capt_oats

There was someone mentioned in another thread that we hadn't had an update re: ST sales recently. I noticed this in Burrows' mentions when I was looking for a link to that GR marketing pod. For context, there's a tweet in the spoiler from the man himself with numbers from 18/19 and 19/20. If you're giving the club the benefit of the doubt and we did hit 4.5k we should be sitting just over 3.5k at the moment. I had a root around Twitter for previous numbers but as you'd expect most of the updates are enthusiastic "healthy growth" type things. They're not going to come out and say "sorry lads we've sold f**k all" but it's interesting see how our numbers compare now. Here are sales quoted from 2011:

From the outside looking in it was the commitment to a "brand" of football that struck me as definitely having the potential to bite you on the arse. Am I right in thinking that one of the criticisms of Milne was there was a view that he just let McInnes have the run of the place as long as he was finishing 2nd or 3rd? I'm definitely of the view that if a club wants to enact change then it needs to come from the board room. We're an example of a club who made conscious choices in what our business model needed to be going forward, compare the emphasis on bringing through youth and player trading now under Robinson to what it was like under McCall. Having a clear 'philosophy' for the club is a good thing (which is why I was interested in reading the AFC document) but imposing subjective restraints on your manager in terms of 'style' - especially a manager who's been in the job as long as McInnes has - feels quite confrontational. That said I suppose he knows where he stands and he's got more KPIs to meet than he possibly has previously.

I'd have thought it'd be a case of ever decreasing circles. His last gig was a season with QPR and a 19th place finish (he was replaced by Mark Warburton). Barring a the occasional peak eg: Derby and Twente his career has gone from managing England to a series of short lived gigs where he's been binned out of clubs in a season. It's fair to say that United aren't Celtic but when you look at the rehab job Scottish Fitba' did on Brendan Rodgers there's a chance McClaren is going to look at it as being worth his while to overlook the cash side of things and rebuild his reputation a bit. I suppose that's an easier sell if - as Scott Burns' article suggests - he knows Asghar.

No idea about other clubs but there was some interesting/nerdy chat from Grant Russell in the Scottish Football Marketing Podcast. Basically saying that they were going to be trying to do a bit more with YouTube. The analytics they use were showing that people were switching off after about a minute with the longer clips on Twitter etc which is why they switched to the shorter bite sized #content. It'll be interesting to see if this becomes a more regular thing where there's a longer edit put up since they've clearly got extra footage kicking around.

#AnnounceLang #WelcomeCallum

IN OTHER NEWS: It's official...

I hadn't read the article when I posted about it earlier. I see it's until December which is a nice surprise. I thought it'd be another Tanner deal that would take him up to the end of the summer window. That gives us Lamie as left back cover and Dunne as cover for McGinley. Which is something I genuinely didn't see coming Who knows tbh. As @Londonwell says we only got about 42 games from him and his first run in the side was him finding his feet. IMO he's got a high ceiling though. The chat is that when we were offering extensions to him, Turnbull and Hastie it was Scott and Turnbull that were our priorities. He's got the height and the build, is good technically and a gallus streak. Potential Scotland international? I mean, why not? He's got the confidence and he's fairly versatile - we're not exactly blessed with forward options either. It really depends on where he sees his natural position. Whether he's looking long term at developing as a #9 or sticking out wide which is where he had settled playing for us.

Genuinely let out a wee cheer when I saw that come through on Soccer Saturday there. Going by various other MFC affiliated socials I wasn't the only one. Some boi.

He's a mixed bag really. When he arrived he'd been out for ages with an injury (it's been a theme with him) so when he was dropped into the side he was all over the place, even more so when he's been tried at left back. That said once he got a run of games and was bedded in to the side he was hugely improved. Offered a huge amount of pace at the back which often bailed him out of some of his more bombscare moments. As @Ron Aldo says if you're looking for a "footballer" it's not him but there's no denying when he's fit his pace and size means he's got more than enough to do a job at our level. Last season he came back from the summer and looked absolutely built. A proper unit. Then he picked up a groin injury in the Betfred groups and that was the last we saw of him. On a purely footballing level - forgetting about the extent to which he's injury prone - I think most of us would be happy for him to stick around but ultimately of the 3 seasons he's been here he's missed about 1.5 of them through injury.

Shree year deal for Gillespie at Newcastle... ALSO...Dunne signs his short term deal..

You were supposedly going to chuck some money at a fee for O'Hara as well.

I mean...

That seems to be the way of it with Adams. When you look at his record with Plymouth it's...fine? Until it wasn't - the wheels came off, he fell out with everyone and the fans went from fully buying into him to wanting him out. 5th place in L2, promotion the next season, missed out on the play-offs by 3 points then relegated. Still a massive oddball though.

SSN are running with Baraclough having been offered the job. It's on their breaking news ticker right now.

Just reading it there...

That would make a lot more sense tbh.

How long have the STs been on sale for? Even comparing to the likes of us and St Mirren that seems wildly low. Obviously the Championship has far more uncertainty but the trend in the Premiership seems to have been an uptick in early sales. St Mirren's update on the 23rd has them over 2000 and our last update on STs was 30th May "Over 2,000 of you have already got your tickets for the campaign, far surpassing sales figures at this stage in normal years." The initial comparison we put out was April 20th:

I'm not suggesting anything it's just that listening to Hartley on the What The Falk podcast the other week he was saying that the way the season ended it meant that he didn't have anything sorted out for next season but he's said in a few interviews that he enjoys playing in the Premiership and would be open to continuing up here. From what he was saying in that podcast he still has a place up here as well, for the moment at least. He was our captain last season, Tait was our vice captain so if JG is looking for 'experience' and leadership qualities you could probably do worse than Hartley. Just don't ask him to play the ball out from the back.

If he's looking at defenders I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Peter Hartley ended up in Paisley along with Tait.

Definitely. We may not have got a fee for Gillespie but if he ends up at Newcastle there's still a value when we're making that sales pitch. It would be one to file away in the 'Success' portfolio for the model. The fact Robinson was talking about it actually being easier for us to recruit these days because agents and players know what we're about backs up the strategy - that only really comes about from being able to conistently point to players making steps up from our 'platform'. Also, it may be because Gillespie was only 1st pick for about a season and a half which means there weren't many opportunities to move him on and also we've got Carson waiting in the wings but there definitely doesn't seem to be as much of a 'missed opportunity' feeling about losing Gillespie on a free as there was with Randolph.

Gillespie to Newcastle seems to be a real thing. Absolutely fair fucks to him like.

I'd honestly say that the best investment Motherwell have made in recent years has been setting up the strength and conditioning department and creating a head of sports science role. There's a demonstrable difference in the level of conditioning between say McCall's arguably more talented side of the early 10s and Robinson's current group. The fact that Robinson's been able to instil a culture of self-improvement at the club is precisely what Collins doesn't seem to be able to do. It's part of his brand but everything that comes out of the club about Allan Campbell is how he's first into the gym (he has his own key) and last out. It's obviously down to the players themselves how much they buy into it but it's been interesting to watch the impact the sports science element has had on our Academy players - you've seen players like Campbell, Hastie, Scott and Turnbull all coming through and one of the notable aspects is the difference in physicality especially when the Dev league was on the go. Even the physical improvement of someone like Moult was noticeable when you compare what he was like when he arrived with when he left. Our Head of Sports Science was talking to Joel on The Terrace pod a couple of weeks ago. A lot of it is pretty dry stuff but when framed in the context of the comments from Collins it's quite interesting.