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They started it . Almost miss the St Mirren fans all over our thread……..almost…..

It maybe was the past few seasons but I very much doubt that is true today. And to say it is a GOOD bit below tells me that is nonsense. I reckon Kelly apart you would be paying more to the likes of Vassell, Matty Kennedy, Stuart Findlay and Greg Stewart for starters. Don’t suppose it matters much other than correcting a spurious claim.

Hearts for Van Veen I could almost live with. Almost. St Mirren and Killie if at all true would see quite the response from Well fans and it would not be pretty. Not at all. Shame for Adam Montgomery. Would be typical of our luck that we sign what looks to be a decent player. He gets serious injury after only 1 game. Then returns to his parent club yet we pick up his or part of his wages. You would have to assume if he has gone back to Celtic then that is that in terms of our interest and outlay. Nothing would surprise me however. Jack Vale could well be a decent signing but is he going to really be any better than Wilkinson was ? Still feel we need a main striker and LB and maybe one other. All quite underwhelming so far.

I would say your better than Oli Shaw

That would be a fair compromise and hopefully free up some wages for us to play with.

An injury prone International player… I assume he is fit to play for Ross County. So it does beg the Q why he is not.

Maybe. But running with one fit experienced striker is not in anyways understandable nor acceptable. If you acknowledge Shaw was a signing brought on by injuries then we would have been running with 4 and certainly no less than 3. So I still hope we will bring in 2 forwards. Bair has been a pleasant surprise of late but there is not enough evidence to suggest he will continue to score every game. If it was Brophy and one more then fine. But Brophy alone - not for me.

Those figures are damning. However I do think we have improved of late. Only 2 defeats in 10 (including matches v Rangers and Celtic) paints a slightly better picture. I will not lie. I thought we would lose on Saturday. Simply as we had the (much) smaller squad, options from the bench and the 1 fit striker. But again we came back from (yet another awful) a goal down and certainly were the better of the two teams in the 2nd half. Why I still fully support Kettlewell. He has been served a bit of a sh1t sandwich and yet he just gets on with it. Does not complain about injuries or budgets. He still manages to get a tune out of a threadbare team/ squad. So I am not too despondent - despite what I post on here . If we can hold St Johnstone to an away draw and then sufficiently strengthen we will be OK. The big Q mark is over the next 36 hours. If we bring in a few decent additions then I think we will kick on and finish 10th and probably above. No drama. If we make a mess of the next 36 hours then a play off place is probably a much closer possibility than it needed to be.

Cannot be true. I know we don't have deep pockets or any pockets apparently. But if we sign another injury prone player especially up front the game is a bogey.

It is certainly very difficult to not agree regarding the squad size and transfer situation as it stands right now. With Derek Weir in charge it is has been widely acknowledged and reported that the budget has been reduced substantially. For the most part it sounded like an absolute necessity to ensure we don’t have a £million + loss 3 years in a row. However it seems other teams like Dundee, St Mirren and to an extent Killie have yet to catch up. Killie slightly different with Bowie in charge. But these teams are outbidding us and adding shrewdly to their squad where we seem to be scrambling about in the bargain bins. Edit to add. I posted earlier this week about squad sizes and how ours was by far the smallest. Just looked at Dundee. They have brought 4 or 5 players in this window with 1 out. 28 players. We have 21 as of today. That includes Slattery and Montgomery both of whom are crocked (probably) long term. That is a team we would see as a peer. The squad was wafer thin before we cut loose 7 players this window. We seem quite adept at getting rid and less skilled at bringing players in. I fundamentally accept that the former is easier than the latter. But it does seem an avoidable situation. Of course there could be many explanations as to why we are where we are. But again it does feel as if we should be much better placed with only 2 days of the window left to go. It may well turn out OK and we add 3 or 4 solid signings. But if we do only manage a couple in and only one is a forward then the Board are taking a huge risk. We will likely get more injuries and we have barely enough cover as it is. Absolutely crucial 48 hours coming up .

Whilst Celtic would want whomever pays the biggest wage..it may be best to loan us Turnbull who could do some damage to Rangers in remaining games. I now how stupid that sounds as if we had the Argentinian national side we would still not beat Rangers. Do we really need to leave signings until the last minute ? We need at least 2 strikers and a LB. Maybe one more if Ketts was to be taken at face value saying we needed 2 in before the window opened. It is quite depressing to see buoyant and cocky Dundee and St Mirren fans. The only thing that would cheer me up if we brought in the Israeli striker, KVV, Shaun Rooney and David Turnbull. But as has been mentioned I suspect it will be a couple of loan signings no-one knows anything about. Did we really make a bid for Nouble at Livi. At one point it was between us and Exeter if you believed the Livi fans / press. Since then nothing. All very exciting……………NOT.

As a follow up to this if anyone is interested and since neither club can be bothered to add a sentence or two to make it clear. Motherwell fans should buy the tickets for the wee Dublin end. If they then want to sit in the away sections of the main stand I guess it is 1st come 1st served . Should be fun if it is raining….. So there are NO separate away Main stand tickets.

I remember at the time wishing we had him in our team. He was quick, very physical and above all else a threat in the box. Can you imagine if we had someone / anyone who had the potential to attack crosses into the box - one can only dream. But this seems like another too good to be true stories that we seem to be getting a lot of lately in terms of potential transfers.

Would be very happy if we managed to sign Shaun Rooney. Don't know the catch though as he has been playing for them recently. He was excellent for St J in the cup winning year. Out of contract in the summer so that may be that. Believe it when it is over the line. Fully expect St Mirren or Dundee to double our offer of two bubblies and a bottle of Irn Bru.

Appears to be no option to buy away tickets for the main stand. I did tweet Morton asking if they could help advise / resolve but nothing. So as far as I am aware there has never been an option to buy. Unsurprising in many ways that neither club could have noticed this and resolved or sent a communication on how to go about purchasing away main stand ticket. I plan on contacting Motherwell FC tomorrow to enquire……

At least we can expect one game out of him before he inevitably breaks down. Looking forward to hearing we have been outbid for a player by Bishops Stortford. Seems everyone else is beating us to the punch so to speak ! 3 and a bit days to go. Which is one more day than I actually thought. Encouraging

Can understand that. But unless they are going to offer a lot more in wages I am struggling to see the benefit to Spittal unless he fancies a change in scenery. Shame about KVV if true but was probably fanciful he was ever coming back to us. I would see it as literally the last option for Groningen given they paid us £500k+. At least it means we can look to other more realistic options assuming we were ever in for him in the first place.

My thinking too. We defended as usual woefully so probably did not deserve the benefit of the doubt quite frankly

There are soft as shite goals to lose then there is that soft as shite goal to lose. Absolutely 100% pathetic In keeping with every game this season pretty much we concede with the 1st effort at goal. Must be some kind of record. I particularly liked Kelly pretending that is was not a shot at his goal so he did not actually need to do anything at all.

St Johnstone are heavy favourites for this game due to them having more than 1 striker. And more than that 1 striker that they thought was largely garbage and surplus to requirements. If I was St Johnstone I would sub on all forward in the 2nd half at 6 minute intervals just to rub it in. With the announcer not naming names but simply “Forward option number 2, forward option number 3, forward option number 4” and so on. Things are pretty desperate sadly. I would bite your hands off for a draw and allow us to actually build a team in the last few days of the transfer window. 2-0 St Johnstone .

I have got to the point I would rather not know who we are after until they are in the building. Why does pretty much every player we seek to bring on board get leaked especially those where there is likely to be lots of competition. I know the answer is agents….but it is becoming tedious. I look forward to seeing Ozbolt sign up for Sturm Graz, Exeter City, Wigan, Dundee, St Mirren, Hibernian, Forest Green, Rotherham, Portsmouth, Hearts, any random foreign club** ** delete as appropriate

I guess it is a difficult balancing act. To be fair Kettlewell did address the amount of injuries in his press conference and actively trying to manage the workload to reduce them. But football players need to train and to be fit enough for top flight football they need to train often and with intensity. I assume Montgomery injury happened whilst he was in the presser or after as he was not crying which you would forgive him for doing. The point made above and indeed Kettlewell made it himself. With the wages we have available we are relying on these types of players: 1. Players whose careers are on a downward trend. 2. Players who have been out injured. 3. Young players finding their way and /or out on loan by their clubs. 4. Players who are not wanted by their clubs for one reason or another and we maybe can afford a % of their wages. All of those categories carry a risk not least number 2 which is where we are not catching a break. I mean it is reasonable to assume hat if you sign 4 players with a history of injuries then maybe 2 of them can stay fit. Apparently not .

Sadly it does not address this weekend as Ketts made it sound as if Nicholson has a way to go to get up match sharpness. This is gutting for us and the lad if true. He did so well on Saturday. It was the one part of the team I thought had a bright future. Should have bloody known. It does not seem that sporting but I wonder if it has happened early enough for us to send him back to Celtic and look for a replacement. Or can Celtic say - you broke him. Fix him before sending him back.

Will watch the presser on YT later but must say this brief outtake has fair cheered me up…….

We can debate all day the merits of budgetary prudence v lavish overspending. And most sensible fans including myself would always favour the former which I guess is where MFC are at this moment in time. RG has just listed their forward options - 9 players to choose from v our minimal to non existent choices. I hope and expect by the end of the window this will have been addressed. I just feel somewhere along the line we should have been better placed in terms of forward options. We could nothing about Beireth but Shaw, Obika and Wilkinson are firmly on us - Manager / Recruitment etc. Maybe we would have held on to Connor if we knew that Mika was offski. Either way even having (only) two functioning strikers is far too risky business if one succumbed to injury ! One way or another we have left ourselves woefully undercooked up front and my key point is that could come back to bite us !