capt_oats

This definitely feels like an Aberdeen win. Supporters on our side who haven't learned their lesson looking at the Top 6, us coming off the back of scudding the **** and generally being in alright form (we've only lost 2 of our last 10 league games). Everything points to us just not turning up and losing 2-0. So aye, there's every chance we do Burrows a turn here.

I genuinely feel sympathy for Obika as I can't imagine it's a good place to be if you're trying to work your way back to fitness only to break down again. Even more so when you factor in the time he missed with his hamstring pinging when he was at Morecambe as well. Having said that, it's almost like a bit we're doing now:

Depends.

This will never be beaten. Tbf, I think @crazylegsjoe_mfc absolutely called it right about Kelly here: Stick him in a team that's confident and playing on the front foot and he's...fine. Good, even. He just seems to go to pieces when things aren't necessarily going our way.

I'm not sure that is the argument tbh. The argument as far as I can see is that after several seasons, rightly or wrongly, it's increasingly been viewed as an absolute fucking riddy that we've a top flight league with games being played on the sort of surfaces that you'd see at the local Power League. Now, the Starks Park pitch may be a proverbial bowling green but currently, they're not in the Premiership whereas Killie and Livi are and it's their surfaces that have presumably motivated the lock out. Whether it's true or not there's a general opinion that players don't like fully artificial surfaces, managers don't like them, fans don't like them and I'd imagine clubs who have prioritised investment on their playing surface to get them to a high standard are generally quite scunnered by others not adopting a similar position. I mean, both are choices. No one's saying you *have* to spend £1.5m on a nice hybrid pitch just as two specific clubs in the Premiership decided it was worth trading off the quality of their pitch against on the money they'd save by having their 3G. Killie and Livi both used to have grass pitches, but their going the artificial route presumably wasn't dictated by footballing reasons. I've noticed a couple of posts in this thread talking about how Killie are only reverting to grass because Bowie is putting his hand in his pocket which is fair enough but the rub there is, I guess, if they have a wealthy backer and money isn't an object why aren't they sticking with an upgraded version of the kind of surface they have just now? Is it because despite all the Lovejoying through this thread there's a general acknowledgement that grass/hybrid surfaces are generally going to be preferable or "better" compared to a fully synthetic/artificial? I mean, that's not for me to say. It seems pretty clear there's now a view (presumably with Livi sinking in the way that they are) that for the top league the standard should be that games should not be played on fully synthetic surfaces and chances are they'll be able to implement this without being seen to be penalising any single team (assuming Livi are relegated and neither Raith or Airdrie are promoted). Is it gatekeeping? Sure you could look at it that way. Should it be a priority? Maybe not. Will this improve Scottish football in any meaningful way? Almost certainly not. Is this being tabled in order to save Aberdeen from relegation? Yes. That's definitely what's happening here. That said, as things stand, of the top 22 clubs in the country there are only Killie (who AFAIK are replacing their surface imminently), Livi, Airdrie and Raith currently playing on plastic. The rest - a significant majority in anyone's language - are either hybrid or grass. It begs the question, if the vast majority of clubs in the top two divisions are able to maintain grass pitches is it that unreasonable for that to be a standard for the Premiership? I guess there's a view that "convenience" and "it's more cost effective" or "our Youth Academy can train on it" isn't really enough of a justification when you're talking about top flight football. Is that particularly fair if you're talking about some of the small clubs with artificial surfaces currently installed? Not really. However, again, as far as I can tell no one is "banning" artificial surfaces. If you're a team cutting about the Championship. League 1 or League 2 then you can be "maximising income" til your heart's content. The proposal seems to be that they're just not being allowed in the Premiership and respectfully, if fan owned clubs like Thistle and Morton are able to maintain grass pitches in the Championship then you'd think teams competing at Premiership level should also be able to. Either way, it's a fair point to mention that if the SPFL are going to get all particular about the quality of surfaces at Premiership level then they should equally be making recommendations on standards being met and maintained on all their grass surfaces.

Similarly if it’s as much about presence/non-playing stuff with Gordon then there’s presumably nothing to stop us taking him along for ‘vibes’ and sticking with the goalkeepers who have been consistently part of the squad while he’s has been broken.

Just read the wee preview of the Aberdeen game on the official and genuinely laughed at the injury news. https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2024/03/12/aberdeen-visit-north-lanarkshire/

Tbf, although what you're saying there is probably true the 'rebrand' of the Reserves after they did away with the Dev league was an absolute shambles. To that end it wasn't a massive surprise that teams walked away from it. The idea had been that the Dev league wasn't fit for purpose because largely you had players playing against their own level with no actual challenge so you got the rose tinted, 'it was better in my day' pish from ex-pros which eventually led to them half-arseing the changes and the result was a total mess. We binned it this season (but didn't bother telling anyone) and tbh, I think our rationale was as much down to not wanting to have the extra players on the books as it was the general feeling that it was a waste of time. We now have our u18s playing in their league and seem to fill in the gaps with regular bounce games. It's some laugh that the Dev league set-up gave us specifically the likes of Turnbull, Campbell, Scott, Cadden and Hastie all in broadly the same group along with Dom Thomas, Jack McMillan and a host of others who, granted, didn't make it with us but you'll still see turning out weekly at various levels through the SPFL but you still had all these ex-pros seething because they weren't getting a game against older pros rehabbing from injury because apparently that would have given them a better grounding in *men's football*.

Nicholson mentioned during a press call a while back that he was “technically” still under contract with MLS so I’d imagine the weirdness around the way they handle registrations would need sorted out one way or another. I guess it’s a question of what that actually means. It’s around 6:08 here:

IMO, there's been absolutely nowhere near enough acknowledgement of the look Moses' agent is serving. 1m followers: https://www.instagram.com/drewuyi/

Fwiw, I think it's a really good video and shows both big Theo and Rossco in a good light. It's the sort of thing we've done well in the past in terms of platforming players and telling a story. I'm definitely not knocking the creative. My minor issue (and it is minor) is really just with the ham fisted language and the choice we've made to frame the message in the way we have. I made the point ages ago that a lot of the discourse around Bair has been really quite weird and it has. Having journos and pundits overtly saying "LOL, everyone thought you were shite..." felt odd in so much as I can't think of many other players who've had that sort of treatment. As I said, everyone knows the background to him being here but there's a way to make the same points and talk him up without reminding everyone (again) that he was viewed as a joke.

Shitebags for blurring out the handles though.

This is a great point. I know KVV's purple patch was only just starting around now this time last season but in the end he accounted for 45% of the team's goals for the entire season. As it stands, after 29 games, we're only 3 goals off last season's total and big CareBair only accounts for 27% of those. Compare that with Hearts and Aberdeen who are wildly reliant on Fat Shankland and Miovski with 53% and 41% contribution respectively.

I think that's the thing, although as @joewarkfanclub says it's a dig at the folk who "doubted" him there's a probably a way of wording it that gets the point across without pointing out he had a poor goalscoring record when he signed (even though it's objectively true). Just something like "Since arriving in ML1 Theo Bair has found himself in the best form of his career so far..." or words to that effect. You can talk him up without having to remind everyone that folk thought he was a joke when he signed.

Aye. I had a laugh when I saw that. Like...you don't actually need to say that now. Folk like him. It's fine.

Spittal gets the actual cinch Premiership Player of The Month.

Stepping away from the kit chat for a second, I see we apparently won that bounce game 2-1 yesterday according to the Ayr thread. We cannot be stopped.

They've sold off overstock pretty much every season so I don't see this one being any different. The last time I held off and missed out was the Scottish Cup final season in 17/18 where they (understandably) kept everything full price until then by which point all my size had sold out and they didn't re-stock. Just checked the online store and they're out of S in the home but have every other size and it looks like they're out of S, XL and XXL in the away.

Aye. The only embroidery on mine is what's in the picture. I was just a wee guy anaw but my memory was that my Da got it from Fir Park. Which makes sense as it's where I got every other Motherwell shirt. As like @Swello I have memory of going up to that wee hatch in the main stand to get them.

I have the Ian Skelly one of that with added Cup Final embroidery. They’d sold out of the home one that was actually worn so I ended up with an embroidered away (I already had the home one anyway - still have both).

Mine was this Matchwinner one.

Yeah, I think it's a FIFA rule or something like that. As I say it's mildly interesting that there's a level it doesn't apply.

This is mildly interesting from a rules POV given he's already played for us and Stirling Albion this season.

Here's the league table up to (and including) the County game vs the results since: Our only league defeats since County have been from Rangers (h), Hearts (a) and Celtic (h):

Aye. I dunno, maybe I'm reading a bit too much into things but I thought it was interesting that we seemed to lean heavily into the SOD, McGinn, Mugabi (and Kelly) of it all in the content posted on the socials after Saturday. I suppose I should have caveated that earlier post by saying that our recent 'unreliable narrator' approach to contracts and expiries should probably be factored into this sort of thing.