David

Depending on who's available on the market I wouldn't be against holding onto Maguire as an option. He's not perfect by any stretch, but I'd rather have him than another nobody from down south on a six-month deal.

Anything but a defeat would be nice, continue the momentum we started this weekend hopefully.

No point in quoting him, he doesn't post when we win. He'll be back in full force if we lose to Hibs though.

Imagine if it was Moult and KvV scoring against us to get us relegated while they played for Hearts? Now, that would be something to behold, eh? Especially when the Hearts fans start singing. Hair on the back of the neck and all that. Maybe Morton fans?

This is my worry. I think the circumstances at the club in general are all wrong. In the past we've been bad, managers haven't worked out and I've always had faith we could bounce back. The club, in general, was well-run and I had faith in those who were tasked with turning things around. We don't have a full-time CEO, and there are important members of the team that run the club stepping down. Any potential manager is going to be taking the above into account. They have to.

I guess it depends if a potential candidate is desperate enough for work that he's happy to come in and basically get one transfer window to get a low-budget squad into 7th or better because that seems to be the criteria from what I've seen from our fans. Keeping us up, and even getting us into Europe isn't enough to guarantee some time in the job these days. Personally, I worry about who would follow Kettlewell. I would not be surprised at all if Frail is the next man in line.

Something that's also worth considering is that we are now in danger of gaining a reputation as a club who sacks managers on the regular if we punt Kettlewell in the next few weeks. 4 managers in 5 years doesn't make for good reading, and I can think of few clubs who carry out that kind of upheaval on a yearly basis and go on to prosper. Anyone worth their salt will look at how our board have acted the past few seasons and maybe will think they're better served staying on the sidelines and seeing what else comes up.

Is that the parameters for any manager at Motherwell now then? They get a single transfer window? And if they fail, they're gone?

What's most important is, who will replace him? Who's available in December/January that's in our budget and willing to come in? I'm not sure we'd get someone any better. In fact, I'm fairly sure we'd end up with Frail and Clarkson.

I'll keep posting as I like. You don't need to read it, or comment on it.

Feel free to move on, mate. It is an internet forum, and no one is forcing you to read anything you don't want to. God knows I usually scroll past most of your posts 😂

100% agree. We can swap out the managers constantly all we like, but until the recruitment is dealt with nothing much will change.

I have absolutely no biases in the matter, I don't even live in Scotland. All I'm saying is that for most footballers, money talks. And we see taxation being an issue in places like Italy and so forth, where players actively chose to not go there until the government implemented a law that benefited the top earners. They're actually discussing changing it again apparently, which is causing much discontent among the top clubs. But yeah, if players have a choice between Scotland and England, and they'll get taxed less in England, that's where many of them will go.

You've said before that you don't like reading big words or too many sentences. I get it. But yet, you always find the time to reply 😂

Because he's our manager. If the club have zero faith in his recruitment abilities he should have been dismissed a long time ago.

Do they? Let's say for argument's sake that such services are health, education, justice, rural affairs, housing and the environment. I'd imagine most footballers get the majority of their health needs seen to by the clubs they play for. And their families will be on private health care if they're sensible. I don't really see the likes of Liam Kelly or Stephen O'Donnell sending their kids to Clyde Valley High or their local equivalent for schooling. I'd imagine there'll be private options suggested by the club when players move to Motherwell. On housing, I don't think they'll be getting papped into council houses in Muirhouse or Craigneuk. They will use some services, but not most of them in my opinion. It'll be far from a moot point to players and their agents. Especially players coming into Scotland from outside. When a player from outside Scotland is weighing up a move and the salary is higher in England due to lesser taxation I'd imagine a fair amount of them will opt for England. Scotland already has a tough job convincing players to leave England or choose Scotland over England as it is. I know if I was a foreigner and was looking at moving to Britain, with everything else being reasonably equal (weather, language, lifestyle etc) I'd go wherever I could make the most money. Especially if I was a player who wasn't earning millions of pounds or Euros every year. It's a short career, and I'd rather that more of my salary goes into my savings account than into the pockets of the Scottish government. Basically, those players won't give a flying f*ck about what sensibly-minded Scottish people think. They're coming here to carry out their profession, earn as much money as they can, and then move on eventually.

I think the last roll of the dice for him will be the January window. If he can get a squad together that is more capable of dragging us up the table after the window closes then he should be fine. For now. His contract is up at the end of the season, and I think some real questions will need to be asked at that point.

So if he fails to avoid defeat against Rangers he's done? Good luck with that.

Normally I'd be of the mind that if things don't improve soon we should be looking to make changes, but this time I'm not thinking that way. In the past, I had reasons to think someone new could change things. I believed that the manager was either too inexperienced and in over his head, had lost the support of the players, or was misusing the squad. This time? I think none of the above. I think Kettlewell has the full support of the players. I think he's utilising the squad as best he can. I don't see how a new guy is going to come in and do anything different. Unfortunately, we just don't have a very good team this time around. I think our squad is the 11th best in the division, and our league position reflects that. The only way out of this is for the team to keep plugging away, and for the manager and coaching staff to get things right in the January window. The management team in place just now will have a far better idea of what's needed in January than a new guy coming in will, as he'll need time to assess the squad. A few decent signings in January could be enough I think.

Yeah, but I mentioned them because they were signed this summer under the new regime. You could throw Obika in there as well, but as far as I know his deal is up this summer with an option for another year.

This is my greatest worry at the moment. I fully expect us to head into January in a bit of a panic and proceed to throw a lot of shite against the wall in the hope that some of it sticks. If some does, and we stay up, then the same system will remain in place for the foreseeable future I'd imagine. I fear that we will only look to really change the way we do things when this current system fails and we finally go down, at which point it may very well be too late. Oh, they could be implemented at minimal cost for sure. The costs involved would be very small in comparison to the money we need to keep spending every January to try to rectify the issues we create for ourselves in the summer. Ideally, any business we do in January would be to cover for injuries or if a really good deal comes across the manager's desk. We don't want to be in the position of trying to fix our season every January. I'm certainly not from a footballing background, but I work extensively with analytics and datasets, and many of the strategies employed can be implemented across various industries. I don't expect to hear anything though. I just hope the club have the people in-house to look into the improvements that are needed. Much the same as other winter windows I'd imagine. We'll look for some bargain-basement loan deals with clubs who are maybe willing to share some of the expenditure just to get a player out the door for experience or to get him away from his parent club. On the plus side, we do have Pape Souaré likely leaving in January when his six-month contract is up. If we could somehow send Oli Shaw back despite his loan deal running to the end of the season that would free up a wage. The big problem for me is that we signed both Conor Wilkinson and Theo Bair to two-year deals. Bair and Wilkinson will likely be going nowhere any time soon unless a club is daft enough to take them off our hands. One thing I would say is that we've been down this road before and it has worked for us. But when you roll the dice and don't really seem to have much of a plan you're going to lose eventually.

The issue for me is that your first paragraph makes perfect sense, yet the second goes on to support the idea that we continue doing the same thing that we've always done. If we constantly say "well, aye, we do need to get a proper handle on recruitment and implement a more technical approach, but the priority right now is getting bodies in the door to improve our current situation" we'll never get out of the bit, so to speak. I know it likely got lost in the vast amount of text I tend to post, but I already detailed how it wouldn't really require vast amounts of money to make the changes we need to recruitment. Well, the changes I think we need anyway.

Obviously, if we can sign a senior player who is better than anyone we have in our youth setup then we should go that way, but at the moment I don't see why we have Oli Shaw coming off the bench when we could have Mark Ferrie coming off the bench. Or why do we have Theo Bair or Conor Wilkinson coming on to play as makeshift wingers when we could have Robbie Mahon instead? I'm not advocating having a team full of kids, but I think if we can show a concrete pathway that doesn't involve getting chucked out on loan while the club signs dross we may see more young talents being interested in coming to the club.

I'm just not so sure they're being given a chance. Can we honestly say that the players we have playing at the moment are far and away much better than the likes of Mark Ferrie, Robbie Mahon, Ross Tierney, or Sam Campbell? As I said before, I know the general consensus is that when a bigger club comes in we just have to shrug our shoulders and say "Ah well, they can offer more money. That's how it goes." But, there are things we can do to make the club more attractive to young players. Clear Development Pathway: Outline a clear and well-defined pathway for player development within the club. Highlight opportunities for youth players to train with the first team or participate in competitive matches. First-Team Opportunities: Demonstrate a commitment to providing genuine opportunities for youth players to break into the first team. Illustrate instances where young players have successfully transitioned to regular first-team football. We don't do this well enough in my opinion. We're too quick to fire players out on loan to clubs lower down the pecking order in Scotland, only to play absolute dross in their place. If I was a young player like Mark Ferrie or Robbie Mahon looking at the club just now, seeing that they deem me not good enough at the moment while playing who we have? I'd be looking for ways to exit the club as quickly as possible for new opportunities. Robbie Mahon in particular is looking very good at Edinburgh City, winning some MOTM awards, scoring three goals and providing two assists. But, we have brought in a manager who's decided we don't use wingers, so he's got about as much chance of playing for Motherwell as I have. So yeah, I think we're failing big-time here. Not only have we been reportedly slow when it comes to offering a contract to youth players, but we're not really giving them much reason to want to sign those deals either. We're signing absolute dross that will get game time ahead of the youth players, for the most part, changing managers consistently which is bringing with it a total change in approach and philosophy, which adds to little to no consistency.

I think it's safe to say we have a chance. Of the better or worse variety? Who knows 😂