fizoxy

The weird thing about our current situation is that earlier in the season some of us were raving about how our goals were coming from different places (12 different goalscorers by my count). Unfortunately most of them havent scored again since that initial run. The risk with our model of bringing up players from England is that some wont fit in, and thats just something that cant be avoided. Im sure we do our homework beforehand, and Im sure the players in question assume its going to work out. However, we arent paying the kind of money that can persuade someone to persevere, especially when just about any club in England can pay more than us. Like the rest of you Im hoping the rumoured unsettled ones are the not so good players.

Robbos post match interview pulled no punches, saying that hes given some people chances and they havent taken them. hes obviously not impressed with fisher and possibly bowman (gave tanner some praise despite him missing 2 of our 3 chances). The only other player Id consider to be given a chance recently is big, or maybe grimshaw.

Tomorrow will be an interesting test for bowman, as Im sure hell be a target. Id love to see him punch one in just to keep the seethe going and maybe give him a bit of a confidence boost. Im sure tanner will play behind him, with mchugh, bigi, rose and grimshaw in the midfield and tait, hartley, Kipre and dunne at the back. Id like to see campbell back in the side but based on the managers assessment of the Dundee game I dont see him changing much, unless theres more injuries.

The manager said that the players declared themselves fit, so Id assume that if frear wasnt up for it he could have easily kept himself out of contention from the game. Hobbling around injured makes no sense, it just runs the risk of further injury. Hartley had cramp, which is different from a hamstring injury. Id agree that theres no point risking Cadden or frear until after he break (if fit). Robbo said that Carson is a case of pain management until the break, so i assume an operation is on the horizon. Just caught the highlights. That was some save at the end.

Carson makes a couple of saves to save the point at the end. Sounded like we were dropping out of the game even before frear went off, so a point is probably the most we deserved, but we really needed to take more from this one.

All the injureds are back Carson, Tait, Grimshaw, Bigirimana, Hartley, Cadden, McHugh, Bowman, Dunne, Kipré, Tanner subs: Xenodochov, Hammell, Frear, Rose, Petravicius, Campbell, Newell

After reading the above I googled trial motherwell and found this interesting one https://m.timesofindia.com/sports/football/top-stories/dheeraj-accepts-motherwell-offer-for-trials-in-scotland/articleshow/61802963.cms

Thanks for the summary. I think it would make for a better atmosphere to have the bois near our own fans, but half the fun is ripping the opposition fans, so I dont see them going for it. So, living wage argument aside, that wages report was the same old lazy reporting weve been used to.

Yeah, were each others feeder club.

A proven striker at what level? The only way I could see us getting a proven SPL striker is to loan someone who has fallen out of favour, or hasnt fit in with a new club/manager. The reason we just got 500k for a guy whos out of contract soon is that proven scorers are hard to come by. Our model is to find something in players that other clubs couldnt, so Im pretty sure Moults replacement will come from the same source as he did, or Plymouth. The only other possibility I can think of is an Irish league player or a lower league Scottish player, but that will probably require a fee.

37 points has been the amount needed for safety in the last few seasons, but lets say its 40. Were on 23 and have 20 games left and have only 1 more game against Celtic. Our results have been poor the last couple of weeks, and it needs to be addressed, but Im not going to get caught up in relegation talk at this point, particularly since were only a few weeks removed from beating Aberdeen and being robbed against Celtic.

not sure who we should be shipping out or how were going to manage to do that. As far as players on the fringe or maybe not setting the heather alight: Petravicius and Newell were brought in with an eye to the future, and are only on 1 year deals, so I dont see us loaning them out as the point was to see how they progressed in the u20s and on the fringe of the main squad. Fisher is on a 2 year deal and we need backup in that area, so moving him on so we can bring in another unproven striker to compete with bowman and moults replacement would be silly. Plummer is a backup defender and is also injured, so moving him on would be difficult. Dont think any of our other defenders are on the way out unless we lose Kipre or hartley goes elsewhere. The manager rates rose, and mchugh is our captain, so they arent going anywhere either whether the Danae rate them or not. Bigi is on a 2 year deal and probably half decent money, so I dont see us doing anything with him unless anyone comes in. He was also kept out the team due to the excellent form of the guys that were in there, he seems a decent player now that hes getting game time. Griffiths is a backup goalie, no more no less, so hes going nowhere either. As far as I can see the only outgoings (other than moult) will be if someone comes in for some of our better players, like Cadden, hartley or maybe campbell, and the possibility of a Mclean or Livingstone type going out on loan. We were all happy with the squad until a bunch of injuries took their toll, and I doubt well be bringing in players to keep Carson, hartley, and cadden out the team, so it makes no sense to get rid of backup/role players to replace them with more backup/role players. I see us replacing Moult and bringing in a defender.

My prediction is that moults replacement will be a big bastard.

Looking forward to the return rumours in the next transfer window.

Who was the last motherwell player who was so universally liked?

I think the above sentiment will be shared by most of us, in that he went about the whole stepping stone thing the right way. I think PNE will be a great move for him. Not every player we bring in is going to follow the Marvin/Ben/Moult model, but where we have paid lip service to the whole selling model before, it looks like we actually know what were doing now. I think keeping Louis until the end of the season would have undermined the model in that we got him for a small fee from Wrexham with the promise of a sell on. had we then let him go for nothing it wouldnt bode well for similar deals in the future. The club have also done a great job with this publically, making sure everyone knew we were desperate to keep him, but the right offer is always going to be considered. So, now that were looking for a replacement Id assume that the source will be the same, which take the fun out of it as most of us arent up to speed on under the radar non-league strikers who are more Moult-y than Fletcher-y. Id love it if we could move for an up and coming lower league player in Scotland, but Im aware of the additional cost, and dont even know who that would be. Are there any sidelined strikers at other SPL clubs that could do a job for us?

With this being done so quickly Id assume that we got as good a deal as we could get, and we now have time to get in a replacement.

For a team with a philosophy of putting in loads of crosses were bloody terrible at headers. Some of the efforts Ive seen from bowman, tanner and frear this year have been woeful. From the highlights tonight - Frear deserved a couple of assists, we had plenty of decent chances to get something from the game, the defending was shocking, and Cerny is a wank.

I think tanner was always intended to be the 2nd striker/extra midfielder, like skippy was at times. Then bowman hit form and we went with 2 up. Id rather we used our best players as much as possible, rather than hope were still good with 30 minutes to go before bringing on the attacking guys. Our defensive team isnt very good at defending.

Is this turnbulls first involvement in the 1st team squad?

Im surprised they havent picked up on the QPR link yet, considering it was mentioned on their number one source a while ago. Are they waiting for it to be corroborated on FPC?

Pretty sure it will be tanner in for moult. Unless he plays the McGhee style 3 with petravicius and frear on the wings.

Which is the best rangers will be able to do for the next 5 years or so, so hes probably the best man for the job. Back on topic though, I can see moult and cadden being the subject of strong interest, and there is the question mark over whether we will be able to get hartley on a deal. Im pretty sure that rose, bowman and dunne are all on one year deals too, so it will be interesting to see what is done with them. I cant remember what frear and tanner have left. The manager mentioned strengthening, and my guess is that were probably looking to add to the defense, as we have the numbers in the other areas, and there isnt any real competition to the back 4 other than Hammell.

Trevor. Fn. Carson.

I fly back on Thursday, so Im going to subject myself to some more torture in the hope that this will be the first time I see us beat them live since Jamie Dolan day. Im guessing it will be my last chance to see moult in the flesh too, so hopefully hell have a bit more joy than yesterday. Id expect a couple of changes, but Id be surprised if we went back to the back 3, with their threat from wide.