Motherwell have continued their best ever league form, winning 14 of 14 for a maximum 42 points. Strikers Billy Bland and Guy Clark have a healthy 12 and 11 goals already, with plenty of goals spread around the team beyond that. We are on pace for a club record number of goals in a season (58 down, pacing for 124), so all in all the season is going quite well for us.

However, some supporters have started to notice that the team is getting old without many new faces coming into the side. Usually by this point, we are used to seeing two or three youth players bedding in. However, the only new signing on the year so far has been FW Regan Charles-Cook. With an ageing GK rotation and a defense that also looks past their prime, What will the management do to fill the gaps? Looking forward to next season, MOT will be fine in two positions. The FW line will be fine for at least the first half of the season until Guy Clark eventually needs to be replaced with youth. MF should be similarly fine, but the 6/21 and then 6/15 MF Al Bondigas should be able to cover as 3rd MF all season. However, WG, DF, and GK are another story. Tawanda Maswanhise won't be playable beyond this season. Emmanuel Longelo and Jimmie Vaghan are both over the hill. Gary Clark Jr will only be a player for us all season if he gets a full training as second captain. Merle Haggard needs replacing yesterday. 4 - 5 players needing replacing is no small effort, and it's an effort that may require a combination of auctions, trades, and even the rare apprentice signing should the players we need not show up or be won at auction.

What does it all mean? Probably that we have more rebuilding to do than we've had in more than a few seasons. Our T-17 is currently great, but if left alone it will fall off very rapidly. Our rotation currently has 2x age 7, 2x age 6, 3x age 5, and 3x age 4. Let's get to work sorting out the future of Motherwell FC!

Motherwell were knocked out of the CECIL Cup for their first cup elimination since the CECIL cup season 60 (2 seasons ago). We had the bad luck of drawing top T-11 squad SRA at the wrong time - had it been in the earlier rounds we might have had a T-11 advantage, and had it been the later rounds we might have caught up to their CP spending. But, as it was, it was all set up for a big showdown between the side with all of the momentum (huge win streak, a few trophies in a row) vs the side with the strongest T-11 out there. Definitely was set up to be a cracker!

The first leg was a surprise 2-2 at SRA, with the home side probably favored to win given the stats, so it was a bit of luck that MOT got a late equalizer to deny what would have been a deserved 2-1 home win. But, Motherwell paid for that luck in the second leg, seeing their best player, 3/37 FW Billy Bland, limp off the pitch just 29 minutes in.SRA would take the lead from there, but a quick MOT equalizer leveled at the half. Motherwell still had the stats advantage, but it was the visitors that took the important 2-1 lead 56 minutes in. Motherwell would simply not create enough chances to really test Klayhammer, and it was SRA that would get the late goal in this one, sealing the tie. A well-won victory for Andrew at SRA, as they will certainly be favorites to take home the trophy now. MOT will return to the league campaign and take another run at the SESL cup during the second half.

What are some of the prevantable reasons why we got knocked out? As far as I can see there were two main ones:

1. Not spending enough CP early in the season. We went the budget-friendly route while SRA spent almost all of theirs quickly. That gave them a T-11 boost, and meant that players like Memphis Slim were 2/29 MF instead of 2/33 and John Lee Hooker was a 4/25 DF instead of 4/29 or even 4/35
2. In somewhat the same management vein, we didn't take enough risks. While we did push some aggression once down and did spend to have a HB40, we could have gone further. It ends up that this would have been a good match for counterattack. However, we thought our advantage would be great enough that we could get by with a tactic that didn't allow the opposing manager to neutralize us with a favorable tactical combination. But, it turns out, counterattack would have done us wonders in the second leg. Alas.