Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Swello]

42 minutes ago, Desp said:

A "fitting legacy" would probably be naming the whole ground after him, or something like naming one of the streets which leads up to the ground after him, but i'm not sure of the logistics in making either of them happen.

I think all these things would be possible if we ever left Fir Park for a new home - and I'm sure they'd be considered.

Not sure if I can get used to calling the East anything other than that but it's a good gesture.

[MJC]

The East Stand is a crumbling mess, a dated throwback to the days of terracing that is lucky to still obtain a safety certificate.

But I love it and wouldn't swap it for a soulless, lego built structure like you've got at St.Mirren Park, or Hamilton to give a couple of examples. It has character and I'd still say it's the most popular stand amongst our support. It offers a great view, you're next to the players and has by far an away the best atmosphere on match day at Fir Park. I still love going through the old turnstiles and walking up the steps then seeing the pitch open out in front of you at the top; it's the way it's always been for me and as I said. I wouldn't have it any other way.

i think it's somewhat fitting that we name our old and decrepit, but still much loved stands, after one of our most successful managers in history.

And it'll always be 'The East Stand' to me and 99% of the support anyway.

[Casagolda]

Touched on this in the match thread but is anyone else puzzled by Bowman's sudden exclusion from the team? McGhee seemed desperate to bring him in and initially shoehorned him into the side when he arrived wherever he could but he's now been an unused sub in our last two games.

I know McGhee said last week Blyth and Bowman would have to up their game to get in ahead of Moult and McDonald, which is fair enough. However given those two were both piss poor on Saturday and we seemed insistent on lumping high balls forward in the 2nd half, I would have thought it would have been an ideal time to throw on one of the two target men he brought in over the summer. I mean surely that's exactly the sort of scenario he was wanting a target man for? 

In fact looking at it further, only 3 of the 14 players involved on Saturday weren't at the club last season. Of McGhee's summer signings not one of Bowman, Blyth, Belic, Lucas, McHugh or Brill even kicked a ball this weekend. I mean McHugh you can excuse of course on account of his unfortunate and horrific injury but the rest were all picking up money for nothing and not for the first time this season. 

Is it bad luck, dodgy scouting or poor decision making? Or perhaps a combination of all 3? Whatever the case, after a promising start we once again worryingly appear to have pissed away a fair bit of money this summer. 

I was initially under the impression that we'd done quite well this summer, however looking at things now outside of Heneghan and Tait I'm yet to really be convinced by rest. McHugh's situation is obviously unfortunate. I initially like what I seen from Clay but he's had more bad games than good recently, ditto Bowman. We knew Lucas was a sick note before we signed him and he's missed more games than he's played. Did we really need Brill as well as Samson? Where are Belic and Blyth? 

What's everyone else's opinion on our summer dealings? 

Edited November 9, 2016 by Casagolda

[thisGRAEME]

Belic is my favourite, as there seems to be a lot of nudging and winking going on between folk who 'know', claiming he'll never play for us.

Bowman: Given time, might be okay. At the moment, poor.

Blyth: Dunno. Might not actually exist.

Lucas: Could come on to a game, might be permanently broken, presuming the latter.

McHugh: Destined to come back with three games to go, when we've got nothing to play for, and do his knee.

Brill: 'Carrying timber', 'stocky', or just fat, who knows. Presume he'll start our scottish cup tie against Aberdeen, and lose.

Clay: Swings about from looking good to dreadful in a period of five minutes. I'm fine with that from someone like Ainsworth, but in central midfield, I'd rather have consistently average, than consistently inconsistent. 

 

In short, a massive shrug at pretty much everyone? I think it's just part of this season as a whole, as someone else highlighted elsewhere, this season is just horribly stop start, and is again this weekend. We seem unable to get any kind of a run together, which is so frustrating, and the fixture chopping and changing, coupled with just bizarre performances isn't helping.

 

[capt_oats]

Sorry, this turned out to be longer than I intended. So apologies in advance and feel free to ignore.

I kind of have a similar take on things as thisGRAEME in so much as it's a bit of a shrug about everyone. I don't think anyone's impressed me enough to be massively enthusiastic but equally I don't think any of them are as bad as many want to make them out to be and I can see why we've signed them. For all Blyth and Belic haven't been getting minutes if they've been carrying injuries or haven't been at the level of fitness we'd expect then I wouldn't expect them to be playing just because we signed them.

In the case of Belic if you'd offered us a highly rated prospect from the West Ham academy for 6 months I think most would have been up for taking a look at him. Same goes with Lucas I suppose, in his case you've got a Swansea Academy graduate and former Welsh u-21 captain with 42 caps at various u-age groups who had been voted their Youth Player of the Year, he's been offered what you'd expect to be a fairly low risk 6 month deal as a chance to get games under his belt and prove his fitness. Given how light we were in the centre of the park again it seems like an option that was worth taking, if it doesn't work out he can go in January. Either way neither he nor Belic are players that we're likely to be saddled with if we don't want them.

Something that struck me last season was how few injuries we seemed to have. You had Pearson and Hammell out for a while and Joe Chalmers was hardly seen in the 2nd half of the season but other than that, Wes Fletcher aside, there weren't many key players who missed out for a substantial length of time. Even in Pearson's case it was a break/fracture, it wasn't as if he was out with something that was an ongoing issue. I'm maybe miles out but it seems a coincidence that Adam Stokes moved to Aberdeen in the summer and since then we've seen a number of injuries pile up. Did we actually ever announce a replacement for Stokes or did Aileen Anderson just take over his duties along with her role with the u20s? I know John Porteous stepped in for a while in the summer but I thought that was only a short term thing. I suppose Stokes was there when we had the likes of Lawson et al out injured so who knows, maybe it's just been one of those things.

So far this season we've had long term/recurring injuries for Moult, Chalmers, McHugh, Hammell with Lucas, Belic and Blyth seemingly carrying knocks and struggling to get to fitness and Kennedy having the effects of the virus he picked up and subsequent weight loss. Even the left back we brought in for the u20s from Sheffield Wednesday has barely kicked a ball since the Arbroath friendly having picked up an injury in training that required surgery. We're 12 games into the league season and that's 8 first team players (from a squad of 21) who have all missed substantial parts of the campaign so far (for various reasons). I get that by the nature of the game injuries happen but there seem to have been far more this season which along with the stop/start nature of the fixture list hasn't helped things at all. It's also noticeable that 5 of the 9 (if we're including Stachini) have been new arrivals at the club.

As far as the signings go it depends how you look at it; what we seem to have done is bring in enough bodies to give us a squad of approx. 21 players to cover potential injuries/suspensions etc. There's the argument that we should have brought in fewer and used the budget to bring in better "quality" which I get but that would leave us short in the event of those players picking up an injury.

Heneghan has been fine and looks a fairly decent player. I think he's a bit suspect positionally at times but overall can't really complain. 

Tait has looked quite limited defensively (though not as bad as a lot of folk want to make him out to be IMO) and he still seems to be finding his feet a bit but he can get forward and has a very decent delivery.

McHugh has been unfortunate. Other than him not contesting the header that caused the injury in the first place there's not a lot you can do about it and there's clearly nothing that could have been done to foresee the complications he's had. I've a feeling he'd have been one of the first names on the team sheet but for the concussion. Whether his availability would have affected the Lucas signing IDK, he seems to be a straightforward holding midfielder whereas Lucas is more a deep lying playmaker.

For those whom the jury is still out on, here's my 2c;

Belic - just seems an out and out weird signing, not because he hasn't played but more the fact that he's a naturally right footed centre forward/#10 which means it's really difficult to see where he fits. We don't really play with a #10 for a start and it's a naturally left sided midfielder that we lack. The club's statement had him described as a winger when he arrived but even some cursory research into his highlights packages (or even FM) show that to all intents and purposes he looks like he's a forward in the McDonald mould. Even if he was fit it's fairly unlikely that McDonald's going to be dropped for him. He seems to be highly rated but thus far has managed 45mins of a u20s game since he's been at the club where he was hooked at half time having made little to no impact. Alan Burrows indicated on Twitter that he's apparently been injured and on his way back but when it comes down to it he's here on a 6 month loan which is fine in so much as he can go back to West Ham and I'd imagine they'd have been covering a decent amount of his wage.

Blyth - I watched him for the first time in the 45mins I saw of the 20s game at Firhill last week and he was alright. He held the ball up reasonably well, missed an absolute sitter of a header, fell on his arse a couple of times but generally contributed to a very good overall first half for the side however he was hardly a stand out (Thomas and Hastie were both excellent fwiw). When he was initially linked with us I checked out a few YouTube videos of him and my initial thought was "really?", he's not particularly prolific as far as goals go, doesn't seem to be blessed with pace and seems fairly limited in other aspects of his game. I'd say he's a fairly different player to either Bowman or Mackin in that he looks like an out and out target man, I think both of those mentioned have a bit more to their games than just being a big lump to hit. Having watched Mackin last night Ozturk pretty much had him in his pocket all game.

Bowman - There's enough footage of him on YouTube playing with his previous clubs to give you an idea of what he's about and I'd say that there's definitely a decent player in there but it's difficult to see where he really fits in with us at the moment. We tried to shoehorn him into a 433 and it didn't really work, I know Desp's said before that he thinks he's a long term replacement for Moult and that doesn't seem an outrageous shout. Other than the first 35mins of the Accies game the two of them have just seemed to get in each other's way when they've been on the park at the same time.

Brill - I'm all for having an experienced option on the bench but I don't really get why he's here if we're not prepared to play him when you've got Samson chucking goals in on an almost weekly basis. To refer back to thisGRAEME's post Brill's also carrying a fair bit of timber and he really doesn't seem the most agile. Any time I've seen him with the u20s he's been vocal, communicated well with his centre halves but has rarely been tested though he's conceded a couple that hardly fill you with confidence. The one against Aberdeen u20s springs to mind (it's up on the club YouTube if you want to seek it out) talk about going down in stages. Either way we need a back up keeper and I doubt Brett Long would have been a realistic option for that spot and Peter Morrison's definitely not ready yet.

Clay - I've thought he's been decent enough any time I've seen him. He'll put his foot in, break up play and keep things simple. However he's not a replacement for Pearson and by all accounts offers little going forward. It's also telling that arguably his best game for the club was when he was paired with Lucas rather than Lasley.

Lucas - I wasn't at the County game but by the sound of things he looked very good, I was at the Hearts game when he came on for Cadden and he did pretty much what I expected of him in that game. I'm not sure it's really fair to label him a sick-note based on his injury record at Swansea. He's certainly missed a lot of football however a fractured back and ruptured ACL are hardly recurring injuries and aren't really the sort of injuries you just "pick up". He managed to make consistent appearances for the Welsh u21 side and the other age groups. I'd be interested to know what the injury was that kept him out at the weekend whether it was a knock or a muscle injury. Given his C.V and what he managed to show vs County I can see why we'd take a chance on a 6 month deal for him though. For me it's a question of whether we're willing to drop Lasley and play him along with whether he can keep his fitness together long enough to get any sort of run.

Edit: It's hindsight and everything but looking back at McGhee's quotes about Belic when he signed (essentially an appropriation of Terry Westley's when he signed for West Ham) it sounds like Belic was brought in as a squad player or someone for us to have a look at.

McGhee 31/08/16: "Luka is a wiry forward who can play through the middle or on the flanks. He works extremely hard, particularly without the ball and knows where the net is. He'll give us competition in that area."

Westley 13/09/15: "We'd watched him a few times, he's enthusiastic, he works really hard out of possession and is a good finisher. He presses from the front really well, always looking to search in behind. His work rate and desire to get in behind and get on the ball is exceptional and he's been impressive in the time that we've seen him."

Edited November 10, 2016 by capt_oats

[Gianfranco]

That's me had an email and a letter from both Keef and Moult saying I'm a former season ticket holder and I should get a flexi. I'd have a season ticket if I wasn't doing a postgrad this year.

But the good thing is the club are trying.

[thisGRAEME]

2 minutes ago, Gianfranco said:

That's me had an email and a letter from both Keef and Moult saying I'm a former season ticket holder and I should get a flexi. I'd have a season ticket if I wasn't doing a postgrad this year.

But the good thing is the club are trying.

Presumably my ex-girlfriend is getting letters from the club sent to her flat then, good news.

[capt_oats]

21 minutes ago, Gianfranco said:

That's me had an email and a letter from both Keef and Moult saying I'm a former season ticket holder and I should get a flexi. I'd have a season ticket if I wasn't doing a postgrad this year.

But the good thing is the club are trying.

Agree it's good they're trying. Would be interested to see what sort of uptake they have (if any) and whether a tailored mailout from Keef and Moult would actually sway anyone. I know they've done the flexi-tickets before but not sure whether they accompanied their roll-out with associated marketing or just posted a couple of tweets and a news story on the website. I noticed Cadden did a wee video to promo the ticket deal that was used on the social channels.

I wonder if I'll get anything; non-season ticket holder (historic or otherwise) but should be on their database somewhere.

[Desp]

41 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

my ex-girlfriend

Edited November 10, 2016 by Desp

[Desp]

Like others have said, it's good that they're trying something different.  I'm not sure having a letter/email from a player is going to do anything for anyone over the age of 14, but fair play for the effort.

The flexi-ticket should be advertised where possible.  Town centres, billboard (like the one they had at the start of the season when you drove into Motherwell).  It's something which may appeal to "never been before" types.  Very much a try-before-you-buy type thing.  If they liked five games this season, try and sell them a full ST next season.  

[thisGRAEME]

3 minutes ago, Desp said:

[thisGRAEME]

1 minute ago, Desp said:

Like others have said, it's good that they're trying something different.  I'm not sure having a letter/email from a player is going to do anything for anyone over the age of 14, but fair play for the effort.

The flexi-ticket should be advertised where possible.  Town centres, billboard (like the one they had at the start of the season when you drove into Motherwell).  It's something which may appeal to "never been before" types.  Very much a try-before-you-buy type thing.  If they liked five games this season, try and sell them a full ST next season.  

[mjw]

That's me had an email and a letter from both Keef and Moult saying I'm a former season ticket holder and I should get a flexi. I'd have a season ticket if I wasn't doing a postgrad this year.

But the good thing is the club are trying.

Its more likely to be CMWellfan trying out his email marketing.
Be aware!

[Ya Bezzer!]

On 10/11/2016 at 10:52, capt_oats said:

Clay - I've thought he's been decent enough any time I've seen him. He'll put his foot in, break up play and keep things simple. However he's not a replacement for Pearson and by all accounts offers little going forward. It's also telling that arguably his best game for the club was when he was paired with Lucas rather than Lasley.

Generally I agree with you on most things but not this.  I've seen us play 11 times this season, I'm pretty sure Craig Clay has played in 10 of them, and out of those I'd give him pass marks in 1 and a half matches. 

I've also never seen him kick a ball outside our two best performances of the season.  When the team is mediocre or poor, he gives you nothing in my opinion and that's just not good enough for a central midfielder.  His scoring and assist record in league level football is very poor and the amount of goals we've conceded is deplorable - 2 against Rangers, 5 and 2 against Celtic, 2 against St. Johnstone, 2 against Hamilton, 3 against Hearts, 3 against Inverness, 2 against Dundee.

I don't think our defence is any worse than last season and might actually be better (Heneghan has done reasonable well and I think Tait is an improvement at right back) so I'm looking at midfield.

[capt_oats]

9 hours ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

Generally I agree with you on most things but not this.  I've seen us play 11 times this season, I'm pretty sure Craig Clay has played in 10 of them, and out of those I'd give him pass marks in 1 and a half matches. 

I've also never seen him kick a ball outside our two best performances of the season.  When the team is mediocre or poor, he gives you nothing in my opinion and that's just not good enough for a central midfielder.  His scoring and assist record in league level football is very poor and the amount of goals we've conceded is deplorable - 2 against Rangers, 5 and 2 against Celtic, 2 against St. Johnstone, 2 against Hamilton, 3 against Hearts, 3 against Inverness, 2 against Dundee.

I don't think our defence is any worse than last season and might actually be better (Heneghan has done reasonable well and I think Tait is an improvement at right back) so I'm looking at midfield.

Agree that the back 4 isn't any worse and also that the amount of goals we've conceded is embarrassing. 3 clean sheets this season in total with only 1 in the league and the other 2 against lower league opposition, is dismal reading. However, as much as the midfield has to have some of that blame for that apportioned to them for me the biggest (and possibly most obvious) difference defensively between this season and last is the goalkeeper.

While Ripley was prone to a rick or error on the whole he turned out to be a fairly solid goalkeeper once he'd found his feet. So far Samson's stint in goals has been littered with mistakes and is increasingly being defined by poor communication with his defenders and a complete failure to command even his 6 yard box or hold on to the ball. While I think there's definitely a legit argument about the lack of cover in front of the defence I genuinely don't think the back 4 have any confidence in their goalkeeper which is as much a contributory factor to our poor defensive record as anything going on outfield.

We've conceded 20 in 12 games in the league this season (1.66 GPG), last season in the first 12 games (which covers Baraclough's brief tenure plus Craigan's interim matches and McGhee's 1st two games) we'd conceded 15 (1.25 GPG). Season prior to last in McCall's final months and Twardzik in goals we conceded 21 in the first 12 matches (1.75 GPG).

[Ya Bezzer!]

2 hours ago, capt_oats said:

Agree that the back 4 isn't any worse and also that the amount of goals we've conceded is embarrassing. 3 clean sheets this season in total with only 1 in the league and the other 2 against lower league opposition, is dismal reading. However, as much as the midfield has to have some of that blame for that apportioned to them for me the biggest (and possibly most obvious) difference defensively between this season and last is the goalkeeper.

While Ripley was prone to a rick or error on the whole he turned out to be a fairly solid goalkeeper once he'd found his feet. So far Samson's stint in goals has been littered with mistakes and is increasingly being defined by poor communication with his defenders and a complete failure to command even his 6 yard box or hold on to the ball. While I think there's definitely a legit argument about the lack of cover in front of the defence I genuinely don't think the back 4 have any confidence in their goalkeeper which is as much a contributory factor to our poor defensive record as anything going on outfield.

We've conceded 20 in 12 games in the league this season (1.66 GPG), last season in the first 12 games (which covers Baraclough's brief tenure plus Craigan's interim matches and McGhee's 1st two games) we'd conceded 15 (1.25 GPG). Season prior to last in McCall's final months and Twardzik in goals we conceded 21 in the first 12 matches (1.75 GPG).

Samson doesn't fill me with confidence but I don't think you could pin too many of those goals on him.  He prevent a bigger drubbing up at Dundee last week for instance.  I also think Ripley (and others before him like George Long) have got an easy ride because they don't carry any supporter baggage with them.  Would I take Ripley over Samson, probably, but I don't think that really explains our problems.  When we are on the back foot our midfield gives our defence very little support.

[Desp]

I'm remain to be fully convinced Ben Heneghan is the answer, btw.

[Mr Hahn]

2 hours ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

Samson doesn't fill me with confidence but I don't think you could pin too many of those goals on him.  He prevent a bigger drubbing up at Dundee last week for instance.  I also think Ripley (and others before him like George Long) have got an easy ride because they don't carry any supporter baggage with them.  Would I take Ripley over Samson, probably, but I don't think that really explains our problems.  When we are on the back foot our midfield gives our defence very little support.

Wouldn't want to assume but I suspect capt_oats is saying that the lack of confidence in the keeper is the issue. You're correct in saying that you can't directly attribute most of the goals to Samson but I think it makes a world of difference to centre backs when they have a keeper behind them they can trust to come out and claim balls, close down strikers and effectively clear their lines when called upon. Samson is a fairly decent shot stopper but all goalies should be at this level, it's those that do the less noticeable stuff well and who give the defence a confident platform to defend from that separates the good ones from the less good.

[capt_oats]

Wouldn't want to assume but I suspect capt_oats is saying that the lack of confidence in the keeper is the issue. You're correct in saying that you can't directly attribute most of the goals to Samson but I think it makes a world of difference to centre backs when they have a keeper behind them they can trust to come out and claim balls, close down strikers and effectively clear their lines when called upon. Samson is a fairly decent shot stopper but all goalies should be at this level, it's those that do the less noticeable stuff well and who give the defence a confident platform to defend from that separates the good ones from the less good.

That's pretty much what I was getting at tbh. With Samson's apparent reluctance to claim crosses we find ourselves in the position where our centre halves are almost defending on their 6 yard line. I've mentioned before that he also seems to be caught on his heels a lot. Even with pass backs he's frequently hesitant. Even with his shot stopping the number of times he seems to parry the ball straight to the opposition is remarkable.

I'm wary of sounding like I'm scapegoating Samson as it's obvious that it's a lot more complex a situation than pinning it on the goalkeeper but I do think that there's a disconnect between him and his centre halves. To what extent that's the problem I don't know but I can't help but think that if there was someone in there who was more competent with crosses and the bread and butter stuff then it'd allow us to defend that bit more effectively.

[Ya Bezzer!]

I don't think we are defending well enough further up the pitch.  I'm talking about 30 yards out, not the 6 yard box.