capt_oats
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Posts posted by capt_oats
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41 minutes ago, welldaft said:
Not to be pedantic YM but our poor form really only kicked in during February. So you can console yourself that we have only been utter dug meat for a month.....
I was away to post the same thing tbh.
It's wild that 4 weeks ago everyone it was all cool, cool, cool after 3 clean sheets since the winter break: a 3-0 cup win, a 1-0 away win at Pittodrie and a decent performance and clean sheet against in a 0-0 with Hibs.
Honestly feels like last season given we've played 7 games since then.
I noticed a Motherwell fan account on Twitter wanging on about how we hadn't won a game convincingly since early December - like that was a legitimate complaint and the wins against Killie, County, Dundee and Aberdeen were worth getting bent out of shape over because of our form in February.
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1 hour ago, well fan for life said:
I saw it pop up earlier and thought we'd get a wee 4-5 minute montage of him being a fucking baller.
38 minutes seems self-indulgent. Haven't watched it yet, mind.I've just watched the whole thing.
I'm genuinely quite conflicted...on one hand @YassinMoutaouakil's right it's an actual 40 min documentary and it's difficult to get past that. As a concept it's an unusual thing for a mid-table Scottish Premiership side to do for a bit of #content. Self indulgent? Maybe aye. Self important? A bit. Pushing the brand - absolutely.
On the other hand, as @Mr Hahn says, it's well put together and it's an insight into his rehab and recovery which is very relevant to my interests and...yeah, I enjoyed it.
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4 minutes ago, Londonwell said:
I’m guessing the reason it was deleted then was to provide the YouTube link to the longer version of the video as it’s 40mins long. Twitter only allows 9.59mins of video.
Aye. The full 40 mins guy is below...it came up on my YouTube notifications (I've not watched it yet)
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4 hours ago, craigkillie said:
He has impressed in small amounts in fits and starts, but that's four separate managers who haven't really liked what they've seen and have either not picked him or loaned him out. It was the same thing at Motherwell beforehand. Perhaps partly down to attitude too. There's definite talent but I get the feeling he'll be one of these guys who will consistently look great in the lower leagues but then not really make an impact in the top flight.
Aye. It was exactly the same with us. 39 appearances - no goals, no assists, brushed off the ball with ease...but he nutmegged Jim Goodwin.
He had plenty of chances but he never really took them - his time was pretty much up when he was hooked after 54 mins against East Stirling in the LC Group having made precisely zero impact.
When you look at his peer group that came through our academy roughly the same time he never really had the same sort of application as say Cadden, Campbell, Turnbull and Hastie who were all in the Youth Cup winning team with him or Scott and Semple who have broken through since.
He was a young guy - still is I suppose - but where the ones who have made a go of it in our first team put in the graft and bought into the strength and conditioning side of things Thomas seemed to resent that a bit. He was quite chippy with Motherwell fans generally but he kind of had a dig at the club when he left for Killie and it seemed to be about being asked to do the "free stuff".
He was quite open about his attitude being that he just wanted to "play football" - which I'm not sure lends itself to the top flight:
QuoteMotherwell manager Stephen Robinson said he allowed Thomas to join Killie on a three-year contract because he believed the young Scot no longer wanted to be at Fir Park.
"Everyone has a different opinion, but the way they were playing wasn't really for me," said Thomas.
"The way they set out to play football here is perfect for me.
"The manager said he wants me to play with a smile on my face and that was music to my ears.
"The way I wanted to play football was the way he wants me to play and I am thankful for that."
McCulloch says he is trying to take the fear factor out of football at Rugby Park.
"I spoke to Dom and he was telling me that what he had been taught in the last year or two had been about defence," he recalled as he looked forward to Saturday's next League Cup Group E game away to Annan Athletic.
Still hoping we get to cash in on that sell on that took him to Killie though.
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51 minutes ago, Les Westander of County said:
So Glum you Wellies!
How tough can it really be to still be in the top 3 for so much of the season?Why not just relax and slide back towards respctable lower top 6 obscurity, passing County your spare points this week?
I mean, we're not complete ingrates. Most of us have a pretty sunny disposition but no wins in 8, daft red cards, players selling the jerseys and chucking late goals all over the place? It's fair to say February's been a grind.
That's before you even get to the sort of clown car performance that saw us 4-1 down at HT to St Mirren.
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Charlie Dunne out with a knee problem now...apparently Robinson brought it up in his pre-match. He's seeing a specialist about it.
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Me, very IRL thinking about Motherwell games at the moment...
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9 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:
Heart says get the jambos fucking down, head says a Hibs defeat might allow us to continue the most pathetic attempt at a 3rd place finish in football history.
Draw, I suppose, please.
^^^ This, but the Lanarkshire version.
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Well...he's actually made an appearance for them.
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Nice wee bit in the Evening Times the other day from Tony Watt.
Quote“I should have scored the other night,” he admitted. “I just misjudged it and could have laid the ball back too.
“That’s not a lack of sharpness as the club has been great by giving me the tools you need to get fit. And they’ve given me the minutes required for sharpness.
“On another night I could have smashed it and scored, just like I could have done better with other chances too.”
Despite the difficult start, Watt credited Stephen Robinson for helping get his career back on track after a truncated time in Bulgaria with CSKA Sofia. Motherwell is the 26 year-old’s 12th senior club.
“The manager has been unbelievable for me,” he revealed. “I can’t thank him highly enough because he’s given me confidence and belief.
“He is treating me as I want to be treated. I didn’t expect to play as much as I have but the gaffer has needed me.
“I told him I’d run through a brick wall for him and will continue to do that whenever he asks me to play.
“As long as I’m called upon I’ll run as hard and as fast as I can."
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There he is...
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2 hours ago, Casagolda said:
With all the talk of recruitment for next season, I take it there isn't much in the youth team that looks likely to break through in the foreseeable?
Admittedly, due to the lack of any sort of coverage these days I have next to no idea what the current state of the youth team is. However, there seems to be a real lack of anybody even on the cusp of breaking through at the minute.
Obviously, you can’t just have a conveyer belt of talent constantly coming though and there’s bound to peaks and troughs. However it feels like we’ve went from one extreme to the other in less than a year.
The 2nd half of last season you had Turnbull, Campbell, Hastie, Cadden plus the likes of Scott and Semple who were all either in the team or at least in and around the squad.
By my reckoning, Allan Campbell’s been the sole youth product in 5 of our 7 squads post January.
Yes and no.
The obvious ones are Semple, who's already been around the first team plenty as you point out (18) (injured last month - going by his IG he was in for an operation last week), Cornelius (18) and Devine (18) (who's out on loan at QoS and unsurprisingly seems to be finding it tough at Championship level). There was a Robinson press conference a few weeks back where he said something along the lines of the players at that level would be looking at next season for coming through.
The Semple injury IMO is a gutter as I've a feeling that he'd been placed ahead of Sloth in the list of midfield options although I'd guess Turnbull's return compensates for that a bit. It's actually notable that the Reserves form has wobbled generally when Semple's not been in the side - his last appearance was 20th January in the 2-1 win vs Ross County. Since then they've played 4 and lost 3.
The point about going from the one extreme to another is probably explained by the fact that a fair percentage of the Reserves are actually u18s (7 of the 17 in that group were the from the new intake).
You've also got the inconvenience of McKinstry and McAlear having been sold to Leeds and Norwich respectively - I could be wrong but presumably those two would have been next on the conveyer belt so to speak - both seem to be making a go of it though so fair fucks - McAlear's in Norwich's u18s group but seems to be appearing for their u23s and McKinstry's 17 but playing regularly for the Leeds u23s - neither of which helps us at the moment granted.
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1 hour ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:
The talk of Lamie seems a bit more underwhelming when you find out he's a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none and down the pecking order at Livi. Don't get me wrong, there's every chance he'd improve a backline with Hartley and Mugabi in it.
It would be a no brainier to offer a fit Dunne a new deal for me, but you can't ignore the amount of games he's missed and the recurring nature of his injuries.
Dunne's an odd one in so much as he clearly has the size, pace etc, at 27 he's still a good age and by all accounts was the preferred parter to Gallagher at the start of the season but on top of the obvious injury stuff he's not someone you'd say was comfortable on the ball - and I'm not 100% he'd be a fit for what we're trying to do going forward, that said beggars, choosers, better the devil you know and all that.
Going by his IG he had been spending a fair amount of time back down in London with his family while he's been injured (which is absolutely fair enough). He's had a shite time of it lately.
As I said yesterday the interesting part for me is where we end up looking for players given the roles we have to fill (not accounting for any sales) and how/if it's informed by our recruitment this season.
Spoiler- Gallagher - Livi
- Polworth - ICT
- Carroll - Cambridge United
- Sloth - Silkeborg
- Hylton - Solihull Moors
- Long - Blackpool
- Seedorf - Wolves u23s
- Ilic - TSV Hartberg
- Manzinga - Sporting Chatelet
- MacIver - Ross County u20s
- Mugabi - Yeovil
- Watt - CSKA Sofia
- Cole - Wigan (loan)
- O'Hara - Peterborough (loan)
- Ndjoli - Brighton (loan)
- Arrons - Newcastle (loan)
Looking at the distribution that's 16 players:
- 5 Scottish players
- 2x EPL (loans)
- 1x EFL Championship (loan)
- 1x EFL League 1
- 1x EFL League 2
- 2x National League
- 1x EPL u23s
- 3 from the EU (2 of whom had been trialists)
As it stands we've got 11 first team players OOC (2 currently out on loan) and 3 loans expiring, in terms of areas of the park that's:
- 2 goalkeepers (1 currently out on loan)
- 4 defenders (2 FB, 2 CB)
- 2 midfield (2 CM)
- 6 forward (3 CF, 3 wide forwards)
I suppose the question is where we'd be able to get value. Pre-contracts for folk like Polworth and Gallagher seemed like a definite shift from a few seasons ago when we were focussing on the National League after Johnson and Moult had done us a turn.
Also, there's an element where it seems an end of a cycle...what we're looking for from players in terms of quality now is different to where we were at the first major Robinson rebuild (which is when we signed guys like Dunne & Hartley).
For reference...here are Transfermarkt's expiring contracts by league:
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On 26/02/2020 at 08:50, RandomGuy. said:
Added context.
Struggling like f**k to understand quite what they're trying to achieve with all this.
Irrationally triggered by his Motherwell comment tbh - almost as much as reading the "if we were fan-owned we'd have sacked Tommy Wright earlier in the season" shouts from fans. It's not some reality TV pish...there's no fan vote at full time whether the manager should keep his job FFS.
Anyway "There's fan ownership at Motherwell and they have been fortunate in selling a number of players with sell-ons" - as a statement that's true, it may just be a turn of phrase but possibly misses the point that the player trading at Motherwell is by design - it's not luck or good fortune.
It's fag packet numbers but in roughly the same timeframe prior to Hutchison stepping in (and the subsequent fan ownership) we brought in roughly £800k in fees, since then we've generated £5m+ - again that's not luck or being fortunate - one big sale might be a case of stars aligning and bringing in a large fee, bringing in smaller but consistent fees...less so.
I've mentioned before but according to Hutchison there was a business review done at the club and along with stuff like being able to reduce player budget by utilising the academy and setting up a sports science/strength and conditioning department to prevent/reduce medical bills the view was that watching our best players walk out the door for nothing wasn't value - so the strategy and approach changed.
Ultimately the fact that Hutchison and Boyle's loans were being paid back via a slice of transfer revenue meant that everyone's interests were aligned so rather than being pressured to sell to keep the lights on, there was support to make sure we got value. Celtic's offer for Carson and Aberdeen's offer for Moult being examples of kb'ing bids - which in turn has meant we've got better fees further down the line as we haven't been rolling over.
Arguably with players like Kerr, Gordon, Hendry and especially McCann St Johnstone have as much potential in terms of sellable assets as Motherwell have over the past couple of seasons - so the woe is me, everything's ruined patter in these interviews is a weird read from the outside looking in. I get that there's a frustration about success not translating to bodies through the door though but when it comes down to it other clubs are actively out there looking at how they can maximise revenue and grow their fanbases - the culture of football in Scotland has changed massively since 2014 let alone 1986.
Again, not advocating fan-ownership for St Johnstone it may be that the numbers simply don't work but there's a lot in that interview that's interesting - "Do you know anybody who is looking to take over a football club?" is exactly the same position we were in with Boyle - he wanted out but couldn't get a buyer.
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24 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:
Gallagher was one of our first choice CB's, Lamie is either 4th or 5th, does a decent job at LB too though and has been a great utility player for us, filling in at LB or playing CB whenever needed, and never letting us down. Robust defender that gets stuck in and is good in the air.
Aaron Taylor-Sinclair has claimed the LB spot ahead of Lamie, and Brown and Guthrie are an established CB pairing now, and with Efe Ambrose signing then Lamie drops down to the same place as Lithgow, either just in front of him or also behind him, depending on how Lithgow does once he's back from illness and injury problems. Tbh i'd like to keep him at Livi for being a useful squad player, has done well for us the last couple of seasons.
See there's loads of that that would make sense for us. As has been mentioned left side centre back has turned into a massive problem position for us as Hartley's gone off a cliff and Charlie Dunne has been out injured since summer (and missed half the 18/19 season as well) both are out of contract at the end of the season so there's a chance (probably a pretty good one) that we'll be looking for 2 players in that area of the park.
Jake Carroll's our left back and is now out for the season and possibly into next season after he did his achilles, Richard Tait's been our cover there but he's out of contract as well and has struggled for game time at right back generally. So a utility player who naturally covers the left side ticks boxes - and should probably be something we look at regardless of Tait's situation.
Given there's been a quite clear disparity in success with recruitment this season ie: the more 'known' (Polworth, Gallagher etc) have been more successful than the punts (Hiya Sherwin, Hiya Christy, Hiya Christian, Hiya Bevis)....it made me wonder if that would inform the sort of targets we're looking at with a view to PCAs - lessons learned and all that. I'm curious to see if we might shift towards more 'known' players having been burned by The Friendly Ghost who was the cherry on top of the assortment of dross we've managed to acquire by taking on "projects".
We've already been linked with Jordan White and now we're apparently looking at Lamie. I mean absolutely fair fucks if we're basically looking at signing former ICT and Livi players or both in the case of White but in a broader sense it'll be interesting to see how it all pans out - Robinson's become a bit one note when trying to explain this shitemare of a run "we're inexperienced, young team, we'll make mistakes" being the go to and there's no doubt we've been naive but I'm curious to see how we address that with the sort of players who'll be available on our budget.
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8 minutes ago, Gianfranco said:
Left sided centre back is definitely our weak spot at the moment. I’m not really sure how good Lamie is? I haven’t really noticed him in our games against them.
He was on the bench in the last game but played the full 90 in the 2-1 at Fir Park and the 0-0 on the opening day. https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/ricki-lamie/leistungsdaten/spieler/216270
It appears he's "fallen down the pecking order" according to the story in the Record (and the Livi thread as well tbf). I see he can double up at LB too.
4 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:What's this? A rumour? A confirmed pre contract?
Scott Burns in the Record running a story suggesting we're interested in him on a PCA. https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-transfer-news/rickie-lamie-wanted-motherwell-stephen-21579097
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12 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:
So, Ricki Lamie then?
Noticed the Livi bois talking about it in their thread...I mean it's not a massive surprise given Gallagher's been a success but is interesting on a couple of levels.
Obvious one is that he's a pal of Gallagher (and Watt's it seems going by #TONY's IG stories from the weekend), the other is that he's a left sided centre back which presumably means one or both of Hartley and Dunne will be out the door.
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2 hours ago, Casagolda said:
Were we not supposed to have had Obika on trial during the summer as well btw and sent him packing? Looks exactly like the kind of centre forward we could do with. Done more damage and scored more goals in 2 games at Fir Park this week than some of our forwards have done all season.
Pretty sure it was him folk seemed to think was Benteke (not that one, the other one).
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26 minutes ago, Fife Saint said:
Excellent summary thanks.
Fwiw: I'm not advocating or saying it's a route St Johnstone should go down - just that it's roughly speaking how 'fan ownership' has worked for us. I've voted twice both for board members of the Society, AFAIK neither have any involvement in the day to day running of the club.
Beyond that the club functions like pretty much any other in the league - we have a board of directors and a CEO who runs the club (Alan Burrows).
Also, given the fact that we had an interest free loan handed over with soft repayment terms with a view to the explicit outcome of fan ownership it's up for debate whether we're really a representative example - even more so as the whole thing in our case seems to have been accelerated by a quirk of fortune that saw us reach 2 cup finals in the same season and sold players for a combined £1m+ that season which meant we ended up with record turnover and profit.
That said given St Johnstone are (famously) sitting on £2m cash at hand you've got more in the bank than we did at the point Hutchison stepped in so it's a question whether you'd actually need funding or investment for any sort of restructure and from what I can tell you've got all your home-grown sellable assets tied up on long-term deals - so there's value there if you play your cards right and trade from a position of strength.
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1 hour ago, RandomGuy. said:
I'm still not sure exactly how it all works tbh.
There used to be a quite helpful 'how it works' page for The Well Society but it looks like the WS site has been integrated into the 'official' MFC page since Boyle and Hutchison were paid back and a lot of that content has disappeared into the ether.
In terms of the 'mechanics' and 'structure' it really depends, as @Mr Positive, sometimes. mentioned, whether the Brown family wanted to sell the club or if they'd be happy to hand it over for a nominal cost. In our case the actual sale of the club from Les Hutchison to The Well Society was for £1 - the £1.6m that was paid back to him was essentially a capital loan that allowed the club to re-structure and invest in improving various departments (and sign Tony Straker) - I've banged on about that stuff before but Hutchison talks about it in this interview.
So if it was to follow a similar path you'd have the ownership passed to a body - call it The Saints Trust or whatever - and that's pretty much it.
The vehicle would own the club - have someone sitting on the board but beyond that the BOD could effectively remain the same (we have the same chairman as a fan owned club as we did prior to the transfer of ownership) and it'd be up to that BOD how the club operates eg: if they wanted to retain a CEO to handle the day to day etc.
There's a line on the Foundation Of Hearts website that makes it a lot easier to get your head round: "Fan ownership, but not fan management, will thus become a reality, with appropriate governance processes being implemented."
In terms of finance we budget for 10th, no cup runs and no player sales (which I was under the impression Saints did - until the past couple of interviews) and the WS essentially acts as a bank to cover any short term cashflow issues, shortfall or minor investment. It's really up to the two parties how that's treated...in our case it goes on the books as a 'loan' (which is why the wording in the statement re: 'external debt' being paid off was as specific).
I know Brown has been bumping his gums about budgets the past few days and also that you've been posting losses but assuming TW was willing to work within those parameters and realised that he didn't have the option of a cash injection to 'go the extra mile' and there was scope to implement a fairly robust business plan I'd imagine a fan-owned St Johnstone would largely look the same as it does at the moment and at least you'd still be getting your income from doing a purvey.
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In case this is of interest to anyone.
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1 minute ago, Desp said:
Was it a better or worse pout than the one from his gran's funeral?
Good old Blythy...
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Motherwell vs Ross County
in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
Posted
It's been a while...