Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[ropy 299]

7 hours ago, TheScarf said:

Yeah Chalmers is never a defender in a million years.  He's a left footed CM and we get some decent performances from him in that role.  We tried him at LB for the first 2 games of last season and Robbo has never played him there since. 

I assume ICT have found a pair of boots that fit him, when he was with us he seemed to be running with a pair at least 2 sizes too big.

[Londonwell 656]

1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

Really, really, really enjoyed that. Easily one of the best you guys have done.

I'd been looking forward to hearing what Mo had to say generally but that really is 100% recommended listening.

Good interview but what the hell was he talking about with Pep Guardiola- nobody had heard of Sane before? Wit.

[Archie McSquackle 132]

I'm sure Lawless could have probably got in the team but you then think we had Lionel ripping them into the top corner from 35 yards at points in the last few years I don't think you could say we missed out any much. 
Everyone else? Pretty much all of them have gone on to do a whole lot of nothing. 

Lawless could have done a job for us over the last few years but when we released him we were qualifying for Europe every year. He's never been close to the level of player we had in those days.

[thisGRAEME 2,818]

14 hours ago, ropy said:

I assume ICT have found a pair of boots that fit him, when he was with us he seemed to be running with a pair at least 2 sizes too big.

Joe Chalmers was wearing Ryan Bowman's boots?

A fine conspiracy.

[Swello 4,226]

16 hours ago, capt_oats said:

Really, really, really enjoyed that. Easily one of the best you guys have done.

I'd been looking forward to hearing what Mo had to say generally but that really is 100% recommended listening.

Yep - a great listen and not really what I was expecting to be honest (and that's before we get to his casual use of "Pedagogical"). I can imagine (just as was the case with Craggs) that young boys will listen to what he's saying as he seems pretty focussed. 

It's easy to get carried away - but although as supporters we worry about/focus on the first team - the Academy and Reserves seems to be run properly given the amount of money we are able to throw at it. 

[capt_oats 3,417]

1 hour ago, Swello said:

Yep - a great listen and not really what I was expecting to be honest (and that's before we get to his casual use of "Pedagogical"). I can imagine (just as was the case with Craggs) that young boys will listen to what he's saying as he seems pretty focussed. 

It's easy to get carried away - but although as supporters we worry about/focus on the first team - the Academy and Reserves seems to be run properly given the amount of money we are able to throw at it. 

Definitely. 

I arrived for the Academy chat and happily stayed for his fulsome praise of Robinson as a coach and manager along with his polite bodying of McCall's cup final approach and the relative preparedness of that squad compared to the current one. The #RobinsonOut brigade would do well to have a proper listen to this pod as Ross is showing his working for why he thinks Robinson is as good a coach as he's saying.

There were loads of interesting bits and pieces. Not least his fairly candid assessment of where we were and how we were running things along with the benefit of bringing fresh eyes to things eg: Semple's an #8 rather than a #9 or wide player. Hearing that Dean Cornelius is (to all intents and purposes) the new Allan Campbell is good news as he's another who is ML1 A.F.

I wasn't expecting to hear the extent of his budget cuts but thought his position about the idea of rather being known as an "efficient" Academy than shoehorning 10-12 boys from the Academy in every year was interesting and actually quite in line with a few of the posts above off the back of Shea Gordon moving to Thistle.

Quote

"We can't compete with the Rangers, Celtic and the Aberdeens [in terms of budget] but what we can compete on 100%, and we're better, at is pathway to the first team. So what I'd rather be focused on is we can only bring in 4 or maybe 5 this year but of that 4 50% made the first team. That's where I think we should be. Smaller squad, less cost, higher output."

"We should be known as an efficient club that when you come into this environment you've got a right chance of getting there. Not just kinda trawling bringing in 20 people hoping that 1 makes it every 3 years. No, hand-picked and be efficient in getting them through because what it then does is let other boys not waste time."

The other thing that seems pretty progressive in terms of thought is the idea of focussing on areas of the park we're short in. For years we just seem to have been running separate squads.

Quote

"There's been a bit of a paradigm shift in terms of 18s > 20s > First Team and I think we're on the right track. We've got great communication between the Academy now this is something that Stevie Hammell has indicated. Las has indicated that the communication means there's a thread to everything now. I speak to Stevie Hammell two, three times a week. "What's happening, who's doing well, what are we thinking?" and another thing we're also looking at from an Academy point of view is we have a set-up that right now, as it stands we are short of wingers in our club. So what we're now saying is "OK, let's look to fill these gaps" because if I, for instance have 3 right backs at u18 level, 3 of them aren't going to play.

So what we're then saying is "OK, let's bring in 1 right back to then push on and maybe become a Grimmy but I don't want to bring in 3 because my budget is slashed, my budget is halved so OK, we'll bring in 1. Is there a winger? Yeah, we'll bring in a winger because the pathway is not blocked by 4 u20 wingers. So you see, it's about building this puzzle of what we need. Now in exceptional circumstance there could be two phenomenal central defenders and you'd say "yeah bring them in" and y'know that's how we're doing it and that only comes from communication from Hammy > Me. Me > Las. Las > the Manager."

I mean all of that just seems to make sense. Especially when you see the number of players we've had going through the Academy who, in hindsight, really just seemed to be making up the numbers.

Edited May 16 by capt_oats

[tree house tam 4,004]

18 hours ago, Kyle said:

We have fans bemoaning the release of Aaron Comrie. Youth players really cloud the judgement of even the most sensible supporters.

Who's actually said that though? Don't go full Random, Kyle. 

[Kyle 3,405]

15 minutes ago, tree house tam said:

Who's actually said that though? Don't go full Random, Kyle. 

I’m guessing you don’t frequent the banter page. 

[tree house tam 4,004]

Just now, Kyle said:

I’m guessing you don’t frequent the banter page. 

And neither should you

 

[Desp 2,387]

On 15/05/2019 at 12:17, well fan for life said:

He can't tackle and is slower than a week in the jail. 

He could, however, ping the mince into a Findus crispy pancake from 30 yards using his left foot.

Am I too late to nominate this as Post of the Season? 

Sensational work, sir. 

[nsr 2,524]

Sneak it into Joe's wikipedia page.

[RandomGuy. 11,136]

Yer man Tom Aldred is off to Australia seemingly.

Apologises if it's already been mentioned.

[Mr. Brightside 3,321]

[nsr 2,524]

3 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

Yer man Tom Aldred is off to Australia seemingly.

Apologises if it's already been mentioned.

What was his crime? I didn't even know he'd been arrested.

[Busta Nut 1,825]

Big Tam has mecenary written all over him. There was no chance he was staying on at FP for
£1300* a week

 

*Random made up figure.

['WellDel 18]

Aldred is typical of the journeyman defender , will bounce from club to club depending on the highest bidder .

It's a short career , and sticking around at a club for which you have no great affiliation when you can double or treble your earnings elsewhere , is never on the agenda .

He's been fantastic for us over the piece , but the only reason he rocked back up at Fir Park this season is that he had no chance of a game at Bury , and he could come here and put himself in the window , whilst still receiving a good wage . 

Good luck to him.If the Australia move comes off , fantastic lifestyle and money . Will always be grateful for his contribution , especially the two goals and full-time bounce at Hamilton .

[welldaft 359]

As above. Tom has done a solid job for us last couple of seasons.

Would love to see home stay but with our salary range never going to happen. 

Was surprised to hear Maurice Ross on the podcast say we had the 2nd lowest wage budget in the top flight.  I would have thought and still do think it would have been higher than Livi, St Mirren and Hamilton. Maybe with bonuses etc thrown in. 

Good luck wherever he goes but strong rumours it is Australia with Brisbane roar where Robbie Fowler is in charge. 

[Swello 4,226]

Aldred was one that I would have loved to see hang around but we  all know the way it works with money, so good luck to him. Until the day he goes, I'll remain mystified that Bury and their supporters didn't rate him.

Apart from all the football, the wee video of him and Bowman dancing after the SC Semi win over Aberdeen was one of my favourite things last season as for me it summed up that when you take the wage budget stuff out the equation, some of these lower league English players can get involved in games up here that will be career highlights for them. 

[thisGRAEME 2,818]

Love Tam, and sad to see him go. 

Always seemed like he was having a good laugh here, while being magic at the fitba. Fair play.

[capt_oats 3,417]

I think the thing with Aldred is that he falls into a pretty rare bracket of a loan signing that feels permanent. Obviously he's been great and everything but (if selected) the game against Livi will be his 62nd appearance for us. That's a very decent return for someone that presumably Bury are still paying a chunk of a wage for.

We've got a season and a half out of him, given the model and all that then had he been a permanent signing you'd probably have expected him to be looking at other options around now anyway.

Some boy and like everyone else will definitely be sad to see him move on.