THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

The case for the defence m'lud.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news ... t-new-boss

Very much a kind softball interview with a lot of spin done by a media chum.

My post was purely "forewarned is forearmed". Take from it what you will.

Here's a thread just after the Sligo loss and his sacking on the 29th at 5pm. About 30 pages. Use your own judgement.

https://www.pieandbovril.com/forum/inde ... /#comments

Hi,

We seen you appointed GA and wanted to give you an honest view of his time with us. This isn't done out of malice but to maybe temper any expectations.

He arrived in the New Year with a good pedigree and us sitting joint bottom after a derby defeat. Our previous manager ran out of ideas and decided to walk to the regret of the board probably about 70% of our support. We'd qualified for Europe and on paper we shouldn't have been in the mess we were but nothing seemed to click. Players who were outstanding only months before were inept combined with a pretty bad injury list.

So Alexander and Lucketti arrived to steady the ship with the task number 1 being survival. Over the next few months he did that. Our football was not pretty but we didn't care, we just wanted survival. He got a couple of players into the great form and when the dust settled we had a pretty substantial points haul.

Let him get his summer transfer window now we have safety, we were all enthused. Some purchases were made were we changed our policy of going for journeymen on 1 year free contracts to securing guys on longer deals we could potentially resell.

So 2021-22 started and we were getting results but it was chronic to watch. When we did venture up the park, we were scoring from our 1 or 2 shots on target in the whole game and then piled on a defender or two and rode it out. It does nothing for your blood pressure to see cross being lumped in again and again especially when you have a few central defenders prone to a error.

With the benefit of hindsight we should have noticed things were not rosy earlier than we did. In the runup to Christmas there were odd line up selections, players without fault dropped, that is when there were the first grumblings via friends and family of players as to his management style.

He's very autocratic, has favourites, football will go to die under him in the sole pursuit of points. Now the last one can have its merits, but it was eye bleeding stuff, often the way we set ourselves up boggled any conventional wisdom.

For the calendar year Alexander had the highest points tally outside Celtic and Rangers. While the numbers were impressive the nature that we acquired them was not. However he was offered a contract extension and pretty much nobody grumbled.

Pretty much from this contract extension our form nose dived, we lost our most influential player but crazy team selections from one week to the next, throwing on all sorts of mad subs, which we collectively called "the tombola". It was evident a number of players had downed tools. He alienated the club captain and punished him in to a bit part player.

So from Boxing day till our league splits we only got 9 points from a possible 42. What helped us was the rest of the league were awful with everyone taking points off each other so we hobbled into the top 6 with a last minute header and then actually looked decent in a couple of games to secure 5th and European football again.

A few thought he should have got punted because of the chronic run and how we nearly missed out from a good position at the turn of the year. The board felt he earned the right to see what he could do in 2022/23 and maybe 70% of the fans gave him a reprieve up from 40% a few weeks before.

We played Sligo Rovers, we were unprepared and humiliated by guys playing at a lower standard. Alexander approached the Chairman and both he and his assistant walked.

Things have came to light since as they always do. First the club captain and GA fell out because Alexander told him to convey his plans to the players and the captain said he was uneasy about doing so and they made no tactical sense. He said he couldn't relay them if he didn't believe they had merit and the right way forward. He fell out with a number hence their sudden dropping and was rumoured to just go in the huff with players for no reason. They were all afraid of him and there was a toxic atmosphere in the dressing room. A few on longer deals pushed to move on to get away from him. He never engaged with the youth players and was seen as aggressive and a bit mental.

The board hoped his on paper record would attract someone else and they'd look to secure him, pay compensation and everyone is a winner. It seems they withheld his transfer budget last summer because of this favouring to give it to the new guy. As it turned out nobody came in for him and we were starting at a disadvantage.

I'd say there is universal disapproval of GA among our support and almost to a man feel he left the club with issues it will take a little while to remedy.

A couple of points. Firstly I’m disappointed but not surprised that nobody has had the good grace to thank the guy for taking the time to post what was a well thought out piece on our new man. There’s clearly no malice intended. Rather a view of what we’re likely to get.

How have motherwell done since his departure?

They finished mid-table