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Everything posted by capt_oats
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Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
LOL -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
I'm very much of a "game's gone soft" view of the red card tbh. Am I raging about it? Nah - it is what it is. Although is it annoying that *that* is classed a red card? Very much yes for me. He's not deliberately tried to do him or anything. I'm not even sure there's "excessive force" It's not like he's Schumacher'd him or anything. Just give the free kick, book him if you must and play on FFS. Things really were better in the 90s. -
I'm kind of with @Busta Nut in so much as I don't necessarily see another win but I think there's a decent chance we draw a couple.
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Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
From memory Kelly, Slattery, Ojala, Johansen and Efford were all under contract when we signed them and as I say we'd have had to pay Bohs a development fee for Tierney (and maybe even Mahon). -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
Aye. Until 5 posts ago I don't think anyone's ever claimed Kelly is our most expensive signing. Plenty of folk have claimed he's our highest paid player at the moment (and Aston Oxborough's our second highest ) Either way, the season Kelly signed permanently the accounts showed we spent £542k on players and we paid fees for a few along with a development fee for Tierney. So you'd assume that whatever we paid for him was less than £542k and in all probability less than we paid for Spencer. Anyway, I'm away to watch AVFTT now. -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
I'm not sure there should be any great surprise in that. For better or worse, Kelly is currently our captain and if nothing else has been entirely present over the course of his contracts with the club (loan and permanent). I don't think there was ever a chance that we wouldn't speak to him/offer him a new deal and just bin him off. As it stands he has 149 appearances for us, which counts for something when you consider the context of him having arrived at the club in the Carson/Archer/Chapman season and the litany of injuries for Carson (which wasn't helped by Robinson rushing him back). -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
On the Kelly point I noticed this from McGarry in his weekly mailer: I know that it's a general opinion piece but it's interesting to read that it's likely Kelly's away. I mean, I think it's the right choice for him if he is as tbqh a fresh start somewhere would do him good but still... -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
Presumably it would need to involve Callum Butcher being very much launched first. -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
Both are Pitch Perfect alumnae (not Benji Siegrist of course). -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
Aye. This feels very on the nose. I see it's been *liked* and re-posted by Barmack as well. He's liked Dee's post about the ST video too. Although he's also 'liked' a Tweet by one of the many Motherwell Twitter accounts I have on mute and I've just cringed myself to death when I saw the content. -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
I've just realised that the script at the start is erm...echoing Friday Night Lights. And I for one am absolutely here for it. Clear eyes, full hearts... Texas forever. -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
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. -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
The interesting thing with McAlear was that it was implied that he'd told us he wouldn't be signing a new deal - so we went ahead and accepted whatever it was Norwich were offering. He was 17 when we accepted the deal. Related to Rice, I noticed this yesterday. In other news, Season Tickets. -
All things Dundee FC
capt_oats replied to Mr Gandosaur's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
Sligo finished 8th (in a 10 team league) last season so unless you're just wanting to visit I'd hold off. -
All things Dundee FC
capt_oats replied to Mr Gandosaur's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
Aye, from what I can tell when it comes to loaning out their good players (as opposed to the dross that fills the Academy system) the clubs take a holistic approach as to where they place them. Which is kind of my point. Qualifying for Europe isn't really going to level you up, it's not going to unlock 'access' to a *better* quality of player which a lot of fans assume to be the case because *Europe*. And again, that's not a dig - it's just that whether or not a club is playing a couple of European qualifiers in July/August isn't really going to factor into the thinking of that sort of club if they think that you're a good place to send their players to develop. Broadly speaking the "access" you'll have to players will be the same if you finish 6th and don't qualify for Europe as it would be if you finish 5th and get dropped into the qualifiers. If Liverpool like what you've done with Beck then they're going to be open to sending you similar players regardless of whether you're playing Sligo Rovers or whoever in mid-July or not. On the point about the success of your loans, Kettlewell has been exactly the same with us pointing to James Furlong, Brodie Spencer, Georgie Gent, Jack Vale and the most obvious of the lot Mika Biereth. It stands to reason if you have a track record of developing players (both your own and loans) rather than just parking them on the bench or freezing them out then your reputation will probably open doors for you. -
All things Dundee FC
capt_oats replied to Mr Gandosaur's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
I think this is probably one of the biggest misconceptions fans have about "qualifying for Europe" at this level. Which isn't a knock if you do end up qualifying but if you look at the various peer group clubs who have qualified for Europe in the time since Dundee last competed in European competition (us, St Johnstone, Killie, Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen, United etc) how many of them can you honestly say had access to any "high quality" loans as a direct result of qualifying for Europe that they wouldn't have had a decent chance of getting anyway. You've got your tie in with Burnley and you got Beck through the door when you were a newly promoted side. The prospect of playing a few qualifying rounds in the Conference league isn't really going to make much difference in a club like say, Liverpool, deciding on whether Dundee is a good destination for their player to develop. -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
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Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
I mean, I don't know one way or another and it's pretty pointless re-litigating Hammell-ball, everyone is scarred enough by the experience the first time round, but I have a degree of sympathy to the extent that we're kind having to reappraise what a development 'pathway' actually looks like now. For years we were probably looking at integrating Academy players into the first team when they hit 18-ish whereas given how the landscape has changed with PL academies hoovering up talent we're having to find a way to get 16-17 year olds in and around the first team in a meaningful way. To all intents and purposes it was while he was in that bracket that we were bouncing Johnston around on loan (and of course there was Covid hitting). I mentioned it at the time but rather than find a way to involve Johnston in the first team alongside SOD and McGinn (as Kettlewell did successfully) he opted to just loan him out (again). Which, don't get me wrong, is his prerogative - but it also felt quite instructive. He was older by a margin but it was notable that Dean Cornelius' minutes dropped under Hammell compared to both Alexander and Kettlewell (he averaged 76.6 mins per game under Grezza, 64.1 mins pg under Ketts but dropped to only 41.8 mins pg under Hammell) It's entirely hypothetical but if Hammell was thinking that Johnston still needed regular football to develop and was risk averse to it being with us then that's kind of a luxury that unfortunately we don't seem to have now. I guess a parallel of sorts is Turnbull, who although he didn't go out on loan, Robinson purposely held back making him a first team regular because he felt he needed to learn the 'free stuff', same with Campbell who made his debut at 18 under McGhee. I can't remember who mentioned this whether it was McGhee, Robinson or Craigan but we apparently made a conscious decision to hold Campbell back after his first start where he ran the show against Accies rather than put pressure on him in a relegation scrap. Given how Robinson handled Turnbull, hypothetically, would we expect that we'd have seen Lennon Miller playing as much as he has if he were still the manager? I don't know but I kind of suspect not. Either way with Johnston you could say we fumbled things by not having a development pathway in place for him or you could also say that our being risk-averse cost us. In fact, both are probably true. -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
I think I've always had the suspicion that he didn't actually rate Johnston all that highly and just (wrongly) assumed that first team football with us would be the best offer he'd have on the table. -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
There's an element of "well, of course they'd say that" but at the last AGM (clearly not the one where Hammell told everyone he was confident Johnston would sign a new contract despite having bounced him out to Cove Rangers on loan because we ended up with SOD and McGinn on the books by mistake) they pretty much said that they made offers to keep him but it was made clear to them that Johnston wanted to try his luck abroad. Basically, the implication was "well, what can you do - if he doesn't want to sign the contract". I mean, everything up to the point where we actually started playing him with 6 months left on his deal and realising he was actually really good? Massive fumble. -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
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. Since then it seems to have been taken as being fact with mentions on Twitter and Steelmen. -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
This is something I was thinking about yesterday in so much as c***s are getting excited about what they *think* they're getting rather than the reality (which isn't a dig at Barmack - I don't know the guy and I don't know what the offer is but everything points to it being pretty low stakes, low risk). It's almost a worst of both worlds situation where the folk giving themselves a stroke about 50+1 will be raging because the WS shareholding will have been diluted and the Facebook/Twitter crowd will lose their mind when they realise that Barmack isn't a 'mogul', didn't own Netflix - he's just a relatively wealthy guy who quite possibly doesn't even want to own a Scottish Fitba' club and a low stakes, low risk offer like this won't actually move the dial in the way they want so we'll still be having to sell Theo Bair and Lennon Miller because it's literally our business model and we still wouldn't have chucked £6k p/w at KVV back in January because it would have been mental. IMO, if what's rumoured is actually the case, the offer on the table is...pretty much what should have been expected when you think of the limitations: We're not looking to sell the club We don't want to cede any meaningful control But we want "investment" "Taylor Swift, gies some dosh" Without wanting to kick the can of that video around again but to repeat one of my main issues with the messaging put out by McMahon what exactly would any "investor" be getting out of this? -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
Tbh, I think that the whole thing has been handled woefully and there's more than an eyebrow to be raised about how McMahon's gone about this (shock!). On the point of the offer though assuming it is the £1.5m over 5 years then to Devils Advocate; how much does the WS bring in annually? The last WS AGM update from 7th August 2023 had the following: At the moment the amount owed by the club to the WS sits at £868k for an interest free loan used for general working capital and repayable on demand. So based on that the WS have put £868k into the club with a cash reserve of £560k. So that's a total of £1,428,000 since what? 2016 or 17? (happy to be corrected on these points). If it's roughly accurate though it's pretty, pretty close to what has been rumoured to have been tabled by Barmack. Is £1.5m for majority ownership a good offer to "sell" given the assets at the Football Club and the fact that this whole shitshow wasn't even put into motion by the WS? Absolutely not. Should it be accepted? Probably not but equally if someone turns up at the table and says "I'll put in double annually what the majority owner is bringing in" then I'm not surprised there may be a question raised over what the split of shares looks like. Again, I'm not advocating for the offer and I think the whole thing has been incredibly unhelpful given the state of flux we were in at the time. I mean, my preference would be to put a pin in the whole thing, get McMahon tae f**k and allow Caldwell and the new Society board to find their feet and revisit the "investment" idea further down the line on the WS terms rather than whatever this is where we've been railroaded into a discussion by the chairman having gone rogue. -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
I got the impression that the OP was meaning more in the spirit of the 'player trading' model that Les introduced where we invest a modest amount in signing the player and sell for profit. With the best will in the world I'd guess any income we got from the likes of Efford etc would be minimal while shifting Sol on probably meant the deal washed its face with maybe a bit extra (the accounts have it as having been the only 'significant fee' last season and our gains on player registration were posted as £194,246 vs £974,168 the previous year). Having said that, does it actually matter as long as we're getting some sort of value out of the player? Like, Carson is probably one of the best £10k fees we'll ever spend does it really matter that we didn't flip him for cash given we sold Kipré for £750k from the same intake of players? I guess it's similar with Slattery there's absolutely zero doubt that he was brought in on the pitch we'd give him a platform and look to cash in which doesn't look like it'll happen but then again between the money we've got in for Kev along with the more modest amount for Sol that puts us in profit for the £500k+ we 'invested' in the Alexander purchases. I noticed a few posts over on SO and a handful of people are still bumping against the 'player sales model' (as @JayMFC put it in a reply) - in essence you're getting people struggling to get over the fact that we have been profitable under fan ownership and countering with "Yes, but only because we sold David Turnbull" despite player sales and player trading literally being part of our business plan. Quoting Jay's post from that thread and also Steelboy's which I found myself nodding along with: -
Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons
capt_oats replied to Casagolda's topic in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
This absolutely makes sense. If you look at the numbers Spittal has done and latterly the impact Vale has made then that's the exact area that we're getting players into.