[NoSkillz]

Tue. July 3, 2018

Preseason Friendly
Queen’s Park vs. Motherwell (Ladbrokes Scottish Premiership)
Hampden Park, Glasgow, Scotland

Motherwell are our senior affiliate and as part of the agreement, we get to host an annual preseason friendly and keep all proceeds. So why not take advantage? Motherwell are starting their 33rd consecutive season in Scotland’s top flight and are pretty much a mid-table constant. They finished 7th on the table last year (out of 12) but had two wonderful Cup runs, finishing runner-up in both the William Hill Scottish Cup and the Betfred Cup, losing to Celtic in both finals.

I go with a squad that consists mostly of youngsters, with striker Josh Peters our only holdover – we have a huge squad right now, with about 20 players in on trial and I want to see as many as possible in game action before making any final roster decisions. Despite our classier opponent, I’ll stick with the same tactics and mentality as our last game.

Queen’s Park: 4-2-3-1 Gegenpress (Positive Mentality)
GK – J. McGovern (trialist)
D – S. Lidington (trialist), I. Ahmed (trialist), C. Foy, R. Gilmour (trialist)
M – M. Breen (trialist), J. McKernon
AM – S. Osadolar, D. McMeekin (trialist) B. Donaldson (trialist)
S – J. Peters

Queen’s Park 1 - 2 Motherwell
Goals – Jamie Stokes (8.1)
Assists –
Player of the Match – Ryan Bowman (Motherwell – 8.5)
Other Dover Notables – Joe McGovern (7.1), Ross Gilmour (7.0)
Attendance – 1539 (1014 away)

-- Another very promising game, as we hold our own against a team three divisions above us despite playing with a “positive” mentality. In fact, we held 53% of possession but shots were 10-19 (3-10 on target) – trialist goalkeeper Joe McGovern was excellent for us and will be offered a contract to become our backup this year.



Transfer OUT

-- We find out after the game that captain Scott Gibson has accepted a contract offer from Stirling Albion, one of our League Two competitors, and leaves with immediate effect. Gibson joined Queen’s Park in 2012 and spent six full years with our club – he was one of our highest rated players but he was a 5’8” DC, so I’m not entirely sure how effective he was in the air. That all said, he was an influential player and I’ll need to look for a new leader for the team.



Transfers IN - Senior Team

GK – Joe McGovern (from Cowdenbeath) – 24 years old, Northern Ireland
DC – Izhaak Ahmed (from Rangers) – 18 years old, Sweden
MC – Dylan Thomas - Free – 21 years old, Wales
MC – Malky Breen - Free – 16 years old, Scotland
AML – James Stokes (from Partick Thistle) – 19 years old, Scotland
AMR – Brian Donaldson - Free – 16 years old, Scotland

-- The biggest capture here is securing Izhaak Ahmed, a 3.5/4.0 DC who was released by Rangers. He’s a definite first-teamer. Dylan Thomas is perfectly suited to our deep lying playmaker role and fellow MC Malky Breen is very versatile – both will be rotational players at worst. 16 year old Brian Donaldson is very interesting – he’s a 3.5/4.5 winger and already our best option at the position but I hesitate to give a starting job to such a youngster…I’d like to see him in action a bit more before deciding whether he stays with the senior team or moves to our U18s. Stokes scored our only goal against Motherwell and is solid depth – we also have his twin brother Ian with us on trial as well. Joe McGovern was signed to back up our starting goalkeeper, the excellent Jordan Hart.



Transfers IN - U18 Team

DC – Tom McLaren - Free - 16 years old, Scotland
DR – Rhys Scullion - Free – 16 years old, Scotland
WBR – Craig McManus - Free – 16 years old, Scotland
ML – Mark Joseph - Free – 16 years old, Scotland
ST – David Fraser - Free - 16 years old, Scotland

-- I’ve always been a big believer in loading up on talent for the U18s – they could possibly provide depth for our senior team in case of injury and of the five players noted above, Rhys Scullion is rated well enough to play a role on the big team at some point this season.



Nimmo Upset with New Manager

-- I get a note from one of my players that 22 year old DC Daniel Nimmo is “not himself” at the moment. So I have a little chat with him and find out that he feels threatened by the addition of young DC Izhaak Ahmed to the squad. I see that Nimmo has a very low determination attribute so it’s obvious he doesn’t want to fight for his spot. Nimmo is a 3.0/3.0 rated player and at 6’ 4”, a prototypical centre back. I tell Nimmo that I’m never going to turn down opportunities to bring in players of that caliber and that doesn’t satisfy him whatsoever. I’ll have to monitor this but I was already upset with this guy, as earlier in the day, he turned down my request to welcome a couple of our other new players into the squad.



Next Up -

-- We host English League One club Oxford United here at Hampden Park in another preseason friendly.