fizoxy

I wouldn't argue with any changes to the team, no one is deserving of their place right now. Penney's performance yesterday softened the blow of his potential return to Ipswich. He was more responsible for two of the goals than any of the center backs were. Sol is the weaker of the two, but it is a case of choosing which bollock to be kicked in when choosing between him and lamie.

I wonder what the general success rate is across all teams in our division, and whether we're above or below that line. Hibs must be the worst, they've thrown a whole load of shit at multiple walls to get that first XI, so sometimes moreoney doesn't equal better recruitment. You don't tend to look at other teams dross, instead you see they signed a couple of decent players and assume they're good at signings. I also think there's some rose tinted glasses with Foyle, he signed some good ones, but also some dross squad filler. Daws is the head of recruitment, so he has to be the one accountable for who we sign. I thought the idea of having one of these guys is to ensure there's consistency and forward thinking in our recruitment, and to take the responsibility away from the manager. Unlike Foyle, he hasn't signed anyone good yet. Maybe KVV?

He got sacked because they were adrift at the bottom, then Hughes came in and kept them up.

Kettlewell? The man that nearly got county relegated when he was no longer co-manager, then got sacked for John Hughes?

We don't have the players to play the way Hammel wants. We need to either sign a bunch, which it looks like we're struggling to do, or change the way we play. Shields isn't good, but we're killing him by running him out there every week. There were good bits here and there, I thought Spittal played well in the advanced role, and we did manage to score twice and hit the bar twice, but we make way too many basic mistakes then just shrug the shoulders and move on when they cost us. Hibs brought on two defenders to hang onto the lead, and ended up walking the ball into our net. This is the softest motherwell side I've seen.

For every player we sign, there's a bunch that knocked us back, or deals that have fallen through for some reason. That won't be exclusive to our club either. We can hardly come out and say "we signed this guy because so and so told us where to go, and the other guy we tried to sign got nabbed by another club" Some clubs are better at getting deals over the line than others, and it's hard to tell where we are in that hierarchy since we'll rarely ever know the deals that didn't happen. However, the last couple of windows seem to have been harder for us, which suggest we're either struggling for money or have lost the finishing touch. It could also be that we're trying to abandon the throwing shit at the wall approach that Robinson had. Hopefully we can keep things ticking over and not get left adrift near the bottom while we try to reinforce the squad this month.

I guess I will reply to every single social media post the club makes demanding they announce a signing, just in case they forget. I feel for any player that has a birthday this month.

That van Veen thing seems to be from Twitter gobshites. The Irish league stuff is interesting, better than the boring league one loan shite. Can't see us competing with Rotherham for that guy though.

If we announced that we were singing a 34 year old defender that has been playing in India the last few years, most of us would be furious. The Griffiths talk needs to get in the bin, he was finished last year when he couldn't cut it at Falkirk.

I don't remember much about that period, other than every other team conspiring to give us third :-)

According to Hammell, via the record, we're working on getting at least one striker in before the weekend.

There's no evidence to say that we aren't working on signings. Hammell has said multiple times over the last few weeks that they have been working around the clock to try and get things done, but it takes two to tango. The idea that a bunch of players will just turn up on day one of the window is wishful thinking to say the least. We are rarely a players fist choice, so we often have to wait for other moves to happen before we can make ours.

Did we disturb a burial ground when we upgraded the pitch?

Penney? Before him, maybe Cole?

We've had the same head of recruitment throughout all of this. I sympathize with the timing of hammell coming in with regards to improving the style of play, but this shouldn't have interuppred our recruitment in any way. I agree that Hammel is in danger of losing his job, but surely Daws must be in the firing line too?

Slattery was the closest we had to someone grabbing the game by the scruff of the neck, so went with him. Thought Spittal was far better in the advanced role with Cornelius behind him.

Once again our inability to take our chances has cost us points. We were hardly troubled at the back and had loads of possession, but we cant take a half decent set piece, and we are way too tentative in the final third.

Shouty players being good leaders is an old fashioned trope. We need players that are not shite, and preferably not slow. How they choose to communicate is way down the priority list. On loan Peter Hartley was excellent, but post injury he was as bad as what we currently have now, and spent a season on the bench before taking it easy in the Indian league. Players that wear their hearts on their sleeves can be endearing to fans, but if we signed a unknown player with all Hartley's attributes and similar career path, this place would meltdown. As bad as we've looked at the back, we have been in every single game this season, and I feel that our lack of cutting edge up front is our biggest problem. If we had taken a handful of our chances we wouldn't be as panicky as we are right now. Having an actual threat up front would make it a lot harder for teams to throw everything at us in the latter stages. Right now there is no risk to teams leaving themselves more open at the back. If we don't sign a halfway competent striker, we're screwed.

He was gash for Falkirk last year and is now a year older and hasn't played for half a season, there's absolutely nothing to suggest he's up to playing at the top level again.

Someone is going to bite, I'm hoping it's a Dunfermline or Arbroath and not us.

I doubt County would let Iacovitti go, and we don't have the kind of money to persuade a team to let go of a player that is a regular in their team. We are limited to: 1 - loan signings, which means the player is either pretty young or not getting games. 2 - Players who are surplus to requirements at other clubs (one man's trash, another's treasure, yadda yadda). 3 - players who are already free agents. The reality is that we are very unlikely to sign players our fans know, unless we know them for being shite. It is possible we could pull the old pre contract and force to sell trick, but I do t think we have the funds for that.

What's the future like? Do we stay up?

Yeah, Turnbull looks to have been knocked pretty far down the pecking order, so I can see him going out on loan, but I doubt it would be us. Would be nice if they sold him and we got our kickback.

The generational thing is something I was chatting to someone at work about yesterday. If you had a time machine and went back and got prime Pele, and chucked him in today's Brazil side, would he be any good? Possibly not. But if Pele was born in 2002, and had all the information, training, nutritional advice, etc, that today's players have would he become the goat? Maybe. I don't subscribe to the "have to have seen him" argument. We have enough information at our disposal, including the accounts of people who did see these players, to have an informed opinion of the players of the past. Hughie Ferguson scored almost 300 goals, and McFadyen scored 52 in a season, that alone is enough to tell me they should be right up there in the reckoning. The stats do give defenders and goalies a raw deal though.

We have nothing about us. Teams can handle us when they are a man down because we pose no threat. It felt like our lead was more down to how poor killie were, because we were very pedestrian on the ball, and took the negative option every time. Refusing to bring on subs until they were level was criminal.