Handsome_Devil

An Aberdeen and Hibs double next week and we're safe in practice (not officially but with goal difference we'd be fine). I think we'll win next week but even if not we're not going to lose the next four... surely!

But he did win the ball cleanly, he clearly played it first right out the middle of his boot. He wasn't wild, he wasn't out of control, he wasn't high. The follow through was a perfectly natural continuation of him swinging his leg, it's ridiculous to ask players to stop their foot upon contact with the ball incase someone arrives late and runs into them.

You can definitely say in today's game making any kind of 'blind' challenge like that is stupid because of how it can be interpreted. On the other hand, he's entitled to say he judged it perfectly, won the ball cleanly (and not just with a toe or his studs, he caught it perfectly) and it's not his fault the Aberdeen lad was late. There wasn't excessive force, there obviously wasn't intent, for me it's a never red card.

No one is manipulating in his favour more than those manipulating against tbf.

It's also worth pointing out that beyond his plus points he's mainly been clearing up the shit from before. If he has a good summer we can look forward to better times. If he screws it we'll take action in autumn and start another salvation job. I've got no idea what I'll happen but paying him off to roll the dice on another new appointment right now would be mental.

Bit harsh...3-2 at Dens, however many injury-time goals, Bair, Spittal, a win at Tynecastle...it's not a vintage season by any means but nor is just one 90 minutes. And while these seasons are hardly great, if our bad seasons are comfortably ninth (assuming we see it out ofc) then big picture we're doing very well.

We'll win next week and so long as both County and St J don't do likewise that's that. Kelly played pretty well today tbf, he can certainly feel the loss of the clean sheet this time is on someone else's account.

We probably had marginally the better of the half chances with 11, never in it with 10. But I'd probably have taken those three results if offered before KO.

From memory he was 400k, 200k for Hendry and 150k for Andy Roddie...

I really thought you were going to say anyone who has read something we've published this season wouldn't be surprised.

I'd definitely settle for competence but would always aspire to have the next Sieb Dykstra bawling out John Philliben.

Rumour ofc but I understand we've offered him a reduced deal. Which on one hand is fair but I'd prefer we try elsewhere. I forget who first coined the phrase but Kelly basically performs with the team. In good spells he's good, in poor spells he's poor. But while you can live with that to an extent with an outfielder, you want a goalie who saves and inspires you precisely when things are bad. I always love paraphrasing Clough that the two most valuable players in the team are the guy who scores the goals and the guy who keeps them out. I'd happily have our GK being our highest earner next season but it shouldn't be Kelly.

Just scrolled through the screeds of text we published with the season tickets, few thoughts. Interesting we emphasised fan owned club again/still. Also interesting to freeze prices having previously said we're in danger of losing touch with peers. And either Kettlewell wrote his bit himself or the comms guy really hit the right tone of how he sounds.

Aye, not bad at all although I do wish for a tiny bit of variation they'd change the most Scottish man in the world voiceover (does he have an exclusive contract with us? and tone down the 'we got gubbed with the steelworks 20 years ago...' intro.

As much as you'd never voluntarily lose any individual young player who might be the next big thing, the broad practice that we'll now inevitably lose some before they play in the XI isn't nearly as bad as made out. Essentially we've pocketed huge amounts of cash for a bunch of guys who didn't make it... Would they have made it if they'd stayed? Maybe, who knows. But think of it as balancing risk - yes, if we can keep that brilliant 16-year-old till he's 20, we might make millions. But junior football is full of one-time brilliant 16-year-olds who turned out to be worth hee haw. Banking a bit of cash early is fine. The Rangers stat re Rice is mental...I can understand the temptation to go to England at that age or even the OF a bit older...but jumping ship to them at that age, to them, nah. No doubt the club will be milking it royally in public and behind the scenes.

You might be right but we've seen various youngsters thrown into the team, become regulars, burn out and drift away. Robinson brought DT in gradually, he became great and we sold him for a fortune... picking over it as luck is a very harsh call imho rather than just saying well done. Hastie was such a one season wonder I think making any judgement is difficult. We'll never know on Miller under a different manager but I suspect he'd have had roughly the same treatment he's had under SK - not only is he a tremendous talent but he appeared at 16 with a physicality and mentality (we're all assuming ingrained from his dad) I've never seen with any other Motherwell youth. He was simply ready in every aspect much earlier (this is also why I'd be happy to sell him this summer rather than next, unless he fancies extending to 2027, but that's a different argument!).

Sure but how do you define that? Is someone there day to day overseeing each decision? Are these paid roles - which opens a can of worms - or unpaid - which brings another set of issues? At some point you need to leave the experts to get on with it and trust the folk hired to do their jobs. "Fan owned, not fan run" has been mocked a bit recently because it's all gone to hell but the theory behind it is probably still sound.

Just shows you shouldn't believe what you read on the internet.

What kind of control do you want to exert? Don't get me wrong, I'm not against a society majority on the board but I think the model where the executive are basically the heads of department, accountable to the Society, is a much more solid basis to run things. The fans through the Society should set the very strategic, long-term vision but relying on them to actually implement it on an executive level... different gravy.

I should stress I'm not the source of the rumour, just reposting what it was. And yes, that valuation very curious. McMahon and Weir know more about business than me (and I'd respectfully venture most on here) and presumably have workings to show how that figure was a basis for negotiation. But having looked at our financials and the recent Hibs investment, I'm buggered if I can come close to reverse engineering the logic.

£1.5m over five years for a stake building to around 50%.

They couldn't, no, but what they could do is recommend the bid be accepted knowing the Society board will have no choice* but to put it to a vote and lobby members to accept it regardless of what the Society board thinks. That's clearly a horrible scenario but at the same time it's far from implausible. For a club in such a strong financial position, we have got ourselves into some muddle over this. And yes, you can blame the Society for not doing more previously but, like it or not, right or wrong, there were reasons and logic for it. What the Executive board - in practice a couple of individuals - seem** to be doing now is much more worthy of a raised eyebrow imho. * In reality - I'm not checking the by-laws to see whether the Society board have the power to dismiss bids they deem derisory without a vote. ** from the outside etc, if you believe the rumoured bid yada yada

I thought the same when I read it and then promptly forgot about it. Agree totally about reading between the lines on it and it's hardly a surprise given the previous tone of statements. Does EB take it on board and come back with a revised offer or does he - presumably with the encouragement of McMahon - try to drive it through anyway? As mentioned the other day, intrigues abound...

Yeah, intrigued is very much the right word. From the very start there have been all kinds of contradictions - not just quirks, massive irreconcilable differences - running through this. A lot of it comes from whether you believe the rumoured broad terms of the bid of course but as I've no desire to reopen the debate on the merits of that, let's just say if someone can tick all the boxes to keep everyone happy here, they can probably turn their hand to the Middle East next.

Include me on the bus that finds it bizarre so many folk are effectively saying 'our business model works; we need drastic change!". As for the income, there's no doubt we can be a bit bolder here and depending on the where/what/how you can debate how necessary external investment/expertise is to facilitate it. Like the old phrase, it takes money to make money, literally anything we invest in like improving hospitality, media, catering, community initiatives, is cash which could have been spent on a new striker. And while the outlay goes straight on the heavy side of the p&l, it takes a while for the return to show up - if it does at all. I think that's why I liked the Burrows/Russell era, despite some large annoyances - it was a spell where we really seemed committed to the medium/long-term future and not just scrambling from window to window determined to stay 10th.