capt_oats

It’s apparently to allow us to sell it as a PPV game.

This is something I was thinking about as well after reading the Kettlewell stuff earlier. He was announced on a 2 year deal and the copy explicitly says he signed until summer 2023 then similar to SOD it turns out there's been an extra year added but not announced. I could understand if there was an extension clause in the deal but Efford didn't kick a baw for us after 8th October so it's difficult to see it being an appearances trigger and you'd think if we'd been doing our sound guy routine and getting him fit again after a long term injury it wouldn't have been on 'top earner' terms. Aye, I think it's absolutely fair to say that it seems like we've been overpaying. To me that's slightly different to the recruitment being bad - to me it's more the case we've just not been very efficient in what we've been doing and the point about value is also completely fair. In the case of the likes of Ojala and Sol - both made sense but didn't really work out as planned and in Sol's case we moved him on after a year for an undisclosed fee and the big man is starting every week for Odd in the Eliteserien (they're sitting mid-table in 8th at the moment). You'd hope we'd have come out of that one having at least broken even - no harm, no foul. In terms of the recent gutting we've seen I think it really chimes with Kettlewell's point that we were simply running with too many players which is something that I think we've all identified through various manager be it Robinson, Alexander or Hammell. Both Robinson and Alexander preached about wanting to run with smaller squads (in fairness Grezza inherited one with about 35 first team players) but we kept finding ourselves in situations where we were having to pile on numbers - Robinson always seemed to need that one extra "forward who can play anywhere across the front 3" and Hammell's trolley dash in January being the latest example and the board have always made it work. SK seems to have been the first manager that's actually understood the assignment and got to grips with it.

If nothing else I admire your optimism that we'd actually have seen any benefits of those signings if Hammell had stuck around. They both started against Raith Rovers after all. I mean, we absolutely saw the benefits of the two signings once he was out the door so kudos to him or whoever it was on the recruitment team who identified them and got them in the building. Tbh, I'd kind of forgotten that we're still in a position where we have an 'interim' CEO and I guess Kettlewell covering the budget stuff in the way he has opens up the question of how much scope Weir has at the moment to audit the processes we've had in place over the past few years. I mean, it feels like there's a lot to unpack post-Burrows but you'd have thought the 'interim'-ness of it all would limit any remit to action changes in a meaningful way.

That's an interesting bit of spiel from Kettlewell. I mean, stepping aside from the headline 'WTF' of Joe being 'a top earner' (which in a way I'm not surprised about) I guess the positive is that we've managed to get to a position that the board are happy with in the space of a single window. What does stand out is the amount of fat that we've had to trim to get there: I think it was @crazylegsjoe_mfc who posted the other day pointing out that even with the level of turnover of playing staff we're still sitting on 23 first team players but haven't recruited to replace Lamie, Efford, Crankshaw, Danzaki, McKinstry, Morris, Tierney and Goss. Although Miller is clearly the Goss replacement that's still 7 players and on top of that we've binned the Reserves and a whole raft of backroom staff that Alexander put in place. It kind of feels like we had money to spend after the various profits from the likes of Jimmy Scott and Turnbull moving so we spent some of it. Burrows definitely seemed to buy into the idea of expanding the football department and backroom staff. Ironically that's the kind of ambition fans are all for until it doesn't work, then they're furious. As an aside he doesn't really give much away about Joe going forward he also doesn't explicitly say that we've not had to pay him off (as he did in the case of Danzaki) but he also implies that it's had a positive effect on our budget position: “In that, Joe gets an opportunity to move on in his career and potentially get out of it what he wants.”, “But a possible option came up for the likes of Joe, and that just gives us a wee bit of a chance to balance things off." I kind of disagree with this tbh. Not massively but I'm not sure the recruitment over the past couple of years has been bad. I think it's fair to say that we've maybe lost the run of ourselves a bit but equally our league finishes post-Robinson have been 8th (on same points as St Mirren in 7th), 5th and 7th. Some signings haven't worked out sure but that happens. I'd argue that the Bad Decision last season was giving Hammell the job to replace Alexander - the upturn under Kettlewell with the majority of the same players at his disposal suggests to me that it wasn't the players who were the problem. I don't think we've necessarily improved or seen value added vs the money spent but equally I don't think we've regressed either. The likes of Parker, Amaluzor (IMO) were no different to Robinson taking a punt on Manzinga or whatever. There's every chance that the bold Mich'el was a favour to an agent but either way it was pretty clear that Alexander's early signings in that window were effectively ringers to literally fill jerseys through the league cup games until we got the likes of Slattery, Ojala and Johansen through the door. I've mentioned this before but I think Alexander's signings were broadly fine but he didn't have the sort of stand out successes Robinson did (Carson, Kipré etc). The thing that mitigates Hammell IMO is that regardless of whether they only played 5 mins or whatever combined the bulk of his signings were either loans or short term deals so Danzaki aside I guess our exposure was limited for the most part - McKinstry (loan), Penney (loan), Moult (loan), Aarons (loan), Furlong (loan), Obika (loan), Mandron (end of season), Aitchison (end of season), Casey (end of season).

We've paid fees for a bunch of players, since around the time Hutchison took over. It's weird that it's become a trope on Motherwell Twitter that we haven't. On top of the players I mentioned on the other page who were contracted when we signed them off the top of my head there's: Johnson Moult Bowman Frear Carson Donnelly, Plus Kelly, Slattery, Ojala, Johansen, Roberts, Tierney, Efford and Mahon who fall into the bracket of under contract at other clubs/would have required development fees when we signed them. There may well be others.

We spent over £500k on players that season (finished 5th and qualified for Europe tbf). By my count the players we signed that season who were either under contract or would have required a development fee would have been: Kelly, Slattery, Ojala, Johansen, Roberts, Tierney, Efford and Mahon. I mean, ultimately of that intake we sold Woolery, Johansen and Van Veen so you'd think we'd have at least broken even on the £542k.

Blaney's been available of 8 of our 9 fixtures so far this season and 16 of the 22 games we played while he was at the club last season. I'm not sure what makes you think he's a "permacrock".

We did, aye. https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2022/01/28/joe-efford-signs/ It's a fairly dull topic but as a comparison here are the signings by manager. It's worth pointing out that Foyle handed in his notice when Robinson left and given the timing I'm unsure of precisely how many of the signings in the 20/21 January window you can genuinely attribute to Grezza. IIRC Lawless confirmed that the deal had been set up by Robinson for example. Daws took over as HOR from 21/22: Robinson: 17/18 Alex Fisher, Gael Bigirimana, Craig Tanner, Trevor Carson, Andy Rose, Russell Griffiths, Charles Dunne, Cedric Kipre, George Newell, Ellis Plummer, Rohan Ferguson, Deimantas Petravičius, Liam Grimshaw, Gennadios Xenodochof, Curtis Main, Peter Hartley (loan)/(permanent), Nadir Ciftci (loan), Tom Aldred (loan) x 2, Stephen Hendrie (loan) Total = 19 18/19 Mark Gillespie, Liam Donnelly, Danny Johnson, Aaron Taylor-Sinclair, Alex Rodriguez-Gorrin, Christian Mbulu, Conor Sammon (loan), Ross McCormack (loan), Gboly Ariyibi (loan) Total = 9 19/20 Declan Gallagher, Liam Polworth, Jake Carroll, Casper Sloth, Jermaine Hylton, Christopher Long, Sherwin Seedorf, Christian Ilic, Christy Manzinga, Ross MacIver, Bevis Mugabi, Tony Watt, Harry Robinson, Devante Cole (loan)/permanent, Mark O'Hara (loan/permanent), Mikael Ndjoli (loan), Rolando Aarons (loan) Total = 17 20/21 (Summer) Ricki Lamie, Jordan White, Nathan McGinley, Scott Fox, Stephen O'Donnell, Aaron Chapman, Jordan Archer, Jake Hastie (loan), Callum Lang (loan), Robbie Crawford (loan) Total = 10 Robinson total signed: 55 Alexander: 20/21 (Winter) Liam Kelly (loan), Steven Lawless, Harry Smith (loan), Sam Foley, Robbie Crawford (loan made permanent), Jordan Roberts (loan), Eddie Nolan (loan), Tyler Magloire (loan) Total = 8 21/22 Connor Shields, Justin Amaluzor, Kaiyne Woolery, Kevin Van Veen, Liam Kelly, Darragh O'Connor, Mich'el Parker, Callum Slattery, Juhani Ojala, Sean Goss, Sondre Solholm Johansen, Ross Tierney, Jordan Roberts (loan/loan made permanent), Victor Nirennold, Joe Efford, Robbie Mahon, Liam Shaw (loan) Total = 17 23/23 (Summer) Paul McGinn, Blair Spittal, Josh Morris, Aston Oxborough Total = 4 Alexander total signed: 29 Hammell: 22/23: Stuart McKinstry (loan), Matt Penney (loan), Rolando Aarons (loan), Louis Moult (loan), Shane Blaney, Ollie Crankshaw (loan), Mikael Mandron, Riku Danzaki, Jack Aitchison, James Furlong (loan), Jonathan Obika (loan), Dan Casey, Calum Butcher Total = 13 Hammell total signed: 13 Kettlewell: 22/23 (post-January): Harry Paton Total = 1 23/24 (Summer): Jonathan Obika, Conor Wilkinson, Pape Soaré, Davor Zdravkovski, Theo Bair, Mika Biereth (loan), Brodie Spencer (loan), Oli Shaw (loan), Georgie Gent (loan) Total = 9 Kettlewell total signed to date: 10

I suppose it depends on what the deal is with Efford's exit. If it's similar to the Danzaki situation where he's got a club lined up and the mutualling is to allow him to take up the offer with no cost to us then it wouldn't be a surprise if we were in the Free Agency market. If we've had to pay him off then it probably limits what we can do in terms of "one out, one in". Although, if that's the case then other than getting shot of a body I'm not sure what the benefit is to us. It'll be interesting to see if any friendly journos get briefed as to what the sketch is. I think it was Scott Burns who got the nudge on Danzaki going back to the A League after we'd announced the mutual consenting. As it stands though, based on our First Team: 23 bodies - @Swello alluded to it on the other page but while mileage may vary on the quality of of some of the players (and we've not seen much of the likes of Zdravkovski, Spencer, Shaw - or anything of Gent) this is probably as lean a squad as we've had in years - maybe since the McCall era? 3 of our 5 strikers are injured to varying degrees and given we've pivoted to effectively playing 2 #10s and 2 CMs we probably feel a wee bit light in there as well. If we are looking at bringing in another body it'll be interesting to see what area we'd prioritise tbh.

Tbh, we saw the value of keeping McGinley around the other week when we chucked him on at Tynecastle. If rumours are to be believed he’s on a relatively modest wage which means we’ve a player on the books who offers a bit of emergency cover at LWB/LCB. That’s…fine? Equally, assuming he’s not on a significant wage, it’s unlikely that anyone we’d be able to swap in on similar terms would be any better. I mean, would I be keeping him on after his contract is up? Probably not. Is it a surprise we’ve kept him around? Not really. Obviously the loan window is still open for lower league sides if we wanted to loan him out and a team wanted to take him but given the numbers in the squad I’d be surprised if that was something we were looking at. The fixation some folk have with Toby is pretty weird tbqhwy.

No. As I just mentioned he was still registered with us after our window closed (given he was on our bench against Hearts). It means he’d only be able to sign for a club whose window is still open now. Alternatively he needs to wait until January - see Steven Lawless as an example of a player we mutually consented outside a window.

Transfermarkt has a helpful list: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/statistik/transferfenster I suppose it’s worth factoring in that this is just us announcing that he’s been mutualed. It could have been finalised slightly earlier (although he was on the bench against Hearts so was clearly still registered after our deadline passed). I see the Australian window closes on the 12th (yesterday for us with the time difference) and the Greek window closed yesterday. Presumably it’d leave him eligible for a move there. Posting at 8:57pm is similarly odd timing (literally).

HBD @YassinMoutaouakil

Does the USL Championship (their 2nd tier that we signed Casey from) operate under transfer window rules? I noticed some mention on the Central Coast Mariners forum that their window apparently closes this week - we've already done business with the bold Riku heading back to the A-League this summer. The vibes with this are similar to Danzaki's exit in so much as we've clearly been trying to offload him all summer. Us mutualling him to allow him to take up an offer elsewhere kind of fits with the way we've carried ourselves with this sort of stuff. I mean, Joey played in Romania, Spain, Greece and Belgium before pitching up here so it wouldn't be a massive surprise if he ended up in some oddball league. I'm not so sure about that tbh. The chat has been that we've been trying to get shot of him all summer. I'd have thought the odds are probably more that we've finally found a taker rather than one of our broken players has had some sort of miracle recovery. Also, there's probably an argument that the tweak to the shape has meant we're less reliant on playing 2 strikers and the two #10s is a fit for what we have at the moment.

It’s Dan Twardzik denial all over again.

That was my take anaw. At least he's not going to be playing against us and have the "he's odds on to score against us" trope. Given we only have Bair, Shaw and Ferrie as our fit strikers just now I wonder if we're in a free agent market situation.

Well...

That's equal parts annoying (he'd have been a great fit and it seemed like it was done) and fine (we only seemed to want him until January while he's at Wrexham til the end of the season I'm sure he'll be getting properly weighed in by Mac and Van Wilder). Good for him. Tbh, with Kettlewell talking on Sportsound about the number of weans we've had on the bench recently as a result of injuries I wondered if we're still in the market or if we're genuinely done. It was also very, very funny. Which is the most important thing tbqhwy.

As an aside, I see that's #Grezza won League 2 MOTM (they're 2nd in the league) yet the Alexander thread on the MKD forum looks very familiar (I'm not the Motherwell fan who posted btw). https://www.sitdownorwellstealyourclub.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9084&start=130 I see they've been doing a bit of research on Steelmen anaw. https://www.sitdownorwellstealyourclub.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9084&start=250

As far as I can see the last (only?) link re: McKinstry was Harrogate Town at the end of June.

I know IG doesn't tell you everything about what's going on but I mentioned the other week that McKinstry had posted up recent stories and to all intents and purposes it looked like he was on holiday with (I'm assuming) his bird (they're saved on his highlights as having been posted 1 week ago). I mean, fair enough and all that. He looks like he's having a nice time but I thought it was interesting that - as far as I've seen - there have been no stories of him back out on the grass or any "back at it " type posts. I think it was @Swello who mentioned that Johnston had plenty of clips posted up of him doing private sessions during pre-season while he was between clubs. There's been nothing of that with McKinstry, just photos of him seemingly dotting around the USA.

Arrived as assistant to Baraclough 13th February 2015 through McGhee and leaves for Oldham on 9th July 2016 (512 days). Back as first team coach 20th February 2017 until he resigned December 31st 2020 (1410 days). Total of 1922 days = 5 years 3 months.

Speaking of interviews I rarely listen to Sportsound but notice he had a short(ish) interview on Monday which is included in their podcast. He was asked about Slattery and he alludes to what I think most of us suspected was the case in so much as the unpleasantness along with his entirely shite time in terms of his personal circumstances had a negative impact on him last season and pointed out that he seems to be in a much better place now - which is good to hear tbh. Ketts appears around 5mins 50s.