capt_oats

Full disclosure: I didn't read the article, for all I know it could have been some insightful musing on the nature of post-truth/post-fact culture on Scottish football. IDK. As headlines go though it's utterly baffling and seems preposterous that it's even remotely being suggested that a point of conversation that was made up and was at no point either credible or believable. As I said in my post earlier this morning even Warburton was pishing himself at the story. Utterly desperate stuff. Edit: I've since read the article and it's every bit as bad as I suspected it'd be.

Da fuq?

Absolutely this, Sky ran the clip on Twitter. Warburton spends a minute and a half basically laughing at the idea then some poor sod, presumably on instruction from his editor, pipes up with "aren't there positives to be taken from this though?" It's a totally made up story m8, even Warburton is pishing himself at the idea people were taking it seriously. Positives? Fucking hell man.

Indeed.

"not believed to be close to the club record £470k", no?

Other than him being desperate to get away from Sutton I really can't see why Craigan would want to give up his BT gig. As it stands he's got his involvement in coaching via the MFC u20s and Northern Ireland u19s combined with his pundit work with BT. Seems like the best of both worlds to me. No real results based pressure on the coaching side of things and a comfortable role on the telly. He'd have to be mental to wilfully disrupt that IMO.

Lucas has signed a short term deal (2 weeks apparently) so yes, we've signed him but only to allow him to play in these cup games as you can't play trialists in official matches. Seem to be doing the same with Craig Clay as well. On the point of Faddy, I wonder if him taking the assistant wage frees up playing budget given he's had an offer on the table since May. It could explain how/why we're able to take a look at Clay as well as Lucas now.

Makes a fair bit of sense tbh. He's doing his badges, there was a lot of chat at the end of last season about wanting to cultivate a boot-room mentality in terms of the infrastructure at the club. The fact that he's registered as a player means that there's cover there without us necessarily "wasting" a wage on a striker sat on the bench and we're not totally reliant on Mackin as 4th choice striker. In honesty, short of Gordon Young who got his jotters at United I'd struggle to think of an obvious candidate for the job anyway.

Worth pointing out that Clay has been at the club since last week, so it's not as if we've just got on the phone this morning like we're a man short for 5s. He played with Tait at Grimsby, in honesty he looked much more like an all round midfielder and a box to box player in the Pearson mould, certainly moreso than Lucas who as Casagolda points out looks to very much fit the bill of a deep lying playmaker. In Lucas' defence it's been serious injuries that have kept him out rather than your run of the mill knocks and strains. He missed a year with a fractured back and the best part of 2 years with a ruptured anterior ligament in his knee. It says a lot about him I suppose that he's been able to come back from both. Also I think he's got a fair few games for Swansea's u21s under his belt since he recovered from his knee injury and he was regularly completing 90 mins for the Wales u21 side when he was captaining them. Having had a quick check it seems he returned to Swansea's u21s in February this year after 19 months out with the knee injury. Lucas has been on trial with us since the start of the month which to me suggests we're seriously looking at him, it seems a long time for a player to commit in the "hope of winning a deal" to use that cliché. As I posted over on Steelmen I wonder if it's more likely the case that the trial is fitness based and whether it's the case that we've provisionally agreed a deal with him subject to his knee not falling apart. If you look at the timeline McGhee was on record as saying after Pearson left that we were light in midfield and looking at 2-3 midfielders but that we wouldn't panic. We then brought in McHugh and Lucas arrived on trial, at which point the official line changed to McGhee saying we'd spent our budget and he'd be working with what he has. In hindsight it may well be the case that he was including Lucas in that. I guess as far as the logic of a deal goes when it comes down to it we'd be trading off the injury risk against the potential that we're getting a better player for the money we're offering as a result of that risk. We'd be offering a player viewed as having potential a platform to get that first team experience he's missed and get back in the game. For all the Wales international aspect brings back horrible memories of Jake Taylor, Lucas came through their Academy as player of the year and Swansea saw enough potential in him to offer a 3 year deal through a period they've been at Premier League level. A year deal with realistic basic and bonuses and an option in favour of the club would seem worth a punt. Even more so if we were actually in a position to bring Clay in as well. It depends on just how reliant we'd be on Lucas I suppose.

Velvet Underground - I'm Waiting For The Man

Nirvana - Come As You Are

Arab Strap - Girls of Summer

Good statement from the club tbf. It seems the whole thing has been put to bed. At the very least it makes it clear that there will be no contracts being ripped up. http://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2016/07/21/club-statement-scott-mcdonald-2/

Yeah but the Mail originally ran it as being Sydney FC (per BBC gossip page that cited the Mail as the source). Sydney FC's CEO dismissed the story via a tweet early this AM. The Record then ran Jackson's version citing Western Sydney Wanderers as the team linked which was posted at 11:50. The Mail have since amended their version (as of 14:17) with WSW as the team supposedly interested. As you say though, there are no quotes and nothing to substantiate the story. Indeed Alan Burrows had already indicated that there have been no approaches or enquiries 2 hours prior to Jackson's version going live.

Pre-match press conferences are normally Thursdays and uploaded shortly after? I'd imagine that it'd be addressed one way or another then. It's interesting that only 2 papers have run the story, the Daily Mail and the Record not to mention the Mail amended their original story in line with The Record when the CEO of the team they originally linked McDonald with dismissed the story straight away.

The McDonald thing is just weird, fair enough every player has a price etc but we knew what McDonald would cost us when budgets were being done (see the comment from McGhee about it being either/or not both with McDonald and El Bahktaoui). If Sydney have come in with an offer (though their chief exec seems to be denying they have) then there's a question to be answered by MFC, but I can't really see us actively hawking him around. Edit: That's yer Alan Burrows confirming there have been no bids or enquires received for McDonald.

I think there's definitely something in that, especially given Pearson was under contract. I'm not sure they saw a bid coming in for a 33 year old with a year on his deal. There's also the idea that Pearson may be back in January (given the time frame of the ISL) so if we're factoring in Pearson's wage for the 2nd half of the season it may well have caused a problem with the budget. Ultimately if moving on our 4th choice striker allows us to bring in another midfielder then I'm fine with it, it definitely looks weird given he signed the new deal, but if it means we can add to the squad without selling say, Johnson (unless a legit decent offer comes in) then as things go it's a reasonable outcome for everyone: MFC get their player in an area they're short in, Moore gets to go to a club he performed well at and is guaranteed first team games.

In addition to Moore I wouldn't be surprised to see a couple of the 20s go out on loan as well.

Genuinely quite surprised about Moore on the basis that we gave him a year deal at the start of the summer and we're already a striker down with Moult being out injured. I get that he'll clearly start every week for Ayr and is less likely to at Motherwell but surely that was the obvious choice he was looking at when he signed the deal a couple of months ago. I'd imagine this is part of the 'wheeling and dealing' that was mentioned in relation to bringing in a midfielder, but still... I suppose if we needed to move someone out then it's entirely dictated by whether there's actually interest in a player and as itzdrk was pointing out McCall's been banging on about trying to get Moore back in.

I thought McGhee's post-match comments re: Chalmers were (possibly unintentionally) very revealing. On the face of it, it was just general platitudes; "he was alright. he did a disciplined job", "We like Joe, we think he's a good player and better than he showed today" however he qualified that by saying that "Joe's got a future here if he really buckles down and grabs his chance" and quite oddly "we're still not quite sure what his position is; is he left midfield, left back, left wing?", even the fairly throwaway comment about him being pleased that he had trimmed his beard down to make him look more like a player suggests there's a doubt there about attitude. I know I was posting earlier about taking McGhee's comments to the press with a pinch of salt but I think it's telling that Chalmers has been here for just over a year and the management and coaching staff still don't really see where he fits in. Obviously he's a player McGhee inherited from Baraclough but it doesn't really bode well long term and from the sounds of things McGhee's as perplexed as most 'Well fans as to why Chalmers was actually signed. For what it's worth I thought he did alright in the role but it's not something I'd be wanting to be relying on for the rest of the season. Reading between the lines it sounds like Chalmers maybe has the rest of the LC group games to show something.

I was quite surprised about Moult too though he'd been saying in the press that he'd play through it so I've a feeling it's one of those where we knew we could get 15-20mins out of him. In honesty though I'd rather have had Moore coming off the bench in a glorified pre-season friendly than a half-fit Moult. I hope he gets a decent chance from McGhee as all he's really had to date are cameos here and there under previous managers. All the qualities you list are attributes we're lacking up front; Moult's a poacher who'll work his arse off but isn't the quickest, Blyth seems to have 'presence' and McDonald gives experience & guile (along with 14 goals last season) but isn't particularly direct. The one thing I would say is that McGhee's on record as saying he'd like to bring another midfielder but we've spent our money. Essentially if we want to bring someone in we'll need to see out goings. Given Moult's injury I'd be surprised if it was a forward we'd want to move though.

Quite. My general rule with McGhee speaking to the press is to look at what he meant rather than what he actually said. Too many seem to just take him literally. The whole "I could've been managing Liverpool" thing being a good example of that. McGhee's not averse to buck passing but at the same time I'd have thought given where MFC are at the moment in terms of transition "not getting relegated" would be a fairly obvious starting point.

Given the budget has been massively scaled back to a more realistic level based on our income then I'm not really sure what folk were expecting him to say. If he comes out saying we're going for Top 6 then he's making a rod for his own back. The club's primary ambition should always be to stay in the league.

He's played a part in most of the pre-season games, scored in one. Vs Rangers we started with one centre forward (McDonald) and two wingers (Johnson, Ainsworth) which meant we had two strikers on the bench (Moult, Blyth). Unfortunately for Moore there wasn't room for a 3rd on the bench. Last season we were starting games with Johnson, Moult & McDonald as our front 3. If we revert to that then it'd (in theory) leave a spot for Moore as one of the strikers on the bench. As it is though, Moult has a niggling groin injury that appears to need surgery and the rumour seems to be that he'll miss the first month of the season so I'd imagine Moore will be involved, most likely off the bench, while he's out. Listening to McGhee post-match yesterday he seemed to be indicating that he plans on making the wide 433 with Johnson and Ainsworth one of our default systems going forward though once Lasley's back I can see a 442 with two strikers coming into play and Ainsworth on the bench.