New season, same old guff

[sieb1886]

The only signings that show any potential are Gallagher and Polworth both have played in and understand the Scottish football game. Why as a club are we signing players from English lower leagues or non league clubs who are obviously unfit or injured and have no concept of the Scottish game. There are plenty of good quality players in the Scottish leagues who would improve our current team and would already be up to speed of what the task in hand involves.

**DANGER! TALKING SENSE ALERT!!**
Tex Cup should be recruited into our scouting system ....

[texaco cup]

sieb 1886

Have submitted the names of 4 players who I thought would have improved our team this time last year never so much as received an email back. Start of this season sent email to club for attention of Chief of Scouting again no correspondence received

[Handsome_Devil]

The only signings that show any potential are Gallagher and Polworth both have played in and understand the Scottish football game. Why as a club are we signing players from English lower leagues or non league clubs who are obviously unfit or injured and have no concept of the Scottish game. There are plenty of good quality players in the Scottish leagues who would improve our current team and would already be up to speed of what the task in hand involves.

Because among them we may sign a Johnson, Moult or Kipre.

I wouldn't rule out any market out of principle but it's a simple fact that relatively speaking England is a gigantic ocean to fish in and sometimes among the dross we can find gems others miss - they will both help our team immediately and give us the transfer return we need.

Scotland is a tiny lake by comparison. We can obviously - by paying a premium by our standards - secure some players that literally everyone knows everything about if we choose that's how to invest our budget but it's unlikely they'll be those with potential to be sold on for big money.

I'm not convinced about the "plenty" part...there are some, sure. But consider how utterly awful the bottom three were last season and - in theory at least - the majority of those playing at the lower level should be even worse. There will obviously be exceptions but these guys are highly sought after. It's also worth remembering that due to the Project Brave farce clubs like Falkirk have scrapped their youth programmes entirely and others have cut back severely. Plenty clubs down there exist solely on offcasts from further up the food chain, the chance of a wonderkid coming through at a second division side - like Stevie Nicholas (ha!) - these days is absolutely tiny because any 13-14-year-old with the slighest bit of talent immediately gets snaffled by a top-flight club.

[LawSteelman]

I 'waste my time' with it because to me, supporting Motherwell FC is not a hobby, it's gone way, way past that. Apart from being a Well society member I invest significant amounts of time, effort and cash on supporting this club, so therefore it's not 'just a game' or 'just a hobby', it's something which is hugely important to me.

We have had good times over the past ten years, o get that, but I am talking about now, or to be more specific, now under the current manager here. As a club with a small budget, we absolutely cannot afford to continue with a manager who repeatedly fails in the transfer market and signs players who aren't good enough. He has done this now for two summers in a row and as I said, the football during the majority of that time has been horrendous and the support are fed up with it. At half time on Friday night there were scores of supporters heading for the exit, completely disillusioned and angered by what they had seen. That will only continue unless there is a drastic and unexpected improvement and the fans voting with their feet and staying away is something, another thing, that we as a club cannot afford.

[Handsome_Devil]

The current manager has seen us out of trouble, then to seventh, eighth and two cup finals while bringing in a fortune in transfer fees.

Like you, I wouldn't have renewed him when we did but we did and here we are. We are not about to bullet him. Folks headed for the exits aplenty in the first half of last season then came back when we played well. They will do so again, no doubt.

A bad season this term will be no cup runs, flirting with relegation and finishing ninth or tenth. It almost certainly won't be the end of the world and we'll roll the dice again soon enough...our cup finals recently have come completely out the blue, as have the cup victories for those who have went one better and then immediately returned to being dross again.

The scale of the anger and disappointment to a handful of results, signings or even a whole season is just completely out of proportion to where it should be given what we normally do. Having all gone through this for years, Motherwell being Motherwell just doesn't seem a reason to get so angry when we know this is who we are, this is the club we love and it will never change.

[wellin]

The reason we get players in from the lower reaches of English football is simple, it's so we can find a gem there and sell on for profit. Football is a business, it's about making money. I know we need to survive and all that but it just seems like success has gone out the window as long as the club can make a quick buck. We have seen in the not to distant past players that have never kicked a ball for us being punted for a few hundred grand. I couldn't give a toss how much they get for a young player, I want to see players come through the ranks to play for Motherwell and bring us a bit success along the way. It just p***** me off the game is all about money over football these days.