GLF77: Christopher looks at our man's track record to date.
Judgement McCall
It's been a whole four months since our last printing deadline here at GLF Towers, so obviously since then we've had yet another change of manager !?!?
So how has Stuart McCall got on so far - the bare figures are (@ 20th March);
P W D L F A
17 6 3 8 17 22
In a word - meh. Pretty middle of the road stuff really, but when you strip out our CIS semi and three Scottish Cup ties (before our replay), our SPL record was;
P W D L F A
13 4 2 7 8 18
So, from a possible 39 points we've only secured 14 and have failed to hit our opponents net eight times out of thirteen. Of our paltry eight league goals, Sutty has notched the last four - indeed of our 17 in all competitions, the big Englishman has claimed nine of them. He has his detractors, but with 13 goals from 24 starts this campaign and 39 from 87 over his two and a half seasons at Fir Park we could do with shoving a contract extension under his nose asap.
The 'New Manager Effect'
Most teams seem to react positively initially to the introduction of a new broom, but 'Well have characteristically only done so in fits and starts. We have had some fine wins (at Dundee and Aberdeen as well as our hammering of Celtic) but these have been punctuated with some truly dire shows (his debut at Accies and defeats at Perth, Ibrox and Inverness along with the horror show at home to St Mirren). Yest, despite all this it is still in our own hands to make or break our season ......
11(or 12...or 13) Cup Finals?
By the time this goes on sale we will only have played one match - but what a match!! I would suggest our record in home replays when it looks like the draw is opening up for us is far from clever(I'm still scarred by John Gardiner waving away the same competition at this stage back in 1987......), but hopefully our pattern of good game/bad game has saw us emerge from the disappointment of Rugby Park and sees us looking forward to facing a team below us in the league standings in the last four. Today sees us with three games left to secure that final Top Six berth - we might not finish higher than that after the Split, but at least it will add to our coffers and perhaps allow Stuart to shape his own team for next season, which is when it will be only fair to judge him with his own team in place.
Only three issues again this season due to a combination of the snow and fixture vagaries - hope you've enjoyed them, and wee look forward to issue 78 early in season 2011 / 2012 !!!!!!
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