capt_oats

I just got to that bit.

I'm only up to the start of the pyro chat but on the whole that's a good update. The fact that it's pretty clearly taken various articles in the press to prompt it maybe undermines the idea that our media and comms is absolutely fine but beyond that it at least addresses the main issues and I'll not lie I got a laugh at yer man clamping the boy who was Tweeting comparing our costs with Killie. As @thisGRAEME says, interesting to hear that that we're looking at appointing a CEO with no current or historical connection with Motherwell and tbh, it's interesting to hear how the original recruitment process played out.

Vaguely related to the broad discussion about recruitment, I dipped into Steelmen Online for the first time in months yesterday and noticed someone had posted this quote from Dickie albeit as part of the discussion about the McMahon/Weir exits and the general mis-interpreting of what McMahon's statement about "significant investment" actually meant. Kettlewell had kind of confirmed this in saying that we'd be able to bring in a couple on top of what we already had at the time. It's not quite a repeat of the one in one out situation we had over the summer where it was more about freeing up space in the squad rather than the budget. Dunno, it feels relevant in terms of the numbers we might be looking to bring in.

No argument there from me. I think the point though is that regardless of whether you do/don't have "one of the lowest budgets in the league" Robinson will say you do - that just seems to be the way he's wired and the narrative he's comfortable with. As I say, it's not a dig he did exactly the same with us which is why it caught my eye as his narrative is pretty much verbatim. Ultimately no one is actually going to ask him to show his workings and if he says it often enough folk believe it - as a poster in this thread has already shown.

Aye. One thing I’d also say is that a lot of the interviews Robinson’s been giving lately are almost verbatim the lines he’d push when he was with us. He definitely likes to lean on the same sort of stuff. Which isn’t a dig or anything it’s just quite the coincidence that we *also* apparently had “the lowest budget in the league” and “aren’t able to pay well” when he was at Fir Park. It’s very familiar As you say it’s probably six and half a dozen between the group outside Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen. The trick is how you use the budget available.

Is Scott Burns any more reliable a source than Alan Nixon? As @RandomGuy. said earlier it still feels like an agent flying a kite.

Given his injury history (which was already in question before he re-signed) it wouldn't be a huge surprise if the option had an appearance trigger or the like.

Agree with this in principle. Tbh, I genuinely don't think we need another out and out striker. I've said it before but someone who fits into the 'across the front 3' types that Robinson was fond of (but one who's actually good) would really work for us IMO. I mentioned the idea of us maybe wanting to move Obika on in that last post but didn't really make a connection with something Kettlewell said in his post-match after Hibs. I mean, we may not get his whole wage off the books but it doesn't seem that wild a shout that someone even at Scottish Championship level could use an Obika-type. It'd maybe get him some games as well. Taking this at face value...specifically the point about players needing to be able to contribute/being injured (which tbf they can't help) it feels like a bit of an admission of sorts about carrying injury prone players:

This is probably the correct answer but signing rumours have been pretty thin on the ground around these parts. I think the only credible mention we've heard so far is Jimmy Furlong coming back on loan. Which would be nice tbf.

I was thinking about this through the day tbh. The obvious initial thought is it'd be weird for Main to actually *want* to come back here given he tended to get a pretty hard time off sections of the support despite his 2nd season seeing him either paired with Conor Sammon and getting the ball launched at him or being used as a target man/facilitator/disruptor in that front 3 with Gboly and Hastie on either side - which was a lot of fun but he was by no means prolific (but then that wasn't really his job in the team). You'd also think that he'd actually be quite expensive given he'll be on a decent wedge in India - certainly more than you'd ideally be wanting to pay for someone as a back-up. Having said all that, a lot of the criticism of Wilko - besides the various folk who just decided he was pish because... - has been his lack of physical presence etc which isn't something that you can say of Main. Does he work with Mika and Thelonius either side of him? Maybe? I still think it's a weird fit for us but see if we were looking at off-loading Obika and giving us another space to get a wide forward in then we could probably do worse.

Entirely ambivalent towards the bold Curtis but I have to say watching him and Bad News Bowman utterly ragdoll Aberdeen at Hampden is an entertaining 6 mins and 33 seconds of a Sunday.

Big Wilko there...

Dunno about overspending but we were posting six figure losses while we were finishing 2nd so....something wasn't right. IIRC that was less about overspending per se and more her interesting approach to player bonuses. I dunno the ins and outs but was it not a bit of a Blue Monday situation? It was actually costing us money to be "successful" because we were having to dish out bonuses. I seem to remember we were also budgeting for cup runs so as soon as we get knocked out in the early rounds by lower league clubs like Albion Rovers and Rangers that was us fucked. I guess you can also point to the amount of talent that walked out the door for free or buttons in comparison with what's become our business model recently. I posted our P&L figures last month when Motherwell Twitter was getting bent out of shape about McMahon making an entirely stating the obvious comment that we needed significant investment to remain competitive and it's of note here. We finished 3rd in 11/12 and 2nd in 12/13 & 13/14 Dempster was Chief Exec from Sept 2008 and June 2014 so a net loss of £1,112,607 during her time? our league finishes were 7th, 5th, 6th, 3rd, 2nd & 2nd plus 1 SC cup final and 1 LC semi-final in the 10/11 season (hence the profit):

Aye. Kettlewell pretty much confirmed that we'd be giving players some time off when he spoke after the Hibs game. It makes absolute sense for Arsenal to bring him back and have a look at him especially after his injury and rehab (which he also did with them). As others have said, he's their player so they can do what the f**k they like with him. I had a giggle at the boy on Twitter saying "if he's on loan there can't see motherwell allowing that"...like we're going to say "No" they can't have their player back to train with their first team. I mean, we have all our development loan players training with us through the week but playing for their loan teams on match days. It's not exactly the same but it's pretty close in principle. The other thing is that if they genuinely see him as having potential for them either in terms of their first team or for selling him on then it's in their interests to keep him involved. Tbh, it's been interesting to see how some of the Arsenal accounts have been covering him. He's genuinely rated - which is a laugh given how dismissive some fans of a certain club were of him after their assortment of hammer throwers set about him earlier in the season.

There are a few interesting names of players whose contracts expire in the summer. EFL League 1 EFL League 2 Premier League 2 Scottish Premiership Looking back to last January obviously we went on a ludicrous trolley dash but although we seemed to sign Danzaki because Tam Aldred, Scott McDonald and Steven McGarry said he was a nice laddie and Blaney landed with us because he pinged one in from 30 yards for Sligo - a few of the others (Crankshaw, Aitchison, Butcher and Obika) were players known to the league. I wonder how much of that was Hammell saying explicitly that he wanted players he knew (given the McKinstry, Moult and Aarons signings in the summer) or if it was Daws actively bringing them to the table and it was just coincidence that they'd played up here? Of this summer's signings only Bair and Shaw had the same sort of background and in the case of Shaw, Kettlewell had already signed him for County which would suggest that it didn't come directly from the recruitment department.

Aye. Wilkinson is an absolutely fine enough footballer but the vibes were kind of off from the start and I think some folk just made their mind up on him straight away for whatever reason. He isn't the first and won't be the last in that respect I guess. It probably didn't help that the manager seemed to change his mind on what he wanted to do with the team a few weeks into the season. He's not a target man and he's not someone that's going to do the running around stuff that folk get worked up about. Either way we found a taker and they were willing to chuck us some cash to get him so it's a case of no harm, no foul.

Since we've had a few outgoings here's the squad as it stands (based on the published First Team on the official - I see Wilkinson's still there ). Feels like we're definitely short of RWB, LWB, CB, a midfielder and (probably) an across the front 3 forward. I wouldn't be committing all our recruitment to it but between Biereth, Spencer, Gent and Furlong we've had a decent return on sourcing players from the PL/EFL Championship u23s in specific areas of the park which hasn't always been the case - Luka Belic and Zak Jules anyone? Even McKinstry was broadly fine until Kettlewell got the gig and binned him out the team.

Re-signed, McGinley was a Robinson signing, Maguire is an academy product.

We've also been involved with the Transfer Room thing as well which I'd imagine helps streamline the process as well. 2021 - https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/rangers-hibs-motherwells-transferroom-ticket-24305484 2022 - https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/local-sport/motherwell-rub-shoulders-euro-giants-26462825 https://www.transferroom.com/

He was linked with a number of PL clubs while he was still in our academy so I guess had a similar kind of hype as Semple - Liverpool, Leeds & Brighton (September 2020) Per the news story about him leaving he had a serious knee injury and missed pretty much the whole of last season. We announced him signing a "short term" deal in June then punted him out on loan to Annan in July.

I think there's a lot in that that's true. In that there's a certain type of fan who has a pretty skewed idea of the level of player we're going to be signing. Although, I could be wrong, it also feels like there's a scepticism/dislike around Daws because it was Alexander who brought him in so when this narrative is being floated there are plenty of folk willing to just go along with it without thinking. As @crazylegsjoe_mfc says our recruitment isn't by any means perfect and my original post wasn't intended to white knight anyone but that Tweet isn't only selective it's actually quite disingenuous and as others have said as a metric it has no real context. Incidentally, Tierney still has a year to go on his deal after this so there's still time for the wee man to come good once Kettlewell fucks off. @RandomGuy.'s post is spot on as well. You look across the likes of Shields, Tierney, Wilkinson etc and for the most part you can see why they were signed. In fact, in the case of Shields he's exactly the type of signing that a section of our support loves to moan about us not making - the "why are we signing players from the English lower leagues? We should be targeting players from Scotland!" crowd. Anyway, to re-up a post of mine from last month here's the comparison between the signings with Foyle as HoR and Daws - make of it what you will. We signed around 83 players (give or take) both permanent and loan during Foyle's 6 years at the club and 44 since Daws arrived in 2021:

I mean, I've a lot of time for Nick McPheat's posts but other than having another dig at Daws I'm not sure what that actually tells us other than we have a high player turnover (which isn't exclusive to Daws time at the club). Like, I know what he's implying but Van Veen was signed on Daws watch...he's no longer at the club because we cashed in on him. We sold Big Sol. Sean Goss saw out his contract, Shields found another club because he wasn't going to get games under the new manager, Woolery moved for an undisclosed fee, Joey Efford found another club. I could go on... Of the 19 who have moved on the majority have either moved to other clubs or they've seen out their contracts. As I've said before I genuinely don't think Daws track record is markedly worse than Foyle's was and unlike some of the jobbers Robinson and Foyle brought to the club we're (apparently) not having to pay them off Casper Sloth style. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Other than Wilko actually scoring some goals is him moving on after 6 months any different to Alex Fisher, Theo Robinson, Dean Brill, Jordan White or Sloth who all bounced after 6 months and were brought in with Foyle as HoR? Even in the case of Souaré - the other of the "two permanent signings" who are already away he signed a short term deal and now he's away. Ultimately there has to be some sort of accountability from the manager because it's him that's OK'ing the signings Souaré's injury record was known, we had him in on trial - Kettlewell still signed him anyway. Same with Obika - Kettlewell actually re-signed him.

If he wants to have this 343/523 as an option then we probably need a wide forward, someone who can play "anywhere across the front 3" to use a Robinson-ism (I think @dezz actually mentioned this on the Terrace Patreon that went out the other week). If we're planning on using 3 forwards with any sort of regularity then only having 4 (one of whom is extremely injury prone) is probably leaving us a bit light and this idea of sticking Slattery in that role can get to f**k. Tbh, it would make sense why Wilko was the one to be let go as he's probably the most awkward fit for that shape from the group of him/Bair/Obika (assuming we actually signed him to play as a second striker) as he's neither a target man nor someone who could play as an inside forward in the way Biereth can and obviously he's the one we've be able to get a taker for. For me we're in the market for a LWB, RWB, CB, a #6 and a forward. Like, I genuinely don't see how anyone could look at our GA column and think the defence isn't a priority. Especially as we're actually scoring goals.

Tierney's been out injured with a hamstring issue since the start of December.