Jonesy

I loved the relative peace and quiet of that window. That's what the January window of a properly functioning team looks like. 1 or 2 additions to add a bit of quality or something different and keeping hold of all the main squad (despite all the paper/social media talk it never felt likely to me anyone was in danger moving on). All while managing to trim the numbers down slightly getting rid of guys on the periphery, after a few seasons of having a stupid number of players on the books, and still with time for Robinson (if fit) or Halliday etc to go out on loan and cut that further. Much better than scrambling about signing any old Eddie Nolan, Luke Plange or Steven Lawless that you can get your hands on just for the sake of it or out of sheer desperation.

We were covering a fraction of Welsh's deal, probably about 10% at best. Any idea of us taking on his entire wage is pie in the sky stuff. If we're getting him back now it should be on reduced terms from before since they've gone and cup tied him.

If there's any truth to it I'd imagine Levitt is being lined up as a replacement for Slattery (or maybe even Watt?) in the summer. We'll not be signing a winger, the days of signing guys just to take the place of players with slight injuries left with Kettlewell. We'll sign a CB (probably Welsh) and maybe a LB and that'll be it.

Ward was playing in Finland before joining us and played for a Norwegian team before that (I think) so that's not all that far fetched.

Other than us or Celtic the only teams he can play for before the summer now are those whose season is just about to start, so MLS, League of Ireland or one of the Scandinavian leagues.

How often should a Motherwell striker be scoring? 1 in 3 is a perfectly reasonable expectation. Any more than that and you're looking at someone putting themselves in amongst the all time greats.

This season only 2, last season probably all of them? If he'd scored some of the chances he should have this season he'd almost be sitting on a goal every other game, which would be incredible for a Motherwell player, but then we'd probably not have Maswanhise sitting on 12 either. Last season he racked up the numbers despite spending half the year injured and the other half chasing lost cause long balls with no other Motherwell players within 40 yards of him.

AP has a scoring rate of around 1 goal every 3 games for Motherwell. More than reasonable. Hendry is currently sitting on something like 1 every 16. It's pretty clear which is better.

We paid a fee for Hendry.

He's a midfielder

Former players thread for this prick

The last 5 years very much proved this not to be true. Even games we won under Alexander and Kettlewell could be soul destroying and just down right depressing when we lost.

Even if we have a total collapse in the 2nd half of the season and end up with a bog standard 5th-9th Motherwell finish, I'd much rather it be this way than watching an Alexander or Kettlewell style team.

Should have got it on target.

The header, I'm assuming, is the one he launched himself full stretch at a free kick swung into the box. Incredibly harsh to 'expect that to be on target' and shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as the Hendry one

I'm not having Stama's miss today as a sitter. He should have done better with it right enough but that's hardly a sitter. That Hendry header on the other hand.

What difference does his position make? He's still the top goalscorer in the league (and potentially the country), so the system clearly is working. It wont matter if we bring in Erling Haaland in January if the set-up continues to work as it currently is where the goals keep coming from elsewhere or the striker is not being provided with the chances. Presumably the evidence of all these missed sitters is coming soon?

They're not scoring because the goals are coming from elsewhere and/or they're not getting the service. All these sitters "similar to Shaw" that you claimed they're missing are just made up. How good they may or may not be is a different conversation. Also, "what we currently have isn't working"? That's just bollocks. We're the 4th highest scorers in the league and the league's top goal scorer is a Motherwell player.

What's all these sitters Ap Stam and Hendry have been missing?

He can't be recalled outside the transfer window.

Yesterday was the first I've really been annoyed this season. I think it was mostly down to the players thinking it was all too easy and all they had to do was turn up for the season half and skoosh it. Even at the end of the first half rather than pushing for more they started to fuck about a bit too much and play some daft aimless passes that weren't going anywhere. I said then it would bite us on the arse and it did. Hendry just isn't good enough, and he doesn't even fit into this system either. 3 or 4 times yesterday there was a good ball into the box and he was hiding behind a defender at the back post. On another occasion Just had knocked the ball over a defender and had a clear shot at a volley and Hendry got right in his road. I'm not convinced Charles-Cook is up to much either so far. The only thing that's annoying me about Askou so far is constantly going on about load management. It's something Alexander used to do and he'd needlessly make 1 or 2 daft changes every week because of it. I could understand if we were playing Saturday, Tuesday and flying across Europe but we play 1 game a wee for fuck sake. Pick your best 11 and stick to it. We'll be absolutely fine this year and it's still a million miles better than what we've been made to sit through in recent years but if it carries on it'll become more than just a slight annoyance.

Lewis Ferguson barely got a start in his first 3 or 4 months at Bologna to let him settle in before he found himself as a mainstay and captain of the team. Chucking Miller in the deep end when he hasn't played any football since we played Carlisle almost 3 months ago ( 1 minute for Scotland aside) does nothing to help his development either.

Dundee are pish. Away win.

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Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach.