capt_oats

In fairness he started last week and played the full 90 along with starting 3 of the 4 LC group games. Going by his post-match today it sounds like Alexander wanted to give Shields a run out and the plan was always to give Watt the minutes off the bench. It feels like our load management during pre-season has been all over the place on account of injuries to certain players. Last season he started 28 of 33 league games up to his injury.

Aye, that's kind of why I was saying I didn't disagree with your broader point. We're his 12th club (be it permanent or loan) and he's still only 27 and when you look at the tools he has there can only be so much of it down to being unlucky with managers or it not working out at a specific club. Under Robinson he got himself in shape and he looks to have carried that on under Alexander. His attitude has been absolutely spot on with us and at points last season he was dragging a poor side through games almost single handedly. The only aspect of his game that you'd legitimately say he's underperformed has been his goal scoring but him lacking that clinical instinct can be balanced out by Alexander using him more as a creator since he's come in.

Not to disagree with your broader point but I suppose I should be the Motherwell fan to chime in and say that since he signed for us a year and a half ago there's not been any sort of indication of him dropping his levels or going through the motions. His POTY award last season was fully deserved and a large part of it was an acknowledgement that he was willing to graft. The version of Watt that you guys had definitely isn't the one we've had. @Londonwell beat me to it.

Without wanting to white knight SOD barring his suspension last season he's been playing week in, week out since he arrived including the 3 games through the Euros then chucked straight back in to the LC games after about 10 days off (compared to the month or so the rest of the squad had). Agree with @well fan for life the international position skews things and for the most part he's a decent right back for us without ever looking spectacular and that's...fine? The problem is at the moment we clearly don't have anyone to switch him out for. We saw the reaction when Airdrie cuffed us so I can understand Alexander's reluctance to chuck Johnston in for the LOLZ. Getting Grimmy back would be welcome in so much as it'd at least given us that option. Indeed Grimmy's most consistent season for us was when he made the position his own and bumped Tait onto the bench. I've no idea if this was actually the case or not but it felt like his form started to noticeably dip when he was effectively first choice and there was zero competition.

Excited for Kelly's imminent call up in that case.

I see NTOF are recycling the Nixon story: https://www.nottheoldfirm.com/news/motherwell-register-interest-in-leeds-united-midfielder-robbie-gotts/ Also a mention here and here. He was on loan at Salford last season so you'd imagine they'd be favourites for him if he's not looking to re-locate.

Google translate-tastic

I mean, I'd like another centre back as I'm not wholly convinced with either of Lamie or Mugabi as starters and would be much more comfortable with them as back-up/squad options. We also seem to have a disproportionate number of right footed defenders. However, just because I'd like another centre back doesn't mean I'll get one and as it stands I'd say midfield and centre forward are the two most pressing areas. Popescu is another of those who Hearts seem to have ruined, IIRC St Mirren fans were very happy with him in the season he spent there but having enjoyed the delusional shitshow that is JKB over the summer it's fair to say he's not a fan favourite at Tynecastle. I have the same reservations as @Desp with Roberts. He was far better than expected when he came in on loan. He helped make the front 3 work and overall chipped in with some important goals and performances but it's such a small sample size I'd be wary of committing or going all in on him. It kind of feels like if he has offers from England on the table then that's the natural move for him given his talked about found it difficult to settle at Hearts. To me a centre forward who can nominally play wide would be much more preferable to balance the squad than another "can play across the front 3" option.

Semple signs for East Fife. Only leaves Seedorf from around the first team last season without a club.

Aye, @dezz picked up on it a few pages back but our thread is just pure, red-hot #content. It puts some of the more spicy "Graham Alexander is out his depth" takes in the Premiership 21/22 Sack Race thread into a bit of context (along with him having the 3rd best form in the league between him being appointed and the end of the season).

That's the one. Cheers.

We've patched the SPFL Trust Trophy.

We don't want no scrubs.

We now have an official handset sponsor so that's us making an inroads. We are massive... To the point of "big projects" was it the AGM where there was discussion about us getting involved with Dalziel Park as some sort of co-pro in a medium term plan or was it on one of the interviews with Burrows.

Was there not something along the lines that not all clubs had drawn down the full amount of credit? I mean, I'd imagine we have because as @Swello says we'd have been mental not to take it. Even the conditions don't seem that restrictive especially given we'd taken in a club record transfer and the Business Interruption Insurance claim was accepted. The money's the money - if we decide to bank a chunk of cash then it doesn't really matter if it's Turnbull money or SG money - it's just cash that's in our account. As of 10th February 2020 we had cleared all external debt and the only additional debt we'd taken on since then was the £50k bounce-back loan from the UK Government. Given the margins we work to as a fan-owned club I'd like to think we're doing short, medium and long term projections anyway so firing off a quarterly report to the SG shouldn't be too much of an imposition given the upside is an interest free injection of £3m.

Presumbably because they didn't take the loan. There's another thread about this btw.

As others have said, unless we have a couple of surprise signings you'd think it'd be pretty much the same side that should have beat Hibs on Sunday. The only question is whether Ojala comes in at CB and who he takes the place of if so. Fair play to Saints that was some result last night. Would absolutely take a draw given we're still a massive work in in progress at the moment and Saints, even if they're playing their reserves, have a settled squad and system.

I'd guess it's the boy Livi had in on trial earlier in the summer that's popped up as a mutual on a few player's IG. In fact KVV shared his post on his IG stories on Sunday, it's where I noticed him. If it's the same guy he's a centre back and was released by Arsenal in the summer.

Aye, Harrogate Town are another one I keep being surprised to find are a league club these days.

Signed for Barrow in League 2 earlier this year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikael_Ndjoli He's down as having had 2 appearances. The other one was 9 minutes in the 0-0 against HIbs. Never lost a game he was in the squad for. Also 'knee'.

That's some Twitter thread btw. Anyway, while I'm not going to dispute whether or not we have a larger admin staff or not I thought it was weird that the guy's claim that us having a larger turnover than St Mirren was proof of that. Fwiw: our turnover in the accounts to May 20 was £4,948,740 (which would include the c.£1m we received from Hull for James Scott) and this is the breakdown of employees. By comparison, St Mirren's turnover for the same period was £4,068,057 I'm not arguing that we don't have more admin staff or whatever (I genuinely don't know) but I'm not sure it's as large a factor as is made out in terms of the difference in how the situation around capacities have been handled.

**** being ****. Points deduction please. Either that or just boot the c***s out the league. Happy with either outcome but the latter is probably preferable.

Aye, are we going to give Hull their money back and match what they're paying Scott or even close to it? Absolutely not. Is it worth our while giving up some of our extras in order to help him to help them to help us in a bigger picture? Probably. We still have some skin in the game and a vested interest in him doing well given we have extras and a sell on built into his deal at Hull. Equally, as McCann says, the club paid £1m for him and he's still viewed as an asset so I'm not sure how it's in their interests to just give him away with 2 years left on his deal. Realistically are Hull going to recoup the cool million they paid us given how little he's played? Probably not. They'd be lucky to even get half that. So as it stands our sell on is pretty much worthless (as the % due for Kipré proved to be due to Wigan's administration). I honestly keep forgetting that we've signed Shields but even then I think Sunday showed that we're still probably one body short up front and the fact that loosely speaking Lawless' most productive performances have come playing as a #10 (albeit against lower league opposition) probably pushes him out of the 'forward' category. Assuming Scott hasn't just completely chucked it after getting paid then a potential front three of him, Van Veen and Watt could be a lot of fun. It'd also give Woolery a bit of time to get used to the game up here and Shields an opportunity to be introduced gradually. Fwiw, the whole McNulty thing was clearly a wind up on the part of a Tranmere fan it was just kismet that we'd had a bit about The Wire on the go. That said, both he and Scott fit squarely in the bracket of player that Alexander has referenced that we've been hanging around waiting on ie: those who might be surplus to requirement with their club in England (see also Gotts, Robbie).

This is something that I didn't really get. Like, aside from whether or not we were/are interested: It just seemed weird. Until I remembered that Hull are one of the clubs who are working under an EFL embargo...which explains a lot. What that actually achieves IDK...