David

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 😂

I firmly believe most of that is because we're still trying to recruit from the markets we recruited from back then. The landscape down south has made it such that we're unable to do that. What we could be doing is looking further afield. Especially post-Brexit. The Scottish FA’s more flexible interpretation of the Brexit rules puts us at an advantage over clubs down south, yet I don't think we take proper advantage of that. Instead of adjusting our recruitment parameters down south and simply going for lesser talent than we would have before because that's what our budget allows, we should be utilising modern analytics to shop in European markets, both for players and coaches. The main attraction we can offer those individuals is our proximity to the land of milk and honey down south. They know if they come here and perform there's a good chance that some over-spending League One or Championship side will come sniffing.

I think this is key. Fans have grown accustomed to Motherwell not just being a top-flight club, but being a top-flight club that has never really been in serious danger of relegation. Sure, we've flirted with it a few times, but often we're finishing top six or even top four. But the truth is, we're really not much bigger, if at all, than the likes of Dunfermline, Partick Thistle, and Falkirk. We're a fan-funded club not through choice, but because that's the only real option we have. It wasn't as if we were knocking back multi-million pound offers for the club to implement a fan model instead. It's where we're at. I'd rather we still had a club that the fanbase had a real say in the running of, even if it meant we eventually dropped down a division or so. When the alternative is most likely someone buying in who doesn't have the club's best interests at heart, I'll sacrifice our Premier League status to avoid that. I'd rather watch a team in the Championship or Division 1 that is populated by young local talent and owned by the fans than watch a team of middle-of-the-road top-flight journeymen under the ownership of some consortium or individual who's never really around.

Again, we're not unique in that department. I'm sure there are plenty of top-tier clubs from other smaller footballing nations who can't compete financially with clubs in League 2 down south.

Well, that's a pretty flimsy reason for a comparison. Comparisons with the English game are never going to paint us in a good light, for various reasons.

My question is, why do we have to compare our league to the English leagues? There's this tendency to compare ourselves to England because they're just down the road, but why not compare ourselves to nations of a similar size? What's the quality like in the Norwegian league? The Irish league? The Slovakian league? Finnish league?

But we're just as likely to draw with Rangers, beat Aberdeen and lose to Livi. How many times have we been on a terrible run of form and going into a few games where we couldn't see where a win comes from, only to get something?

And yet we had a fair amount of fans on this forum claiming that playing an extra midfielder in Paton and having Mika up top on his own was the way to go. It's very easy to come in and claim something isn't the way to go after the game has played out. Our problem today wasn't getting players into positions where they had a chance to score. It was actually putting the ball in the net, and there's nothing the manager can do about that.

Honestly, I've just logged on and read over the past two or so pages and I wonder if God created football so greetin'-faced men had something to moan about 😂

What change would you make?

You can certainly hope for failure, as you seemingly do from every manager we have for some reason, but I don't think he sounds like a man who'll be walking away.

Ah, I see. I thought the discussion was centred around the fans having an actual say in the direction the club would take in these matters. If it's just being informed that our representatives on the board are voting a certain way then fair enough, we wouldn't need all the information. Aren't the members views asked for and discussed at meetings? Or do you mean taking another approach? As for who makes the decisions, I assumed that as a collective, we voted for several representatives to sit on the board. Surely then those individuals are provided with a mandate to vote on behalf of the society? Yes, the basic details were made available, but the point I'm making is that if it comes down to an actual decision to be made on the matter, it would take more than basic details to make an informed decision? Surely at that point, we'd be relying on the individuals that we have voted to represent us on the board to make the correct call? I don't think the way to deal with such situations is for the entirety of the society to have a vote on the matter because the only way that could be done correctly is for everyone to be provided with all the information. I agree with most of this statement. We elect representatives for a reason, and that reason is so that the in-depth details are only then shared with those individuals along with the club board. I don't really have much of an issue with the Society, except for accountability. I'd like to see those that we elect being more pro-active as far as keeping the wider membership base updated. I'll be honest, I have toyed with the idea of running in the past (you at the back, stop laughing!) with the primary aim of doing so to open the channels of communication between the club and the Society Members. A monthly email written up and sent to all members detailing exactly what has happened that month, what has been discussed, and also full transparency on my own feelings and voting intentions if applicable. Comms have been poor since Alan Burrows left, but that wouldn't stop the Society reps we have elected from being more proactive on the information front. They may not be privy to everything that's going on, but something is better than nothing. The current newsletter is really just basic fluff, wrapped around a request for more people to sign up. So, I'm one of those people you're talking about when you say "It's nought to do with me, try someone else" because for all my good intentions I've never actually gotten around to putting myself forward. I'm guessing a lot of others are in the same boat.

While I'm not an expert, it seems likely that the specifics of such a deal would include confidential information, particularly from Dalziel's perspective. It's uncertain whether the club could share such information with the general public. If they couldn't, would the broader Well Society membership be able to make well-informed decisions? Similar to the previous point, obtaining comprehensive information might be challenging, given the reluctance of the club and external entities to disclose certain details publicly. At that point, we might find ourselves in a situation where individuals are casting votes without possessing a full understanding of the relevant facts. Executing a proposal of this nature for Society members likely involves more complexities than many of us realise. One thing I'd say is that I'm not 100% certain that the club aren't already carrying these ideas out. Granted, if they are they're not doing it very well, but still. I don't see it exactly in that way, but the truth is, most of us, myself included, lack the qualifications to make decisions of that nature. That's why we elect representatives to the board to act on our behalf. I do share the sentiment of holding those board members more accountable. There's a noticeable lack of communication from them. I believe it would be beneficial to have more transparency about their decisions – not necessarily revealing all the details of discussions but at least helping us understand what topics they are voting on as board members and how they cast their votes. It's similar to the accountability we expect from politicians. Currently, it feels like we choose a few individuals, they get elected, and then we seldom hear from them again.

I wasn't entirely sold on Kettlewell to begin with, and some of his signings have been questionable at best, but there's a different vibe and feel from the team at the moment. It doesn't seem like a situation where the manager is out of options, isn't being backed by the players and a new guy is needed. It feels different from the Hammell and Alexander situations. It even feels different from the end of Robinson's reign. That might just be me though.