Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[well fan for life]

Also, underrated moment of the game was when Hearts chucked on Kuol who is a flying machine and first time he got the chance to run at us Butcher done his best to boot him into the Tim Hortons car park. No sure he touched the ball after that tbh. 

[CoF]

22 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

Just don't look at his twitter, do yourself a favour.

He offsets it with how wholesome his other grift is though..
 

https://johnsuttonmodels.co.uk

[Swello]

16 minutes ago, Yoshi-91 said:

Holy f**k what a difference in effort, unreal, even seen KVV tracking back and putting in tackles, had to pinch myself. I said it after Wednesday but yesterday bolsters the question of WTF must have been going on under Hammell?

I think all managers in a failing situation - not just Hammell in particular - end up with tunnel vision and lose the objectivity that you need to spot problems and work out how to fix them. In effect, it's easier for an outsider (sometimes even supporters) to spot obvious stuff in that situation and that is what Hammell initially did with Alexander's team and it's what is happening now. 

Apart from very few exceptions - football management at our level always looks like slow motion failure to me - it's just about how long it takes to get from the initial positivity to the last days in the bunker and unfortunately for Hammy, with him it was no time at all. Other than the money, I genuinely don't understand the attraction of football manager as a job - player, yes but not manager.

[stu92]

18 hours ago, ropy said:

If Kettlewell can bring this good stewardship to the younger teams will that not be a bigger long term benefit to us?

This is my thinking. The youth setup is so important to us and I think bringing a bit of stability and continuity back to it is crucial. I can’t see Hammell coming back to his old job for a few reasons, and SK seems like a good fit for the role. I would be quite keen to keep him there (unless of course he’s itching to get back into management and will jump ship in 12-18 months time anyway) rather than starting the process again. 3 managers in a season is odd, 3 youth academy directors in a season is fucking mental.  

Further hesitant to give it to Kettlewell because we’ve all been here before and seen this movie with the last caretaker manager that started off well. Six points from six so far is outstanding, but we could quite easily lose our next two and be right back in the mix. I’m not saying I think that will happen, I’ve certainly been one of the more optimistic within our support to date that we’ll turn it round, but I don’t think that the ‘new manager bounce’ has solved all problems. Kettlewell could do well with us, but he could quite easily also take us down and we’re in the position again of looking for a new manager and new academy director. We desperately need some stability.

A short term gig to the summer would be fine with me on the premise that he moved back to the academy and we could get a new guy in with a full window to work with. Not sure how much that would appeal to SK however, a lot will ride on how much he wants to manage again I suspect. Realistically I think that we’ll be appointing a permanent manager this week however. 

[Doctor Manhattan]

28 minutes ago, Swello said:

it's just about how long it takes to get from the initial positivity to the last days in the bunker 

If SK can emulate the Golden Hynd's five consecutive victories in 1977/78, who cares what comes next. 

[eliphas]

Just noticed Bailey Rice came on for Rangers yesterday. Seethe to the side for him moving this the papers saying this gets us some cash add ons. It's been a nice week.

Edited February 20, 2023 by eliphas

[capt_oats]

41 minutes ago, stu92 said:

This is my thinking. The youth setup is so important to us and I think bringing a bit of stability and continuity back to it is crucial. I can’t see Hammell coming back to his old job for a few reasons, and SK seems like a good fit for the role. I would be quite keen to keep him there (unless of course he’s itching to get back into management and will jump ship in 12-18 months time anyway) rather than starting the process again. 3 managers in a season is odd, 3 youth academy directors in a season is fucking mental.  

I don't disagree, I realise I'm being Captain Pedant here, but Kettlewell isn't the youth academy director he's Lead Development Coach. Essentially he looks after the Reserves and the 18s. In fairness, given the Reserve league seems to be a colossal shitshow I'm not sure it'd add any more to the disruption.

It'd presumably be a case of getting a couple of folk in short term to take that load. Given the fact we only seem to have 2 'football' coaches at the club just now across three teams then there's an argument that we should be hiring anyway.

Clarkson's the Academy director, which is why it seems daft to put him up as Kettlewell's assistant given we only fucking gave him the job a month ago having taken since August to announce him in the first place.

I've been saying I hope the board have learned their lesson from the Hammell debacle and I'd be much more in favour of everyone just taking a breath and having a think about our next steps with Kettlewell in place until the end of the season rather than just charging ahead and committing to potentially the same mistakes and running the risk of binning another guy by the end of the year.

Having thought about it a bit though I guess Hammell/Kettlewell isn't really the comparison in terms of recent internal promotions.

I'd say that all things considered it'd probably be closer to us giving Robinson the gig.

Edited February 20, 2023 by capt_oats

['WellDel]

2 hours ago, ropy said:

Surely Lamie gets to have his Kettlewell bounce like the others, he is a bit further down the pecking order though.

Hopefully doesn't need to happen. Happy enough with Casey and Butcher in there for now, and with Blaney to return and big Bev available again as back up, if Kettlewell (or whoever the manager might be) wants to push Butcher into midfield we'll still be well enough covered without having to resort to him.

2 hours ago, welldaft said:

Wonder if he keeps Clarkson as assistant ?

Clarkson, if he has any sense, looks at how quickly it went south for Hammell, realises he's in a steady job in the academy for the foreseeable future and decides to stick where he is.

[Mr Hahn]

Seems to be a lot of "no brainer" chat going around in the media having listened to the radio after the game yesterday and watch Sportscene.

This really isn't an easy appointment for the board though. It was never going to be given our position but it isn't much easier after a good couple of results imo.

Assuming we're going for a long term appointment (appreciate we might have Kettlewell till the end of the season and then assess further), if we go for Kettlewell and it works, great. However we leave ourselves woefully understaffed in other areas of the club and recent appointments (or lack of) suggest we're finding positions difficult to fill. Managers tend to last 2-3 years at best in the current climate, also meaning we'd lose potentially a terrific asset to the club in Kettlewell, who seems to know how to coach, for the critical academy department of the club.

If we go for Kettlewell and it doesn't work out, it'll give the impression that the board have made the same mistake they made with Hammell and they look like idiots. One worry for Kettlewell I have is that he might struggle similarly to Hammell in terms of recruitment. I'm not sure he'd have the contacts that previous managers have brought and worked well for us. I might be overplaying that but Hammell's recruitment seemed quite scattergun whereas a manger from down south or a more experienced manager up here would likely have several people he could pick up the phone to when we're looking for players. 

If we don't go for Kettlewell, I think we're taking a bigger risk in that we'd be appointing someone who doesn't know the Scottish game and would be disrupting a team who finally seem to have found something that works. If they choose someone other than Kettlewell and it doesn't work out, again the board look like idiots. Here's a guy who's finally got the team fighting and playing, got two cracking results and we've gone elsewhere.

Kettlewell till the end of the season seems like the most obvious choice but 1. would he find those terms acceptable and 2. as others have said, the pool of available managers might not be as good in the summer. 

That was a bit of a brain dump but TLDR: I don't envy the board's position.

 

[ropy]

If it doesn’t unsettle the club, if it doesn’t scare away the candidates, I would give it another week and make a decision based on more information.

[Dosser1886]

As others have stated, if Kettlewell and the club are both in agreement the ideal scenario imo would be that he stays in the job until the end of the season and both parties take the opportunity to se if it is working for them or not. If not he can move back into his previous role, no harm done.

On the bounce effect, don't want to curse it, but it feels totally different this time to me. Someone has now come in with experience that has clocked the obvious issues we were having, played guys in their actual positions, gave the guys a formation and plan to work to that they see is working and they are buying into. Also substitutions and timing of seem to make so much more sense.

Being totally fair to Hammell a few of the new guys that he signed weren't fully up to speed or avaialble to him but I still have zero confidence that he would have managed to get as much of a tune out of them as Kettlewell has so far.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Dosser1886

[Big John Handsome]

3 hours ago, Swello said:

Given that at our budget level, you're basically looking for a striker that hits double figures - we've done really well with centre forwards (and er, Liam Donnelly) over the years based on that list.
 

Also Sutton probably doesn't get the full Moult/Higdon man-love to the extent that he deserves.

Don't worry, I give him all the man-love he deserves.

[Archie McSquackle]

5 hours ago, thisGRAEME said:

He's on track to be our top scorer since.. 2014? I think?

I canny mind who else it is that keeps asking, but honestly what else do folk want?!

It's got to be taken into context as well- he's on 15 goals so far in a team in a relegation battle. 

[SIWY86]

4 hours ago, Swello said:

Given that at our budget level, you're basically looking for a striker that hits double figures - we've done really well with centre forwards (and er, Liam Donnelly) over the years based on that list.
 

Also Sutton probably doesn't get the full Moult/Higdon man-love to the extent that he deserves.

Big John Sutton, Motherwell's number 9!

[thisGRAEME]

2 hours ago, Mr Hahn said:

Kettlewell till the end of the season seems like the most obvious choice but 1. would he find those terms acceptable and 2. as others have said, the pool of available managers might not be as good in the summer. 

FWIW, this is where I stand on this as well, more or less.

I don't get the impression that Kettlewell is necessarily desperate to get the job, and I can completely understand why, given he's just seen Stevie fuckin' Hammell chased out of town. 

Similarly, I don't want to upset the applecart we've just turned the right way up when in reality, 4 points out of 6 in our next two games goes a huge distance to securing our top flight status. A big issue for Killie last season was Tommy Wright coming in and essentially having a go at stuff for a couple of games as he figured things out. We do not have that luxury, particularly with how fragile this squad has been over the last two years. 

It's a completely pragmatic position as well; should we see ourselves safe with a bit of time, we have the time to seek out a manager before the season ends (or appoint Kettlewell if it's been a successful 'trial period', so to speak) to hit the ground running next season in the Premiership. If we take it down to the wire, Kettlewell probably isn't the guy, so we can move on and he can move back, no harm done, lets never speak of it again. If the worst happens and we do go down, we're appointing a completely different manager, because we're hiring someone to win more games than anyone else in the Championship, and win us the division. 

[Kapowzer]

29 minutes ago, Archie McSquackle said:

It's got to be taken into context as well- he's on 15 goals so far in a team in a relegation battle. 

To clarify, I think anyone on our books should be available to buy. We have and will always replace them, wither it is an immediate upgrade, much the same or not so much is down to the recruitment, system, style of play, managers instructions, luck and the gods.

But if you think KvV is the high water mark for what we can hope for then .... well it differs from me.

He's totally a ying and yang player. he hasn't really improved on the 1 good game in 3 ratio, while 15 goals in mid Feb is a handsome return I think you need to throw in context.

You temper it with 2 hattricks against worse teams who had off nights. 3 more penalties in the league, his goal against Raith and its 5 goals from open play in 24 SPFL matches. Granted we were rank rotten in 15 of those with seemingly little plan. However this maybe points to his ethic more, he has one assist to his name in 31 games.

[RostokMcSpoons]

Apologies if already mentioned AND apologies for linking to the Rancid, but it seems Jevan Beattie is being picked up by Sheffield Utd, which means he might get a game in the EPL next season...

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/jevan-beattie-offered-sheffield-united-29264785

Do we get a tidy sum for him, for development?

[Handsome_Devil]

36 minutes ago, Kapowzer said:

However this maybe points to his ethic more, he has one assist to his name in 31 games.

I don't doubt the stats but this doesn't count the cross he put on Spittal's head on Sunday, the backheel for Mandron in Arbroath etc. His scoring stats are padded for sure but he's also chipped in more to other goals than the naked 1 assist in 31 suggests.

[Handsome_Devil]

31 minutes ago, RostokMcSpoons said:

Apologies if already mentioned AND apologies for linking to the Rancid, but it seems Jevan Beattie is being picked up by Sheffield Utd, which means he might get a game in the EPL next season...

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/jevan-beattie-offered-sheffield-united-29264785

Do we get a tidy sum for him, for development?

Depends how you define tidy...I think it's ok but unless he really hits the heights and we get trickle down money it's not great.

Getting him to sign even one professional contract with us makes quite a difference I think.

[LiviLion]

33 minutes ago, RostokMcSpoons said:

Do we get a tidy sum for him, for development?

As long as you've offered him a contract you'll get compensation. I'm not sure exactly how it's worked out but you'll probably want to play him in the rest of your games to get any kind of fee worth talking about.