joewarkfanclub

The Kelly connundrum is an interesting one. Regardless of how much he is earning, he is clearly one of our top earners and most likely THE top earner. You'd like to think we would be able to get another decent keeper for the money we are paying him, but I dont actually know what the going rate is, so it might not be that easy. I thought we missed a chance by not trying to get Carson back when he left St Mirren as I think he is a better overall keeper, but given Kelly was still under contract at the time it probably wasnt plausible. We also dont know how good Oxborough is, or otherwise, it would be nice to find out before we have to head out into the market again. I wouldnt be against offering Kelly an extension, but I certainly wouldnt be improving terms. If he gets better offers elsewhere he may not want to stick around anyway and it will force our hand. Its going to be another busy summer.

At the point you posted only 6 people had given an opinion including the original poster. Not one said we couldnt win or it didnt matter whether we did or not. The fact that those posters felt a draw was the most likely result is probably more down to Kilmarnock's current run of form/league position, our current injury crisis and the uncertainty over whether we will have any new signings in by the time the window closes. I know I shouldnt bite, but there is absolutely no chance Kettlewell gets binned if we lose on Saturday, far less draw. The board have backed him up until now and given him the window to help dig us / himself out of this situation. Until it looks helpless or we suffer an absolute hammering, he isnt going anywhere. Now where did I put that pint thats still half full?

😆😆😆 That might have worked if Gents hadnt been equally poor at the weekend!

Are you just making things up now? Who has said it doesnt matter if we get beat against Kilmarnock? Who has said we are unlikely to win? We have won our last 2 home games and it would be a big boost in confidence for the team if we could win this one as well.

Re Spittal. We really need to try and do everything to encourage him to stay. Moving club is always a risk as you never know how things are going to work out. But if we can improve his deal and show him he is important to us, he might be encouraged to stick around given that he is a guaranteed starter and playing well for a manager that clearly trusts and has faith in him.

Two strikers would be ideal. Any other business would be nice and support the team in our bid to climb the table. However, with Miller coming back and Halliday and Nicolson coming in, we probably have enough in midfield to get by. Defence wise I dont see us bringing in anyone at centre back. As others have said we have enough cover there, regardless of what you think about the quality. The money saved can be used to push the boat out and get the best quality striker(s) available. Left back would be nice if Monty is gonna be out for 3 months, but even then I think the previous point stands.

Just got around to watching the highlights. For all Colin Steven is undoubtedly a poor referee it does look like he and the VAR got the offside decision on their goal correct. The frustrating thing is it takes so long and the camera angles we appear to be using are so poor, it lends little confidence to the process. Good finish from Bair again for his goal anf unlucky with his other chance as its point blank range and the keeper spreads himself well. I see Paton is getting a hard time on social media and I obviously didnt see his whole performance, and whilst he should hit the target with the first one, the keeper does very well to deny him a shooting opportunity with the second. Cant help feeling that folk are using him as a stick to beat SK with due to their Ross County connection. I find him to be quite a tidy footballer for the most part who tries to do the right things and is sometimes put under pressure by having no out ball. He looked a much better player in the first part of the season when we were playing well, so I think as we strengthen the squad and try to climb the table he will start to look much better. Overall, I think it was a decent point, could have had all 3. Need to strengthen up top by the weekend and then we are on to Kilmarock.

That would be a sore one to take. For all he has some detractors on here, he is easily our most important creative player right now and we should be doing everything we can to keep him. I suppose being offered a PCA doesnt mean he will accept it, so we have to at least match the St Mirren offer. It cant be miles away from what we can afford.

There ye are now! Feels good doesnt it! 😆

That would be sweet.....

Our management team cant win. They get a player in of Biereths quality and they should have a conveyor belt of similar quality lined up. They sign players of lesser quality and they either arent good enough or injury prone and shouldnt have been signed in the first place. Is it possible that what you suggest our management team should ve doing, just isnt possible with our budget?

The problem with that is that we couldnt attract the quality of Biereth unless it is on loan. The big clubs mop up all the best quality for their academies. Unless we are lucky enough to develop one of our own. So our options are signing a poorer quality player on a permanent basis or getting the best we can on the understanding its likely to be short term.

Any updates on Alen Ozbolt? Seems like a decent pedigree.....

I presume any fee paid goes towards paying up the players contract to encourage him to move?

Bair is an average player who always seems to be fit.......

I think we have to......

But we only have one fit striker at the moment, so it will have to be one up top and this severely diminishes our options.....

I think SK must have crashed a lorry loaded with mirrors! If he/we didnt have any bad luck we would have none at all! Pressure is seriously on now. This window just got a whole lot tougher......

Thats a good result for us. Dont want Aberdeen getting to far ahead and it keeps St Johnstone behind us for now. Take that!

Jeez guys we have done this one to death. But here goes again. Oli Shaw was a last minute panic buy after Biereth had got injured and we needed someone in sharpish. The management / recruitment team would not have had a huge pool of talent to pick from at that point but needed to get someone in to help out until Biereth was fit again. He has now been moved back to his parent club after 6 months at no loss to Motherwell. How that can in anyway be assessed as a failure or an albatross to hang around Kettlewell / Daws neck beggers belief. Not saying our recruitment couldnt be improved. Of course it could. But please let this one go!

Gannon was an absolute loon ball. He came in and mixed things up a bit and threw a load of talented young boys in and gave them confidence to go and play. He also brought in some very good players. However, he had a much bigger budget than most Motherwell managers since and he alienated the entire senior playing staff to the extent that when the young boys started to falter (as they were always likely to do) he had nowhere to turn. Add in his other rumoured negative personality traits and he was never going to last. The European games were great fun though.

Those decisions are not on Burrows alone though. They require majority board support.

He has managed to get rid of a fair number of the players you thought were shite.....

You want specifics? SK inherited a bloated squad full of players most on here thought were shite and needed moved on. He was clearly under instruction to from the board to get the squad trimmed down as our wage bill was too high. He was quite ruthless and successful in that regard. He then went to try and improve the quality of the squad with new players. He wasnt able to do that. If you listen to the language used at the time his preferred targets all went to clubs where they could earn more and he was left scraping around the bargain basement to get bodies in. If you watch the video I posted with Gary Neville & Roy Kean discussing these very issues, you might accept that its just not as straightforward as fans think. In the first few weeks of the season Wilkinson, Biereth and Obika all got injured forcing him to bring in Ollie Shaw at the last minute. We already had Butcher injured, Casey, Blaney, McGinn, Miller, Souare all followed. So yes. Plenty mitigation in my book. No manager will get all their signings right. Most will have at best a 50/50 success rate. Probably lower for a manager with out budget. The secret for these guys is to recognise it isnt working early and move them on. Failing to do so would be a bigger concern. Re wingers - see trimming of the squad and what players were available to sign. Gent gave a very good impression of a winger at the weekend. Maybe that SK sees him as the solution in that area and maybe thats why he brought Monty in much to everyones surprise. Do you know Davor and Gents personal circumstances? Maybe they had issues and/or werent ready to play? Gent certainly pointing to the sky when he scored on Saturday. Bair is a back up striker. Circumstances have dictated he has been used more than that. I wouldnt have given him a 2 year deal, but then I dont know what money he is on. It may not be costing us that much. However, he is nowhere near as bad as he was made out to be. Really not sure what standard of striker folks think would be happy to sit on the bench for Motherwell? Wilko got injured early doors and I dont know that we ever figured out how to play him. He seemed like a decent finisher when given chances but we were so deep in the shit at the time he was never gonna feature. Probably best for both parties he moved on. As for the last part. Bair didnt miss any sitters. Gent put in some good crosses that a better striker may have gambled on and got on the end of. But given Biereth was recalled we will have to find someone else to do that. That ones been done to death. Its just nonsense. Scoring goals hasnt been our issue this year. Keeping them out has. So KVV no more kept us up than the defence did. Pretty sure SK had an input in both. Total revisionism. Youve picked the 3 games when we were in fact atrocious. During that run we also lost to Celtic Rangers and St Mirren whilst playing what was generally regarded as some of the best football in recent years. We also came form behind to snatch draws in the games against Ross County, St Johnstone (twice) Celtic and Dundee. Not to mention the game at Easter Road where we were seconds away from back to back victories. Now Im not saying we were great in any of those games, but we werent atrocious. Certainly not for 90 minutes. Again just not true. Alexander and Hammell both had bloated squads. Both SK and Derek Weir have gone on record this season about how the playing squad had to be made more sustainable in the long term. I think we had 35 first team players at the end if Hammels reign its now down to 21. Our recent league form up to the Hibs game was 2 defeats in 8. 5 draws, 1 win, 2 defeats. One of those was to Rangers. One of the draws was away to Celtic. Its not great form, but its nowhere near sackable. Overall, you clearly dont like SK and want him gone. You are entitled to your opinion and I have no issue with that. There have been plenty of reasons for fans to be unhappy with him and the team this season and he probably wasnt too many results away from being sacked. But he has steadied the ship, shown that he is able to recognise mistakes and try to fix them. He isnt going to be sacked now so we have to back him and the players for the rest of the season. The 3 signings made so far in the window appear, on paper at least to address some of the weaknesses in the squad. We could do with a couple more though so lets see what the week brings.

Agree with that. A quick right back and a couple of strikers would be most welcome. Ideally another midfielder, but we can get by there and at centre half with what we have if needs be. Still be a difficult game.regardless of who we bring in.