David

With games like this, we just need to hope we have enough at this early stage to get us across the line. We're always going to be up against it playing such an important tie this early, but it is what it is. We know how it works. Hopefully we have the quality to overcome what will absolutely be a gulf in match fitness and sharpness.

I'm sure a decent percentage of that goes to his former club, but still a very good fee for a player regardless.

Having looked into it a bit more over the past few days, I don't actually think the issue is that the SFA took action. Rule 72 exists to stop people publicly accusing referees of bias or incompetence, and if Elliott Watt admitted his comments breached that rule, then some form of sanction was always likely to be on the cards. What I do struggle with is the lack of transparency and consistency. Watt received a four match ban with nothing suspended, while the club was fined over the social media video. Yet the SFA's public statement gives virtually no reasoning. It doesn't explain what specific words or parts of the video crossed the line, what aggravating factors were considered, or why those particular punishments were appropriate. That's hard to reconcile when you look at previous cases. Brendan Rodgers received a two-match ban after describing the officiating as "incompetence", but one of those matches was suspended from what I can tell? As someone already mentioned, Callum McGregor said after Trusty's red card: "We may as well all go up the road and stop playing football if that's going to be a red card every single week." No action appears to have been taken, I'm guessing because the SFA viewed that as criticism of the decision itself rather than an allegation of bias or incompetence by the officials? Honestly, it's hard to actually determine how they reach their decision half the time. I understand that different cases can absolutely justify different punishments, but the SFA doesn't publish anywhere near enough detail for anyone to understand why those differences exist. Why was McGregor's criticism acceptable, Rodgers received one immediate match and one suspended, while Watt received four immediate matches? There may well be legitimate reasons, but if there are, they're not being explained as far as I can tell. For me, that's the real issue. If you're going to dish out significant sanctions, particularly a four-match ban for a player, you should also publish clear reasons so clubs and supporters can see how the decision was reached and why it's consistent with previous cases. At the moment, that transparency just isn't there.

Aye, that's mental. I certainly feel it if we lose. Anger, disappointment, a sense of what could have been. But embarrassment? Why would I be embarrassed? That suggests it's somehow your fault? That you did something that caused us to lose?

I think there are a lot of fair points being raised in this thread, and I'm certainly not suggesting summer football is a silver bullet. The reason I'm open to it is that none of these challenges are unique to Scotland. Norway, Sweden, Finland, Ireland and similar nations have had to deal with transfer windows, scheduling, transition seasons and international tournaments, so there are clearly workable models out there. And looking at some of these nations, it's clear that whatever they're doing is working. For me, the weather isn't really the driver. It's the competitive and commercial side. If there was no serious financial or European advantage, I'd probably agree it wouldn't be worth the upheaval. But if being match sharp in July, having more settled squads and not competing directly with the Premier League for TV attention for part of the year gave clubs a better chance of reaching league phases and bringing in a few million euros every few years, then it's at least a conversation worth having. Take Hearts against Sturm Graz. Getting through that tie wouldn't just have meant another qualifying round payment. It would have guaranteed Europa League football and around €5 million from UEFA before you even factor in ticket sales or performance bonuses. That's the scale of the fine margins we're talking about. Being a little sharper or having a more settled squad wouldn't guarantee they'd win that tie, but it might just improve their chances enough to make a difference. As it is, they have a new manager, a brand new squad and they got wiped out before they even really got going. I'd also separate why some countries originally adopted summer football from the advantages it gives them today. Norway may have done it because of the climate, but being halfway through the domestic season when European qualifiers come around is now an advantage regardless of the original reason. As for European games in December or February, that would be an amazing problem to have! If Motherwell are still playing in Europe at that stage, we've already had a very successful season and the financial rewards would probably outweigh the inconvenience. The thing is, I don't think there's a perfect calendar. Every model has its own trade-offs. The question for me is whether another model would leave Scottish football in a stronger position than the one we've got now. I'm not convinced summer football is the answer to everything, but I do think we've been following the same approach for decades without really asking whether there's a better one. And I'm sure we'll all be shocked and dismayed when us or whoever else gets pumped out by a team that's fitter, more cohesive and settled because they hold advantages over us. We'll blame it on slow transfer business, the board, the manager, but the truth is, it's just a result of the model we operate with.

Is this game available for overseas viewers? I have family in Canada asking. They usually watch games via the MotherwellTV subscription.

No offence, but I thought the shoulders and collar on your version was honking 😂

Aye, but in order to stop being "continually shite" we need to look at the reasons for it. Our coefficient means clubs like Motherwell enter Europe at the early stages. We play those ties in preseason basically, often with half a squad, new players being integrated and limited competitive sharpness. We lose, gain very few coefficient points and return the following year in pretty much the exact same position. Our opponents have played 16 games or so at this point. This time last season, if we were going into European football, we'd be fielding the kind of team that beat Stenhousemuir 1-0 a few days before and was heading into our friendly with Hertha. Just had been with us for less than two weeks, as well as Longelo and Said. We were 16 games into our league season on December 6th, and had just beaten Livi 3-0 and hadn't lost a game in nearly two months. Imagine if that team was the one that was going into these early European ties? I don't know about you, but I'd be a whole lot more confident. As things stand, I absolutely do not expect anything to change. Us, and clubs like us, are nowhere near ready for European football at this stage. We need a really good draw to help us, otherwise we'll likely trip up and fail against a team we'd have a really good chance of beating if we were up to speed.

I think the new home jersey looks great as part of the entire kit on the actual players in the football environment, while not so much on a regular person wearing it with shorts or jeans. The away shirt looks like it'll be a better "fans" shirt if that makes sense.

I don't think anyone would pretend there are no difficulties with it. Pitch renovation, preseason timing, supporter holidays, cup scheduling and the transition from the current calendar would all require proper planning. It also wouldn't necessarily mean a ten-month season. You could run from late March or early April until October or early November, which is broadly what several comparable countries already do from what I can see. The attendance question is fair too, although I don't think any of us can confidently say what most supporters would do without actually asking them or putting it to the test. Some would miss games through holidays, while others might attend more often because the weather and travelling conditions were better. There would be less call-offs due to weather, and it would certainly be interesting to see if we did see a more sustained higher attendance in better weather. My main point is that our present arrangement has a significant competitive cost in relation to Europe. Clubs like us regularly enter financially important European qualifiers while rebuilding their squads, bedding in new signings and trying to become match fit. At the same time, opponents from summer leagues can be halfway through their domestic seasons. That doesn't guarantee those clubs success of course, but being competitively ready when European qualification begins is still an advantage, particularly for clubs operating on fine margins. The question in my mind then is not whether summer football would be perfect. It wouldn't be. I'm sure fans in Norway, Sweden, Finland etc will readily tell you there's pros and cons. The question is whether Scottish football should seriously examine a calendar that might improve European performance, reduce weather-related disruption and create additional income for clubs outside the Old Firm? And then compare those benefits honestly against the operational and supporter concerns. At the moment, we tend to dismiss the idea before doing that work. We do things the way we've always done them and so on. Also, a summer calendar would give Scottish football a far more valuable place in the football broadcasting calendar. But that topic absolutely is for another thread.

So, the European football we fought so hard for last season has finally arrived. We're maybe not in the best shape for the game, but surely we still have enough about us to sneak through?

The glaring answer for a club our size is to employ the same advantage that other clubs of similar or smaller standing use in countries like Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Faroe Islands, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan and others. Summer football. Start our league between late February and early April, then finish between late September and early November. It's actually pretty interesting when you look at the teams from those summer leagues who have essentially turned that advantage they have into part of their business model. There's about 3 million Euros to be made by qualifying for the group stage of the competition we're in just now, I believe. Add on TV rights, higher attendances and prize money for performances, and you're talking about a decent chunk of change. The much-discussed Bodø/Glimt have gotten it down to a fine art. Even before they were well-known as the club they are now, they were able to regularly make a decent fist of it in Europe because in qualifiers they would catch the August/September to May teams cold. Those wins resulted in financial windfalls that they then used intelligently, of course. Rinse and repeat. It's why we see teams like them, Molde, Malmö, Djurgårdens, and even the likes of Shamrock Rovers do reasonably well in Europe. Clubs our size are never ready for these games, and we have to try to find a way through with a patched together team that involves players who might be eyeballing a move away from the club, who've just signed for the club, and a bunch of kids. Throw in the new manager effect and it can go wrong really quickly. But we'll never go down that route. Because it makes too much sense.

Or a squad player at a club like ours. Not every player in our squad can be first-team regular quality, we'd end up with players not being happy that they're not playing. There's absolutely a role for a fairly versatile home grown player like him if he's happy to accept that he's not going to be a regular starter. It takes a squad, after all.

Looking at his career history, he's basically signed for us from the equivalent of Ayr United or Queen of the South. And maybe he was looking at the East Stand because his last club sees crowds anywhere between 800-1100, and as low as 500. He might have been staring in wonderment in the same way as a former Motherwell player would if they signed for West Brom or Middlesbrough. EDIT: I should say, none of that means he won't turn out to be a good player for us.

Probably not long after the second pay cheque bounces. Although in all seriousness, hopefully his stint there goes very well. He did well for us.

I assume you weren't all that fussed if we got into Europe in the first place then? European football is very much an "event" for all concerned. The players certainly want to play in European competition, the fans get the chance to go overseas on a trip, see some sights, enjoy some time away and follow the team, and more importantly, the club benefits financially. Unless I'm mistaken, the club stands to pocket a minimum of 700,000 Euros if we progress past this stage. If we somehow get past this round and the next, we could be looking at over 3 million Euros. Even if we tumble out at this round we'll still walk away with 500,000 Euros. Not bad for a couple of "glorified friendlies", eh?

Certainly not the time to be getting worried, as the real business hasn't even started, but comparing where we are today to last season, this time last year we'd signed Fadinger, McGhee, Watt, Sule, Just, Longelo, and Said. I felt like we had done a decent chunk of our business earlier last summer, and it appears to have been the case. We had lost Shane Blaney, Steve Seddon, Dan Casey, Dom Thompson, Davor Zdravkovski, Harry Paton and Moses Ebiye by this point, mind you, while this season we've lost Halliday, Nicholson, Slattery, Liam Gordon, Ward, and Oxborough. So, weighing up the incomings and outgoings against this time last season is interesting. Again, absolutely not a time for losing the plot, but I don't think anyone can deny that we need to start getting some business done. Europe is right around the corner, and that's a big deal.

Rene Higuita was a master at that. He'd be worth a fortune these days with how teams play. Instead, he was seen as a novelty maniac back then when he was clearly ahead of his time. Saying that, he did get jailed for being part of a kidnapping fiasco involving Pablo Escobar, so maybe he was a maniac regardless. He could hit a tasty free kick as well...

He'll need to work on that accent out there unless he likes saying everything twice.

I think that's probably fair to a point but I'm not all that convinced it was simply a case of Jens looking at the squad and deciding he had no strikers available. A lot of what we did structurally pointed towards that being a deliberate choice rather than any kind of compromise. The front player was asked to press aggressively, pull centre-backs out of position, run channels and create space for runners from deeper areas rather than act as a traditional penalty-box focal point. The fact that goals came from all over the pitch rather than through one player feels more like design than necessity to me. That said, I do agree with the argument that we occasionally lacked somebody to turn good attacking play into goals. There were definitely games where we'd get into excellent positions, deliver dangerous balls into the box and simply not have that natural six-yard predator attacking the right spaces at the right time. The question for me isn't so much if we need a striker, because every team can make use of a striker. It's whether we need a traditional focal-point number nine. Looking at modern Scandinavian football and the sort of systems both Askou and Johansson favour, I'm not all that convinced that's the direction we'll go. My suspicion is that Johansson's version of the role probably sits somewhere in the middle. Maybe more of a recognised central striker than Askou used at times, but still somebody expected to press, run, link play and contribute to the overall structure rather than simply stand between the posts waiting for service.

More than likely. There will be certain segments of the media and Scottish football community that will be itching to see if the way we play blows up in our face, so they can say last season was a fluke, you can't play football that way, and we should have hired one of the usual suspects as manager instead of trying to be different.

I think the style and approach to the game will be quite similar, but the end results maybe not, which I'm sure will see the obligatory pile-on from the Scottish media and talking heads who grudgingly had to admit that there's another way of playing the game last season. If we're pushing for top six and hopefully get a decent cup run it should be considered a successful season.

Who knows? You may be a modern managers dream!

Hendry, if he was able to stay fit, actually ticks a lot of the boxes that are required for how Jens set us up to play. A quick look at his stats suggest a channel runner, a pressing forward, a link player, a creator of space, a facilitator for runners around him. It's clear why Jens wanted him. I doubt he looked on him as a first choice starter, but as a backup or player coming on from the bench, he ticked the boxes of what our style needed.

I don't think Jens used a system that required an out & out striker, and depending on your definition of an out & out striker, the new manager likely won't either. It's just not how we're set up to play these days. I have a feeling that we'll be looking for forward players who can press consistently, initiate the first line of pressure, link play, occupy both centre-backs, attack crosses, and run channels. My gut tells me that we'll see RCC given a chance, along with Vogt replacing TJ and Stama getting a chance early on if he can stay fit until we can get a Just replacement. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a regular selection of three across the front line, and not one of them being a traditional out & out style of striker.