capt_oats

Tbh, I think there are probably two different conversations. Broadly speaking our January window was fine we addressed some areas that needed addressing, we added a bit of depth and we didn't resort to the sort of trolley dash we've seen in other windows. Our first team squad as it stands sits at 24 as opposed to the sort of numbers we've seen in previous seasons(which are arguably coming back to bite us now). As others have said we're probably one decent senior striker away from having had a decent enough window. That's fine. But here's the rub...that striker was pretty much the one thing we had to get right given the impact Biereth has had on our season to date. We had Kettlewell sat in front of the press last week talking about how a striker was a priority going into this window, Frail did the media call yesterday explaining about how we needed to add in that area (or words to that effect). We obviously didn't have much choice in Biereth's recall however we sold Wilkinson and returned Shaw to sender....we effectively cleared the decks to facilitate getting someone in and...didn't. Regardless of what happens, who knows maybe we find this year's Scott McDonald equivalent in free agency or Jack Vale turns out to be the second coming of Alan Shearer, you can't dress the fact that we went into the final day of the window having not adequately addressed the striker situation (which was apparently a priority) as anything other than a failure. That's not me looking for a pound of flesh or whatever but there has to be some accountability as far as what happened and why we didn't manage to get someone in. The optics of this window haven't been great between having the rug pulled from under us with Biereth to whatever yesterday was to being gazumped by Hibs for a striker in the final hours we've looked like the football club equivalent of Charlie Brown.

Hi. Here you go... I mean, I genuinely don't get what folk are bumping against here. Elliot hadn't kicked a baw since last season, it seems pretty clear to me that he's here on what is effectively an extended trial he might be good in which case...great. As @Casagolda said a few pages back bringing these players in will presumably give us a bit of energy and pace in wide areas. Which is exactly what folk were complaining about when SOD was playing there. We need an actual striker absolutely, we tried to get one today and it didn't happen. I don't think Kettlewell is unaware of this but I guess we're now at the point where we're looking at Free Agency unless something weird happens.

Aye. It'll be someone who's mutualed with their club before close of business or something like that. As @crazylegsjoe_mfc said earlier we announced Obika after the window closed last year and IIRC Butcher was a couple of days later.

There's Jili

Because one's a LWB to replace Montgomery and the other is a RWB because we prefer SOD and McGinn in the back 3.

He's Sydney Devine's grandson. According to his Wiki.

LWB - the excellently named Jili Buyabu from Sheffield United and presumably a striker.

My mind is melting that there are folk on Motherwell Twitter who seem raging that we apparently lost out on Curtis Main to Dundee yet would probably have been equally furious if we had signed Curtis Main.

You were on about the total limit of 5 from all Scottish clubs around the loans chat from earlier today. This only relates to domestic loans though rather than cross-border. Speaking of which...we've signed King Krule.

I mean, we know the rumoured wages Groningen were supposedly chucking at KVV in the summer so if it's correct that Killie are covering the guts of that plus performance related increases then us even going at half of that is probably more than I'd have expected tbqh. It's also absolutely no surprise we walked away. That's all speculative but I take it if that is actually the case then we'd have stepped away very quickly rather than investing time and effort into it.

That is genuinely wild assuming the rumoured amounts the big man is on are even vaguely true. Also, fair play to Groningen for getting someone to actually take that deal.

There's Monty's replacement (until Nixon makes his Twitter private again). *Quiet voice* This is kind of where I am as well.

Magic. Thanks Craig.

Seeing as @craigkillie is cutting about the thread this seems like the sort of question he might know the answer to. Is there a limit on the number of clubs from the same division that account for players being loaned in at Premiership level? I've had it in my head that it's one player from a single club and a maximum of 2 clubs so as it stands we have Halliday on loan from Hearts and Montgomery from Celtic which would mean we're maxed.

Aye, as @Busta Nut says it's already been pointed out that comment was addressed by our interim CEO and put into context during his 40 min interview. It was discussed in here ages ago when the Tweet went out. Also, your accounts that will be published soon will tell you precisely f**k all about this season as they're last season's accounts.

Clarity on Montgomery.

Fwiw, Jamie Borthwick spoke to Frail. and here's the man himself...

Aye. I thought it was interesting because, vague comms aside (it implies the loan has been ended but doesn't explicitly say it), as @Al B said it tracks with the info @wellboy1991 posted the other day. I suppose it's curious since if there's a cap on the number of loans we can have from clubs in the same division (I'm assuming it's the case there is) then having one who can't play potentially rules us out of a loan from another club - unless of course we know exactly who we're getting in and that's not a consideration so it's a moot point.

Here is the Tweet.

Hmmmmm…. This doesn’t say that his loan has been cancelled.

In a purely numbers sense the First Team squad currently sits at 22 (including injuries: Montgomery and Slattery along with Obika). Another 3 in takes us to 25 and if Barry Maguire is indeed away to LOI it’d land us on 24 which is pretty much the number Kettlewell spoke of before the window opened. It’d make it 8 in during this window with roughly the following movement: Spencer (recalled) - ? Souaré (contract ended) - Montgomery (in) Wilkinson (sold) - ? Slattery (injured) - Nicholson (in) Biereth (recalled) - ? Shaw (injured/recalled) - Vale (in) + Halliday (in), Elliot (in)

Fwiw, I had a look at the Lincoln forum since they were his most recent club and one of the first comments when the announcement that he'd been recalled went out was "Vale been a bit unlucky being asked to play in a role he wasn't really suited to." What that role actually was I obvs don't know but it's mildly interesting that his FM24 profile has him tagged as being best suited to Advanced Forward, Ramdeuter and Inverted Winger roles rather than a Target Man or whatever. If he's been brought in to replace Shaw (or to a lesser extent Wilkinson) then that's probably a lower bar for him to clear than if he's been earmarked as a replacement for Biereth.

The Vale signing kind of feels like the position Kettlewell alluded to the other week of get the first striker in and then see where things stand in terms of what we're able to do. Annoyingly there's also a YouTuber also called Jack Vale so those videos show up in any search - probably a WyScout job to get any idea of what he's actually like. Like everyone else my expectations aren't exactly high but from the looks of things he's been decent at the same level as Gent so I guess that's a baseline of sorts.