Handsome_Devil
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Posts posted by Handsome_Devil
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1 hour ago, well fan for life said:
I'm not sure you can say you won the ball cleanly when you follow through and stud the opposition player in the bollocks. He's caught the ball with his knee as he's hammered straight through the tackle without looking.
Probably a booking about 10 years ago. Nailed on red nowadays.
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.
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8 hours ago, well fan for life said:
Dunno why we were all making a fuss about that red card because it's an absolute howler of a challenge. Not malicious, just extremely fucking stupid.
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.
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7 hours ago, Busta Nut said:
It's ok, I'll sit and watch people make excuses for Kettlewell, manipulate the stats in his favour.
I just hope he proves me wrong.
Regardless of "budgets" Aberdeen are dogshite and we've basically let them f**k us. Let's hope we continue to beat Ross County and Livingston.No one is manipulating in his favour more than those manipulating against tbf.
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18 minutes ago, welldaft said:
Apparently we have the 11th or 10th smallest budget in the league. Yet our Manager gets us to 7th and the probably 9th or 8th and people want him sacked.
Just shows what a shitshow it is being a Manager. Also remember he was hamstrung with several players on 2 year deals.
He is not perfect - Obika and Shaw as an example. But unless he gets us relegated or looking like he will get us relegated he will stay and should stay in position.
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.
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4 hours ago, Vietnam91 said:
Sad days when the single highlight of your season is a result at Ibrox ..... with zero other redeeming factors other than maybe Lennon establishing himself as a starter.
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.
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12 minutes ago, welldaft said:
Pretty much this. Had Ross C and St J won today it would have a much different feel to it. As it stands hard to see both or either team catching us. Still it would be nice to win a couple of games before the end of the season.
We'll win next week and so long as both County and St J don't do likewise that's that.
2 minutes ago, eliphas said:Not standing up for Kelly really as he has been grim at times through the season but that doesn't really work for me as a stat to judge a goalie.
Kelly played pretty well today tbf, he can certainly feel the loss of the clean sheet this time is on someone else's account.
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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.
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5 minutes ago, Archie McSquackle said:
I'm in two minds as to whether we signed him for £400k or £650k. So either most or second most expensive signing. Bonkers signing fees in those days, particularly from Alex McLeish. £100k for John Hendry?
From memory he was 400k, 200k for Hendry and 150k for Andy Roddie...
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1 minute ago, Doctor Manhattan said:
Yes, that's poor, but anyone who has seen us play this season wouldn't actually be surprised.
I really thought you were going to say anyone who has read something we've published this season wouldn't be surprised.
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28 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:
Honestly I just want competence at the stuff you're meant to do, over 'inspirational'. It's why I loved Gillespie, because his 'spectacular' moments were relatively limited compared to Kelly, probably?
But in a very Roy Keane way 'doing his job' he was exceptional at.
I'd definitely settle for competence but would always aspire to have the next Sieb Dykstra bawling out John Philliben.
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7 hours ago, welldaft said:
I genuinely wonder what options would be open to him were he to leave. I have been a critic for sure. I recognise he does have some very good games even this season. But I keep harping back to him having the lowest save % in the entire league iirc.
It might end up being a be careful what you wish for moment, but I do think it is best for all if he moves on. I wonder if we have made him a contract offer ? It was widely reported he was our top earner and even rumoured to be on circa £4k per week. If it is true that money could be better invested in a couple of players.
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.
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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.
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6 minutes ago, capt_oats said:
Can I just say, last year's season ticket video got a fair amount of pushback (probably not helped by the hike in price) but I really like this season's.
Well played everyone.
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.
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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.
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38 minutes ago, MurrayWell said:
My thoughts too, as much as Robinson was a decent manager for us, the Turnbull/ Hastie (I know) breakthroughs were by (happy) accident and not design imo. Worked out well, particularly in the case of Turnbull, but I don't think Robbo intended to chuck either in for extended periods that season.
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!).
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8 hours ago, joewarkfanclub said:
Enough to stop things we think are clearly not in the interests of the club.
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.
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3 hours ago, capt_oats said:
AFAIK the rumours came from here and it wasn't even a rumour. The bold @Handsome_Devil mentioned they'd heard we'd signed a player from the Rovers on a PCA last week and there was a subsequent bout of speculation around which players of theirs are OOC.
Just shows you shouldn't believe what you read on the internet.
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2 minutes ago, joewarkfanclub said:
I hadnt actually thought about this before. But you are 100% right.
We own the club right now, but what actual control can we exert?
That needs to be rectified
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.
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40 minutes ago, MurrayWell said:
Staggered it's even got to the consideration stage if that's true.
Without sounding like a broken record, this whole saga hasn't been handled particularly well, the whole "it's not about selling the club" to "hmmm, would you maybe sell the club?" moving of the goalposts from the departing heeds hasn't helped. I worry they've completely undervalued the club here.
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.
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46 minutes ago, StAndrew7 said:
What is the "rumoured" bid? I've legit forgotten what is/was being banded about.
£1.5m over five years for a stake building to around 50%.
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1 minute ago, Swello said:
Was thinking about this recently - how would the Exec Board go about driving anything through even if they were that daft? I presume they can't issue new shares without the say so of the majority owner.
I could easily imagine a situation where they would want to disregard the wishes of the 'Well Society - but I'm not sure how they could practically do that.
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
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9 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:
Seems like a heavily edited way of saying "Raise massive concerns". I'm not surprised.I know not much can be said about valuations and amounts of shares involved but if what ye hear is anywhere near, get it in the sea
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...
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1 hour ago, StAndrew7 said:
I'm intrigued to see how long the exclusivity period will last, and if it ultimately leads to something; although I'd probably be more surprised if it doesn't lead to something. An example of 6 weeks was given at the AGM but the club statement doesn't provide a time frame, understandably, I guess. That's more to see what the timescales for any investment are and if there could be any impact on what sort of planning we can be doing for next season in terms of transfers, contract offers and the like.
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.
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1 hour ago, StAndrew7 said:
It staggers me that so many people can't grasp how profit and loss accounting works, particularly when they're using it to try and justify a position. Screaming about a huge income from DT but then choosing to ignore the rest of it "because reasons" and that it justifies their position that fan ownership doesn't is bonkers to me. We're a financially healthy, well run club™ who are now an attractive investment because of the model we have operated under and are continuing to. That includes player sales and the current fan ownership model.
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The club is deservedly praised in terms of its accounts, strategic investments etc. but I think we'd all acknowledge that there are revenue streams and other areas where it can absolutely do better in attracting more income (see Grant Russell's Twitter rant etc.). Now, that's not a slight on the current staff or their abilities to do their jobs, it's more of an indication of just how thinly stretched the back office team appear to be. Hopefully Brian Caldwell can support them and the Well Society in exploiting some of those, with or without the help of EB/new investors.
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.
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The Big Relegation Thread
in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
Posted
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!