Stuart Kettlewell discussion thread

[MJC]

3 minutes ago, wellfan said:

He should’ve been gone following the dreadful run in the first half of last season, but he’s not and we’re stuck with him. It’s the same shit, different season, but maybe some of his biggest fans may finally start to realise that this season. 

The last minute levellers against County, Dundee and St.Johnstone along with coming back from 0-2 down in Perth early November kept him in a job last year. And to his and the teams credit those results showed that they had a bit of spirit about them to come back and get those draws.
 

But we appear to be a team set up not to concede a goal rather than score one ourselves and then when we do concede we are more effective when chasing games as opposed to scoring first and defending a lead. That’s no use in the league we play in and it’s not going to get us anywhere in Cup ties. 

[grizzlyg]

Far too early to talk about manager being replaced however his booking today was embarrassing,  why he got involved with something so trivial was beyond me especially when the team performance should have been more concerning

[Cameron_Mcd]

Wanting the manager sacked before the league has even started.

 

We are so back!

[wellfan]

Here's our run of games across August and September:

Ross County (H)

Rangers (A)

Killie (H; League Cup)

Hearts (H)

St Johnstone (A)

International Break

Aberdeen (A)

Lease Cup QF

St Mirren (H)

If we lose to County in the opener, it could be a long couple of months for Kettlewell as he panic signs 3 more wingbacks and 3 more central midfielders at the end of August and gets a red card at the end of September for telling Stephen Robinson to fuck off. Or, he signs Stama this week, which sees the Aussie score 10 goals in 2 months at the same time as we concede 20 through Blaney and Casey, which inspires Jim McMahon to secretly give Kettlewell a 4-year contract extension as his parting gift to the fans.

[David]

Agreed. County is an absolute must-win. If we don't get all three points there we're surely favourites for the drop?

[Kmcalpin]

Far too early to be discussing SK's future but, and there's always a but, this season will be different. He's been in post for about a year and a half now and built his own team. If things go badly wrong in the coming months, there'll be no excuses or hiding place, harsh as it seems.

[robsterwood]

43 minutes ago, David said:

Agreed. County is an absolute must-win. If we don't get all three points there we're surely favourites for the drop?

First game of season is never a must win. That's so negative. 

[David]

1 hour ago, Kmcalpin said:

Far too early to be discussing SK's future but, and there's always a but, this season will be different. He's been in post for about a year and a half now and built his own team. If things go badly wrong in the coming months, there'll be no excuses or hiding place, harsh as it seems.

The thing is, it has taken Kettlewell this long to get the team looking like he wants them to look. If we then sack him a few months into this season, we hire a new coach who then comes in and the whole process begins again.

I think continuity is key. The recent chopping and changing of managers has done us no good at all.

1 hour ago, robsterwood said:

First game of season is never a must win. That's so negative. 

I was being sarcastic.

[MJC]

8 hours ago, wellgirl said:

This is absolute rubbish. I am sorry. We have lost Bair and Spittal as you know and we have other injuries to contend with too. But it's not time for him to go. That is ludicrous. Hes to go because we didn't beat Partick today? By the way I don't think you are a troll or a pant wetter but seriously. I'll back Kettlewell till I can't anymore and that certainly won't be after today. 

Not just because we didn’t beat Partick Thistle yesterday, but because in the eighteen months he’s been in charge we have done nothing but regress under his management and I have seen nothing in these group games so far to suggest there is any improvement on the horizon, the opposite if anything. His tactical set up and approach to games is all wrong and his transfer dealings have been dreadful, regardless of ‘limited budget’ and all that guff.

[Kmcalpin]

7 hours ago, David said:

The thing is, it has taken Kettlewell this long to get the team looking like he wants them to look. If we then sack him a few months into this season, we hire a new coach who then comes in and the whole process begins again.

I think continuity is key. The recent chopping and changing of managers has done us no good at all.

Not quite the point I was making.

Last season, when we went on a shocking winless run, it was argued by some that SK should be cut some slack given that he hadn't been in the job long and that he was being forced to pick players he didn't sign. Thats not the situation now.  

[Busta Nut]

I'm sick of Kettlewell. He's stubborn and not very good.

[Yodo]

Great chance tonight to make your feelings clear to SK at the WS question and answer session . Hope to hear some no holds barred questions and if it’s your opinion how good a job he is doing 

[steelboy]

If we have a bad start we need to get rid of him. The big issue with him has always been recruitment and if his signings this year don't work out he can't be given another chance. 

He's had three transfer windows and his signings were in the minority in our used squad yesterday with Halliday, Davor and Stuparevic being the worst players on the park. 

[StAndrew7]

12 minutes ago, steelboy said:

If we have a bad start we need to get rid of him. The big issue with him has always been recruitment and if his signings this year don't work out he can't be given another chance. 

He's had three transfer windows and his signings were in the minority in our used squad yesterday with Halliday, Davor and Stuparevic being the worst players on the park. 

Genuine question here; why have you got such a dislike for Davor?

Every time I see him play I think he does everything that's asked of him; he wins the ball back then passes it on to someone who's more creative (I accept that playing alongside Halliday, that's a bit of an oxymoron) and protects the back 3 as best he can with very little support.

It's not his fault he's not Pirlo/Modric/whoever winning it back and spraying passes about to our forwards and wing backs. Particularly when our wing backs are utter dog shit and none of our strikers are able to hold the ball up.

[steelboy]

25 minutes ago, StAndrew7 said:

Genuine question here; why have you got such a dislike for Davor?

Every time I see him play I think he does everything that's asked of him; he wins the ball back then passes it on to someone who's more creative (I accept that playing alongside Halliday, that's a bit of an oxymoron) and protects the back 3 as best he can with very little support.

It's not his fault he's not Pirlo/Modric/whoever winning it back and spraying passes about to our forwards and wing backs. Particularly when our wing backs are utter dog shit and none of our strikers are able to hold the ball up.

He's too limited on the ball for a team playing with three centre backs. He's basically a man down in possesion and which makes us easy to defend against and isn't enough of a physical presence when we are defending. 

If you look at that games he's started in the league we have very rarely led in games when he's on the park. 

[santheman]

3 minutes ago, steelboy said:

He's too limited on the ball for a team playing with three centre backs. He's basically a man down in possesion and which makes us easy to defend against and isn't enough of a physical presence when we are defending. 

If you look at that games he's started in the league we have very rarely led in games when he's on the park. 

We've rarely led in games when the full team's been on the park so singling him out on that point is plain daft.

[StAndrew7]

19 minutes ago, santheman said:

We've rarely led in games when the full team's been on the park so singling him out on that point is plain daft.

Aye, I was going to say similar. I would argue that when he came in more and more last season around October onward, we finally started to show a bit more solidity in the middle of the park in comparison to before. I thought he was one of the main reasons Spittal was able to go on and have such a successful season; he freed him up from having to play more of a complete midfielder role.

I agree with @steelboy that his range of passing is limited. As I see it, his job/role as set out by Kettlewell is to win it back and give it to one of the wide centre backs to go and play it forward, or out to one of the wing backs. I don't think it's his fault they're absolutely shite at distributing the ball and using it once he's won it back. Hopefully with McGinn and Balmer coming back in (we can but hope and pray Casey is a back up option this season) we'll see an upgrade in terms of the overall distribution. 

I would like to see him try and take a chance with forward passes a bit more often but every time I saw him look up yesterday there was... no option other than Miller showing. Wilson and SODs were pedestrian breaking forward and when they did they barely got beyond their man.

I did think a lot last year and already am this year, do we miss Goss, for all his other failings? Having an anchor/deep lying playmaker like him made a huge difference.

Also, as much as I'm frustrated/infuriated by him and his lack of composure, we actually, somewhat terrifyingly, missed Harry Paton's energy yesterday. At least you can rely on him getting the ball to feet and driving forward at defenders; we sorely missed that kind of play yesterday until Wells came on.

It was so passive and pedestrian; if that's how we're going to set up this season, it's going to be a long, hard slog in the bottom six yet again.

Hopefully it's not, particularly once injuries are healed and we can field our starting XI. I would argue that of those starting yesterday, only one of the back five, and one of the midfield would/should be regular starters for us this season.

[steelboy]

44 minutes ago, santheman said:

We've rarely led in games when the full team's been on the park so singling him out on that point is plain daft.

Livi and Dundee away this year as soon as he went off we started to dominate and went from losing to winning the match. 

For a player to be limited as he is in possession they have to be a force defensively to justify a place in the team and he just doesn't cut it. Robbie Crawford showed yesterday that he's a better player but daft handshakes and running around when the ball is dead obviously goes a long way with some people. 

 

[Mad Dog]

23 minutes ago, steelboy said:

Livi and Dundee away this year as soon as he went off we started to dominate and went from losing to winning the match. 

For a player to be limited as he is in possession they have to be a force defensively to justify a place in the team and he just doesn't cut it. Robbie Crawford showed yesterday that he's a better player but daft handshakes and running around when the ball is dead obviously goes a long way with some people. 

 

It won't be a surprise to anybody that daft handshakes improve your chances of success in this country.

[Kmcalpin]

1 hour ago, steelboy said:

He...... isn't enough of a physical presence when we are defending. 

That's my concern with him. Whilst he's a "guid honest laddie" he's simply too lightweight for the role he plays. I can live with his creative deficiencies. We badly lack a solid, competitive defensive midfielder and have done so for some time. 

[David]

5 hours ago, Kmcalpin said:

Not quite the point I was making.

Last season, when we went on a shocking winless run, it was argued by some that SK should be cut some slack given that he hadn't been in the job long and that he was being forced to pick players he didn't sign. Thats not the situation now.  

Just when you said there will be no excuses or hiding places, I take that to mean that if and when we hit that period, many would suggest the next step would be sacking the manager.

I'm fairly certain we’ll hit an extended winless run this season at some point. The lack of depth when it comes to quality in our squad suggests that injuries will lead to a period where we don't perform well and results suffer. That is unless we're incredibly lucky and avoid many injuries this season, of course.

In my opinion, Kettlewell has done a good job thus far. It's sometimes forgotten (or ignored by some) that he's a young manager still learning the job.

Before coming to us, he’d had six months as a manager on his own. This upcoming season is only his second full season as a manager, and he’s only just turned 40 years old.

Sure, he likes to talk, but I'd take that any day over one of the "boys" who get managerial jobs in this country and can't string two sentences together without resorting to clichés that say absolutely nothing.

Sacking a manager should always be an absolute last resort. The upheaval it causes at the club is immense, from seeing fellow coaches leave and player routines being disturbed, to a new manager coming in with different ideas and different requirements regarding the playing staff.

Interestingly enough, we sacked Graham Alexander two years ago today, and the chaos and upheaval we've experienced since then hasn't been good. We're only now really getting back to something resembling normalcy.

 

[mfc]

Like last season the balance in midfield looks way off and we're going to be just as easy to play through,there's no pace and legs to get about the park,I doubt there will be many yet to arrive but we badly need a midfielder or 2,one that can link play to the forwards is a must,we cant have 4 strikers on the books and nobody that can play a productive pass.miller is class but we can't solely rely on him, kettlewell also need to stop asking guys to do things they cant do like halliday in an advance role,he's never been that type of player never mind the stage of his career he's at now.

[Mad Dog]

1 hour ago, David said:

Interestingly enough, we sacked Graham Alexander two years ago today, and the chaos and upheaval we've experienced since then hasn't been good. We're only now really getting back to something resembling normalcy.

 

I agree with all of that and would emphasise your last point. What could happen if we sack another manager mid-season? We might spend two or three transfer windows and a lot of money on getting rid of SK's signings and waiting for the new manager to mould his own team and style of play. Seem familiar?

[Busta Nut]

5 hours ago, Yodo said:

Great chance tonight to make your feelings clear to SK at the WS question and answer session . Hope to hear some no holds barred questions and if it’s your opinion how good a job he is doing 

I'll just be there to listen.

[santheman]

3 hours ago, steelboy said:

Livi and Dundee away this year as soon as he went off we started to dominate and went from losing to winning the match. 

For a player to be limited as he is in possession they have to be a force defensively to justify a place in the team and he just doesn't cut it. Robbie Crawford showed yesterday that he's a better player but daft handshakes and running around when the ball is dead obviously goes a long way with some people. 

 

Again you can't say replacing him made the difference alone in those games, it could have been a multitude of factors.

Davor is what he is, he breaks play up and gives the ball to others more adept at the passing game. Yeah he's a bit lightweight when he's up against bigger stronger players but he's by no means the worst player out there.

Crawford looked good because he had another 9 players working their socks off alongside him whereas we thought we were still on the beach.