capt_oats

You know how before the window opened Kettlewell was talking about wanting to add a couple on top of what we already had I could absolutely have seen Halliday being one of those extra bodies. I mean, our needs have changed in the past week but we still needed to add a bit of depth either way. I'd imagine this means any notion of Butcher as a midfielder is put to bed. Which I'd guess folk will be on board with. We still need a RWB, a Slattery replacement + 2 strikers minimum though. We only have 1 fit striker. Shaw's injured and I just assume Obika isn't fit.

I see there's a suggestion that Biereth's away to Sturm Graz to cut about with Max Johnston.

Aye. It had crossed my mind that it's quite possible Kettlewell might not be that fussed about having him back for that specific reason but he clearly isn't about to come out and say that given KVV's status with the fanbase (he's very not Curtis Main). IIRC when the deal went through in the summer he was effusive in his praise for him but he also chucked in something along the lines of "he's a difficult player to manage". I think there are probably Academy Loans and Academy Loans. It's the difference between someone who's rated within an PL club structure (eg: Biereth, Furlong, Spencer or even Jutkiewicz) and those who - respectfully - are really just landfill destined to be bounced around on loan for ever more (eg: Mikael Ndjoli, Luka Belic etc). The former are almost certainly going to be more difficult to source and/or convince to bring to the club. I'd like to think that there would have been other players with a similar profile as Biereth that we had on our list since I'd be surprised if we lucked out and got Mika at the first time of asking.

A good interview with Biereth in The Athletic for those who subscribe (he has 18 months to go on his Arsenal contract btw). He seems to have had a nice time in ML1.

Aye going by the videos I watched earlier he looks far more advanced than Goss was.

1 of his 5 goals this season.

Agree with that. Although in fairness to the point about avoiding the bottom two, listening to Kettlewell's presser it sounds like we absolutely will be bringing bodies in. Someone mentioned it earlier but it sounds like there's a decent chance we'll be a lot busier than expected. Whether they're the required quality is a different story but the suggestion we're keen on Scott Fraser is quite the step up from Andy Halliday tbf.

I clocked that comment as well. I think it was @thisGRAEME who mentioned the idea that we could use Gent as a wide forward if we're sticking with the 343. Tbh, the bit of YouTube digging I did when Gent signed threw up a bunch of videos where it looked as though he was effectively playing as a winger. I think that actually solves Kettlewell's issue with him as well in so much as he doesn't really seem to trust him as a defender but he probably feels he could put up numbers in an advanced role. We've already seen he can put a cross in like.

It was mentioned at the AGM when Lamie signed his PCA with Dundee that they'd chucked absolutely daft money at him. Alexander mentioned it publicly as well.

In fairness, on the nae money thing I think Kettlewell probably has to bring that narrative back given McMahon spent pretty much all of last week having to tell everyone that actually we're not skint and not in "financial difficulty". It doesn't exactly help in terms of our leverage if other clubs know that we're not only entirely solvent but absolutely fucking desperate for players.

I see he was at United at the same time as Butcher (first time) and Spittal. Going by the article from Burns he wants the move to happen. Moving back up for family reasons etc. The 'hurdle' seems to be that there are English teams interested who'll pay more money. Make it happen Daws. Tbh, though I'm not a massive fan of Stewart (he has a really fucking weird face) I'd actually have said that, given at the time we had Biereth and oor Thelonius, he was probably closer to what we actually needed than Main was/is especially if Kettlewell is angling to play with 3 forwards.

Oh aye? A rumour... Official. Reader...I laughed. (Fair enough they were waiting on the paperwork coming through before confirming).

Wait...is that our Robert Maaskant?

Aye that was the assumption I made not least because looking through @RandomGuy.'s January transfers thread it's difficult to identify anyone other than Main that we might have had an interest in - we're not competing with Celtic and Rangers. None of Aberdeen, Hibs or Killie have signed anyone which leaves Dundee, Hearts, Livi, County, St Johnstone or St Mirren and, respectfully, it's slim pickings when you look at the players they've brought in. Tbh, I still find it a bit weird that we'd have thought that Main would actually have been *that* interested in coming back here given he wasn't exactly a beloved player.

Fwiw, here are the quotes from Kettlewell in that Record piece: I wonder which club(s) "blew us out the water". Tbh, if there's a positive here I guess that while he's talking about us working under "strict" guidelines in seasons gone past we've been in the position where we've found ourselves not only needing to improve what we had/have but also (thinking back to some of the Robinson seasons) having an bloated squad because the manager at the time had overseen us signing dugmeat. Where we are just now, whilst not ideal, we actually have room in the squad to bring bodies in - it's unlikely to be the case that we'll be in the position of having 35 bodies or whatever as we were when Alexander took over from Robinson.

I’m not sure what Kettlewell is saying ‘scotches’ anything but this is mildly interesting given it was (I think) BAnderson who reported we’d been granted permission to speak to him but the club also straight up denied the Connor Smith link when Burns asked.

So even just to replace players we've lost we're looking at 2 strikers, CM, RWB. Souaré (out - end of contract) - Montgomery (in) Wilkinson (out - sold) - ? Spencer (out - recalled) - ? Slattery (inj - out for season) - ? Biereth (out - recalled) - ? Plus Kettlewell had indicated that he felt we were short before all *this*. Seems he spoke about "business" in general during the presser:

I mean, it was the same recruitment team who brought Biereth in so that's something...then again we had a whole summer to work on that. It feels like turning a similar deal round in January is a much tougher question.

Reading Kettlewell's comments from the presser I think a major problem for us now is that naive as it may be it doesn't look like we've seen this coming so I'm guessing we're not best placed to deal with it, Essentially it sounds like we had the discussion last week and were told by Arsenal that the plan was for Biereth to see out the season with us and we've taken them on their word in good faith.

Tierney has been injured since the end of November. He wasn't in Walsall's squad at the weekend. IIRC it was a hamstring issue he's had. Anyway...this is a giggle.

And there it is...presumably from Kettlewell's presser. Here was me thinking that fucking video was going to be the worst Motherwell related news in January.