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Keep Baraclough


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One thing I can'/won't ever accept from a team who represent Motherwell Football & Athletic Club LTD is a lack of effort.

 

Certain senior players should hold their heads in shame regarding their efforts this season. You are not fit to wear the famous Claret & Amber jersey.

 

Don't let your arses hit the door on the way out. Bye.

 

Jim Gannon mark 2.

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Said in his post match interview, hopefully hitting rock bottom will spark a response. If it doesn't, he's a goner.

 

And if he isn't, we are.

 

Did he really say that..?? that's unbelievable. A response should have been made long long ago not when we are bottom of the table. I would be tearing up contracts from some of the players along with the manager. I thought they would be getting an official warning for their performance much like employees in the real world.

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The players let McCall down and now they are letting Baraclough down. Most importantly, they are letting us down.

 

If you want to pick up wage for what is one of the easiest jobs in the world, apply yourself to the basics.

 

Not that easy though is it. I'm guessing most aren't not trying deliberately, especially someone like Keith Lasley. It's much deeper than that.

 

The squad is obviously completely demoralized, don't believe in the manager, there's no team structure, no style of play, no plan and the good guys in the squad are looking round the dressing room and seeing a lot of substandard players, kids and loanees.

 

We've had injuries but even so we've had 10 different line ups in the last 10 games. What are the players supposed to believe in if the manager doesn't even know his best XI or what the hell he's doing. Players out of position all over the place, strange substitutions. You think professional footballers don't see what every single person on this forum sees?

 

The whole 'pull your socks up' spiel is kinda the equivalent of a letter in the Sun about Middle Eastern foreign policy. Ie, ignorant bunkum.

 

The club is in crisis, we need strong management and we've got a guy reading platitudes out the Idiots Guide to Teach Yourself Project Management.

 

Football is not working in an office. There are no forums out there with hundreds or thousands of guys like you and me discussing every mistake you make in your job. There are no journalists printing stories in every newspaper every time you fuck up. If you send an e-mail without an attachment, thousands of people don't boo you and shout abuse. There are no podcasts about your in tray.

 

We've got the team we have and if we are going to get out of this we need to pick these guys up and that starts at management level. When a team is winning every week you could put the dinner lady in charge, this is when good management and bad management shows itself and right now I don't need to say much more about what kind of management we have.

 

The players are not absolved of blame but at the end of the day we went into a European tie with one half arsed pre season friendly were we never broke a sweat and then went up against a team in mid season. In that sense the players (and us) have been let down. The Stjarnan defeat absolutely destroyed us. We started the season on a massive downer and with all sorts of psychological baggage. It was a humiliation and we've never been the same since.

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The pre season thing was addressed in Flow's podcast. Apparently McCall wanted the games played behind closed doors as to not allow the European opposition an opportunity to check us out.

 

He didn't want a semi professional side to check us out? Are you serious? If that was the reason it was crazy. And were the closed doors matches not bounce games? Different from 90 minute friendly matches. Often these matches are only 60 minutes or even 45 minutes and are more like kick a bouts. Spectator friendly matches might not be competitive but they at least take the form of one.

 

We had a pay at the gate friendly and as I said we never broke a sweat. I've been to loads of friendlies, but this was unbelievable.

 

Anyway, the proof was in the pudding. We ripped Stjarnan a new arsehole in the first 25 minutes and then ran out of legs after which Stjarnan ran us ragged.

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Not that easy though is it. I'm guessing most aren't not trying deliberately, especially someone like Keith Lasley. It's much deeper than that.

 

I get that it's not easy. It's simple, but it's not easy. Leagues across the world are full of teams who battle with this problem every season and it's hardly alien to Fir Park either.

 

I do still think, however, certain players became complacent, and once you fall behind, losing is a difficult habit to break.

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Football is not working in an office. There are no forums out there with hundreds or thousands of guys like you and me discussing every mistake you make in your job. There are no journalists printing stories in every newspaper every time you fuck up. If you send an e-mail without an attachment, thousands of people don't boo you and shout abuse. There are no podcasts about your in tray.

 

Football is a doddle compared to most jobs. Especially at our level. If you can't hack picking up 2 or 3 grand a week for 5 half days of training and 90 minutes at the weekend, then step aside and let someone else have a chance.

 

Maybe it's just me, but being booed by 2000 fans would be much less upsetting to me than getting bollocked by one of my clients. Because I know how fickle fan are.

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He didn't want a semi professional side to check us out? Are you serious?

 

Worse than ridiculous if true...although I doubt that was the real reason

 

That was the reason given, although I tend to agree it's a nonsense.

 

If we were trying to keep something under wraps, it certainly was't from Stjarnan, who I think McCall thought we could treat as pre season canon fodder.

 

The rest, as they say, is history.

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Where are these mental suggestions that there has been some sort of falling out or reason for players not to try coming from?

 

Think they stem from the rumours of discontent amongst the team when Faddy and Clarkson weren't offered contracts over the summer.

 

No credible source at the time and none now as far as I can see.

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I agree, the players are certainly at the heart of the problem. Both McCall and now Baraclough are finding it increasingly difficult to get anything from them.

 

Unfortunately, when this kind of thing happens football clubs don't sack the players, they sack the manager, and if things haven't changed by the end of the Killie game I fear we'll be without a manager. Again.

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Football is a doddle compared to most jobs. Especially at our level. If you can't hack picking up 2 or 3 grand a week for 5 half days of training and 90 minutes at the weekend, then step aside and let someone else have a chance.

 

Maybe it's just me, but being booed by 2000 fans would be much less upsetting to me than getting bollocked by one of my clients. Because I know how fickle fan are.

 

It's not a complete doddle and if you think that you don't understand the real bind that we are in.

 

I don't know what you do, but I bet you aren't completely dependent on 15+ other people to do your job at even the most basic rudimentary level of competence. I bet you can go into work in a stinking mood or feeling a bit down and still do what ever it is you do, maybe not as well, but still do it. There aren't many people making a living as Insurance Broker psychologists, or Council Admin psychologists because they aren't required. Contrast with sports psychologists.

 

The fact is footballers can't do their job under these conditions and that's why team spirit and confidence are absolutely crucial to any success as a football team.

 

Look at Rangers right now. They should be romping that league. Why aren't they? Because of poor management and a bad atmosphere around the place. The players are looking at their shoe laces. Just look at a player like Fernando Torres, who goes from being world class to a laughing stock on the back of a crisis of confidence.

 

Professional and top level sport isn't even broadly compatible with most 'normal' employment.

 

What we need right now is someone that can rally the players, get them to believe in themselves, get them out their funk and then we have a chance.

 

At the end of the day, the average supporter could pick a team and a formation, work on tactics and all that but most of us wouldn't be good managers because a manager has to capture the hearts and minds of a dressing room full of individuals, get them believing in a cause, foster team spirit, build up confidence and so forth and very few people can actually do that, especially when the dressing room is in a very negative place. That's what football management is really about.

 

Ultimately that falls on the manager's head. Keith Lasley might be a year older but in terms of potential he's not gone from our player of the year to a complete haddie in a close season, even although some will tell you that. And there are lots of other players in the same boat. Ainsworth, Sutton, Vigurs, Carswell etc, etc. Even Ojamaa who came and went without doing much. The potential that got us to 2nd last year is still there but we need someone that can harness it. A football team is like a army without a general, they are looking for great leadership and if they don't get it they will inevitable fail.

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