capt_oats

Cheers! That's an interesting read. "Buyabu is an infectious footballer. Somebody the fans would love and he'd get folk on the edge of their seat. When he has the ball good things happen." That sounds...familiar.

Tbh, I'm mildly interested to know what the triggers are that will increase the payments that are due on top of that. Presumably Killie's league placing, qualification for Europe and KVV actually scoring some goals and making appearances?

Agree I doubt it's intended to be a longterm solution but if it works then I can see us rolling with it. My read on the signing of the fullbacks thing is quite simply to give us options/alternatives given how reliant we are on them and especially if Gent is being viewed as an option further up the park and SOD and McGinn are thought of as centre backs. I thought it was interesting to read that Buyabu was described in the spiel the club put out as "predominantly a full-back but can operate further forward". He's described on his Wiki as being a wing back which is unusually specific. The few clips I was able to find on YouTube, much like Gent he looks like he's effectively playing as a winger. Either way it was slightly more reassuring to look at our bench yesterday and it not resemble a creche.

To add to @DC92's post, this is nowhere near the worst Motherwell team in decades.

Kettlewell on Free Agency: He's quite open that we were in for KVV in that article so I suppose it's a question of were we just in for him because it was KVV or he thinks we definitely need another striker (his opinion may be different to many others).

What a man. Cutting about like prime Henry.

I didn't think Killie were particularly poor tbh - I thought we just did a good job on them. Kind of echoing @thisGRAEME's post on our thread but Killie have very specific threats and it's often the case that good wide players can get a fair bit of joy playing against a back three with the space in behind the wing backs but the way we set up with SOD and Bevis (hilariously but effectively) interchanging on one side and McGinn and Gent on the other we not only smothered them but actually shut them down to the point that they spent a good chunk of the game forced into playing in areas they didn't want to be. Following on from the St Johnstone game the other week yesterday felt like another game where we actually had a lot of control in a way that we definitely didn't when we were chaosballing our way to points/draws earlier in the season.

Also, McInnes didn't actually say that he wasn't expensive - in fact he says that the club "supported" the effort to get him. What he said was that they matched St Mirren's offer but didn't throw extra money at it - which isn't saying they're not paying over the odds.

I mean, if you actually read and understood what I wrote you'd see that's not what I'm talking about at all. If nuance isn't really your thing then, respectfully...f**k off.

I was obviously being glib when I mentioned Killie covering Kev's extended paternity leave but...that's kind of what it feels like. You had posted a few times about Groningen having given up a fair amount of leverage on him and I agree there's absolutely no reason for anyone looking at him and his situation to say, "Yeah, we'll pay the guts of his wages". I imagine they were pishing themselves when not one but two clubs decided they were willing to actually pay what they were looking for.

I was just having a look at the table. We're 4 points off 6th but 3 points off 11th.

You have to say, getting Killie to foot the bill for Kev's extended paternity leave is some bit of business by Groningen. Chapeau.

Not really related to anything in particular but with all the low whelm of last night and "wait...we're not actually signing a striker?" vibes I see the bold Jili signed a new long term deal with Sheffield United before the loan was announced. He's contracted with them until 2027 now. https://www.sufc.co.uk/news/2024/february/01/jili-heads-north/

Taking @Handsome_Devil's point that it's probably far enough away to ignore but just to add re: that 20/21 season we finished with a playing squad of something like 35 players in the first team squad as a result of various injuries. The accounts referenced this as having cost us an increase of £650k in Staff Costs and Other Operating Expenses as a result:

McMahon pretty much straight up said that when he was stumbling his way through that interview tbh.

Tbh, I think there are probably two different conversations. Broadly speaking our January window was fine we addressed some areas that needed addressing, we added a bit of depth and we didn't resort to the sort of trolley dash we've seen in other windows. Our first team squad as it stands sits at 24 as opposed to the sort of numbers we've seen in previous seasons(which are arguably coming back to bite us now). As others have said we're probably one decent senior striker away from having had a decent enough window. That's fine. But here's the rub...that striker was pretty much the one thing we had to get right given the impact Biereth has had on our season to date. We had Kettlewell sat in front of the press last week talking about how a striker was a priority going into this window, Frail did the media call yesterday explaining about how we needed to add in that area (or words to that effect). We obviously didn't have much choice in Biereth's recall however we sold Wilkinson and returned Shaw to sender....we effectively cleared the decks to facilitate getting someone in and...didn't. Regardless of what happens, who knows maybe we find this year's Scott McDonald equivalent in free agency or Jack Vale turns out to be the second coming of Alan Shearer, you can't dress the fact that we went into the final day of the window having not adequately addressed the striker situation (which was apparently a priority) as anything other than a failure. That's not me looking for a pound of flesh or whatever but there has to be some accountability as far as what happened and why we didn't manage to get someone in. The optics of this window haven't been great between having the rug pulled from under us with Biereth to whatever yesterday was to being gazumped by Hibs for a striker in the final hours we've looked like the football club equivalent of Charlie Brown.

Hi. Here you go... I mean, I genuinely don't get what folk are bumping against here. Elliot hadn't kicked a baw since last season, it seems pretty clear to me that he's here on what is effectively an extended trial he might be good in which case...great. As @Casagolda said a few pages back bringing these players in will presumably give us a bit of energy and pace in wide areas. Which is exactly what folk were complaining about when SOD was playing there. We need an actual striker absolutely, we tried to get one today and it didn't happen. I don't think Kettlewell is unaware of this but I guess we're now at the point where we're looking at Free Agency unless something weird happens.

Aye. It'll be someone who's mutualed with their club before close of business or something like that. As @crazylegsjoe_mfc said earlier we announced Obika after the window closed last year and IIRC Butcher was a couple of days later.

There's Jili

Because one's a LWB to replace Montgomery and the other is a RWB because we prefer SOD and McGinn in the back 3.

He's Sydney Devine's grandson. According to his Wiki.

LWB - the excellently named Jili Buyabu from Sheffield United and presumably a striker.

My mind is melting that there are folk on Motherwell Twitter who seem raging that we apparently lost out on Curtis Main to Dundee yet would probably have been equally furious if we had signed Curtis Main.