Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[The_Craig]

Saw a bit of chat on Twitter that he was ill. 

Aye, they said it was flu on the radio.

[Gianfranco]

IIRC Robinson was saying in the press that we'd been speaking to people with a view to pre-contracts for next season, I suppose we'll need to wait and see if we're adding names to that list after recent performances. I've mentioned before but of the first team squad we've got Ferguson, Gillespie, Tait, Hartley, Dunne, Livingstone, Maguire, Long, Manzinga, Ilic and now Watt all OOC in the summer with O'Hara, Aarons and Ndjoli's loans up.
There's definitely scope for another rebuild there. We've basically said that if it's mutually agreeable we'd be open to sorting something longer term with Watt  - obviously depends of his motivation but it seems daft for us to get him fit for another team.

Out of that lot I’d keep both keepers, Tait as a back up as its useful that he can play both sides, one of Hartley and Dunne as back up, Maguire for another year, Long and Watt.

I’d keep O’Hara and Aarons if it’s possible.

I’d punt Livingstone, Illic and Mazinga. I’ve no idea about N’djoli

[Archie McSquackle]

He only just cleared the box on his fourth attempt, the ball came back in and he headered it further than any of his clearances, can we harness that somehow?

Sell him to a travelling circus? It took a fair bit of talent to make that much of a mess of clearing the ball, several times and win the ball each time.

[Phillips455]

Well, with tonight's result, it means there is a chance the Scottish Cup Semi finals could have 3 out of the top 4. This would mean there would be an extremely high chance of 4th place getting a european spot which will benefit us.

I can see abdreen securing 3rd spot soon if we are unable to win our next few games with our bare thin squad and comedians within  the mix. I'm hoping we can win the next 4 games since they are all winnable, but I just dont see how we are going to pull that off. It just feels terrible to be a motherwell fan right now.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

3 minutes ago, Phillips455 said:

Well, with tonight's result, it means there is a chance the Scottish Cup Semi finals could have 3 out of the top 4. This would mean there would be an extremely high chance of 4th place getting a european spot which will benefit us.

I can see abdreen securing 3rd spot soon if we are unable to win our next few games with our bare thin squad and comedians within  the mix. I'm hoping we can win the next 4 games since they are all winnable, but I just dont see how we are going to pull that off. It just feels terrible to be a motherwell fan right now.

Nice to see MJC's back from his self imposed exile.

[Busta Nut]

I think we'll be lucky to finish top 6 the way we are going.

[ropy]

Hartley has now scored in his last 3 games, will he get another chance on Saturday?

[capt_oats]

15 hours ago, Gianfranco said:

Out of that lot I’d keep both keepers, Tait as a back up as its useful that he can play both sides, one of Hartley and Dunne as back up, Maguire for another year, Long and Watt.

I’d keep O’Hara and Aarons if it’s possible.

I’d punt Livingstone, Illic and Mazinga. I’ve no idea about N’djoli

Aye. I'm not sure if it's cultural thing with Modern Fitba' or not (1 year deals, more effective player trading etc) and I recognise that it's a small sample size but it feels like our more successful seasons recently have come off the back of squad overhauls. In that respect it'll be low-key interesting to see how many of the 14 (inc loans) we'd actively be looking to retain - Aarons and Ndjoli's deals at Newcastle and Bournemouth expire in 2021 so unless they're mutually consented neither of those seem particularly realistic (and even if they are released it's probably difficult as we saw with Gboly).

The full list of bodies is in the spoiler below. By my count it comes in at a total of 70 players in 5 seasons (18 loans) - not including Scott McDonald's annual will he/won't he re-sign carry on.

Spoiler

2019/20 (currently 4th)- Gallagher, Polworth, Carroll, Sloth, Hylton, Long, Seedorf, Ilic, Manzinga, MacIver, Mugabi, Watt, Cole (loan), O'Hara (loan), Ndjoli (loan), Aarons (loan) = 16 (inc 4 loans)
2018/19 (8th) - Gillespie, Donnelly, Johnson, Taylor-Sinclair, Gorrin, Mbulu, Sammon (loan), Aldred (loan), McCormack (loan), Ariyibi (loan) = 10 (inc 4 loans)
2017/18 (7th + 2 cup finals) - Fisher, Bigirimana, Tanner, Carson, Rose, Griffiths, Dunne, Kipre, Newell, Plummer, Ferguson, Petravicius, Grimshaw, Main, Hartley, Ciftci (loan), Aldred (loan), Hendrie (loan) = 18 (inc 3 loans)
2016/17 (9th) - Heneghan, Tait, Blyth, Brill, McHugh, Clay, Bowman, Lucas, Frear, Pearson, Belic (loan), Griffiths (loan), Jules (loan) = 13 (inc 3 loans)
2015/16 (5th) - Chalmers, Clarkson, Fletcher, Laing, Moult, Kennedy, Robinson, Samson, McFadden, Ripley (loan), Taylor (loan), Grimshaw (loan), Gomis (loan) = 13 (inc 4 loans) + McDonald re-signed.

Last season saw the 12-18 Project which...didn't really work - we kept the core of the 17/18 side and signed players to augment the squad (arguably the only players we signed for the starting XI were Aldred, Ariyibi and though he was a bust McCormack).

This season is slightly different in so much as the 433 has been fine - what worked in the 2nd half of last season has largely worked this season (our form for the calendar year had us 3rd overall - despite the dip in form recently we're still 4th which I think we'd all have taken if asked at the start of the season). Gallagher, Polworth, Carroll, Long, Cole and O'Hara were all brought in over the summer for the starting XI and all have been fine, good, POTY level - only Sloth would be the bust in an expectations vs reality respect.

Where we've hit a problem is with changes to the team mid-way through the season. Arguably it's less the system that's caused a problem and more our adaptability eg: match fit versions of Cole & Scott OUT, Watt, Ndjoli, Aarons IN - all three of whom weren't anywhere near match fit when they arrived (Watt hadn't kicked a ball since mid-December, Ndjoli's last league appearance for Gillingham was 2nd November and Aarons' last league appearance for Wycombe was 26th December).

That's not a criticism btw, we are where we are in terms of how we're able to recruit.

On the plus side Tuesday night meant that Tony Watt played more minutes in his first start (with an added goal) than Ross McCormack managed in his entire loan spell. So that's something.

In other news, going by his IG stories that was Semple in for an operation (it went well apparently).

Edited February 20, 2020 by capt_oats

[well fan for life]

Having had a couple of days to digest it I'm probably less of a seething mess now. 

I totally wrote Hartley off at the start of the season, then he managed to come back into it for a while and I was happy to keep him in the team. However he is now getting the same treatment as Christophe Berra got. Teams are happy for him to have the ball because his distribution is utterly atrocious. The number of times he'll give a 10 yard pass in to midfield straight to the opposition is grim viewing. Watching him escort Obika from the half way line into the box for the third goal the other night was quite spectacular. 

First time I saw Mugabi I wasn't convinced. Then he played in a few other games and appeared to be...ok-ish and we slapped an 18 month deal in front of him which seemed rash at the time. The guy gives me the absolute fear when he's in the team. 

As it stands I'd be looking at playing Gallagher and Donnelly at the back. He's been good in midfield but then we've got O'Hara to come in there for him which is an ideal swap.

I also thought Manzinga was a young player we'd signed as a prospect, but it appears he's not that young and not that good. 

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

Hartley is still a far better option than Mugabi for me, but I'd be happy to get both off our books and I would be especially reluctant to offer Hartley, as much as he's my preffered of the two, any kind of deal whilst there's no guarantee we can move Mugabi on. Don't get me wrong, Robinson has been good at shipping under-contract players not cutting it before like Johnson, Fisher, Taylor-Sinclair, Bigi etc, but none of them have been signed in September after being released by a team in League Two. I don't know how many times I've said it on this thread, but I think it was absolute madness extending his deal until the end of next season on the back of three or four reasonably competent games when we had an injury crisis.

I've always liked Dunne as a player (and of course as a social media contributor) but his injury history concerns me to extend his deal. Looking at it on transfermarkt, it seems his first season with us where he was virtually injury-free was the anomaly. Months out with pelvic problems at Oldham in 16/17 and then two serious groin injuries with us in the past two seasons is a concern. Mind you, this season has been listed as "groin surgery" and last year "groin injury", maybe the hope is that the surgery will fix him.

[capt_oats]

59 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

I totally wrote Hartley off at the start of the season, then he managed to come back into it for a while and I was happy to keep him in the team. However he is now getting the same treatment as Christophe Berra got. Teams are happy for him to have the ball because his distribution is utterly atrocious. The number of times he'll give a 10 yard pass in to midfield straight to the opposition is grim viewing. Watching him escort Obika from the half way line into the box for the third goal the other night was quite spectacular. 

Kind of related to my post above but the thing with Hartley is that the way we're set up now needs a different skillset to what we needed when we signed him 3 summers ago. That's fine. There's been a natural (accelerated) evolution around the squad. The Berra comparison feels pretty accurate though dealing with it at the end of the season is probably far more palatable than us Stendeling him.

Clearly we'll never know but if Dunne hadn't picked up his injury would Hartley have played as much this season (at all) given the preferred pair for the 2nd half of last season was Aldred & Dunne? With Dunne starting pretty much every game post-winter break and Hartley on the bench after the County shambles then there's precedent of sorts.

In fact there were definite echoes of that County game in the first half on Tuesday.

Although there were heavy he'll no dae vibes about Donnelly as a defender last season, he's probably got far more credit in the bank now if we were to look at him as an option in the interim (at least until Dunne is fit).

With Manzinga - he's always been a punt however from reading between the lines the recommendation came from Kipré as they'd played togther. We've brought him in to have a look offered him a year and covered ourselves in case he turned out to be quite good. 

Edited February 20, 2020 by capt_oats

[well fan for life]

1 minute ago, capt_oats said:

Kind of related to my post above but the thing with Hartley is that the way we're set up now needs a different skillset to what we needed when we signed him 3 summers ago. That's fine. There's been a natural (accelerated) evolution around the squad. The Berra comparison feels pretty accurate though dealing with it at the end of the season if probably far more palatable than us Stendeling him.

Clearly we'll never know but if Dunne hadn't picked up his injury would Hartley have played as much this season (at all)? Given the preferred pair for the 2nd half of last season was Aldred & Dunne. With Dunne starting pretty much every game post-winter break and Hartley on the bench after the County shambles then there's precedent of sorts.

In fact there were definite echoes of that County game in the first half on Tuesday.

Although there were heavy he'll no dae vibes about Donnelly as a defender last season, he's probably got far more credit in the bank now if we were to look at him as an option in the interim.

With Manzinga - he's always been a punt however from reading between the lines the recommendation came from Kipré as they'd played togther. We've brought him in to have a look offered him a year and covered ourselves in case he turned out to be quite good. 

I'm not suggesting we hang Hartley out to dry and send him out running on his on round Strathclyde park instead of training. I'd just be reluctant to have him playing now as he is a liability. I think if Dunne had stayed injury free we'd have had him and Gallagher playing week in, week out which I'd have been happy with. 

Donnelly has been a revelation in midfield this season, but I thought he was great at the back. Obviously we were on the front foot but Donnelly's ability to ping passes about with accuracy completely changed how I felt when we were bringing the ball out. 

I suspect Manzinga is probably on relatively low wages anyway. But when you're in need of a winning goal and you look down the bench to see Ilic, Seedorf and Manzinga staring back at you it's got to be uninspiring as a manager. 

10 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

Hartley is still a far better option than Mugabi for me, but I'd be happy to get both off our books and I would be especially reluctant to offer Hartley, as much as he's my preffered of the two, any kind of deal whilst there's no guarantee we can move Mugabi on. Don't get me wrong, Robinson has been good at shipping under-contract players not cutting it before like Johnson, Fisher, Taylor-Sinclair, Bigi etc, but none of them have been signed in September after being released by a team in League Two. I don't know how many times I've said it on this thread, but I think it was absolute madness extending his deal until the end of next season on the back of three or four reasonably competent games when we had an injury crisis.

I've always liked Dunne as a player (and of course as a social media contributor) but his injury history concerns me to extend his deal. Looking at it on transfermarkt, it seems his first season with us where he was virtually injury-free was the anomaly. Months out with pelvic problems at Oldham in 16/17 and then two serious groin injuries with us in the past two seasons is a concern. Mind you, this season has been listed as "groin surgery" and last year "groin injury", maybe the hope is that the surgery will fix him.

Digging a hole at centre half is currently a more preferable option than Mugabi in that it might occasionally catch a forward out. 

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

I thought Donnelly was great at the back on Tuesday night and I'm a big fan of his, but I do get the impression his skillset is best served behind two others, be that in defence or midfield. Happy to give him a go beside Gallagher until Dunne gets fit to prove or disprove that theory right enough - as it seems a universal agreement that Hartley nor Mugabi will do.

 

[capt_oats]

44 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

I'm not suggesting we hang Hartley out to dry and send him out running on his on round Strathclyde park instead of training. I'd just be reluctant to have him playing now as he is a liability. I think if Dunne had stayed injury free we'd have had him and Gallagher playing week in, week out which I'd have been happy with. 

Donnelly has been a revelation in midfield this season, but I thought he was great at the back. Obviously we were on the front foot but Donnelly's ability to ping passes about with accuracy completely changed how I felt when we were bringing the ball out.

Aye, for avoidance of doubt I'm not suggesting that's what you were getting at. Just that there's probably a cyclical element to where we are defensively at the moment.

Listening to Robinson's post-match his comments that "boys I've been very, very loyal to were making mistakes that we shouldn't be making at the back", "We had a front three that was completely new compared to what we had in the first half of the season but it doesn't look like scoring goals is our problem. We maybe have to be a lot more ruthless defending and we showed that we can do that in the second period..."  it's probably the first time there's been a public acknowledgement of a defensive issue and there's a problem to fix.

Which is a start I suppose.

[well fan for life]

5 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Aye, for avoidance of doubt I'm not suggesting that's what you were getting at. Just that there's probably a cyclical element to where we are defensively at the moment.

Listening to Robinson's post-match his comments that "boys I've been very, very loyal to were making mistakes that we shouldn't be making at the back", "We had a front three that was completely new compared to what we had in the first half of the season but it doesn't look like scoring goals is our problem. We maybe have to be a lot more ruthless defending and we showed that we can do that in the second period..."  it's probably the first time there's been a public acknowledgement of a defensive issue and there's a problem to fix.

Which is a start I suppose.

I'd be surprised if we see either Hartley or Mugabi in the team on Saturday tbh. Christ I'd even start with Tait & Donnelly at the back. Or, f**k it. Just Liam Donnelly and do a tombola amongst our forwards for the rest of the team. 

[Desp]

2 hours ago, well fan for life said:

Having had a couple of days to digest it I'm probably less of a seething mess now. 

I totally wrote Hartley off at the start of the season, then he managed to come back into it for a while and I was happy to keep him in the team. However he is now getting the same treatment as Christophe Berra got. Teams are happy for him to have the ball because his distribution is utterly atrocious. The number of times he'll give a 10 yard pass in to midfield straight to the opposition is grim viewing. Watching him escort Obika from the half way line into the box for the third goal the other night was quite spectacular. 

First time I saw Mugabi I wasn't convinced. Then he played in a few other games and appeared to be...ok-ish and we slapped an 18 month deal in front of him which seemed rash at the time. The guy gives me the absolute fear when he's in the team. 

As it stands I'd be looking at playing Gallagher and Donnelly at the back. He's been good in midfield but then we've got O'Hara to come in there for him which is an ideal swap.

I also thought Manzinga was a young player we'd signed as a prospect, but it appears he's not that young and not that good. 

Agree with all of this.  Hartley backtracking for 60 yards without putting in a challenge, only for the ball to rebound off him into net after the goalie makes a save, is unforgivable.  Donnelly in at the back please.  Hartley should only be used in an absolute emergency.

Tuesday is still a sore one, but Cup exits always are.  Especially when we were only another home tie away from Hampden.  I know we're doing well in the league at the moment, but finishing 3rd or 4th doesn't really do anything for me a fan.  Getting a round or two in the Europa League Qualifiers in July against some obscure team we've never heard of?  The definition of meh!  Particularly these days when I won't be going on an Away jaunt.  I'm sure European football is a big carrot for the players, but not really for me.  I want a Cup win. 

[supermarv]

If only we had Aarons in the first half of the season... guy has really class and on equal quality with Ariyibi. Hylton has got potential but has been far too hot and cold recently and that shocking penalty on Tuesday. 
Quite enjoyed watching us play with overlapping CBs, the way Sheff Utd play and it works. 
For me on Saturday 

Gillespie 

Gallagher (if fit) Donnelly Carroll (if fit) 

Tait O’hara Campbell Polworth Aarons 

Watt Long (if fit)

[capt_oats]

Kind of overlooked with the fall out from Tuesday but that was Grimshaw's 100th appearance. Good lad.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

I didn't realise Aarons had played 18 times in the Premiership and 11 in Serie A btw. Can definitely see the boy has something about him, reckon there's a lot more still to see.

[capt_oats]

3 hours ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

I didn't realise Aarons had played 18 times in the Premiership and 11 in Serie A btw. Can definitely see the boy has something about him, reckon there's a lot more still to see.

I suppose the context is that Bigi had/has a similar number of appearances for Newcastle (and by all accounts sold him on the club).

Quote

"Gael Bigirimana called me, he said I’d love it up here. So far he’s been right, everyone has been welcoming."

The comparison in minutes played is here: Aarons vs. Bigi 

There's a pretty good bit with Aarons in The Guardian from November when he was at Wycombe. Tbh, what I didn't realise was that he's quite hype - and until 5 mins ago I didn't realise he was part of the same England u20s group as our very own Chris Long.