Former Motherwell Fc Players Thread

[wunderwell]

18 hours ago, ropy said:

Former Players thread.

Can we stick to that?

Plenty of other places to discuss Stuart Kettlewells performance.

Every thread there is a pollution of the same debate.

[AllyMax]

2 hours ago, GazzyB said:

You can be vague about context of circumstances and mitigation all you like but you cannot deny the fact that in the modern game going 15 games without a win is indefensible.

 

Wilkinson has moved on? That makes up for signing him? He was god awful. Obika might be away soon? That again makes up for extending his deal? Having zero wingers in our squad to give us any form of plan B, who's idea was that? When he gets rid of Olli Shaw in this window does that make it a good signing coz he only lasted 6 months as well? I really can't quite fathom why it's okay to sign these players so long as they get "moved on" just a few months later.

 

 

Did you consider Tommy McLean to be a decent manager ?

Wee Tam bought and moved on countless dud players in his time.  Every team in the league buys and moves on players that don't work out for them for one reason or another and every manager has done it more often than anyone would be able to remember.

In the market we're in and the competition for mediocre players, I seriously don't get where you think we should be able to magically find great players for no so great money and have every one we try work out well. 

The fact that the standard of football in our league is going down is not the fault of our club or anybody who works for them. It's the current economics of the game leaves our manager (and every other Scottish manager apart from the h**s and the Tims and maybe Hearts and Hibs scrabbling around in the same murky pool. Every now and again you unearth a gem and a lot of the time you don't.

If you look back to the signing of Moult, he was brought in as 'a project' and the main man was to be a guy who'd played at a higher level (Wes Fletcher). We all know how that turned out.  When you deal in that pool, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It's like buying a £500 car. Blaming Motherwell for making the mistakes made by almost every club and manager in the league is pointless.

[fizoxy]

We see our own transfer mistakes more than we see others, because most of us don't care about Ross County squad players.

With the finances available to us, when we sign a known quantity, they're going to be flawed in some way. Blair Spittal is a good example of this, he has been an ever present for us and a potent threat going forward with a good number of goals and assists, but he isn't fast.  There's a reason players drop to our level, and pace is probably his. He will make a good career hovering around mid table in Scotland, and hopefully we can keep him. Despite some of the stick he gets in here, most teams would kill for someone that produces what he does.

If we were able to sign 10 players at Spittals level, we'd be in a very good place, but we probably can't afford that.

When we sign an unknown, there's that chance that we unearth a gem, but that's less and less likely as every club has access to the same data and analysis as we have, and for the most part they have more money. So, we have to try and be clever and shop in non traditional markets, or bring in someone who we think we can improve, i.e. a project.  Because of that, we don't want to out all our eggs in one basket, in case the project doesn't pan out, so we need to bring in a couple and hope that one works out.

We already know the pitfalls of loan signings.

Then you get to January signings, which at our level is picking up the scraps. We're not prizing a good player from another team that wants to keep them, so we have to rake through the cast offs and see if we can reclaim something. Then, since we don't have the chance to sign anyone again before the end of the season, we naturally panic and stock up on a couple extra just in case.

On top of that there's form and injuries. We can't afford to let players hang around in the squad until they are in form, or drop first teamers when they are out of form, so we often have to move player on in the hope that we can bring someone in who can hit the ground running.

Some clubs are better at this than others, but I'm sure that if someone did some analysis, the margins would be pretty small.

[GazzyB]

2 hours ago, AllyMax said:

Did you consider Tommy McLean to be a decent manager ?

Wee Tam bought and moved on countless dud players in his time.  Every team in the league buys and moves on players that don't work out for them for one reason or another and every manager has done it more often than anyone would be able to remember.

In the market we're in and the competition for mediocre players, I seriously don't get where you think we should be able to magically find great players for no so great money and have every one we try work out well. 

The fact that the standard of football in our league is going down is not the fault of our club or anybody who works for them. It's the current economics of the game leaves our manager (and every other Scottish manager apart from the h**s and the Tims and maybe Hearts and Hibs scrabbling around in the same murky pool. Every now and again you unearth a gem and a lot of the time you don't.

If you look back to the signing of Moult, he was brought in as 'a project' and the main man was to be a guy who'd played at a higher level (Wes Fletcher). We all know how that turned out.  When you deal in that pool, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It's like buying a £500 car. Blaming Motherwell for making the mistakes made by almost every club and manager in the league is pointless.

McLean was just before my time so I can't really say comment, but I do absolutely get your point. The game has evolved though since the late 80s/early 90s. Managers aren't at clubs for 4 or 5 years any more. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is up for debate, but it's much more cut throat these days and regularly in League One/League Two you see managers getting the bullet for no wins in 7 or 8 games. The fact we went 15 without change is almost unheard of in the modern game. If we had been playing well in that time, the odd bad performance, a bit of tough luck and so on, I wouldn't be as vocal about my desire for change as I am. The fact we went on a 15 game winless run whilst being utterly woeful in most of those games leads me to think we are well beyond due change. People seem to forget how fucking awful we were to watch.

 

I also understand finances are tight, and that we can't expect Moults and the like every window. But if you're telling me Bair, Wilkinson, Shaw & Obika were the BEST we could get with the money at our disposal then you'd be pulling my pisser.

 

It's not good enough in my opinion, nowhere near it. I want better for my club, and "our results haven't been THAT bad in the last 8 games" or "Theo Bair has been okay the last 2 games" or "who cares if we signed Conor Wilkinson, we're BOUND to sign loads of duds!" isn't the best we can be, and it's down to an incompetent manager.

 

It's the last I'll say on the matter because it's the wrong thread, I've been singing the same tune for months and it's moot anyway because as we all know he's here for a while yet after Weir publicly backed him. I just think he's tactically inept, he's out his depth and his signings are pish.

[joewarkfanclub]

10 hours ago, GazzyB said:

You can be vague about context of circumstances and mitigation all you like but you cannot deny the fact that in the modern game going 15 games without a win is indefensible.

You want specifics? SK inherited a bloated squad full of players most on here thought were shite and needed moved on. He was clearly under instruction to from the board to get the squad trimmed down as our wage bill was too high. He was quite ruthless and successful in that regard. He then went to try and improve the quality of the squad with new players. He wasnt able to do that. If you listen to the language used at the time his preferred targets all went to clubs where they could earn more and he was left scraping around the bargain basement to get bodies in. If you watch the video I posted with Gary Neville & Roy Kean discussing these very issues, you might accept that its just not as straightforward as fans think.  In the first few weeks of the season Wilkinson, Biereth and Obika all got injured forcing him to bring in Ollie Shaw at the last minute. We already had Butcher injured, Casey, Blaney, McGinn, Miller, Souare all followed. So yes. Plenty mitigation in my book.

10 hours ago, GazzyB said:

Wilkinson has moved on? That makes up for signing him? He was god awful. Obika might be away soon? That again makes up for extending his deal? Having zero wingers in our squad to give us any form of plan B, who's idea was that? When he gets rid of Olli Shaw in this window does that make it a good signing coz he only lasted 6 months as well? I really can't quite fathom why it's okay to sign these players so long as they get "moved on" just a few months later.

No manager will get all their signings right. Most will have at best a 50/50 success rate. Probably lower for a manager with out budget. The secret for these guys is to recognise it isnt working early and move them on. Failing to do so would be a bigger concern. Re wingers - see trimming of the squad and what players were available to sign. Gent gave a very good impression of a winger at the weekend. Maybe that SK sees him as the solution in that area and maybe thats why he brought Monty in much to everyones surprise.

10 hours ago, GazzyB said:

The only decent signings he made he waited until it was absolutely necessary to play them and when they come in and do extremely well he has the nerve to say it was a masterplan to wait until they were "ready". As for Bair's form in the last 2 weeks, everyone in the SPFL was howling for signing him on a 2 year deal, even the St Johnstone fans couldn't believe it. Delighted he scored 2 goals against Livingston but other than that he's barely been better than Wilkinson who was so bad he got shipped out 6 months later. I didn't see the 2nd half vs Alloa but apparently he missed 4 good chances that he should have buried. If we're "hanging our hat" on Bair to push us up the table we're in big trouble.

Do you know Davor and Gents personal circumstances? Maybe they had issues and/or werent ready to play? Gent certainly pointing to the sky when he scored on Saturday. Bair is a back up striker. Circumstances have dictated he has been used more than that. I wouldnt have given him a 2 year deal, but then I dont know what money he is on. It may not be costing us that much. However, he is nowhere near as bad as he was made out to be. Really not sure what standard of striker folks think would be happy to sit on the bench for Motherwell?

Wilko got injured early doors and I dont know that we ever figured out how to play him. He seemed like a decent finisher when given chances but we were so deep in the shit at the time he was never gonna feature. Probably best for both parties he moved on.

As for the last part. Bair didnt miss any sitters. Gent put in some good crosses that a better striker may have gambled on and got on the end of. But given Biereth was recalled we will have to find someone else to do that.

10 hours ago, GazzyB said:

For the most part it was KVV that kept us up last year. I don't doubt that SK came in and rejuvinated the squad with enthusiasm and what not, which was exactly what we needed at the time, but that only takes you so far.

That ones been done to death. Its just nonsense. Scoring goals hasnt been our issue this year. Keeping them out has. So KVV no more kept us up than the defence did. Pretty sure SK had an input in both.

10 hours ago, GazzyB said:

His tactics are awful, and a 3-1 and a 2-2 draw in recent games are blinding folk to some of the worst performances in recent memory. Remember Ross County, Aberdeen & St Johnstone when we were absolutely fucking atrocious, those were regular occurrences. We have been SO bad in so many games during that 15 game spell, all down to the way the players were being made play.

Total revisionism. Youve picked the 3 games when we were in fact atrocious. During that run we also lost to Celtic Rangers and St Mirren whilst playing what was generally regarded as some of the best football in recent years. We also came form behind to snatch draws in the games against Ross County, St Johnstone (twice) Celtic and Dundee. Not to mention the game at Easter Road where we were seconds away from back to back victories. Now Im not saying we were great in any of those games, but we werent atrocious. Certainly not for 90 minutes. 

10 hours ago, GazzyB said:

Granted we aren't rolling in it, but I doubt SK's budget is any worse than Hammell's or Alexander before him, and even if it is, it makes it worse he signed Soare, Wilkinson, Bair & Obika with that budget that is allegedly "tying one hand behind his back".

Again just not true. Alexander and Hammell both had bloated squads. Both SK and Derek Weir have gone on record this season about how the playing squad had to be made more sustainable in the long term. I think we had 35 first team players at the end if Hammels reign its now down to 21.

10 hours ago, GazzyB said:

Is that what we are settling for now, having "not actually THAT bad" results in 8 game spells whilst the real form guide tells you we went FIFTEEN games without a win. You cannot dodge that, dress it up, skirt around it or avoid it, it is an indefensible run of form. Fifteen games without a win + some howling performances along the way + fucking up the last window means giving him this window will be disastrous.

Our recent league form up to the Hibs game was 2 defeats in 8.

5 draws, 1 win, 2 defeats.

One of those was to Rangers.

One of the draws was away to Celtic.

Its not great form, but its nowhere near sackable. 

Overall, you clearly dont like SK and want him gone. You are entitled to your opinion and I have no issue with that. There have been plenty of reasons for fans to be unhappy with him and the team this season and he probably wasnt too many results away from being sacked. But he has steadied the ship, shown that he is able to recognise mistakes and try to fix them. He isnt going to be sacked now so we have to back him and the players for the rest of the season. The 3 signings made so far in the window appear, on paper at least to address some of the weaknesses in the squad. We could do with a couple more though so lets see what the week brings.

 

[SteelmaninOZ]

2 minutes ago, joewarkfanclub said:

You want specifics? SK inherited a bloated squad full of players most on here thought were shite and needed moved on. He was clearly under instruction to from the board to get the squad trimmed down as our wage bill was too high. He was quite ruthless and successful in that regard. He then went to try and improve the quality of the squad with new players. He wasnt able to do that. If you listen to the language used at the time his preferred targets all went to clubs where they could earn more and he was left scraping around the bargain basement to get bodies in. If you watch the video I posted with Gary Neville & Roy Kean discussing these very issues, you might accept that its just not as straightforward as fans think.  In the first few weeks of the season Wilkinson, Biereth and Obika all got injured forcing him to bring in Ollie Shaw at the last minute. We already had Butcher injured, Casey, Blaney, McGinn, Miller, Souare all followed. So yes. Plenty mitigation in my book.

No manager will get all their signings right. Most will have at best a 50/50 success rate. Probably lower for a manager with out budget. The secret for these guys is to recognise it isnt working early and move them on. Failing to do so would be a bigger concern. Re wingers - see trimming of the squad and what players were available to sign. Gent gave a very good impression of a winger at the weekend. Maybe that SK sees him as the solution in that area and maybe thats why he brought Monty in much to everyones surprise.

Do you know Davor and Gents personal circumstances? Maybe they had issues and/or werent ready to play? Gent certainly pointing to the sky when he scored on Saturday. Bair is a back up striker. Circumstances have dictated he has been used more than that. I wouldnt have given him a 2 year deal, but then I dont know what money he is on. It may not be costing us that much. However, he is nowhere near as bad as he was made out to be. Really not sure what standard of striker folks think would be happy to sit on the bench for Motherwell?

Wilko got injured early doors and I dont know that we ever figured out how to play him. He seemed like a decent finisher when given chances but we were so deep in the shit at the time he was never gonna feature. Probably best for both parties he moved on.

As for the last part. Bair didnt miss any sitters. Gent put in some good crosses that a better striker may have gambled on and got on the end of. But given Biereth was recalled we will have to find someone else to do that.

That ones been done to death. Its just nonsense. Scoring goals hasnt been our issue this year. Keeping them out has. So KVV no more kept us up than the defence did. Pretty sure SK had an input in both.

Total revisionism. Youve picked the 3 games when we were in fact atrocious. During that run we also lost to Celtic Rangers and St Mirren whilst playing what was generally regarded as some of the best football in recent years. We also came form behind to snatch draws in the games against Ross County, St Johnstone (twice) Celtic and Dundee. Not to mention the game at Easter Road where we were seconds away from back to back victories. Now Im not saying we were great in any of those games, but we werent atrocious. Certainly not for 90 minutes. 

Again just not true. Alexander and Hammell both had bloated squads. Both SK and Derek Weir have gone on record this season about how the playing squad had to be made more sustainable in the long term. I think we had 35 first team players at the end if Hammels reign its now down to 21.

Our recent league form up to the Hibs game was 2 defeats in 8.

5 draws, 1 win, 2 defeats.

One of those was to Rangers.

One of the draws was away to Celtic.

Its not great form, but its nowhere near sackable. 

Overall, you clearly dont like SK and want him gone. You are entitled to your opinion and I have no issue with that. There have been plenty of reasons for fans to be unhappy with him and the team this season and he probably wasnt too many results away from being sacked. But he has steadied the ship, shown that he is able to recognise mistakes and try to fix them. He isnt going to be sacked now so we have to back him and the players for the rest of the season. The 3 signings made so far in the window appear, on paper at least to address some of the weaknesses in the squad. We could do with a couple more though so lets see what the week brings.

 

On point!

[smiddy]

27 minutes ago, joewarkfanclub said:

You want specifics? SK inherited a bloated squad full of players most on here thought were shite and needed moved on. He was clearly under instruction to from the board to get the squad trimmed down as our wage bill was too high. He was quite ruthless and successful in that regard. He then went to try and improve the quality of the squad with new players. He wasnt able to do that. If you listen to the language used at the time his preferred targets all went to clubs where they could earn more and he was left scraping around the bargain basement to get bodies in. If you watch the video I posted with Gary Neville & Roy Kean discussing these very issues, you might accept that its just not as straightforward as fans think.  In the first few weeks of the season Wilkinson, Biereth and Obika all got injured forcing him to bring in Ollie Shaw at the last minute. We already had Butcher injured, Casey, Blaney, McGinn, Miller, Souare all followed. So yes. Plenty mitigation in my book.

No manager will get all their signings right. Most will have at best a 50/50 success rate. Probably lower for a manager with out budget. The secret for these guys is to recognise it isnt working early and move them on. Failing to do so would be a bigger concern. Re wingers - see trimming of the squad and what players were available to sign. Gent gave a very good impression of a winger at the weekend. Maybe that SK sees him as the solution in that area and maybe thats why he brought Monty in much to everyones surprise.

Do you know Davor and Gents personal circumstances? Maybe they had issues and/or werent ready to play? Gent certainly pointing to the sky when he scored on Saturday. Bair is a back up striker. Circumstances have dictated he has been used more than that. I wouldnt have given him a 2 year deal, but then I dont know what money he is on. It may not be costing us that much. However, he is nowhere near as bad as he was made out to be. Really not sure what standard of striker folks think would be happy to sit on the bench for Motherwell?

Wilko got injured early doors and I dont know that we ever figured out how to play him. He seemed like a decent finisher when given chances but we were so deep in the shit at the time he was never gonna feature. Probably best for both parties he moved on.

As for the last part. Bair didnt miss any sitters. Gent put in some good crosses that a better striker may have gambled on and got on the end of. But given Biereth was recalled we will have to find someone else to do that.

That ones been done to death. Its just nonsense. Scoring goals hasnt been our issue this year. Keeping them out has. So KVV no more kept us up than the defence did. Pretty sure SK had an input in both.

Total revisionism. Youve picked the 3 games when we were in fact atrocious. During that run we also lost to Celtic Rangers and St Mirren whilst playing what was generally regarded as some of the best football in recent years. We also came form behind to snatch draws in the games against Ross County, St Johnstone (twice) Celtic and Dundee. Not to mention the game at Easter Road where we were seconds away from back to back victories. Now Im not saying we were great in any of those games, but we werent atrocious. Certainly not for 90 minutes. 

Again just not true. Alexander and Hammell both had bloated squads. Both SK and Derek Weir have gone on record this season about how the playing squad had to be made more sustainable in the long term. I think we had 35 first team players at the end if Hammels reign its now down to 21.

Our recent league form up to the Hibs game was 2 defeats in 8.

5 draws, 1 win, 2 defeats.

One of those was to Rangers.

One of the draws was away to Celtic.

Its not great form, but its nowhere near sackable. 

Overall, you clearly dont like SK and want him gone. You are entitled to your opinion and I have no issue with that. There have been plenty of reasons for fans to be unhappy with him and the team this season and he probably wasnt too many results away from being sacked. But he has steadied the ship, shown that he is able to recognise mistakes and try to fix them. He isnt going to be sacked now so we have to back him and the players for the rest of the season. The 3 signings made so far in the window appear, on paper at least to address some of the weaknesses in the squad. We could do with a couple more though so lets see what the week brings.

 

NOVAL

[Mad Dog]

On the subject of Conor Wilkinson, he was signed on a free transfer, scored a couple of goals but it didn't really work out for him. He then went to Colchester for an undisclosed fee so the club made a profit on that deal. It could be said that he shouldn't have been signed up in the first place but SK recognised this and managed to sell him on which provided the club with vital funds.

[weeyin]

A statistician, Dr Ian Graham, made the claim that, statistically speaking, over 50% of ‘big transfers’—defined in this case as those over £10m in terms of fee—fail.

I'd bet that in our market that number is even higher.

[Onthefringes]

15 hours ago, Mad Dog said:

On the subject of Conor Wilkinson, he was signed on a free transfer, scored a couple of goals but it didn't really work out for him. He then went to Colchester for an undisclosed fee so the club made a profit on that deal. It could be said that he shouldn't have been signed up in the first place but SK recognised this and managed to sell him on which provided the club with vital funds.

Profit? Not really how it works, but, batter in.

Let’s see what club accounts bring about a year from now.

[David]

On 1/21/2024 at 7:29 PM, steelboy said:

Now he's 24 and he's lucky if he'll get a move to Norwich. 

Considering the clubs sniffing about him just now I'd think moving to a midtable English Championship side would be the last thing on his mind.

[MelvinBragg]

2 hours ago, David said:

Considering the clubs sniffing about him just now I'd think moving to a midtable English Championship side would be the last thing on his mind.

I'm assuming he'll move abroad. Having seen what it's done for Ferguson, Hickey and young English talent, he probably should. He probably should have done before moving to Celtic but hindsight is a wonderful thing...

[joewarkfanclub]

On 1/23/2024 at 4:30 PM, Onthefringes said:

Profit? Not really how it works, but, batter in.

Let’s see what club accounts bring about a year from now.

I presume any fee paid goes towards paying up the players contract to encourage him to move?

[texanwellfan]

10 minutes ago, joewarkfanclub said:

I presume any fee paid goes towards paying up the players contract to encourage him to move?

Maybe or maybe not. Maybe it was Wilkinson that requested the separation??

[Onthefringes]

55 minutes ago, joewarkfanclub said:

I presume any fee paid goes towards paying up the players contract to encourage him to move?

Yes. Something oft discussed at Club AGM in recent years.

[David]

4 hours ago, MelvinBragg said:

I'm assuming he'll move abroad. Having seen what it's done for Ferguson, Hickey and young English talent, he probably should. He probably should have done before moving to Celtic but hindsight is a wonderful thing...

I'm not so sure he was mentally ready to move overseas. I wasn't even that sure he was mentally ready to move down south to be honest, so I think Celtic has been a relatively decent move for him financially and from the perspective of getting used to dealing with being at a big club with a lot of fan pressure and so on.

Wherever he goes, he certainly goes there as a better player than he was when he arrived at Celtic. 

[steelboy]

7 minutes ago, David said:

 

Wherever he goes, he certainly goes there as a better player than he was when he arrived at Celtic. 

What are you basing this on?

He's barely kicked a ball other than against bottom six teams in the past 18 months. 

[David]

2 hours ago, steelboy said:

What are you basing this on?

He's barely kicked a ball other than against bottom six teams in the past 18 months. 

As much as it pains me to say it, he's worked daily with the likes of Brendan Rodgers and Ange Postecoglou. He's spent his time there training with a much higher quality of player than you'd find at Fir Park, and Norwich City as well.

He's also spent his time there getting accustomed to life and how to deal with living as a player at a big club. At Norwich, he could have been wandering the city without many people bothering him. Not the case at Celtic, and it won't be the case if he ends up at a club like AC Milan or whoever picks him up this summer.

Yeah, he's always going to be a talent. That doesn't go away. He was talented when he left Motherwell. Add in the above and he leaves Celtic as a better player than he was when he arrived there.

[Mad Dog]

Cedric Kipré having to endure English football fans on their finest behaviour today as West Brom were knocked out of the cup by Wolves.

[twistandshout1983]

George Long in goals for Norwich 

[Kmcalpin]

Aitchison scored for Exeter. 

[Well-Made]

Callum Lang has left Wigan....

 

 

Unfortunately, he signed for Pompey.

[Toxteth O'Grady]

David Turnbull being linked with Cardiff

Sky Sports

[Spiderpig]

23 minutes ago, Toxteth O'Grady said:

David Turnbull being linked with Cardiff

Sky Sports

Bottom half championship team I thought he might do a bit better than that, but who knows might be a very lucrative offer and guaranteed game time, there needs to be some incentive to move to Wales.

[mio]

I think it’ll be celtic who are dictating who he goes to to recoup some money. Otherwise he’ll hang on and leave for nowt in the summer.
£4m being talked about from cardiff ? £400k in our coffers if so.