What's the script?

[bobbybingo]

2 minutes ago, wellsince75 said:

Having a core of youngsters coming through would be better by a country mile than the journeyman approach .

not expecting to create a faddy or turnbull evey year but our long line of players coming through has declined over the last 20 years . 
 

Like the idea of a model of bringing through youth with a sprinkling of experience . For this we need a long term plan and give someone like SK time to bring it to life 

The problem we have with building a side where promising youngsters mix with older heads is, at the slightest sign of promise these days, someone flashes the cash. We need the money, obviously, but we're not getting much return from the youth system team wise. 

[David]

8 minutes ago, wellsince75 said:

Having a core of youngsters coming through would be better by a country mile than the journeyman approach .

not expecting to create a faddy or turnbull evey year but our long line of players coming through has declined over the last 20 years . 

Like the idea of a model of bringing through youth with a sprinkling of experience . For this we need a long term plan and give someone like SK time to bring it to life 

I'm just not so sure they're being given a chance. 

Can we honestly say that the players we have playing at the moment are far and away much better than the likes of Mark Ferrie, Robbie Mahon, Ross Tierney, or Sam Campbell?

3 minutes ago, bobbybingo said:

The problem we have with building a side where promising youngsters mix with older heads is, at the slightest sign of promise these days, someone flashes the cash. We need the money, obviously, but we're not getting much return from the youth system team wise. 

As I said before, I know the general consensus is that when a bigger club comes in we just have to shrug our shoulders and say "Ah well, they can offer more money. That's how it goes." 

But, there are things we can do to make the club more attractive to young players. 

Clear Development Pathway:

• Outline a clear and well-defined pathway for player development within the club.
• Highlight opportunities for youth players to train with the first team or participate in competitive matches.

First-Team Opportunities:

• Demonstrate a commitment to providing genuine opportunities for youth players to break into the first team.
• Illustrate instances where young players have successfully transitioned to regular first-team football.

We don't do this well enough in my opinion. We're too quick to fire players out on loan to clubs lower down the pecking order in Scotland, only to play absolute dross in their place. If I was a young player like Mark Ferrie or Robbie Mahon looking at the club just now, seeing that they deem me not good enough at the moment while playing who we have? I'd be looking for ways to exit the club as quickly as possible for new opportunities.

Robbie Mahon in particular is looking very good at Edinburgh City, winning some MOTM awards, scoring three goals and providing two assists. But, we have brought in a manager who's decided we don't use wingers, so he's got about as much chance of playing for Motherwell as I have.

So yeah, I think we're failing big-time here. Not only have we been reportedly slow when it comes to offering a contract to youth players, but we're not really giving them much reason to want to sign those deals either. We're signing absolute dross that will get game time ahead of the youth players, for the most part, changing managers consistently which is bringing with it a total change in approach and philosophy, which adds to little to no consistency. 

[bobbybingo]

21 minutes ago, David said:

I'm just not so sure they're being given a chance. 

Can we honestly say that the players we have playing at the moment are far and away much better than the likes of Mark Ferrie, Robbie Mahon, Ross Tierney, or Sam Campbell?

As I said before, I know the general consensus is that when a bigger club comes in we just have to shrug our shoulders and say "Ah well, they can offer more money. That's how it goes." 

But, there are things we can do to make the club more attractive to young players. 

Clear Development Pathway:

• Outline a clear and well-defined pathway for player development within the club.
• Highlight opportunities for youth players to train with the first team or participate in competitive matches.

First-Team Opportunities:

• Demonstrate a commitment to providing genuine opportunities for youth players to break into the first team.
• Illustrate instances where young players have successfully transitioned to regular first-team football.

We don't do this well enough in my opinion. We're too quick to fire players out on loan to clubs lower down the pecking order in Scotland, only to play absolute dross in their place. If I was a young player like Mark Ferrie or Robbie Mahon looking at the club just now, seeing that they deem me not good enough at the moment while playing who we have? I'd be looking for ways to exit the club as quickly as possible for new opportunities.

Robbie Mahon in particular is looking very good at Edinburgh City, winning some MOTM awards, scoring three goals and providing two assists. But, we have brought in a manager who's decided we don't use wingers, so he's got about as much chance of playing for Motherwell as I have.

So yeah, I think we're failing big-time here. Not only have we been reportedly slow when it comes to offering a contract to youth players, but we're not really giving them much reason to want to sign those deals either. We're signing absolute dross that will get game time ahead of the youth players, for the most part, changing managers consistently which is bringing with it a total change in approach and philosophy, which adds to little to no consistency. 

If we want to play a clutch of 17 or 18 year olds in the first team on a regular basis, that's one way to go, but it would certainly be in the Championship, or lower, very soon. The SPL may be full of dross, but that dross would eat those kids for breakfast unless they were very special talents. I suppose that's the choice we need to make - is survival in the top flight the be all and end all?

[David]

21 minutes ago, bobbybingo said:

If we want to play a clutch of 17 or 18 year olds in the first team on a regular basis, that's one way to go, but it would certainly be in the Championship, or lower, very soon. The SPL may be full of dross, but that dross would eat those kids for breakfast unless they were very special talents. I suppose that's the choice we need to make - is survival in the top flight the be all and end all?

Obviously, if we can sign a senior player who is better than anyone we have in our youth setup then we should go that way, but at the moment I don't see why we have Oli Shaw coming off the bench when we could have Mark Ferrie coming off the bench. Or why do we have Theo Bair or Conor Wilkinson coming on to play as makeshift wingers when we could have Robbie Mahon instead?

I'm not advocating having a team full of kids, but I think if we can show a concrete pathway that doesn't involve getting chucked out on loan while the club signs dross we may see more young talents being interested in coming to the club.

[FirParkCornerExile]

5 hours ago, MJC said:

I don’t doubt that and in my experience those types are also the ones who shout loudest about how much better they are than Old Firm glory hunters and the first to go down the “I’m a better Motherwell fan than you are” route particularly on here and social media. No doubt from the comfort of their armchair/the bowling club/the pub/the toilet etc.
 

Our support is, quite frankly, fucking shite, bar from the small core of regular diehards who never miss a game.

And we probably all know them by face particularly if you go to away games. I see some faces that I've seen at away games for 45 years , don't know them , never spoken to them but they are always there. Just wish we had another 3000 of them.

[FirParkCornerExile]

2 hours ago, Toxteth O'Grady said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67754618

 

This is actually part of the problem our Comms is fucking shite. When the announcement was made yesterday surely to Christ they could have seen that fan and media speculation would go into overdrive. Why the fuck could that not have been incorporated in yesterday's statement.

[MJC]

The standards of our comms has dropped dramatically since Alan Burrows left. When he was here, be that in his role as media officer or CEO then the communication with the support was always strong. Granted it might have gone into overkill levels at times but at least you knew that there would be regular updates on significant developments within the club. 

[Motherwell Daft]

Well I’m going to be controversial here and no doubt the boo boys of this forum will start foaming but heh I dont care, I’m allowed a personal opinion::

Im a Well fan of well over 50 years held my season ticket fir many of those years, still pay for my ticket yearly despite living abroad, sit in “my seat” maybe twice a year, so I support my club, and we now have a situation that the first team is being compromised as a result of other major drains on resources,

One being a women’s team, I don’t see it being successful, so it’s for me a PC pet project that we can ill afford to continue  to support. 
I don’t know how much each year goes into the project, but it’s considerable £££ for a club our size, it’s not the EPL we operate in, here it’s more like the English 6th tier that our turnover relates too.

So for me it’s time to cut our cloth to the first team and the young boys that we can nurture and sell on at a profit, I don’t hear us selling a women’s team player for £25k or £250k or a Turnbull money, so the women’s team is not sustainable, its a pet project that may sink as part of bigger expenses my club…ditch it.

Hand grenade thrown….

[steelman1991]

I reckon it's more than a "pet project" and is probably a requirement to obtain "funding" from various bodies, which without that Women's Team wouldn't be made available to the "club".

[Motherwell Daft]

It may well be a chasing of other funds steelman, but from what the quote from the club said it appears on face value that it costs more to run the women’s team than it brings in, stick by my opinion if that’s the case then cut n run..

[dennyc]

8 hours ago, steelboy said:

The current Hibs manager was interviewed on the shortlist when Hammell got the job. Alexander took the job with decent experience. We can get a manager who's not a youth coach. 

Scouting/recruitment is different but there's no reason to stick with someone who hasn't delivered. Whoever suggested Wilkinson should be out the door, I'm sure there would be plenty of people who would want the job. 

 

My question was about how you would fund the recruitment of the players to fill the positions you quoted. I agree we need upgrades but cannot see how we find the funds required.

[fizoxy]

I don't know how much it costs to maintain the women's team, but ill take a guess that it doesn't move the needle much as far as the men's team recruitment goes. While we should always be assessing our budgets, I don't think its fair to blindly suggest scrapping the woman's team without any info to back it up.

As said above there could be funding implications, as well as engagement benefits and growing the reach of our club. There is also the community aspect of the club that I think this feeds into. I'd hate for us to be the kind of club/fan base that ditches its values at the first sign of adversity.

 

[grizzlyg]

I have a slightly different take and it might just be the case by Weir and McMahon just want a rest after years of being involved.

I was involved with amateur football for 25 years and in that time was manager, match secretary, overall club secretary, vice president and then President. It just got to point where I had enough and needed a break.....though Mrs Grizzly was raging as she enjoyed the peace and quiet!! 😜😜

[Kmcalpin]

1 hour ago, FirParkCornerExile said:

 When the announcement was made yesterday surely to Christ they could have seen that fan and media speculation would go into overdrive. Why the fuck could that not have been incorporated in yesterday's statement.

Yes a simple statement to that effect could have allayed much anxiety and fear. Most of us are still a bit uncertain as to what all of this means.

As far as the women's team is concerned  is it not an SPFL requirement for us to have one? I guess the annual cost will be in 5 figures. I think they attract some  central funding. Personally  I'm all for our ladies team but the commercial side needs to be improved. Easier said than done though. 

[FirParkCornerExile]

36 minutes ago, Motherwell Daft said:

It may well be a chasing of other funds steelman, but from what the quote from the club said it appears on face value that it costs more to run the women’s team than it brings in, stick by my opinion if that’s the case then cut n run..

I know it's not acceptable to say it but I don't care, women's footballs is pish. The goalkeeping is an utter embarrassment and undoes any slight good the outfield player have. I wouldn't waste any precious funds on a woman's team.

[steelboy]

26 minutes ago, dennyc said:

My question was about how you would fund the recruitment of the players to fill the positions you quoted. I agree we need upgrades but cannot see how we find the funds required.

We could afford Sean Goss, KVV, Hartley, Aldred on previous lower turnovers and overall wage spends. 

We need to stop spending money on poor players and implement a way of assessing players by stats/data so that it just doesn't come down to whether Kettlewell's in the kind of mood where he'll talk utter pish for 25 minutes then decide to hang on hat on Theo Bair for two years. 

We re-signed Barry Maguire when putting sentiment aside it was obvious he wasn't good enough to play midfield in our league. We should have systems in place to make sure that can't happen again. Josh Morris was never going to perform for us and is now out of football but we were somehow building around him. All these telegraphed mistakes are exactly what is holding us back.

[Motherwell Daft]

Fizoxy you will be right on the cost of recruitment on the women’s team and the first team, but it is the first team for me that is Motherwell, not the women’s team and as much of the funding as possible should, in my opinion be channeled to the men’s first and reserve team, otherwise there is no Motherwell FC.

My reasoning on the community aspect is how many extra female fans on the back of having a women’s team costing x£ have we accumulated/added since fan ownership?
Probably not a lot seeing as our average gates are more or less the same as before.
For me the unnecessary, in the current climate “nicety” that is a women’s team seems to be, in much constrained budgets in teams like Motherwell something that should be re assessed.

Any perceived, or actual loss of community spirit is for me worth it to allow us to survive in the SPL, any additional as a result available funds allowing the manager…whoever he may be, to try and recruit a better quality of player than the general dross that was brought in through the summer excluding a few exceptions like Mika n Gent.

As for adversity we all know on this forum that adversity has been creeping around Fir Park for years, and now may be the time that serious and needed decisions need to be made by the half of the board that remain, again adversity may have caused our inability to attract a new CEO a Chairman and of course a few better quality team members.

 

[dennyc]

6 minutes ago, steelboy said:

We could afford Sean Goss, KVV, Hartley, Aldred on previous lower turnovers and overall wage spends. 

We need to stop spending money on poor players and implement a way of assessing players by stats/data so that it just doesn't come down to whether Kettlewell's in the kind of mood where he'll talk utter pish for 25 minutes then decide to hang on hat on Theo Bair for two years. 

We re-signed Barry Maguire when putting sentiment aside it was obvious he wasn't good enough to play midfield in our league. We should have systems in place to make sure that can't happen again. Josh Morris was never going to perform for us and is now out of football but we were somehow building around him. All these telegraphed mistakes are exactly what is holding us back.

Rectifying our current situation is not about how we recruited well or or badly in the past. Yes, recruitment and decision making has been terrible at times and has likely cost us thousands. So that must be addressed before any more resources are wasted. I agree.

But the now is about how we afford new players at this moment in time. To improve our current situation So that is my concern. You suggest numerous positions that require improvement but seem to assume finance is not an issue. 

Despite the BBC report regarding the clarification statement, looking at what Dickie actually said makes sufficient funding less certain to my mind. Hopefully I am wrong and worrying for no reason. All he really needed to say was "Yes", rather than qualifying his response with imagine, some and if.

BBC

Asked if boss Stuart Kettlewell would be able to make additions to his squad next month, Dickie replied: "I would imagine there will be some money available for the manager if that's his decision."

[Spiderpig]

43 minutes ago, FirParkCornerExile said:

I know it's not acceptable to say it but I don't care, women's footballs is pish. The goalkeeping is an utter embarrassment and undoes any slight good the outfield player have. I wouldn't waste any precious funds on a woman's team.

Agreed but if the club feels the need to have a women's team fair enough if it's self funding etc and is not taking away funds from the mens team.

The standard of the women's game is shocking and for me the whole thing is a box ticking exercise to show how inclusive the club is etc.

But the reality is that the no doubt the money  allocated to run the women's team ,I've heard 250k a year mentioned but that might be way off, could have been better spent on better players for the 1st team, or improving the stadium, recruiting staff etc.

[steelboy]

If it's £250k net a year on top of whatever income the women's team bring in that's far too much on our turnover. 

If anyone outside the club feels differently let them pay for it.

[David]

13 hours ago, dennyc said:

Rectifying our current situation is not about how we recruited well or or badly in the past. Yes, recruitment and decision making has been terrible at times and has likely cost us thousands. So that must be addressed before any more resources are wasted. I agree.

But the now is about how we afford new players at this moment in time. To improve our current situation So that is my concern. You suggest numerous positions that require improvement but seem to assume finance is not an issue. 

The issue for me is that your first paragraph makes perfect sense, yet the second goes on to support the idea that we continue doing the same thing that we've always done.

If we constantly say "well, aye, we do need to get a proper handle on recruitment and implement a more technical approach, but the priority right now is getting bodies in the door to improve our current situation" we'll never get out of the bit, so to speak.

I know it likely got lost in the vast amount of text I tend to post, but I already detailed how it wouldn't really require vast amounts of money to make the changes we need to recruitment. Well, the changes I think we need anyway.

[El Grew]

15 hours ago, Kmcalpin said:

Yes a simple statement to that effect could have allayed much anxiety and fear. Most of us are still a bit uncertain as to what all of this means.

Totally agree. And that is the biggest problem at the club. It’s being run by amateurs, albeit well-meaning ones. Like you I’m still unclear as to what this all means going forward.

[steelboy]

2 hours ago, El Grew said:

Totally agree. And that is the biggest problem at the club. It’s being run by amateurs, albeit well-meaning ones. Like you I’m still unclear as to what this all means going forward.

An amatuer what?

[Spiderpig]

1 hour ago, steelboy said:

An amatuer what?

Directors / board members ie not an experienced professional  or if you like not very good at running a football club.

[steelboy]

20 minutes ago, Spiderpig said:

Directors / board members ie not an experienced professional  or if you like not very good at running a football club.

McMahon has been chairman for over a decade, clubs our size don't have professional directors or chairman. Weir has been involved for a similar period, has been on the SPL board and is overqualified for the job he has been doing on a part time basis.

Neither of the two could be described as amateurs by anyone who isn't a moron. You see wee buzzwords emerge in our support then idiots keep on parroting them because they see other idiots getting social media likes.

Ask them to explain in detail and it will just be vague nonsense like that reply.