Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[rowsdower]

Dom Thomas has had a hard paper round.

Nah, it was easy for him, he just made a bunch of paper aeroplanes and whined about people not needing to read the news anyway.

[thisGRAEME]

10 hours ago, Ron Aldo said:

Dom Thomas has had a hard paper round.

Looks like every male you bump into from high school when you haven't seen them for ten years.

We must be some fucking state if we're pining for this fucking Pars team.

[capt_oats]

13 hours ago, Swami said:

Maybe we just need to re-sign Lawless, Polworth, Thomas and Chalmers. 

Guid oanest laddies trying to play fitba' the right way, ken?

[Big John Handsome]

5 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Guid oanest laddies trying to play fitba' the right way, ken?

Strung more passes together last night than we have all season FWIW.

[Al B]

4 minutes ago, Big John Handsome said:

Strung more passes together last night than we have all season FWIW.

To be fair, I'd assume they haven't been instructed to get the ball to f**k and stay where they are.

[Big John Handsome]

4 minutes ago, Al B said:

To be fair, I'd assume they haven't been instructed to get the ball to f**k and stay where they are.

100%, as has been mentioned before we have a squad that on paper should be able to play some decent stuff. The blame for me is on the manager. I honestly can't understand why we set up the way we do.

[eliphas]

Alexander is getting, quite rightly, bodied about for the way we setup and not getting a settled squad. 

But to be honest, some of the players do have to take a look at themslves as some of the individual mistakes we've seen have been absolutely horrendous and nothing to do with the setup or formation. 

Is a lovely big combination of everything going pretty badly - from soft and shite individual defending, to not scoring goals, to not setting up the right way, to not changing things mid game quick enough, to not having a settled team or settled partnerships.

What a lot of fun.

[rowsdower]

Outside of our results being shite, what evidence do we have of the toxic atmosphere/dislike of GA/losing the dressing room chat?

So far we know that 2 players left for more money. It's not clear whether we offered O'Hara anything.

[stu92]

17 minutes ago, rowsdower said:

Outside of our results being shite, what evidence do we have of the toxic atmosphere/dislike of GA/losing the dressing room chat?

So far we know that 2 players left for more money. It's not clear whether we offered O'Hara anything.

I've assumed for a good while now that the only reason Slattery wasn't getting a game was due to some sort of personal issue between him and Alexander, but beyond that nothing concrete really. I suppose the whole point of having a social media team is to be able to tailor the public narrative to how you'd like it, but the stuff that the club puts out doesn't immediately suggest that everyone is hating their time here.

[capt_oats]

26 minutes ago, stu92 said:

I've assumed for a good while now that the only reason Slattery wasn't getting a game was due to some sort of personal issue between him and Alexander, but beyond that nothing concrete really. I suppose the whole point of having a social media team is to be able to tailor the public narrative to how you'd like it, but the stuff that the club puts out doesn't immediately suggest that everyone is hating their time here.

When I did those comparisons of starting XIs the other day I was actually a bit surprised at the number of appearances Slattery had made given the narrative about him. Since the County game he's made 8 appearances of 14 games but only 4 starts (of which we've drown 1 - St Mirren 1-1 (a) and lost 3 - Hearts 2-0 (a), Celtic 0-4 (h), United 2-0 (a)).

It's not like he's been fully Polworth'd or Lawleff'd. He's been in the match squad for all 14 games. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd be starting him but it's a stretch to say he's been frozen out (IMO).

As for the whole thing about the Lamie and O'Hara PCAs - neither of them were first team regulars (for differing reasons) while Mugabi, McGinley and Maguire all extended their deals and surprise, surprise all 3 have been regular starters.

As I said the other day I've no doubt that Alexander is probably...difficult and that there will be a bunch of players who will be unhappy but there's not been a line that everything is sunshine and rainbows in the camp because Bevis signed a 2 year deal but with the same logic folk are falling over themselves on Twitter dot com to get raging about O'Hara signing a PCA.

Edited March 23, 2022 by capt_oats

[Al B]

I'm fully in the same boat as (almost) everyone else when it comes to the manager, but I've found the Slattery-specific stuff a bit wide of the mark. I posted the following on a rare visit over to "The Other Place" on the 24th Feb as I found it weird enough to check...

Quote

This is becoming a "thing" that isn't a thing. Slattery has been available for 29 games and has started 22 of them, and came on in another 2.

 

For me he should absolutely be playing more than he does, but you could level that at more than just him. I don;t for a second think there's a Slattery-specific agenda from Alexander, I just think he's massively over-managing his squad.

[Busta Nut]

I do

[Swello]

At the AGM, this was asked and GA made the (fair enough in my opinion) point that Slattery is really inexperienced for his age (and used Wee Alan as a comparison), has only really played U23 games down south and has some weaknesses in his game that he needs to work on to be a first name on the team sheet type. He also gave him quite a bit of praise.

I nodded along to that at the time - but thinking about it more, if we had a young boy fresh out the reserves with no experience at first team level that was as good as Slattery is right now - he would be virtually un-droppable regardless of any rough edges he had. I don't think there is anything sinister going on, I just think Slattery has been a victim of a bit of stubbornness/the manager not wanting to look as if he's giving in to supporter pressure. 

[capt_oats]

46 minutes ago, Al B said:

I'm fully in the same boat as (almost) everyone else when it comes to the manager, but I've found the Slattery-specific stuff a bit wide of the mark. I posted the following on a rare visit over to "The Other Place" on the 24th Feb as I found it weird enough to check...

For me he should absolutely be playing more than he does, but you could level that at more than just him. I don;t for a second think there's a Slattery-specific agenda from Alexander, I just think he's massively over-managing his squad.

100%.

This is, for me, where he has massively fucked it.

I said it the other week (slightly facetiously I admit) but Woolery has been managed in a similar way but there's nowhere as much of a "thing" about him as there has been for Slattery.

Woolery started 22 of the 25 games in all competitions up to the winter break but has only started 6 of the 14 games since (but he's appeared in 11 of the 14 and been an unused sub in 3).

So he's gone from starting 88% of games to 42% (but has been available for all of them).

Edited March 23, 2022 by capt_oats

[eliphas]

1 hour ago, Busta Nut said:

I do

Why? Inside knowledge from connected mates and the likes? Or just putting 2 + 2 together? 

Edited March 23, 2022 by eliphas

[Lobby Dossar]

Have read all this talk of Alexander and Slattery having some sort of fall out and I just don’t buy it. If that was the case he would be nowhere near the 1st team squad let alone sitting on the bench on match days. A player and a manager fallout then there is only one winner and it’s not the player.

Slattery played almost every game until he was suspended and I’m sure he was one of the players who had COVID just before the break. Players nowadays are monitored every second during games and also in training. Maybe just maybe Slattery data in training  ( Wee box of tricks they all wear on their backs ) shows that his energy level recovery rate are not where they were before had had COVID ……… fit enough to sit on the bench but nowhere near fit enough to start a game.

Also all this chopping and changing could COVID testing have something to do with it ???

Deepest Lanarkshire is rife with it 

[Desp]

13 hours ago, eliphas said:

Why? Inside knowledge from connected mates and the likes? Or just putting 2 + 2 together? 

@Busta Nut is very well connected.  Never far away from the old secret handshakes down Fir Park Street way...

There's no chance Slattery's continued absence from the starting XI is purely down to footballing reasons, or development reasons.  None.

[stu92]

25 minutes ago, Lobby Dossar said:

Have read all this talk of Alexander and Slattery having some sort of fall out and I just don’t buy it. If that was the case he would be nowhere near the 1st team squad let alone sitting on the bench on match days. A player and a manager fallout then there is only one winner and it’s not the player.

I think there's different degrees to which there could be a rift. I don't think it's anywhere near the fall out with Gallagher last season. But as a regular punter that knows enough to know that Slattery is a good player, my 2 + 2 = there must be something else there.

Having said that, I take on all the other points about steady development, covid, training and recovery, etc. Also the fact that not everyone is champing at the bit to leave and first team players are re-signing, things can't be all bad. Just something still feels off though.

[capt_oats]

I mean, I defer to both @Busta Nut and @Desp's knowledge.

Not directly related to the Slattery conversation but looking broadly over the season there have been instances where it looks like the manager has sidelined players.

Aside from Lawless getting emptied, most obvious is Carroll after his sending off against Dundee, he'd started 4 of the 5 Betfred games and all 4 of the league games up to the point he was sent off. He didn't start another game until mid-December against Celtic (14 games).

Grimshaw hasn't started a game since the 3-0 loss at Dens where he was subbed at HT. He'd started 11 of the 14 games he'd been available for up to that point.

Slattery's last start was the 2-0 loss at Tannadice a month ago, he was subbed off after 63 mins he'd started the 3 of the 4 games prior (Hearts, St Mirren and Celtic. He came off the bench in the cup game against Aberdeen) - we've played 7 games since and he's come off the bench in two of those games (County and Dundee) and been an unused sub in 5.

Edited March 24, 2022 by capt_oats

[Geedub-MFC]

Has any of the reply guys ever asked why we can't add our season tickets to Google or Apple Pay? Find it strange we can add cup games but not the season ticket since the qr code never changes.