Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Lobby Dossar]

48 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Not according to the official site: https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/player/max-johnston/

He definitely came through the academy and 2020 would be his 17th birthday We’re not allowed to sign them on a pro contract till then. 
Funny how ex-pros Johnston Beattie and Miller have all allowed their kids to join the Well academy… must be doing something right And the only way we list Bailey Rice was because his old man was a die in the wool blue nose and was desperate for his boy to go to Ibrox 

[Neil86]

popped down for the first half, two minutes from my work. 

First 5 minutes were, ehhhh, scrappy and untidy, Motherwell grew into it and probably look the better side. Tierney looked bright, Danzaki looked good on the ball, was getting stuck in too, Dunachie pretty solid aside from one sclaffed clearance.

Adam Mcdonald as well in the middle done well.

everyone else is stuck on a 6/10, that's more to do with the game as opposed to individual performances, good chances were at a premium.

[Doctor Manhattan]

2 hours ago, Swello said:

Some reserve team that.

Final score 1-1 after Crankshaw equalised in the last minute.

'Well win the penalty shoot out for the bonus point.

[Marinello]

2 hours ago, Neil86 said:

popped down for the first half, two minutes from my work. 

First 5 minutes were, ehhhh, scrappy and untidy, Motherwell grew into it and probably look the better side. Tierney looked bright, Danzaki looked good on the ball, was getting stuck in too, Dunachie pretty solid aside from one sclaffed clearance.

Adam Mcdonald as well in the middle done well.

everyone else is stuck on a 6/10, that's more to do with the game as opposed to individual performances, good chances were at a premium.

Any sign of Kettlewell at the game?

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

I don't think there is much wrong with Max Johnston's contract.

He wasn't a first team player and had no more than a decent record at lower league loans. We will offer him a new deal with improved terms and the assertion that right now he is the first choice right wing back and will be starting top flight games.

If he chooses to leave we still get compensation.

Saw some Turnbull talk up the thread but this is much more like Jake Hastie.

[Handsome_Devil]

33 minutes ago, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

Saw some Turnbull talk up the thread but this is much more like Jake Hastie.

We'll only know that in a couple of years!

[capt_oats]

In itself, Johnston's contract situation isn't much different to other young players. Cornelius, for example, is out of contract at the end of this season as well. Turnbull had signed multiple extensions before his breakthrough season. The problem now is the number of Academy kids who are being hoovered up by English clubs which is out of step with the sort of contract timetable we seem to work with and puts us in an awkward position.

We were burned by overcommitting to the likes of Luke Watt, Dom Thomas etc so broadly we've ended up with a schedule were generally the first pro-contracts are 2 year (Lennon Miller seems to have been a recent exception with a 3 year deal) and are reviewed based on development. We ended up signing Allan Campbell to a 4 year deal in 2017 when he was 19 (coincidentally the same age as Johnston now).

I don't doubt we've had discussions and put a contract in front of MJ so that's fine IMO. I don't believe for a second that we've arrived Kate McCallister style in January and realised we've forgotten about Max Johnston's contract.

Equally, I don't blame him for choosing to keep his options open.

I guess the frustration I have in this specific case is that unlike other previous assets we don't really seem to have had much of a plan for MJ. I don't know if that's a result of not really having had much direction since Craigan exited and cycling through the Mo Ross experiment, hitting the Pandemic then taking months to get Kettlewell in place but from the outside there doesn't seem to have been quite the same sort of joined up thinking there was in the Campbell, Turnbull, Hastie, Scott era.

[Jim64]

58 minutes ago, Marinello said:

Any sign of Kettlewell at the game?

He was there

[eliphas]

On 20/02/2023 at 10:09, eliphas said:

Kettlewell has been offered and likely announced today if all goes well I've heard. Deal currently being done. 

Media seem to be getting the shout tomorrow for Kettlewell unveiling. Deal eventually done. 

[Big John Handsome]

Anyone know the script for buying Killie tickets? AFAIK it's off the Killie site isn't it?

[ropy]

26 minutes ago, Big John Handsome said:

Anyone know the script for buying Killie tickets? AFAIK it's off the Killie site isn't it?

Yes the link is on the Motherwell site under Tickets

[Swello]

Feels like a cup win - I'm welling up here.

[Richie]

11 hours ago, Big John Handsome said:

Anyone know the script for buying Killie tickets? AFAIK it's off the Killie site isn't it?

https://ticketco.events/uk/en/m/events/222201/seating_arrangement/

[Neil86]

15 hours ago, Jim64 said:

He was there

yeah, Clarkson was in charge. Kettlewell, Alexander and Tomoaki Enori were also there, Enori was in conversation with Kettlewell most of the first half.

Danzaki unsurprisingly has very little English, most instructions from the park went to Enori then to Danzaki. 

Definitely a player in there, he's quite neat in what he does. 

[capt_oats]

On 14/02/2023 at 20:11, bunglebonce said:

I'm the biggest Kettlewell fanboy going, mostly from his playing days but I always appreciated how he would (mostly) cut through the crap as a manager. I say mostly because he continued to back Vigurs to the hilt when it was obvious that Vigurs didn't deserve to be the lynchpin. He's as clear a communicator as you get. As a fan it's difficult not to buy into what he says, so I've found it perplexing that he hasn't convinced a boardroom to make him a manager again. It's not like his CV is shocking.

His downfall at County, IMO, was

a) building the squad around Vigurs, who was an ex-teammate and old pal from County's first promotion to the SPL. Similar with Gardyne, but not to the same extent. 
b) not having a leader in his defence and being too ambitious relative to the defenders' ability to play football. They would play a crazy high defensive line at times. 
c) (presumably) a lack of contacts, allied to the club's weak scouting setup meant that recruitment ended up being focused on Inverness
d) It looked to me like he took every loss to heart, maybe more than most, and it ate away at his own confidence. In the end he was throwing everything at the wall in the hope that something would stick.

It was clear to me he was a good coach. He had an excellent work ethic, always up and down the A9 to watch matches (which is something to be taken for granted in the central belt). He can polish a rough diamond. Jamie Lindsay and Ross Stewart are his best examples of players with a good attitude and really grew as players, before going on to have good Championship-level careers.

Out of curiosity who did Kettlewell have as his assistant at County after Ferguson moved to CEO (I know they were co-managers).

In fact, what was the backroom set up like in general with the whole co-manager situation?

[thisGRAEME]

9 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Out of curiosity who did Kettlewell have as his assistant at County after Ferguson moved to CEO (I know they were co-managers).

In fact, what was the backroom set up like in general with the whole co-manager situation?

[Busta Nut]

4 hours ago, Neil86 said:

Danzaki unsurprisingly has very little English,

A guy in the pub told someone I know that the club were shocked at how little English he spoke. Scouting eh?

[capt_oats]

13 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

Oh, a sailboat.

Just now, Busta Nut said:

A guy in the pub told someone I know that the club were shocked at how little English he spoke. Scouting eh?

Those Zoom calls Hammell had with him must have been productive..

[bunglebonce]

36 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Out of curiosity who did Kettlewell have as his assistant at County after Ferguson moved to CEO (I know they were co-managers).

In fact, what was the backroom set up like in general with the whole co-manager situation?

As co-managers, they divided the labour between themselves and didn't have an assistant.

Scott Thomson (of Raith Rovers league cup final '94 fame) has been the GK coach since Jim McIntyre in 2015. I don't see him leaving.

There was a video analyst who was let go by the board during the pandemic, presumably in a cost-saving measure. I always thought that was a counter-productive move (and County eventually hired a new one with Malky's team). He works for ICT now. 

Richard Brittain was Kettlewell's assistant when Ferguson moved upstairs. I hadn't heard about him since he was let go at the end of 2020/21 (he was still assistant under Yogi's management later that season). He works for Roy Macgregor's Global company now. He has long since put down roots in the Highlands, but it wouldn't be a shock if Kettlewell asked him to do it at Motherwell.

If you were hoping for an experienced head to complement him, I don't know who he would ask. Maybe Billy Stark (Kettlewell was his captain at Queen's Park). Stuart Balmer was Derek Adams's assistant when County were first promoted in 2012. Other than that, I could only speculate on retired Ross County and QP players... I could see him asking Alan Trouten to help coach when Trouten eventually hangs up the boots.

Edited February 22, 2023 by bunglebonce

[capt_oats]

1 minute ago, bunglebonce said:

As co-managers, they divided the labour between themselves and didn't have an assistant.

Scott Thomson (of Raith Rovers league cup final '94 fame) has been the GK coach since Jim McIntyre in 2015. I don't see him leaving.

There was a video analyst who was let go by the board during the pandemic, presumably in a cost-saving measure. I always thought that was a counter-productive move (and County eventually hired a new one with Malky's team). He works for ICT now. 

Richard Brittain was Kettlewell's assistant when Ferguson moved upstairs. I hadn't heard about him since he was let go at the end of 2020/21 (he was still assistant under Yogi's management later that season). He works for Roy Macgregor's Global company now. He has long since put down roots in the Highlands, but it wouldn't be a shock if Kettlewell asked him to do it at Motherwell.

If you were hoping for an experienced head to complement him, I don't know who he would ask. Maybe Billy Stark (Kettlewell was his captain at Queen's Park). Stuart Balmer was Derek Adams's assistant when County were first promoted in 2012. Other than that, I could only speculate on retired Ross County players... I could see him asking Alan Trouten to help coach when Trouten eventually hangs up the boots.

Cheers.

We seem like we've got a fairly robust support staff around the place in terms of performance analysis and the like but as Kettlewell mentioned in one of his press conferences last week we're quite understaffed when it comes to actual coaching which is why I was curious.

I feel like I've become quite fixated on it but the fact that our first team coaches seem to have amounted to Hammell and Brian Kerr would definitely answer a lot of questions about the way things went under that particular set up.

I mentioned earlier in the thread that "The former Ross County boss, 38, takes up his new post today working specifically with our Development and Under 18s teams." line in the news story re: Kettlewell getting the lead development coach role felt quite pointed.

There was another line that confirmed he'd be continuing his media work. Dunno, in hindsight it felt like quite a bit of groundwork to emphasise that SK wasn't going to be involved in the first team set-up (he didn't appear on the staff page of the official site either).

It's anecdotal but Kettlewell's comment last week that (paraphrasing) he didn't know many of the players personally suggested he hadn't been on the training pitch with them.

Alexander had spoken through the summer about wanting to bring in another coach to replace Lasley but it's something Hammell chose not to do. Who knows? Maybe he should ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

As it stands we've got Neil Alexander as GK coach who was a Hammell appointment this season so that's not a role that needs filled.

Vacant permanent manager role aside we're down an assistant and (IMO) a first team coach. Until recently we were advertising for someone to step in and replace Clarkson who was promoted to Academy Director last month.