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New Manager Killie v Nearly New Manager Motherwell


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So we have the start of Tommy Wrights new managerial career (most probably) v a still new and refreshed Graham Alexander. 

Makes this game more difficult than it could have been for the mighty Well. We seem to play teams with a new Manager quite often. 

Will TW be more up for it to prove a point to the Motherwell board. Can he affect things that much given he will only have had a couple of days ? 

Both sides still need the points and a defeat in this game will set either team back and put them right in the mix for the bottom 2 places. 

Would love a win but with the plastic and a new Manager a draw here and 3 points on Saturday would be a decent return from 2 vital games. 

Will go for a Desmond 2-2. 

 

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I think this will be a close game. We have definitely been showing some signs of life recently and the early impressions of Alexander have been encouraging. If our front 3 continue the improving form  that we've seen, I'm confident we'll score but we seem to give away at least one soft goal in every game and that's given us an uphill struggle all season.

I'm interested to see how Tommy Wright does at Killie - I would have been perfectly happy if we appointed him given the position we were/are in and so how he gets on at a similar club to us versus how Alexander does at 'Well will be an interesting sub-plot. Alexander has had the advantage of being able to use the transfer window whereas Wright has to make do with what he has - I wonder if Killie will regret not acting sooner.

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I'd have taken Wright given the position we were in but as I mentioned at the time(rightly or wrongly), Alexander was my preferred choice.

A lot of people seemed to have Wright down as some sort get out of relegation free card but has he ever actually done something similar before? What he did in Perth was obviously hugely impressive but I'm pretty sure he took over Saints from Lomas(although he was rumoured to be the brains of the operation) when they'd just finished behind us in 3rd, had a good squad at this disposal and built from there.

Entirely different to taking over a team in freefall with only 11 games to go, little time to implement your ideas and no way of bringing in new players. Given he's got Ibrox then Pittodrie to come straight after this, it seems like a tough start.

For us, we have of decent looking fixtures running up to the split but I'm still not sure how much I actually trust this team and it'll be interesting to see if any of Alexander's new signings make an appearance. Feels like a couple of wins this week and we'd be just about there and looking upwards, a couple of defeats and we'd be right in the thick of it.

Edited by Casagolda
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46 minutes ago, Casagolda said:

I'd have taken Wright given the position we were in but as I mentioned at the time(rightly or wrongly), Alexander was my preferred choice.

A lot of people seemed to have Wright down as some sort get out of relegation free card but has he ever actually done something similar before? What he did in Perth was obviously hugely impressive but I'm pretty sure he took over Saints from Lomas (although he was rumoured to be the brains of the operation) when they'd just finished behind us in 3rd, had a good squad at this disposal and built from there.

Entirely different to taking over a team in freefall with only 11 games to go, little time to implement your ideas and no way of bringing in new players. Given he's got Ibrox then Pittodrie to come straight after this, it seems like a tough start.

Aye, I'm another who'd have been absolutely fine with Wright getting the gig but your point about him being perceived as an automatic success was the main reservation I had. Fixing problems of his own making at a club where he's in with the bricks is an entirely different job to being parachuted in to fix someone else's mistakes. I've been trying to imagine the strand of the multiverse where Wright got the Motherwell job and what we actually look like.

It's still an incredibly small sample size for Alexander but while he's just about hit every mark in terms of what you'd 'expect' a post-Robinson Motherwell manager to be saying the one thing that has (genuinely) surprised me is his straight up focus on us. Where  Robinson had hit a point where he was simply trying to stop other teams playing (see the 550 at Ibrox and the 0-0 against Aberdeen at Fir Park) barring Kelly Alexander is using the same players Robinson had and he's stuck to a 433 regardless of opposition which has included Rangers, Celtic and Aberdeen, which when you consider where we were seems...bold.

As for this game, the whole new manager thing gives me the fear a bit tbh. At the same time, while I don't entirely trust this team either there have also been incremental positives to be taken from all 6 of Alexander's fixtures to date.

Edited by capt_oats
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I wasn’t rooting for Wright, I thought he would be a dull appointment based on nothing more then impression.  Sometimes dull can be the answer.  Alexander just seemed to be something new.

Also I was following our track record of no new appointments having managed in Scotland’s top league prior to taking the Motherwell job.

(Keep having to caveat that McGhee 2nd time was a re-appointment)

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2 hours ago, Casagolda said:

I'm pretty sure he took over Saints from Lomas(although he was rumoured to be the brains of the operation) when they'd just finished behind us in 3rd, had a good squad at this disposal and built from there.

Aye.

Mannus, Mackay, Anderson, Wright, Millar, Davidson, Craig and MacLean were all established regulars at us when TW took charge, with Brian Easton already signed up on a PCA, and Stevie May just scoring 20+ goals in consecutive lower league loan spells. Even back up players like Gary Miller and Paddy Cregg had been regulars the previous season. Wotherspoon joining that Summer was the most obvious transfer going too considering he's a boyhood fan of the club and was desperate to join. No guarantee of success obviously, but he walked into a house that already had strong foundations and had the luxury of updating it one room at a time.

 

I think he helped Lomas but there's no doubt Lomas was his own man tactically, a balls out 4-3-3 with Liam Craig as a right winger is as far from a TW set up as you could imagine.

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17 minutes ago, MP_MFC said:

There's no way this goes ahead is there? Snow on and off and temps well below freezing almost entirely?

Or can Killie's all weather pitch handle more all weather than Livi?

Most plastic is good until -20 to -30 a quick Google revealed. Game on!

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Oooh There is two of these! (original was bumped I saw)

anyway

 

1 minute ago, Busta Nut said:

I've never taken to Tommy Wright and the St Johnstone fan's obsession with him not being appointed Motherwell boss did nothing to convince me that Mr Wright isn't a big ugly DUP voting dinosaur.  He may only be 57 but I reckon he's forged a passport or something.

For those reasons I'd enjoy a win. Draw isnae the end of the world. 

that.

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56 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

Oooh There is two of these! (original was bumped I saw)

anyway

 

that.

If I had thought about resurrecting the original match thread I probably would have. 

But tbh I had lost track of whether this was a rescheduled game or another fixture that had come around given the longevity it took to reach a conclusion. 

Still assuming the game will go ahead. Lots of snow everywhere but the forecast for Kilmarnock is no snow for most of today and all of tomorrow which should give time to move the snow. At least with Covid you don’t need to worry too much about surrounding area apart from entrance for players to the main stand I would assume ? 

I am quite sure the players and Alexander will be well aware this is now a much tougher ask than before Wright arrived. Not best of timing for us but is what it is. As long as we match Killie for work rate and energy then I am hopeful of avoiding defeat at the very least. 

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3 minutes ago, welldaft said:

If I had thought about resurrecting the original match thread I probably would have. 

But tbh I had lost track of whether this was a rescheduled game or another fixture that had come around given the longevity it took to reach a conclusion. 

Still assuming the game will go ahead. Lots of snow everywhere but the forecast for Kilmarnock is no snow for most of today and all of tomorrow which should give time to move the snow. At least with Covid you don’t need to worry too much about surrounding area apart from entrance for players to the main stand I would assume ? 

I am quite sure the players and Alexander will be well aware this is now a much tougher ask than before Wright arrived. Not best of timing for us but is what it is. As long as we match Killie for work rate and energy then I am hopeful of avoiding defeat at the very least. 

Killie at the moment.....

IMG-20210209-WA0001.thumb.jpg.120c70de6fb97ef60e893b41a65934cf.jpg

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