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Modern life is rubbish eh. People don't have any patience anymore and everything needs to happen now for their own benefit and apparent well being. Social media helps the minority to whip up a crisis, when in the past it was a blip. Club success anywhere rarely happens overnight and managers need time to build a team, especially clubs who don't have much money. Every teams fans forum, say the same. Sack. The manager as he's hopeless etc etc. Perhaps we can be different for once and our fan base can be a bit more realistic about our level in the game and support the manager/players.

Kettlewell best manager we have had in recent years

Earlier in the season our defence looked very comfortable. Our midfield were playing some lovely football but we couldn’t score. Now our midfield and our defense are posted missing but we are scoring a decent amount of goals. SK needs to figure out a formation, players and tactics where all 3 aspects are working. With the league being so tight a decent run of form and results will catapult any team up the league.

Are you looking through the Hubble telescope?

Has MJC hacked your account? 🤪

Even the manager mentioned all Shaw has to do is lift his head and it’s a tap in, send him back, bring the wee boy Ferrie back he can’t be worse than Shaw.

Take a day off. Moronic

Ollie Shaw needs the jail for that.

So, I've seen a lot of discussion about the main man between the sticks as of late and thought it maybe deserved its own thread. Kelly is an interesting one, as he's the captain and has been a regular call-up for Scotland. I think if we were told a few years back that we'd have a keeper who was in that position we'd have been well happy. But it seems many fans aren't. Let's have it said right away, that Kelly isn't perfect. If he was, he wouldn't be at Motherwell. Or he wouldn't have been for long anyway. He's no Darren Randolph or John Ruddy, that's for sure. Although it should be said that it's probably a lot easier to look better when you have a defence in front of you that consisted of the likes of Stevie Hammell, Craigan, Mark Reynolds and Shaun Hutchinson as Randolph and Ruddy both did. I think we were relatively lucky to have both those keepers at the club, and it was very clear that they were destined for better things. What is interesting is looking at who else we've had since those guys were in our team: Lee Hollis Gunnar Nielsen George Long Dan Twardzik Craig Samson Brett Long Connor Ripley Russell Griffiths Dean Brill Trevor Carson Mark Gillespie Scott Fox Aaron Chapman How many of that list would anyone take over Liam Kelly? For me it would be one. Mark Gillespie. It's when you look at that list you realise that while Kelly isn't perfect, he's better than most of what we've had the past number of years. I'd happily keep him here for as long as he wanted to stay, because the chances are good that the likes of Oxborough and whoever else comes next will be another one of the unremarkable names on that list above.

There should always be room for an adult conversation, but even if some kind of agreement were reached between the authorities and fan groups on the limited use of pyros in football grounds (we know that won't happen) I don't see it solving anything. I can just about remember doing daft stuff for the sole purpose of pissing folk off, and that has to be part of the appeal here. These groups obviously love the friction their actions create, whether it's between themselves and the police/government, the clubs they spend so much time and money supporting, or their fellow fans. The authorities' intransigence may do nothing to help the situation, but even if they bent over tomorrow, I think the loss of control you mention is inevitable. It's just a matter of when and where.

Fair enough, fan culture like football itself has evolved though. Society just as much.

Sieb Dijkstra was best iv seen for crosses ,and a mad big bugger . If he didn’t get the ball he layed someone out flat in the process . Oppisite of Kelly he often came out for them to the 18yard line. Entertaining stuff.

You can't use names in Scrabble.

Move to a back 4 seems sensible (back 3/5 has ran it's course), have Gent and Spencer as attacking wing backs, bring Davor in for a holding role (Butcher can also step in here) play 2 up top and have 3 in midfield for creativity.....sorted 👍

Pockets in shorts. It's the future.

My take on last night's game from a "foggy" McDiarmid Park. A very strange game last night but we fully deserved the draw. The proverbial game of 2 halves. First half we were dire, but in the second half we played well for about 30 minutes before finishing poorly. We could have won the game in the second half but equally could have lost it before the end. We did ourselves no favours though with the starting line up and tactics. Quite why Wilkinson is being played out wide I've no idea. It’s a role for which he’s totally unsuited and I feel sorry for him. He is a penalty box striker with no pace and is a square peg in a round hole. SK obviously didn't learn that lesson from Kilmarnock. Very unlucky to have his goal chalked off. I don’t like the rule but can live with it as long as its being applied consistently, which it isn’t. In the first half, there was no urgency and we were second to every ball. Biereth suffered from lack of service and there was no link up with Wilkinson. We had no pace and no width and our attacks comprised either long hopeful punts or painfully slow, walking pace progression up the park. To their credit, Saints had pace, width, looked organised and closed us down very quickly. No less than I expected from them. By comparison we looked disorganised and afforded them acres of space. Our midfield and defence were very poor. Saints had about 3 or 4 efforts on goal and scored with 2 of them. Certainly, the first goal looked as though it was coming. Poor defensive work at the goal itself although the lead up to the corner was 10 times worse. The Saints’ attacker advanced unimpeded to the edge of our box and was allowed a free hit on goal, which deflected off our defender. That said the goal should have been disallowed by VAR as the ball was outside the arc when the kick was taken. The first 30 minutes of the second half was far better and SK rightly hooked Slattery and brought on Bair, who I thought played well. Unless it was for game management purposes, I simply don’t understand why he didn’t start. However, putting Spittal to LWB was unfathomable. Why? Gent was then introduced and made a difference on the left. His cross for the 2nd goal was a peach. He’s a double edged sword. A young lad he’s great going forward but poor defending and was easily outmuscled. After the equaliser, Saints upped a gear and we retreated into a shell. Barring Shaw’s excellent run and bad miss we did virtually nothing else of attacking note and were lucky not to concede a late goal. An acceptable result at a difficult venue, but huge issues remain. Had we not equalised, then simmering fan anger might really have erupted. Did we just paper over the cracks?

Gennadios Xenodochov. Never made an appearance but holds the record at Well for biggest score at Scrabble!! 🤣

Hearts are amazing, really really great side with a brilliant manager. Shankland will tear us apart beating 11 players and score within one minute. We however are a team full of donkeys that would struggle to beat East Stirling. Our Keeper is the size of Hasbulla & if Kettlewell had any integrity he would leave the club in the next 5 minutes. 9-1 Hearts (Biereth)

You will love that. Go for 2-0 to lanarkshires finest with Kelly showing why he’s Scotland class and Shankland gets subbed.

I honestly think that every single one of our players, defenders included, that found themselves in shaws position at the end would have squared the ball. I could have almost forgiven him if he’d have taken the shot on himself, but do try what he did and cut back etc it was beyond explanation.

I think you have alluded to unrest in the camp before under Hammell . From where I see it he began the clear out that was badly needed after Alexander. And if telling Sod/morris/Ojala/mugabi/Maguire/fox and sol that they were miles off it and could look for clubs elsewhere then I think few could argue. Natural that when you tell a few home truths to folk they won’t like it! From what I was told by a director, he was given budget which was pulled after his first few successful games and told he could use it if need be in Jan, but then was told in Oct he would have to vastly reduce wage bill. No coincidence that when those convos happened with players around that time that certain players chucked it we make assumptions as fans but when you hear what people are dealing with and working under then it gives a whole new view on a situation i have no doubt ketts right now is being told the same thing and will have to work to do the same or in a more difficult sense clear out some of the players which are failing him now ie Shaw being a Motherwell manager isn’t easy and you need everyone and everything thing at the club aligned. At times like this ketts needs the backing of the board to come out and back him both publicly and financially in Jan. Or we have another rinse and repeat story on our hands again which has every chance will be repeated again a year in Jan with the next manager

Are they better than that though? The only difference I can see is their numbers are smaller. Most other boxes are ticked, jumping on the park, flares, arguing with and antagonising stewards, shite banners, daft wee attention seeking protests and throwing stuff. They stop short of the Green Brigade style political shite but I suspect that’s only because they know that would lose them even more goodwill with the club and the rest of the fanbase. Though I’m slightly surprised they haven’t voiced their ‘solidarity’ with their pals from Parkhead over the GB’s suspension. I suppose there’s time yet eh Bhois?

Depends on the toxicity levels within the building I'd say.

I think Carson was better as well. Kelly is a good shotstopper, but he doesnt come for cross balls and his distribution is poor. He is definitely a good enough keeper at our level, but whether he is value for money is a different matter. None of us really know what money he is on, but he came in on loan from a bigger club able to pay much higher wages and is reputed to be our top earner. For me if we were looking to trim the wage budget I would have moved him on and gone and got Carson back in the short term. For me he shouldnt be near the Scotland team. The fact that he is shows the dearth of talent among Scottish goalkeepers right now. Given that he doesnt want to talk contracts right now, it seems like he wants to run his contract down and see what offers come to him in January. Thats fair enough and his perogative, but I wouldnt lose any sleep over moving him on in January for whatever fee we can get.

Another point on Saturday would consolidate things going into the break. 3 points would be most welcome. Id go with this............ Kelly Spencer Casey Butcher Blaney Gent Paton Slattery Spittal Bair Biereth McGinn and Miller are the only others in contention for me right now but both likely to remain out. I wouldnt be averse to giving Oxborough some game time, but given we are clearly trying to punt Kelly, Im sure that wont happen.

I was reading an article on Blackburn Rovers website about him which mentioned he could play anywhere down the left wing and his strengths were getting forward playing in a more advanced role, which is obviously evidenced by what we have seen. He put a tremendous ball in against county where it zipped right across the ground into the six yard box and not one of our forwards anticipated it not to mention cracking the bar against our feeder club in Paisley.

As I said before shaw is easily the worst forward of a bad bunch. That was atrocious

Haven’t posted on here in a long time and didn’t buy a season ticket this year and have only been to one game this season. The main reason for this is in my opinion our board of directors allowed our prize asset to leave for an absolute pittance and A blind man could see we would be in a sorry state if we didn’t replace him. I get he wanted to go but why was he allowed to leave for the first offer in the summer at less than half his market value - who sanctioned this and thought it was acceptable . As a support we seemed to just accept it and go down the usual happy clappy , great wee club , welcome to the rollercoaster mentality that is part of the reason we are where we are again this year come November. That sale was the start of an odds on downward spiral . Not getting the market value for a 29 goal striker has led to our manager having a shoe string budget and signing a load of dross and getting them playing alongside the a lot of dross from last season. Yes he’s signed shite but that’s the general financial market he had to deal in due to the lack of funds on offer and the shite bag approach from our Board on the KVV sale was the catalyst for now having a squad bursting with dross footballers. Kettlewell also lost Johnson , Furlong , Goss from last season alongside KVV and butcher has only just returned - they were arguably his best 5 players during last seasons miracle survival under him so In some ways he has had the rug pulled well and truly from under him by the board. That said one point out of 24 would nearly get any manager sacked at most levels and he has signed a lot of sub standard players , played a formation in my eyes to allow his two golden boys in spittal and Paton to feature most weeks and the small highlights I’ve seen we appear devoid of ideas belief and any attacking threat. I don’t believe any manager can change this habit with the squad of players we have and the first change needs to come at board level with some cash for a couple of better players but January might be too late . If we don’t have cash then I revert back to the start of this rant - why the fuck did we sell KVV for such a small fee. Would a Moult or a Fletcher have made a difference - of course they would but if you believe some from within the club they both wanted to come but we didn’t want to take the risk or lay out the cash - just look where that has left us. Our bowling club mentality board need to stand up and be counted but I don’t think they’ve got it in them- the silence from them is continuously deafening .

Confidence is a huge factor , can’t say players aren’t trying . we play with zero width Wilkinson is a penalty box guy who still score but we don’t provide anything as we’ve no width this is down to SK . He gets credit when we do well , he’s also accountable now .

Get the ball to wilkinson in the box and he will score. Outside the box hes useless.

Oh he's close.

We’re getting nothing but pumped here. We can’t defend and we can’t score unless we are chasing the game. Nothing will change here. Shankland will tear our defence to shreds, Sibbick will have the easiest game of his life as he easily snuffs out our powderpuff attack and Biereth will be our only hope of getting on the scoresheet, probably when we’re 3-0 down. 1-4 to Edinburgh’s finest.