Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[capt_oats]

1 minute ago, Gianfranco said:

Gotts is turning into a saga. I hope he’s worth it if he does end up signing.

I’m already doubting if Mich’el will ever play for us. To be nowhere near the team with the state the midfield has been doesn’t say much for him.

Gotts is the vaguest saga I can think of.

Like, there doesn't really seem to have been any concrete report of our interest other than general "Scottish side Motherwell are also said to be monitoring his situation." type patter floating around.

Bielsa was talking about him and a load of their other u23s at the weekend:

Quote

“The young players [Ryan] Edmondson, Niall, Gotts and [Jordan] Stevens, these players who were part of the under-23s team in previous seasons, they have a process of development and growth,” he said.

Asked about Huggins’s situation specifically, Bielsa looked upon the right-backs the youngster would need to get past to stand any chance of playing for the first team.

“In this case that you're referring to, [Luke] Ayling, [Stuart] Dallas and [Jamie] Shackleton are all players who play in the position he (Huggins) plays in,” he said.

“If I see clearly at this moment in time he doesn't have the chance to overcome these players at the club and I keep him at the club, knowing this instead of favouring his development, I'm hindering him.

“For all these youngsters, it would be ideal to compete in a group in the Premier League, but if they're not here there comes a moment where they need to look for a competition higher than the under-23s, otherwise their progress will be stalled.”

Bielsa intimated, in an ideal world, all of the players loaned out by Leeds, who he attests to watch every week without fail, would improve to the extent they can force their way into his plans upon their return.

“The expectation for all of us is that they compete outside of the club for a year and we find an evolution that invites us to bring them back into the fold,” he said.

“Without exception, every player that has gone out on loan, I have seen them every week, first because it's my function and secondly because you grow a bond with these players.

“I don't know if I've spoken also about Alfie and Davis and if there's something that we desire, it's that it goes well for them and we're able to bring them back.

“They've made big efforts to try and be part of the group and we've accompanied them in this effort. If it doesn't go well for them, the work we've done is worse.”

Link

Bielsa's an absolute don eh?

[Gianfranco]

Bielsa's an absolute don eh?

Aye saga maybe wasn’t the best of words to use. He seems to have lots of teams after him from those links.

I feel sorry for Bielsa’s wife. Although he’s no doubt got a schedule for her.

[Busta Nut]

O'Donnell has been unlucky lately with shitting himself to death a few weeks ago and now the Covid.

 

I hope we sign someone who can play midfield. I can just about hear the "Liam Grimshaw is like a new signing" bullshit already.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Busta Nut

[capt_oats]

18 minutes ago, Gianfranco said:

Aye saga maybe wasn’t the best of words to use. He seems to have lots of teams after him from those links.

I feel sorry for Bielsa’s wife. Although he’s no doubt got a schedule for her.

Aye, his name has kept popping up in those vaguely 'click-y' sites the only 'source' who's credible has been Nixon but even that seemed to be in passing. Given it's been pretty sparse in terms of rumours that's all there's been to go on. The fact that his name was doing the rounds amongst fans at the start of the month suggests there may have been something in it.

It doesn't seem as invested enough to make it a saga but at the same time his name was first mooted almost a month ago and our name's still being mentioned even if it is in the vaguest terms...so it's definitely been drawn out.

I had a check earlier and of the clubs I've seen mentioned Salford are currently 3rd bottom of League 2 and Oldham are bottom while Stockport are 13th in the Conference.

Granted he's already been on loan at Salford and all those teams could probably match our the sort of wage we'd be offering and none would require much by way of relocation for him (assuming he lives around the Leeds area) but it does seem one of those situations where he's pretty much been told by Leeds to find a new club as he's not going to get games with them at the level they're at.

In fairness to him, you'd imagine he'd want the year he's got on his deal settled regardless of where he ends up and I guess it's a pretty major decision for him in terms of his next step. Pick the wrong club and he's fucked it.

Edited August 23, 2021 by capt_oats

[YassinMoutaouakil]

The Sean Goss stuff on Steelmen sounded quite encouraging (if it was true.) Can't say I've seen much of him but I remember him scoring a free kick once and he has #pedigree, good enough for me.

[Zamora Fan]

The Sean Goss stuff on Steelmen sounded quite encouraging (if it was true.) Can't say I've seen much of him but I remember him scoring a free kick once and he has #pedigree, good enough for me.

He was rubbish for us on loan a few seasons back. Decent technique clearly but dreadful at all the off the ball stuff.

[Ron Aldo]

The Sean Goss stuff on Steelmen sounded quite encouraging (if it was true.) Can't say I've seen much of him but I remember him scoring a free kick once and he has #pedigree, good enough for me.

No thanks. Dug shite at Rangers then dug shite at St Johnstone.

[well fan for life]

Hard pass on Goss, please. Technically decent offset by being a big, massive shitebag.

[Casagolda]

I assume(hope) Yass was being facetious tbf. 

Goss is exactly the type of dross you worried we’d end up panic signing if things didn’t work out. A 25 year old just released by Shrewsbury with only 80 odd career appearances- which already includes 2 previous failed stints in Scottish fitba. 

I was all in for Alexander’s more patient approach. I still hold out some hope we’ll see a few more of a similar quality to Kelly/Slattery in the next week to round off the window.

However, the closer it gets to the end of the window the less optimistic I am of that actually happening and the more I’m fearing a couple of squad filling jobbers being signed to make up the numbers. 

[capt_oats]

Aye, the line through the window has been leaning towards Alexander learning about how the Scottish market works and the recruitment challenges that are faced at "a club like Motherwell".

Turns out it's pretty tough shift to get "quality" to sign up. Who knew?

Fwiw, I think Kelly, Slattery, Van Veen etc are probably a step up on the type of player we'd have signed in previous windows. So that in itself is something. Even one or two extra in that vein before the window shuts would make a massive difference.

I don't think Sean Goss would exactly be the poster boy for the whole "take our time" strategy although equally I guess that it's an argument that it might be better to have tried for "higher quality" players and end up having to settle for a Goss than just patch trying for the "quality" and going all in on a collection of jobbers from the start.

If my timeline's right he'd have played with Watt at St Johnstone, Kelly at Rangers (with maybe a brief overlap at QPR) and would have been in the youth system at Manchester United around the same time as Grimshaw.

I can't confess to having seen much of Goss but he struck me as a Tommy Wright signing (like Scougall before Curtis Main broke him) designed to show that he wasn't the type of manager he'd been stereotyped only to patch him after a handful of games because he didn't really know what to do with him, go back to his favourites and basically prove that he's exactly the type of manager everyone stereotyped him as.

Edited August 24, 2021 by capt_oats

[RandomGuy.]

Sean Goss completely fucked a promising season for us by sitting in the holding midfield role being a complete shitebag.

Looks good as he can occasionally spray passes about and score a free kick in 1 game out of 3, the rest of the time he's not marking runners + getting crunched in 50/50s by folk the size of Lawless.

Edited August 24, 2021 by RandomGuy.

[capt_oats]

5 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Sean Goss completely fucked a promising season for us by sitting in the holding midfield role being a complete shitebag.

Looks good as he can occasionally spray passes about and score a free kick in 1 game out of 3, the rest of the time he's not marking runners + getting crunched in 50/50s by folk the size of Lawless.

Just had a look there. You didn't win a game he played in (his other appearance was a 5-0 loss to Celtic in the cup).

[RandomGuy.]

9 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Just had a look there. You didn't win a game he played in (his other appearance was a 5-0 loss to Celtic in the cup).

From memory we'd been flying before he joined with Liam Craig being a complete stand out as a DM. Yet galaxy brain Tommy took over and we horsed him out the side, brought in this imposter, and suddenly we couldn't stop players strolling through our midfield.

He's just a high profile, left footed, Robbie Crawford.

[Neil86]

Just seen an article headered 'Celtic may have their very own David Turnbull in Owen Moffat'

Do fans still not like the idea of loaning old firm players?

[Doctor Manhattan]

9 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

He's just a high profile, left footed, Robbie Crawford.

A phrase I have never seen before, and do not want to ever see again, thanks.

[RandomGuy.]

1 minute ago, Doctor Manhattan said:

A phrase I have never seen before, and do not want to ever see again, thanks.

Get a feeling you'd see it a lot if you signed him and expected him to play as the holding midfielder.

[well fan for life]

14 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

He's just a high profile, left footed, Robbie Crawford.

If we sign him I'm going to need sedatives by the middle of September.

[Swello]

13 minutes ago, Neil86 said:

Just seen an article headered 'Celtic may have their very own David Turnbull in Owen Moffat'

A. Celtic actually have their very own David Turnbull already - you'd think they'd have noticed

B. An absolute classic bit of Scottish sports writing space filler from the <promising young player> is the next <name of popular player> template.

[capt_oats]

16 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Get a feeling you'd see it a lot if you signed him and expected him to play as the holding midfielder.

In fairness I'd guess if we were to sign him he'd play on the left of the midfield 3. Roughly where Barry Maguire's been playing up until recently.

More someone to spray passes and/or link midfield and attack (preferably both).

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

There's no doubt the squad could do with being improved, but we have 26 players listed on the first team section of the official site. That's more than adequate in terms of numbers, so I'd much rather we didn't sign anyone in the last week of the window, than sign any also rans. If say "Player X" was a marked upgrade on Maguire for example, I'd be all for us signing him, but if he was there or thereabouts with Maguire, for me it wouldn't be worth it.

Just using Maguire as an example, as was the last player mentioned above, but the same applies to most of the squad. It's getting to the stage where I think it's unrealistic that anyone we would add would bring a lot of quality.