2016/17 Ins & Outs

[Izett]

Nothing has been confirmed by an official yet about Laing. Seems like it's a County Fan on twitter that has announced it.

[Lobey_Dosser]

Good luck to Laing if that's the case.

 

I had high hopes for him when he signed permanently but for whatever reason he never fully recovered from the East Fife shocker.

 

From a financial perspective, there was little sense in having both Kennedy and Laing on the books so we've done well to get one out the door. I suspect Laing was on a very decent contract.

[ONeils40yarder]

Nothing has been confirmed by an official yet about Laing. Seems like it's a County Fan on twitter that has announced it.

 

If its not official yet, he should get his balls kicked for standing on the pitch at Countys Ground with a Notts County scarf above his head

[something else]

 

If its not official yet, he should get his balls kicked for standing on the pitch at the County Ground with a Notts County scarf above his head

He should get his balls kicked for turning up at the wrong ground .

[SCDave]

 

If its not official yet, he should get his balls kicked for standing on the pitch at the County Ground with a Notts County scarf above his head

It's a picture from when he was there on loan a couple of years ago...

[ONeils40yarder]

ah well, duped by Twitter then

[capt_oats]

In fairness the Nottingham Post ran the story linking him with County first earlier today before yer man posted the tweet with the old photo: http://www.nottinghampost.com/is-former-nottingham-forest-defender-louis-laing-on-his-way-back-to-notts-county/story-29618526-detail/story.html

 

Given McGhee mentioned that there were a couple of clubs interested in some other players in the squad on loan I wouldn't be totally surprised to see some movement this week.

 

Edit: that's him signed. 5 month loan.

 

https://twitter.com/MotherwellFC/status/765164781665980417

[David]

Looks like it's a loan deal?

[wellowell]

It is a loan deal according to our site

[texanwellfan]

Making way for a signing to come in?

[superward]

Good move for him as he is well out of favour. Kennedy and Ferguson are able back up and able to also push for the first team.

 

Would not be surprised to see another couple out on loan.

 

Hopefully saves us some wages that we can now use elsewhere.

[Tickle Pickle]

Lee Lucas 6 month deal??

[superward]

Lee Lucas 6 month deal??

I reckon that is likely. But I really hope not.

 

Unless McGhee sees Lasley as not playing unless it's an emergency (Faddy style) we do not need another central midfielder.

[weesacs]

Remember Pearo will be back in January!

[sinjy]

Id like to see the Laing wage used to get a box to box midfielder in for six months on loan from England. We can then see if he is any good and if not Pearson coming back will fill the hole.

McHugh Clay and Lasley are too similar. Neither of them seem capable of running past the front players to give us scoring chances or making the killer pass to open a defence.

[Brazilian]

Why are people assuming Pearson is coming back?

 

Not our registered player,

 

Would we even have a wage for him, if it were to open as an option

[capt_oats]

Why are people assuming Pearson is coming back?

 

Not our registered player,

 

Would we even have a wage for him, if it were to open as an option

 

I think there's a degree of 2+2 off the back of some of the comments when he left ie: "who knows, one day I may be back for another go at it." in the statement on the official site. It may not have been intended to be interpreted as such but given the short season in the ISL and the fact he'd be available in January then it's a pretty solid hint. Particularly given that MFC released him from his deal to go over to India. Wouldn't be a massive stretch that there would be a quid pro quo involved. http://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2016/06/29/pearson-departs-for-india/

 

There were a couple of interviews with senior players that alluded to him coming back as well I think.

 

Either way as it stands, if a couple of the 20s who have been on the bench of late go out on loan to get regular first team football (as Craigan hinted at in his interview the other week) then with 3 midfield positions available at the moment you're looking at 3 from McHugh, Clay, Cadden and Lasley. I'd say there's probably room (budget allowing etc) for 1 or 2 in the midfield area. Even more so if there are other first team players likely to be loaned out as well. IIRC McGhee had said in his pre-game press conference that there were clubs looking at loaning "one or two" of the first team squad, of whom Laing was clearly one.

[CMWellfan]

Just catching up with this. Looks as if I have caused a stir by asking about it again. Granted, it was off topic but I found it interesting. So some of you couldn't give a flying f**k about it.

Fair enough, but the whole world doesn't revolve around MFC you know

 

There's been a surge of taxi badge applications to the cooncil.

 

I blame Yabba's Turd for confirming they make a grand a week.

[CMWellfan]

Good read on this blog -

 

http://nareystoepoker.blogspot.mx/

 

"Motherwell should have forked out for a competent keeper The main highlight from Fir Park, of course, was Scott McDonald's outstanding punch into the St. Johnstone net late on. A close second for me was seeing Richard Tait, Motherwell's right-back, take a flyer over the advertising hoardings after crossing for Chris Cadden to score. He had plenty of time to hurdle it, yet seemed to treat it as a High Jump bar. His subsequent rollover and return to his feet was pretty smooth, though, and since everyone else was focused on how his team had taken the lead, I reckon he got away with it.

Craig Samson could do with some of McDonald's handling skills, and some of Tait's agility. The home goalkeeper was at fault for both St. Johnstone goals; letting Danny Swanson's effort through his legs was bad enough, but it was nothing compared to his blunder for the winner. I've often thought it was risky for keepers to try and pat down shots aimed at their mid-riff, with the plan being to pick it up on the bounce. Samson made a hash of Chris Kane's shot, letting it spin far enough away from him that Steven MacLean could pounce and score.

Despite the occasional Scotland callup of yesteryear, Samson has never been an especially impressive keeper; having been let go by Kilmarnock just over a year ago, he sat on Motherwell's bench for the whole of last season behind loanee Connor Ripley, but is currently preferred to Dean Brill, who was a decent enough keeper at Inverness before a bad knee injury.

Samson isn't the long-term answer. But is Brill? Most teams in this league can't afford two outstanding goalkeepers; a better option is usually to get one, and use a youngster, a loanee or a veteran as a backup. Instead, Motherwell have two goalies who would be high quality backups at most clubs. Maybe they'd have been better pooling the money and blowing it on someone who is a good starter."

[CrosshillWell]

Andrew Shinnie to sign on loan at Hibs today. The attacking midfielder we are crying out for and available on loan too.

[Catweazles ring piece]

Our "Ins-Outs" signing policy for midfield is a head scratcher.

From quick counter attack to;

 

#unbalanced-slow-wtf

[Lobey_Dosser]

Shinnie could be some signing for Hibs, fair play to them. I imagine his representatives will have talked to a few Scottish clubs.

 

If we end up with Lucas and Clay, it'll be the most baffling business since the Theo Robinson debacle last summer.

[superward]

Shinnie could be some signing for Hibs, fair play to them. I imagine his representatives will have talked to a few Scottish clubs.

 

If we end up with Lucas and Clay, it'll be the most baffling business since the Theo Robinson debacle last summer.

The only thing I can think of is that we are going to go with a 4-2-3-1 rather than 4-4-2 like last season.

 

2 sitting midfielders, 3 supporting forward players behind a striker.

[Kmcalpin]

The only thing I can think of is that we are going to go with a 4-2-3-1 rather than 4-4-2 like last season.

 

2 sitting midfielders, 3 supporting forward players behind a striker.

You might be right but so far we've never been successful playing with a lone striker. That said we've not had our full complement of strikers available for selection so far this season. The problem with this formation is that more often than not we end up playing a 4-5-0-1 or a 4-5-1-0 formation.

[capt_oats]

I broadly agree with the sentiment re: the midfielders being similar however I'd suggest that we're 2 league games into the season and already found ourselves short with Lasley suspended and McHugh injured. The upshot was Joe Chalmers being drafted in as a makeshift holding midfielder so I'm not sure that it's necessarily the case that having 3 players with similar defensive traits is necessarily a *bad* thing.

 

I suppose it depends who else is loaned out and what we can afford with the wages freed up. I wouldn't necessarily say that us signing Lucas, who by all accounts seems to be a deep lying playmaker rather than a defensive midfielder, would preclude us bringing in a more attacking player in terms of bodies either, though finance may possibly restrict things.

 

Unless I'm missing someone blatantly obvious then looking at the midfield as it stands you've got:

 

RCM - Cadden (+ ?)

DM - McHugh (+ Lasley)

LCM - Clay (+ ?)

 

Totally agree that there's not that much pace in the middle of the park outwith Cadden but equally the narrative in almost every window over the past couple of seasons is that we didn't have enough defensive minded midfielders to cover Lasley and that it should be a priority.