capt_oats

I think there's a lost in translation element. When the link was first mentioned (by the same journo) it was a similar thing. Greg Marshall picked up on it as well. He's definitely a centre back (as the video shows).

He had a haircut a while ago.

Well... https://www.miffotball.no/nyheter/enige-om-salg-av-sondre

Aye, assuming there's something in the fact that big Sondre started following the club IG and Chairman Flao is now following him you'd imagine there's a fair chance he accounts for one of them. An alternative to Lamie would be welcome IMO. I'd say that based on the squad as is then the space is for a striker. Fwiw being the IG creep that I am I noticed that Robbie Gotts mutual-ed a boy who's recently signed for Salford yesterday so I'd guess that might be an indication of where he'll end up. No drama either way, he's already been there on loan and there's no need for him to re-locate. That said it'd be annoying if so as I was quite invested in us picking up a Bielsa prodigy. Who knows maybe Grimshaw takes on that midfield role.

Alexander says he's looking to add two players before the window closes. Hmmmmm....

Fair play. I'll happily put my hands up to having been whooshed there. @Swello alludes to it on the previous page but I think it's fair to say that Goss is our Polworth replacement. The irony of course is that our good form that ended up with our finishing relatively comfortably mid-table was without Polworth actually playing in the team. In that respect it doesn't feel like we've gone baws oot to "get" Goss but rather he's someone who's available and at least in part fits a niche. Equally though I doubt he's a cheap option and as you mentioned the other day he's a relatively high-profile player (in Scottish league terms). I guess it'll be interesting to see if we bring another midfielder in and also if there's anyone moving out the door be it on loan or permanently as 27 players has us feeling pretty heavy on numbers (although not necessarily 'bloated'). For all we have this team up with the analytics company (and we've added a second performance analyst to the staff over the summer) he's been in on trial since last week (which has been a theme with recruitment this summer) so we've had a look at him beyond the numbers. I'm still fairly sceptical about him but equally I'm looking around teams with our budget and struggling to see a player who's been signed or left who plays that role that I'd be up for us taking a punt on. Regan Hendry maybe? Shinnie?

Amaluzor's a year, O'Connor's a year and yeah Parker's on 6 months but tbh I'd say that feels...right? When you take into account relative stages of development and presumably squad role. In the case of Parker it really does feel like a more formal, extended trial off the back of the length of time he'd been in the building prior to signing and in fairness I don't think he's been sold as anything else. Same goes with Amaluzor and to a lesser extent O'Connor. They're both projects and and 1 year deals reflect that. So far we've signed 10 players (with 18 having moved on) and the split is: 6 months - Mich'el Parker 1 year - Justin Amaluzor, Darragh O'Connor 2 years - Kevin van Veen, Juhani Ojala, Sean Goss 3 years - Connor Shields, Kaiyne Woolery, Liam Kelly, Calum Slattery There seems to be a clear correlation between profile and contract length. As a comparison here's the 19/20 signings (13 total): 6 months (initial) - Bevis Mugabi 1 year - Chris Long, Christian Ilic, Ross MacIver 2 years - Declan Gallagher, Liam Polworth, Casper Sloth, Jake Carroll, Jermaine Hylton, Sherwin Seedorf, Christy Manzinga Loan - Devante Cole, Mark O'Hara,

I'm kind of in the same place. Like @Swello I genuinely don't remember him from his time at Rangers or St Johnstone so in that respect I've no strong opinion. On the face of it he seems like a 'not Barry Maguire' signing and tbh him being a shitebag feels less of an issue given we've got a shit ton of grafters and +1 if we're going to chuck Grimshaw back into the midfield mix. If he's decent enough technically and can ping a pass then...cool? From having a scout about Twitter it seems Exeter fans were hopeful of signing him. Anyway, here are a few of his goals:

There he is lads... On the plus side he's Insta verified with 141k followers.

Nah, it's just an animated video with a really awkward "Hi, Everybody" (Hi Dr Nick) follow up story. See the Juhani one as an example...

Aye, I clocked El Presidente was following him last night before I saw the big man had started following the club account this morning. Based on that though, it sounds like potentially 3 in. Which is interesting...assuming Sondre is one of them then maybe a midfielder and a forward as the others? Looking at the squad numbers as well you'd think we'll maybe see a couple going out on loan. +3 in takes us to 29 bodies, you'd imagine 25 or 26 would be more in line with the sort of number Alexander was talking about when he said we might run with a few more than he normally would. Left sided centre back. The Lamie Role.

The summary of the issue laid out in the NYT article is here: My reading of that is that the points system fucks any chance of getting the work permit immediately for all but 2 Scottish teams. However the appeal system means that you can apply for an exemption....it just makes it more time consuming with paperwork and you have to argue your case. From the above if/when you get the GBE you then have to apply for the work permit which I'd guess is the situation United were/are in when they announced their Finnish boy at the weekend. I could be misreading it but I'd guess if the player is granted the GBE then the actual permit side of things is just procedural (and it's helpful that there's an international break coming up in that respect). Also, given Norway appear to be on the "Green List" I take it any isolation aspect would be minimal? Unlike big Juhani coming from Denmark which is currently on the "Amber List". Big Sondre was playing for Mjøndalen at the weekend (they drew 1-1 with Stabæk) so if it is happening it's been this week. Alternatively I suppose there's the chance it's a pre-contract type situation like Hibs have done with Mueller given the Norwegian league is still running. Either way us having been reported as being in with a 'bid' last week and now him following the club IG (and El Presidente following him) is all a bit of a coincidence eh?

Well...I see the Motherwell IG has a new follower lads.

I mean, the manager has said publicly that we're actively looking to recruit (link) and there's still a week-ish of the window to go so I don't think it's a given that we won't be bringing anyone else in. It's definitely a weird vibe that there don't seem to be any concrete links or rumours in the press though. I've said it before but the market seems to be in a weird place to use him as an example Gotts is someone we have been linked with (link). By all accounts he has a few teams in for him as well. He's basically been told he's free to find a new club (link), he wasn't playing in their u23s the other day and didn't feature anywhere in their League Cup squad...but he's still at Leeds. There seem to be a ton of players who have either been told they're free to leave or are surplus to requirements but have yet to move. Not that I'm banging a drum to sign them but Jordan Roberts and Mihai Popescu were both told they can leave Hearts a month ago (link) as far as I'm aware they're both still on the books at Hearts. Matty Kennedy was supposedly surplus to requirements at Aberdeen and due to sign for St Mirren but that one fell through and he's still at the club. There seem to be a load of players in the same boat. Either waiting to get their contract paid up or their clubs holding on to them until they've secured replacements.

Link

Someone suggested that but whoever it was posted the rumour originally didn't reply to either confirm or deny as far as I saw. It's on this page: https://www.steelmenonline.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/16650-20212022-rebuild/page/78/#comments I thought Alexander's chat about transfers pre-match kind of hinted that the players we were looking at had/have other options specifically the point about "we don't know if we' will win those battles" but I'm maybe just projecting with that.

There's yer Liam Kelly and SOD in the Scotland squad. Congratulations to our social media team on making it happen.

In fairness I'd guess if we were to sign him he'd play on the left of the midfield 3. Roughly where Barry Maguire's been playing up until recently. More someone to spray passes and/or link midfield and attack (preferably both).

Just had a look there. You didn't win a game he played in (his other appearance was a 5-0 loss to Celtic in the cup).

Aye, the line through the window has been leaning towards Alexander learning about how the Scottish market works and the recruitment challenges that are faced at "a club like Motherwell". Turns out it's pretty tough shift to get "quality" to sign up. Who knew? Fwiw, I think Kelly, Slattery, Van Veen etc are probably a step up on the type of player we'd have signed in previous windows. So that in itself is something. Even one or two extra in that vein before the window shuts would make a massive difference. I don't think Sean Goss would exactly be the poster boy for the whole "take our time" strategy although equally I guess that it's an argument that it might be better to have tried for "higher quality" players and end up having to settle for a Goss than just patch trying for the "quality" and going all in on a collection of jobbers from the start. If my timeline's right he'd have played with Watt at St Johnstone, Kelly at Rangers (with maybe a brief overlap at QPR) and would have been in the youth system at Manchester United around the same time as Grimshaw. I can't confess to having seen much of Goss but he struck me as a Tommy Wright signing (like Scougall before Curtis Main broke him) designed to show that he wasn't the type of manager he'd been stereotyped only to patch him after a handful of games because he didn't really know what to do with him, go back to his favourites and basically prove that he's exactly the type of manager everyone stereotyped him as.

Aye, his name has kept popping up in those vaguely 'click-y' sites the only 'source' who's credible has been Nixon but even that seemed to be in passing. Given it's been pretty sparse in terms of rumours that's all there's been to go on. The fact that his name was doing the rounds amongst fans at the start of the month suggests there may have been something in it. It doesn't seem as invested enough to make it a saga but at the same time his name was first mooted almost a month ago and our name's still being mentioned even if it is in the vaguest terms...so it's definitely been drawn out. I had a check earlier and of the clubs I've seen mentioned Salford are currently 3rd bottom of League 2 and Oldham are bottom while Stockport are 13th in the Conference. Granted he's already been on loan at Salford and all those teams could probably match our the sort of wage we'd be offering and none would require much by way of relocation for him (assuming he lives around the Leeds area) but it does seem one of those situations where he's pretty much been told by Leeds to find a new club as he's not going to get games with them at the level they're at. In fairness to him, you'd imagine he'd want the year he's got on his deal settled regardless of where he ends up and I guess it's a pretty major decision for him in terms of his next step. Pick the wrong club and he's fucked it.

Gotts is the vaguest saga I can think of. Like, there doesn't really seem to have been any concrete report of our interest other than general "Scottish side Motherwell are also said to be monitoring his situation." type patter floating around. Bielsa was talking about him and a load of their other u23s at the weekend: Bielsa's an absolute don eh?

Wild that we're being used for clicks by the local press in Leeds.

I have no dog in this fight but while WhoScored.com's algorithm is a bit of a wild ride it gave Ramsay their 'Star Man' based on his numbers: https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1548404/Live/Scotland-Premiership-2021-2022-Hearts-Aberdeen