. you live in america, who are the best coaches in the NFL, college football or american football? generally it's not ex players, it's guys like bellicheck, coack k or urban meyer who have spent more time studying the game than playing it. wenger and mourinho have had success along similar paths but it seems that in football players are generally unwilling to play for some who hasn't played at a level equal to them.

can you get mfc dog collars? for actual dugs though no for ministers or kiddy fiddlers.

i totally agree with you but i'd imagine that if we were to start the process of finding a new candidate prior to his departure it may effect our ability to claim compensation. hopefully we'll take our time and find the right man, we're looking for someone for the next 3/4 years not for the game in 22 days.

a guy just won the champions league with zero experience. being a football coach isn't that difficult. the difference between malpas and mcghee was mcghee made the players train hard and told them to pass the ball to each other and malpas didn't. there are five guys who have walked out on the club before, an old man who wrote poison pen letters about his own assisant. john hughes is a retard, jeffreries is a miserable old c**t and calderwood is like a shiter version of mcghee (constant tactic and formation changes and players out of posistion) who blames his players for everything. no wonder luc is top. we just need someone who is intelligent and is willing to work hard and make others do the same. as soon as we get shot of mcghee we should ask for applications and start interviewing then may the best man win.

one's things for sure, there's nae way john sutton had the runs.

can we ban the knobend from fir park? he seems to cover half our home games from the record, probably because he lives nearby. if it was up to me i'd have banned everyone from trinity media group from fir park for all time after the goram affair, how we could let a company shaft us like that then continue to give them access, comps and hospitality is unbeliavble to me. keevins wrote the single wrote match report i've ever read after the 'well-hearts cup semi a few years ago. it was clearly a classic match but he made it sound as if it was torture to watch. in the sun bill leckie (who i'm not always the biggest fan of) wrote a great match report and summed up one of the best semi's ever perfectly. i ended up emailing to say thanks for it and mentioned the shite keevins had wrote, leckie ended up sending me a reply which basically conisisted of several parargraphs slaughtering keevins. i've also just recalled being told by a well known motherwell fitba writer that at martin o'neil and john robertson's last ever press conference at celtic park all the other journos were wishing them well and it was quite chilled out. keevins however demanded to know about their use of subs on helicopter sunday, robertson replied by telling him something along the lines that he'd been waiting five years to tell keevins he was an arsehole and told him to fuck off out the press conference! my only other information about hugh keevins is that him and andy ross used to go for romantic drives.

i'd just rather have someone from outside the scottish managerial mafia, if you hire the likes of mccall he probably won't be too bothered if he gets sacked because he'll be dunfermline or morton manager six months later. we should be inviting applications and then holding interviews and taking on whoever comes across as the most motivated and has the best plans for the future, that's how hibs got mowbray. (course we can't do this til mcghee decides where he's going). it doesn't even have to be someone with a huge track record in coaching, just someone who is intelligent and motivated.

we should definitely go for someone from outside scotland. the idea of ian mcall, chisolm, calderwood or pressley makes me feel sick. edit - add john robertson, big tel, bobby williamson, sturrock and especially brewster to that

the sooner the guy leaves the better. i've never been bothered by his whoring himself about before but what he's doing now is having a detrimental effect on our preparations for next season and it has to end as soon as possible. everyday we lose is hurting us. the guy did a lot for us but all he did what was everyone on this board suggested when malpas left (i) actually get the players fit (ii) play the ball on the deck. a great deal of his success fell into his hands: rossco was already here, porter only signed for us cause we were closer to england than dundee, hammell wanted to come home and stephen hughes came because he was a local boy. apart from that his signings were poor - malcolm, o'brien and sutton didn't deliver what we needed. he has also done nothing to strenghten our squad from the youth system and made many unbelievable tactical choices. the good outweighed the bad until the last two weeks or so, we need to take a more long term view and mark mcghee isn't the man for that. our fate is in john boyle's hands now and we have to believe he'll come through as he did two seasons ago. if i was in charge of finding a new manager i'd find someone who has never been involved in scottish football, has decent contacts in other transfer markets and will be 100% commited to the job to get the best out of the players and will bring through young players.

me on the last day of the season. turned out the long term was about 3 weeks. this summer was huge for us in terms of bringing in quality replacements for the guys who are leaving and it's hardly likely that we're going to get the best players available if we're last out the blocks. if you look at our squad today and compare it the day mcghee came in you'd have to say it's weaker. it's pretty much the same only without buzz, rossco and probably mclean and not one youngster broken through to the first team squad. btw does anyone know when the contracts of clarky, quinn and reynolds run out?

my problem is that i have doubts that even if mcghee unearthed another porter, mccormack or hughes that we could sign he wouldn't do it as it may be in the back of his mind he could end up elsewhere. if we were a bigger club in a better league someone might actually ask our manager how the speculation about his future is effecting his transfer activity but we're motherwell from scotland so it won't happen.

i don't expect to see any new players at fir park until after the celtic, hibs and aberdeen jobs have been filled.

apparently speirs got a wage rise when he moved to the times. him and phil gordon do some good scottish football pieces for the times although speirs harps on about the same subjects a bit too much in his column. the sports coverage in the times is far, far superior to anything offered by the scotsman or the herald.

john barnes 250 -1 add a few zeros and they'd be closer. if it is to be let's hope boyle plays a bit of hardball over compensation. celtic shafted us with mccart but we should be able to squeeze them over this.

best - honourable mentions - sticking six by hearts the season we finished bottom. two nil over rangers at fir park on the last day when spencer and twaddle scored. dortmund away. the 4-3 semi defeat against rangers. grinding out a one nil win at parkhead when twaddle scored. the jamie dolan in goals win over celtic. the fitzy semi against hearts. total football on a sunny day against partick with billy davies scoring a brazil 1970 esque goal. the 3-1 win at at pittodrie when jim hamilton scored the volley but for pure performance i'd go for a quartet from last season. the two away victories against hibs and the december wins against aberdeen and dundee united, watching those games i found it hard to believe that we could ever play better football than that. worst - the 1-6 home game against hibs when we played like renton and sickboy's five aside team at the start of trainspotting. the 1-4 home defeat to caley was shocking that season as well.

try and give him our % of games won with fitzpatrick in the first XI in midfield vs. % of games won with quinn or hammell in midfield and fitzpatrick not playing from the start.

i doubt it'd be full, we didn't even totally sell out FP for nancy. we'd probably get around 2500 at any of the grounds mentioned. even if the game was at fir park i doubt we'd break 4000.