MOTHERWELL FC: THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME

MOTHERWELL FC: THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THY STAY THE SAME...

I don't know how many times I've said it before here, or how many more I will, but hardly a week goes by without MFC putting it's fans through the ringer.

First and foremost I'm going to take this opportunity to reflect and thank Mr John Boyle for his services to Motherwell over the last 13 years. For over a decade he has had Motherwell at heart and while some things he did put the club at risk, his time as Chairman, in my view, was mostly a success.

When he took over in 1998, Boyle's vision of making us the "Third Force" in Scottish football was scoffed at by many, even the Claret and Amber faithful. At a time when money in the Scottish Premier was being thrown about willy nilly, his cash injection put us relatively on par with all outside the Old Firm.

"Marquee Signings" like Spencer, Goram and Goodman, as well as Ged Brannan and Pat Nevi formed the crux of our big spending, eventually helping us to a few successful seasons. Incentives like Kids for £1 and Adults for a fiver, were put on to increase crowds.

However, these small successes couldn't guarantee long term gain, and in 2001, Boyle saw his idyll crash and burn as the threat of Administration loomed large. The sacking of 21 members of staff meant that Boyle's reputation, as well as his pocket took a big hit.

The club had to rely now on it's youth set up, which gave Boyle a chance to help Motherwell FC and himself recoup the losses. The breeding of players like McFadden, Pearson etc was essential, but their efforts couldn't stop us from facing relegation. That was left to Falkirk's lack of seating.

After the enforced rebuilding job, which Boyle entrusted in Terry Butcher, things began to look up. A Scottish Cup semi final and a League Cup final brought in some cash before El Tel left. Boyle's decision to put Malpas in charge saw us plummet down the table, in one of the worst seasons since JB came to power.

The McGhee era brought with it triumph and tragedy. While the team played some of it's best football in over a decade, Boyle bankrolled the signings that made it so from his own pocket. Porter, Hughes and Malcolm (?) earned their wage not from the club but from Boyle and paid him back with a 3rd place finish and European football.

Our best season of the decade was also one of the worst as we lost Phil O'Donnell. For any club to have a player die is a tragedy, Boyle's reign saw 2, with youngster Andy Thompson passing away at the start of Boyle's time in charge. JB and McGhee were excellent in their handling of such a harrowing time.

In recent years, his lack of ability to tie management to contracts has been highlighted. Whether it was a thrifty move on his part or not, by not securing Gannon, Brown and Knox to permanent roles, no matter the reasoning, it made us look like a joke to a press who already see us as the league's clowns.

His time at Well is coming to an end at the same time that a 4th season in Europe slides out of view as well. There's no questioning that JB has lost far more than he put in to the Club, bit it's a measure of his respect for MFC that he has not asked for anything in return upon his resignation. Instead he goes, knowing that for all the ups and downs of his tenure, he tried to do the best he could for Scotland's best diddy team.

A ditty team that could have had an unlikely 9 points from 9 in the wake of the Ibrox debacle. The sweet victory over Aberdeen was followed by the worst match I'd seen all season til that point. Sutton's spot kick dispatched a dire Accies team, who on the day, didn't look much worse than us.

Wednesday night saw what is definitely the worst game of the season. Even Stu Mc says so. After a frustrating week at work, I looked forward to venting at the St Mirren players as we would joyfully pump them. In my head I knew we wouldn't pump them, but I was thinking positive. The old chestnut that someone was due a pumping off us was running around my head.

As soon as the game kicked off I knew the pumping wasn't coming.

There's an argument that "Anti-Football" is ruining the game. Rangers ride it's wave on most European occasions by defending and breaking. St Mirren do it without actually playing football which deserves the "anti" prefix more. At this point I'd say watch the game in full and you would see the lack of talent being subbed for dirty dirty late challenges and rugby tackles, but the game was awful enough once through.

That's not to say that is why we lost. We lost because we weren't fighting enough. Lasley, Jennings and Gunning all took some hefty challenges but we all know they can give as good as they get. We were bullied by a hungrier team and it showed. The fact that the only shot on target I. The whole game went in shows how dire that game was.

If you told any Well fan after Ibrox that we'd get 6 from 9 in the next 3 games they'd have been happy with that. As the players were booed off the park last night, I remembered just how fickle a bunch we are. Sure McCall's tactical nous was all over the shop last night, but it worked against Aberdeen and to an extent against Accies. He got it wrong last night, but so did the boys on the park. I wonder how he'll set out his stall for the visit of Celtic

So, as the dust settles on a busy week at Fir Park, our inconsistency has kept us consistent once more. The prospect of new owners fills me with fear and excitement. Will we get a local investor or an Ibramovich/Romanov type mentalist ploughing us in to debt while spending millions on average players? Who knows...

Up The Well !!!

MOTHERWELL FC: FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Tasty: Could Masterchef pair Torode and Wallace stomach the football Motherwell have served up? Pic: © Brian Minkoff-London Pixels

Stick with me on this one, but I'm comparing MFC to cooking and baking this week...

While Rangers had a cake walk against Motherwell last week, I was baking bread. There was no return to Ibrox for me after the 4-1 defeat back in October, so instead I took it upon myself to add to my culinary repetoir.

By the time I'd taken the ingredients out the bag, Naismith had put us a goal behind. About 20 minutes in to the radio coverage, I decided I'd make a start on my first attempt at breadmaking. Along with blogging, being a football fanatic and new hockey enthusiast, cooking has become one of my other new found passions.

So a Saturday spent in my kitchen, listening to my team get horsed was on the cards. By the time Jones and Sutton had squandered our best chances of the game, I had made one failed attempt at my bread mix due to the dodgy recipe on the back of the yeast box.

By 2-0 and then 3-0, I'd reached the correct consistency, after taking out my rage at the team's capitulation on kneading my dough. During half time, I had another bash at a second loaf, which came together with some ease, having perfected it on the second attempt.

By the time they went in the oven, it was 4-0 and by the time they came out, all golden and smelling class, it had become 6-0. If you add my two perfect loaves to that, then technically it was only a 6-2 weekend in my eyes and once I added the steak and onions and the garlic and chilli wedges to the loaves for myself and the missus, I consoled myself at it technically being 6-4...

The next morning, I awoke and decided I would make some baps. After all, I was now a master baker (leave it) and the kitchen was my culinary oyster. Another perfect dough, shaped in to five bread balls and fired in the oven for 25 minutes.

Skulked back in to the bedroom to watch a bit of Tim Lovejoy and his baldy cooking pal disregard their scripts to talk about Liverpool and Chelsea as usual.

Twenty-five minutes later I returned to the kitchen and had to hurl myself through the thick cloud of smoke and scent of burning yeast that had permeated from the oven. My total disregard of increased surface area and smaller sizes of dough had meant that I'd cremated what I'd hoped would be the perfect soaker upper of my gran's soup.

As five charred, hard boulders of bread lay on my baking board, I couldn't help but feel that I'd let myself down, like Motherwell had done the day before. I'd become complacent and cocky after performing so well before hand, that I hadn't prepared for the difference a change in tactics would make. Had I stuck to a specific recipe, I'd have had some lovely baps. Instead, I tampered with it and made a big smoky mess.

With the way that my mind works, I couldn't help but compare it to the recent state of affairs at Fir Park. While far from being the perfect recipe, Brown and Knox had been capable of running the proverbial kitchen fairly smoothly, serving up satisfying fare that sometimes lacked in presentation.

After they left, Stuart McCall came in and had to impose his own techniques and recipes to meet and exceed the standards of his predecessors. In the 10 games he'd had in charge, the ingredients had not been working well together and his experiments had not always tasted as good as they could have.

His best dish had been served at Hampden two weeks previous and a second helping at Ibrox would have been delightful. Instead, we served up an unappetising buffet, which Rangers rightly chewed up and spat out (I am getting in so many food puns and cliches here).

Come Tuesday evening though, the Ibrox shocker failed to repeat on the team. Instead, McCall served up fare of the highest calibre. Despite the early dirty fork of Aluko's goal, the Well managed to cut through Aberdeen like a hot knife through butter on many occasions, despite only managing to get level through Franny Jeffers headed goal.

In what was always going to be a match simmering with bite, it threatened to boil over when Hartley was red carded after Keith Lasley almost broke the Aberdeen skippers face with a hefty leading arm. Las was lucky, but that fight and determination is what we needed. When Murphy ran on to the headed through ball, outmuscled the ridiculous ponytail of his marker and dispatched the ball under Langfield, I thought "There's Your Dinner!"

They say that revenge is a dish best served cold, and at a freezing Pittodrie it defnitely was. While Brown and Knox munched on their sour grapes, Stu Mac and the lads can safely dine out on getting one over on the old regime and relish the most important result of the season so far.

I apologise profusely for all the food-isms in there, but what I'm getting at is that, while Motherwell FC will never be in contention for a Michelin Star, we need to be serving up platters like Wednesday night on a more regular basis. While we can forgive an occasional poor service, something sumptuous and exciting and hunger sating is much more appreciated.

We know we can do it, we just need to offer it more often.

Up The Well!

MOTHERWELL FC: FRANCIS JEFFERS, MARQUEE SIGNING?

MOTHERWELL FC: FRANCIS JEFFERS, MARQUEE SIGNING?

Can he really be called that

At Motherwell FC, we are used to signing youngsters, untried English team periphery players and the odd journeyman here and there. Gone are the days of spending proper transfer fees for squad augmentation.

In the past few seasons, the Loanee route has been our path to unearthing fleeting gems. Instant classics without long term gain.

Ruddy and Jutkiewicz are perhaps the most notable of these, with the Bosman ruling bringing in others like Porter. Coke, Humphrey, Randolph, players who have all given something to the squad, with the latter 2 being amongst the few to fully commit to the club.

Steve Jones has had a cracking start since signing on and was rewarded with the scrappiest of scrappy goals to put us on our way to a cup win on Saturday. Gunning also seems to look the part in Stevie Hammell's absence.

While their signings have pretty much gone under the radar, the signing this week of free agent Francis Jeffers, has had much more publicity.

Bursting into the Premiership aged 16, he made his debut for Everton at Old Trafford. Plaudits were lauded upon him from an early age. Comparisons to Gary Lineker were not in short supply based on his Everton run and his Emgland U21 scoring record. If he was 16 today, ironically he would be the new Wayne Rooney.

However, the early promise failed to sustain and after amassing just over £10 million in transfer fees and failed attempts to get back in to the Premiership with Blackpool and Everton, by way of Sheffield Wednesday and Australia, he has arrived at Fir Park.

The press have declared his decision to join us as a Marquee Signing. But is he really?

To me, the definition of a Marquee Signing would be that of a player who has consistently played well at say a higher or equal level, or someone whose mere name would add 1000 odd bums to seats at Fir Park.

In my time as a Well fan, I would say as far as Marquee Signngs go, Davie Cooper, Tommy Coyne, and John Spencer would be truly in that bracket. Maybe even Andy Goram.

The signings of these players brought about great publicity for the Club, generated excitement amongst the fans and media and had an air of positive expectancy about them.

With Coop, although getting on in footballing years, we paid very little for one of the all time Scottish greats, and I return we got some immense performances from him. And a Cup. TC signed from Celtic and was an instant hit, with his knack for banging in the goals continuing at Fir Park.

Spenny was signed in a time of turmoil and was essentially still a Premirship striker when we got him on loan. Scoring the winner on your debut v Rangers doesn't get more Marquee than that! His actual signing wasn't so impacting but as one of the highest paid players we've had and for what he was capable of in the first 6 months, the Well faithful took to him.

Likewise with Goram, arguably Scotland's best ever keeper, The Goalie was signed during Boyle's free spending days. After having watched the likes of Woods, Howie, Scott Thompson, Garry Gow and Mikko Kaven regularly play hot and mainly cold for us, having a premier keeper between the sticks was a godsend.

While never reaching the heights of his stint at Rangers, the calibre and character of the Flying Pig again hyped up the Fir Park masses.

What all these players have in common is that when we signed them, we knew what they were capable of and that's why we were excited to see them in the paper with their Well shirts back to front.

Jeffers is a different kettle of fish altogether.

While, like those above, he has had a lengthy footballing career, it's not as fulfilled as theirs. A goals scored record of 17 in ten years for a striker is not that great. In his time at Arsenal, he scored half as many goals as defender Giles Grimandi.

His most successful spell of the last decade was at Sheffield Wednesday, where for every 2 goals he got, he got himself sent off. (5 goals, 2 sendings off). He also aged some good through balls in Australia, according to a Newcastle Jets fan online.

He has also previously failed to score in the SPL with Rangers.

Not the traits associated with a Marquee Signing for me. If he had proved himself worthy of the £10million that has been spent on him and he was recovering from a really bad injury and looking to get fitness back at Motherwell, then aye, I'd call that Marquee.

As it stands, I would say his signing is just as noteworthy as that of Jones and Gunning. That's not to say that I'm not happy with bringing Jeffers aboard.

Despite all the negatives I've picked up on, I think he could be a good signing. Ever the optimist. I believe his influence and experience, as stop start as his career has been, could go along way to improving the game of Murphy, McHugh, Smith , even Casagolda.

He has played at the highest level, he's been unlucky with injuries, and he's been around a bit. He's stated that the chance to work with one of his Evertonian heroes,Stuart McCall, is something he is looking forward.

This could be his Indian Summer, a last chance to prove himself in the British game. It's certainly a gamble for both Franny and the club. For Jeffers, if he can't cut it at Motherwell in a poor SPL, then where can he? Is he capable of doing enough to get back to the upper Championship level that most SPL players seek?

For us, it's more of the same really. If he comes in ahead of the younger forwards, then their development is scuppered in giving Jeffers a chance. If he does well, then he will likely be gone in the summer, if be does poorly... he'll most likely go in the summer.

It would be too much to think that 4 months at Motherwell banging in the goals would lead to him staying for another season. As I've stated before, there is no loyalty in football these days and for that reason, regardless of what "The Fox In The Box" does, I'd be mightily surprised if he is wearing Claret and Amber next season.

As long as when he dons our colours and performs to his best this season though, he will have my full backing. A Spencer-esque debut on Saturday would be a good start.

Going back to the Marquee thing, unless we get taken over by some foreign conglomerate, the only real Marquee, bums on seats, hysteria inducing signing we will likely see in the future will be James McFadden's mooted return.

If and when Faddy comes back, as long as he is fit and capable of the impact he had before, I will happily build that Marquee myself!

Up The Well!!!

MOTHERWELL FC: SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS.

MOTHERWELL FC: NOT THE BEST WEEK TO BE A WELL FAN EH?

One of the things that I love about being a Motherwell fan is how quickly the Club can revert between sublime and ridiculous. Whether it's during the course of a season, a week, a day or even a game, the occasional brilliance can be bested by our self made downfall.

For all intents and purposes, Sunday's semi final at Hampden was a great game, bar the result. By taking the game to Rangers, as it was vital to do, we showed them up in terms of effort and spirit, yet sadly not in front of goal.

Jennings and Lasley were immense in the middle of the park, stifling Davis and the ever unlikeable McCulloch for most of the match. The fact that Jenno was man of the match, despite The housewive's favourite Keef bagging a priceless goal at the national stadium, shows how stern the pair were on the middle.

Sutton led the line greatly, Hammell put in one of his best ever shifts, while Murphy and Humph on the wings looked to get forward as much as possible. Despite the best efforts of Weir and Papac, Humphrey got to the by line on a number of occasions.

Naturally it was our defence that was our undoing. After bumming him up on here last week, Craigan had a torrid game, mishitting clearance after clearance, playing the ball right to Rangers attackers and in general had a poor game.

For both Rangers goals, the defence are culpable. A poor clearance and "too much respect" to Edu led to a great strike from the American. Likewise, the defence switched off to first allow Jelavic in behind and secondly to give Naismith a free header.

The air of opportunity was kicked out of us and no matter how much we huffed and puffed, we couldn't find another goal. As gutted as the 6000 odd Well fans were, we clapped our players off as if we'd won.

The reaction of the Rangers players and fans was that of any other game. No fanfare that they had made yet another final. Treated like it was business as usual. The happiness that success brings eh?

Depending on what you read, getting beat off Rangers swung it enough for 1 of 5 potential signings to decide against us. Rumours abound that the striker in question was David Healy spread and were distinguished when he later signed for Rangers.

The return of both Clarkson and Porter were mooted but bore no fruit, while the 24 hour shambles that was Mike Grella's signing, had not been put to bed.

Alas, come 11pm on Monday, no striker had been signed. Jones had looked impressive in the 3 games he'd played and young Gunning from Blackburn was brought in as left back cover, but a team whose strikers haven't scored in an eon, needs new frontmen.

Perhaps the clubs riches couldn't stretch to bring one in. Perhaps there is truth in what Stuart McCall said about "personal crisis" scuppering one deal. Perhaps McCall's targets just didn't want to come to us.

However it is viewed, it leaves us with 4 tested strikers in Sutton, Murphy, McHugh and the enigma that is Esteban Casagolda.

With ten minutes left on Sunday, we needed an imposing presence in the box and the big Spaniard wasn't given his chance. On Monday night, I chatted to him on Facebook, as remarkably he accepted my friend request.

The informal interview went something like this:

K: Hola Este, how are you enjoying life at Motherwell?

E: I like Motherwell. Now I want to play more.

K: Do you think the gaffer will start you against Stranraer in the cup?

E: excuse, you repete, I translate espanol google.

(after translating) ah up to manager.

K: you are a cult hero amongst some fans.

E: =)

K: what do you think of your countryman Torres going to Chelsea?

E: can't believe 35million Andy Carroll.

K: me either.

The rest was general chit chat, but come Wednesday he wasn't chatting to randoms on the Internet. Instead he led the line against Kilmarnock. Listening on the radio, Derek ferguson slated him as much as he praised Eremenko.

From the highlights, the sitter Casa missed was a very good tackle by the Killie man, and had Cammy Bell not played out of his skin, Gloria may have contributes to a fine win.

Instead, we got beat. Again.

Another game dominated, another game down the pan. We are crying out for a deadly striker. I'll forgive Casagolda for being off the pace in his first start, but the ball would just not go in.

Bell proved why he's been called up for Scotland, saving from Murphy, Jennings and Saunders I think, but had we been more savvy in front of goal, we could and should have won it.

Talk on the web today suggests the "fox in the box" Francis Jeffers could be the solution. A free agent, a spell in Australia could end with him donning claret and Amber for the rest of the season.

When was the last time an £8 million player played for us? Granted he's not worth that now having score 13 goals I'm a decade, but could he do a job?

Steve Jones was slated for being too old before he'd kicked a ball but has been very effective, so why not take a punt on Jeffers? He's played at the top level, has 100% scoring record for England (1 game 1 goal) and has could be rejuvenated by a run in the SPL..

So, with a that in mind, playing out our skin on 2 occasions and losing both sums up where we are at. We'll break this slump yet.

6 points will be tricky in next 2 games at Ibrox and Pittodrie, 4 would be magic, even 3 against Aberdeen would suffice. I'll take the Rangers game as it comes but a win in Aberdeen is a must.

Not just for the points but to stick it right up Brown and his "integrity".

Up The Well!!!