capt_oats

Well...

Tbh, the vote went the way I expected, if not the way I actually voted, based on the way the question was presented. Essentially why would you rule something out when you don't know what the options are? That said, in line with a point that @Swello made earlier, I'd imagine that the club/WS would have remained in conversation with all of the interested parties regardless of which way the vote went so I don't think there's really much change on that front. It's annoying that it leaves us still suspended in this kind of limbo since as @Handsome_Devil has been saying I think we'd be far better served sorting our own house out first in terms of CEO and all that stuff.

Mentioned this before re: Mailchimp, open rates and clicks: https://mailchimp.com/resources/email-marketing-benchmarks/

With the sheer number of players out of contract this summer I can 100% see a situation where we offer new deals to all our expiring centre backs. Whether they actually take us up on those offers is a different question but we've been talking on here about how we've missed having that consistent core in the group since the likes of Lasley, Hammell, Hartley, Tait etc left and keeping some of the 'experienced' heads around would go some way to helping create a culture at the club. From that POV 'Normal' Paul McGinn feels like an entirely sensible guy to have around the place. I don't know if it was just a line to the media or whether he actually meant it but SOD was on record as saying that he's happy to be here as long as the manager wants him. I've said it before but the criticism that gets launched his way reminds me a lot of McManus in that, for whatever reason (take your pick), SOD seems to be judged differently. It's weird but what can you do. As far as Bevis goes, I think it was @thisGRAEME who made the point that he's someone who needs a run of games to play himself into form. He's not someone who you can just drop in and expect to not make mistakes. The obvious issue for us is that he's probably someone whose levels mean we'd ideally see him in a squad role. Again though he's played 119 games for us so far in his Motherwell career and is one of our most used players I don't see us just kicking him to the curb. Fwiw, here's the squad by minutes played this season (most to least):

Not to be contrary as it's well documented there was a fall out and he was bumped as captain along with the fact that the whole signing Paul McGinn thing was essentially because O'Donnell was heading out the door as a result but SODs actually played the most minutes of any outfield player in Alexander's full season in charge. As @Vietnam91 says it seems to have been more about a personality thing. What I would say is that I think of the 4 managers SOD has had while he's been at the club (Robinson, Alexander, Hammell and Kettlewell) Ketts is the only one who actually seems to have had a clue what to do with him.

It's presumably a procedural thing. If you look at the company filing history you'll see similar in previous years. 4th April 2023 and 23rd December 2021.

It's probably an unanswerable question and I'm not sure that it really needs asked but it's been rattling around my brain so I'll ask it anyway: Does Harry Paton score our equaliser last night, (like does he even make that run to get in that position?) and do we get that second half performance in general if he's on the park instead of Nicholson? That's not meant as a dig at Paton or anything (honest) and it's also shite that he's out injured but I've mentioned before that Nicholson feels like a more obvious fit for that role and it kind of felt that way watching how things panned out.

Aye, I think both things can be and maybe are true. For me the toxicity around the Hammell era seemed to be far more directed at the players rather than Hammell himself which is understandable given who he is and all that but it also largely ignored that he might simply have been someone who was miles out his depth in the role. Whereas with Kettlewell, as @Swello says, there's probably been far more patience shown but I’d say it feels like the discontent and scepticism has been low key but consistent from certain sections without ever necessarily escalating to a point it did on either Hammell and certainly Alexander's watch.

Hullo.

Aye. I agree that this idea that we're somehow going to stumble upon our very own James Anderson who's just going to underwrite us because he's minted is fanciful but equally, I think it should be possible for us to seek investment on our own terms - it's literally what businesses do. As an example I noticed that's The Class of 92 announced they're "exploring" investment opportunities for Salford. - https://theathletic.com/5299817/2024/02/26/salford-city-class-of-92-sale-investment/ Granted, the likes of Neville, Beckham et al have a level of wealth and clout that we simply don't but in terms of the actual principle it's exactly the position we're in. However compare this framing from Nicky Butt with what we heard from McMahon in his post-launch interview: "Taylor Swift gies some dosh" it is not. This isn't a criticism of the WS folks as it kind of sounds as if McMahon has gone a bit rogue with this and it's put them on the back foot but in hindsight it would maybe have wise for those behind the "project" to have considered this and had some sort of consultation prior to launch. I mean, maybe they did IDK but it doesn't feel like it. Similarly, without being wise after the fact, the whole fan-ownership model was probably going to reach a point where there would be a discussion about what would be direction of travel of being a fan-owned club as the football landscape changes/evolves. Like I say, it'd maybe have been good to have considered red-lines and the like before McMahon decided he was a creative and crack on in the way he did (it's worth remembering that even Weir distanced himself from the video). Prior to last week the last AGM I'd been to in person was pre-pandemic and the notion of seeking external investment was floated then. IIRC it was a similar sort of vague idea of looking to partner up with individuals to provide support and possibly using the option of a slice of transfer revenues to pay back much in the same way we ended up squaring things with Hutchison and Boyle. Either way I guess my point is the notion that we might look at external investment thing has been around for a while, the board just didn't make any sort of movement with it and I'm fairly sure McMahon had effectively apologised and said words to the effect of "Sorry, but yeah, we've not done anything about that" at subsequent AGMs. Why that was, who knows? Maybe the fact we were cash rich and Scooge McDuck-ing our way through things after the Scott and Turnbull sales meant they considered ourselves to be suitably "de-risked" and just put that side of things on the back burner only to be blindsided by the investment we've seen at peer group clubs and I guess the Pandemic will probably have had an impact in terms of what we were prioritising. That said, as @thisGRAEME mentioned yesterday, while probably not ideal circumstances (exiting Chairman, interim-CEO etc) it feels like this has given a natural impetus to actually have these conversations. Yeah, I think it really depends on how you approach the question which I'd say is probably open to interpretation. You can either read it (as I did) as a process to establish red-lines as to what our position is in order to look at external investment on our own terms or you can view it the other way which is you'd be happy to consider any and all investment deals that might be tabled.

The fee for Sol is in the 22/23 accounts that were recently published.

Cheers. I remembered Weir talking about a break even cash balance or something along those lines but I'd absolutely zoned out by that point tbh.

Mentioned this earlier but this is a really good discussion between Derek and @CraigFowler and tbqh it's the sort of thing that a lot of folk in the wider support could do with listening to before making up their mind one way or another on their vote. One point though, it's possible that Dee misspoke around 11min 50 in saying that the accounts will be out very soon and talking about a profit this year which very much isn't the case as has been covered in some of the news articles on FPC and discussed on SO. However, it may have been the case that he meant a profit for this season ie: 23/24? @StAndrew7 was there any sort of projection for next year mentioned at the AGM?

Exactly this. Like, would Turnbull still have stuck with going to Celtic? Maybe. Does his style suit a more continental league? Sure. But as @Desp says a lot of the discourse around this is the same as saying "Why didn't we sell Randolph for £1m?". Because it was never an option that was on the table and if anyone thinks that the club weren't going to be packing his bags for him when the £3.5m deal landed and we'd have happily have held off for him to wait for offers from Serie A then I don't know what to tell you. A lot of the comparisons with the likes of Hickey, Doig and Ferguson feel like folk being wise after the fact in terms of having opinions of what he should/shouldn't have done. At the point when he initially agreed to sign for Celtic (2019) Hickey was still at Hearts, Doig was still at Hibs and Ferguson was still at Aberdeen. In fact Bologna took their punt on Hickey at the same time as Turnbull finalised his move to Celtic after his (knee) - 2020. Doig and Ferguson didn't move to Italy until 2022. 2 years after Turnbull signed for Celtic. I've mentioned this before but Turnbull was 21 when he finally moved (19 when the original deal was agreed). Lewis Ferguson was 23 when he signed for Bologna. In terms of development Turnbull's time at Celtic was the equivalent of Ferguson's stint at Aberdeen.

Did he have offers from Germany or Italy? I mean, I'd like to go out with Gigi Hadid...

That’s Derek done a Terrace Patreon with @CraigFowler for those who subscribe.

Following on from that post last night where I mentioned that curiously the only outfield area of the park that we haven't signed anyone this season is centre back it occurred to me that of the six options we're using for the back three, none of them were actually originally signed by Kettlewell. McGinn (Alexander) O'Donnell (Robinson) Mugabi (Robinson) Butcher (Hammell) Blaney (Hammell) Casey (Hammell) It's not a particularly important point (it’s probably purely coincidental) as we were oversubscribed there from the start of the season but it's an odd quirk given that save Spittal (Alexander) and Miller (Academy) our nominal 'successes' this season (Spencer, Biereth, Gent, Bair, Zdravkovski etc) have been Ketts signings whereas the area we're massively underperforming have been the ones other guys brought to the club.

By the by, that's a good email from The WS about the new operating structure and the focus group sessions that went out just there.

Apologies to @thisGRAEME for brazenly lifting his Tweet here but when taken alongside @gregthewellfan's post re: Gent this is interesting in so much as our recruitment has taken a kicking from certain sections... Ironically, the only outfield area of the park we haven't added new players to is centre half.

@gregthewellfan Tweet on Georgie Gent's numbers. Fwiw, Transfermarkt has his contract at Blackburn expiring in 2025. https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/georgie-gent/profil/spieler/732206

I had a quick look at our record at Livi earlier in answer to a point @Archie McSquackle made in the "Stadiums You've Never Seen Your Team Win" thread and over the last 10 games we've won 3 drawn 4 and Livi have won 3. Our last win there was 2021 when we came back from 1-0 down with Tony Watt and Grimmy scoring. It kind of feels like Almondvale is one of those grounds (like McDiarmid) where the fact that we never seem to actually play well there kind of colours people's opinion of things regardless of what the result actually is. Although, there's no doubt that 1-0 loss under Robinson with Bevis playing centre forward was enough to legitimately traumatise anyone. That said, I have the absolute fear here as out collection of shitebags couldn't keep weans out a close and seem to go to absolute bits when there are any sort of stakes involved.

Most of our recent games there have been draws but the last win was August 2021. Grimmy's only goal for us. Of our last 10 games at Livi we've won 3 (one of those was in the Covid season), drawn 4 and lost 3.

There they are...

In an ideal world, sure. If you'd asked me the same question a year ago as Burrows was packing his bags I'd probably have been making a similar argument in terms of what I'd hope the candidate would look like however I'm probably in a similar place to @Handsome_Devil in so much as I think the past 12 months has definitely changed my view on that. I suppose the way I'm looking at it now is, someone like Scot Gardiner or Gerry Britton have experience of running football clubs (badly) whereas Burrows when he was given the GM role hadn't. He'd essentially been shadowing Dempster but was engaged, understood the club along with its fanbase and had a "can do" attitude - did he get everything right? No but I don't think anyone would argue that his time in the role wasn't successful. I'm being slightly disingenuous there by putting up two legitimate idiots vs someone who did a good job for us but it's enough to illustrate a point in so much as I'm probably at a point now where I'm less concerned with previous experience of running a football club as a CEO being as essential vs basic competence and demonstrable experience of being in the room in the same way Burrows was with Dempster and Russell was with Flow. I don't think I'm being wide of the mark in saying that public perception of the club was the best its been in years during the period Burrows and Russell were heading things up. We've gone from that to literally having to publicly apologise to our manager for having failed to communicate a contract extension had been triggered 8 months ago and watch our chairman bumble his way into unintentionally creating an existential crisis for the club ownership ostensibly because he doesn't seem to understand that messaging in communications is actually important. The fact that he was sitting in front of the cameras having to field questions and explain that the club isn't in financial difficulty the day after his video launched is evidence of that. To that point, for the moment we're still a fan owned club (and hopefully continue to be) if we're highlighting desirable qualities then alongside actual competence in the role and the "can do" attitude I mentioned I think it's probably important that we get someone in who not only understands the club but also values the idea of fan ownership and the fanbase themselves. While I absolutely get that Russell is someone who isn't for everyonem as I said in a post last night I think it's probably fair comment to say that he's engaged and *gets* fan ownership along with modern fan culture in a way that the incumbent board just don't but it feels like someone *like* that who is perhaps more in sync with the refreshed WS board would be valuable. Again, I'm not saying these weren't traits we were looking for in a candidate anyway but with the way things have gone recently they've probably become more important considerations than they might have been a year ago (IMO).

I know there's been a lot written over the past few days but it's worth pointing out that it was mentioned at the AGM that neither of these bids will be 'transformational' "straight away" (per @StAndrew7's summary posted both here and on SO). Similarly, the vote isn't a vote against outside/external investment it's a vote asking if people would be willing to see the WS lose it's majority shareholding. I think most people would be open to external investment.