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Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons


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I’m not overly fussed either way if Donnelly stays or goes. It does kind of feel like a natural time to part ways, but if he does hang around I’d prefer to see him in that centre back role and absolutely nowhere near the midfield. He’s too slow on the ball to play in the middle of the park but performed pretty well against Hearts and County in the back 3.
If he stays, and GA does fancy him as a CB, we’d be pretty stacked in a position I was hoping we could improve on during the summer, even more so if Lamie hangs around as well.

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17 minutes ago, dezz said:

I’m not overly fussed either way if Donnelly stays or goes. It does kind of feel like a natural time to part ways, but if he does hang around I’d prefer to see him in that centre back role and absolutely nowhere near the midfield. He’s too slow on the ball to play in the middle of the park but performed pretty well against Hearts and County in the back 3.
If he stays, and GA does fancy him as a CB, we’d be pretty stacked in a position I was hoping we could improve on during the summer, even more so if Lamie hangs around as well.

Aye, that's where it maybe gets a bit weird and kind of depends on the plan going forward. If we stick with the 343/523 it'd give us Mugabi, Johansen, Ojala as a back 3 plus Donnelly. McGinley as an option as well, Carroll had a short run as a CB this season too.

Depends on Lamie as well I suppose although I get the feeling that there's a fair chance he still moves, just not to Dens. His stock feels as high as it's ever been right now.

I'm not sure that keeping the same personnel really squares with Alexander talking about our defensive record being trash though. Although he did talk about looking at the system we've been playing as a consideration of that.

Edited by capt_oats
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Depends on Lamie as well I suppose although I get the feeling that there's a fair chance he still moves, just not to Dens. His stock feels as high as it's ever been right now.


Yeah, agreed. Was there not a bit of chat about a League One club down south (maybe Crewe?) being after Lamie last year when he wasn’t performing anywhere near the level he’s been at in the last 6 months?
Also wouldn’t be overly surprised to see Lamie (and Donnelly) rock up at St Mirren, especially with McCarthy knocking back a contract extension there today.
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4 minutes ago, dezz said:

Yeah, agreed. Was there not a bit of chat about a League One club down south (maybe Crewe?) being after Lamie last year when he wasn’t performing anywhere near the level he’s been at in the last 6 months?
Also wouldn’t be overly surprised to see Lamie (and Donnelly) rock up at St Mirren, especially with McCarthy knocking back a contract extension there today.

Given Lamie's form playing for Robinson after he signed and Robinson's quotes about players he'd signed in that window just before he resigned it'd be a surprise if he was interested IMO.

I could be wrong though (obvs).

Edited by capt_oats
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Given Lamie's form playing for Robinson after he signed and Robinson's quotes about players he'd signed in that window just before he resigned it'd be a surprise if he was interested IMO.
I could be wrong though (obvs).

Very fair point, you’re right. I’m forgetting how bad Lamie was under Robbo, and Robbo’s admission he’d mad an arse of that window.
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6 minutes ago, dezz said:

Very fair point, you’re right. I’m forgetting how bad Lamie was under Robbo, and Robbo’s admission he’d mad an arse of that window.

It's actually a solid reminder of the job Alexander has done with him.

What a time...

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20 minutes ago, santheman said:

See Flow getting a bit of stick over on FB and Twitter for not having the foresight to offer fans a piece of turf to buy from the old pitch.

Some people have too much time on their hands.

And he addressed that the first time it was asked... To cut up the pitch carefully, ready for distribution would have taken too long and bolloxed up the very tight timescale they are dealing with.  

So they thought of it, and threw the idea out as unworkable in reality

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37 minutes ago, dezz said:

I’m not overly fussed either way if Donnelly stays or goes. It does kind of feel like a natural time to part ways, but if he does hang around I’d prefer to see him in that centre back role and absolutely nowhere near the midfield. He’s too slow on the ball to play in the middle of the park but performed pretty well against Hearts and County in the back 3.
If he stays, and GA does fancy him as a CB, we’d be pretty stacked in a position I was hoping we could improve on during the summer, even more so if Lamie hangs around as well.

If we want to consolidate our points tally and league position next season then the whole defence needs looked at. Only a few got pass marks and wafer thin passes at that. If Alexander retains Donnelly as part of a central midfield trio then I guess things are more dire for finding talent than we imagine and for me would reek of lack of ambition to better ourselves.

Guys like Sol (while so so pretty), should be considered late shoring up subs and injury cover based on what we've seen. SOD needs a back 5 to get anything near an average score and while Bevis has improved he still has a bomb scare or two in his locker. Happy for Lamiesque redemption arcs but they are by no means guaranteed.

There is a reason we shipped 61 goals last year. Every bit of our defence needs an injection of quality. None of us want to be spitting blood for being papped out of the ECL earlier than we should have, especially when it's so financially valuable.

Whither McMahon and Flao see legs in shelling out £9k a week (£350k + £100k saving for O'Hara I suspect) on 3 quality defenders to get another £350k UEFA round in the bag I dunno. I suppose you also get their services for the long league and 2x cup campaigns. Winning two rounds against Northern Irish part timers earn you as much as a Hampden Cup final, £1m.

I get salary does not always equate to quality (Hibs + Aberdeen) but at least we'd be looking in a more desirable pool with the benchmark you would expect as a  higher level. There has to be some benefit back to the general level of the team from our league finish, Euro qualification and expected prize money.

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I would bin Donnelly but I wouldn't be gutted if he stays. He's clearly ok and versatile but he's equally clearly a fitness liability and, I suspect, not cheap given we renewed him in his one-off purple patch. So all things being equal I'd roll the dice.

Defence wise I'd be discretely inquiring with Ojala if he fancies a deal to return to Finland/the glue factory. I think SSJ showed enough to December to suggest he can do, Lamie and Mugabi also but they're all what I'd call the second CB. Play any of them beside a peak Ojala - or a Hartley, Aldred, Teale, Newman etc - leader of men type first pick and I think we'd have a solid centre. But pairing any two of the three together, while it might get you through a game, doesn't work for the season.

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Kind of related to the impending SQUAD UPDATE. I posted this the other week but here it is now the season's finished.
The squad ordered by minutes played.
1318183464_ScreenShot2022-05-17at19_04_33.thumb.png.18aa55b522d35bc916f0405668b49f70.png
627540295_ScreenShot2022-05-17at19_04_50.thumb.png.1021aae2d8491745026187e608a96c59.png
1069918937_ScreenShot2022-05-17at19_05_14.thumb.png.00bf4551f3d7f4663601830440a8c17b.png
The signing of Liam Shaw was a strange one. Came with a good pedigree and I was impressed whenever I saw (admittedly a very limited sample size) but he played less than O'Connor and only slightly more than Robbie Crawford (who I'd just about managed to forget).
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I'm for Donnelly joining the paneer connection, he'd enjoy battering folk in that league.

I'm hoping we can sign an absolute tank to look after Slattery, he needs protected, people keep knocking him over.

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3 hours ago, santheman said:

See Flow getting a bit of stick over on FB and Twitter for not having the foresight to offer fans a piece of turf to buy from the old pitch.

Some people have too much time on their hands.

We've relaid that pitch almost every year recently - it's not like Sailor Hunter once cut it with his personal fucking lawn mower.

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