capt_oats

In fairness, @Jim McLean's Ghost explained it in a straightforward way the other day. For all those players have now left we've about half a dozen who were either out on loan or injured back and available while the big cash prize from the unexpected sale of Van Veen goes to mitigating the (presumably sizeable) deficit from our Year of Bad Decisions. Tbh, having listened to Kettlewell's interview earlier I think some people are conflating a few things. He didn't say we didn't have budget available to make offers, he admitted we'd spoken to Mandron about coming back although suggested we weren't able to offer what he was looking for (or words to that effect). The key point I thought he was making is that we need to move players out before we bring others in which is a different thing to not having money to sign players unless we move players on. It's a numbers issue as much as a budget thing. We currently have 24 first team players on the books (including Connelly, Wilson, Campbell, Miller and Mahon) that's pretty much our max. Unless we want to go back to the days of Robinson's 7 and 8 "forwards" and a squad of 28 or 29 bodies then there needs to be some finessing which is the way I took what Kettlewell was saying. Presumably had Cornelius, Casey, Goss, Johnston all accepted the offers we just wouldn't have been making signings to replace them and we'd still have had to ship bodies out to bring things down to a manageable number.

Here's the Sportsound podcast with Ketts on it. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0fzx54x It’s an interesting listen. Covers the Johnston stuff (obvs), squad building & recruitment, youth, lennon miller, mandron and tactical stuff going forward. It’s a giggle that we’re getting that sort of deep dive on the BBC rather than the MFC channels.

I mean, I understand why we signed McGinn - it was because GA had fallen out with O'Donnell and the expectation was that SOD would be moving on so there's a chance that Johnston stays at the club rather than ending up at fucking Cove in that scenario. I'm not 100% that Alexander would have been a good manager for him given the differences in how Johnston plays the game compared to the way GA sets up but that's by the by. Tbf, we've seen from our former manager and goalkeeper currently plying their trades in Paisley that fall outs happen but the embarrassment for me (and there's a lot of it to go around) is that the solution Hammell saw was to loan Johnston out with a year left on his deal. It's even worse given Kettlewell was parachuted in and showed immediately that there was a solution that would have meant we could easily have seen McGinn/Johnston/O'Donnell remain at the club. Instead Hammell was dead set on inflicting his 4231 on everyone. I could be wrong and I've nothing to back this up but it kind of feels like Hammell just didn't see Johnston as someone who'd make the sort of impact he did hence the implication that he expected Johnston would be happier to stick around here and get first team games than go to some u23s Academy in the Barclays. Turns out Johnston was actually really good.

IIRC the chat was that during his performance at the AGM Hammell sat in front of everyone talking about how he was “confident” Johnson would sign a new deal “because he just wants to play football”. Absolutely wild misjudgement and naivety on so many levels.

Interesting comments from Ketts about how the club handled (or failed to handle) Johnston. I mean. Yeah. The point about missing out on add-ons isn't strictly true given we'd be entitled to solidarity payments or we could presumably negotiate something in the same way we did with Campbell but in a broader sense for all I've been saying we probably only had a short window to get this one sorted everyone involved over the past couple of years should be having a fucking word with themselves. I could be wrong but reading those comments back it definitely sounds like a dig at Hammell. Either way. Fucked it lads.

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Aye. 4 of those were out on loan (Connelly, Maguire, Shields and Mahon), 2 had injuries that ruled them out for the season (McGinley, Efford) now they're all back and contracted it means we're not exactly liquid. It's not ideal, there's an argument that this is how people were looking for us to be run in so much as guys who were starters for us are bumped down to the bench as we bring in better quality and that's where we get our depth rather than just signing a shit ton of players every summer. The problem, I guess, is that we now have a bunch of bench players who are presumably sitting on first team wages as that was their squad status when they signed their deals/extensions and we're probably around our max in terms of squad numbers goes.

The sponsorless version of our new tap is very nice.

Finished 2-2 apparently Confirmed. Spittal and Slattery with the goals.

Fair play to Saints and their 6th place trophy.

You suggested that Motherwell fans would have been underwhelmed by his stats. I'm pointing out that instead of looking at his Wiki folk watched footage of the player and saw he had something to offer and got hyped about it. Here's our thread when he was announced: And here's the announce itself...not a peep about his Wiki stats or anyone being underwhelmed.

I keep seeing folk posting this but the fact is that the majority of Motherwell fans were pretty fucking hyped to sign KVV because it was clear to anyone with functioning eyes he was a pler.

Assuming it's this you're talking about it was brought up last month with the discussion about additional work needing done. The club had posted about work being done on the East stand at the start of the close season. There was another update earlier today. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/covanburn-contracts-ltd_progress-update-the-team-continue-to-activity-7083047470347210752-fTh8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

#numberpolis

I think he's actually a *very* Robinson player in so much as he's one of those where he thinks he's something he's not. See also; Alex Fisher, Conor Sammon, Jordan White.

As I've said a few times I was kind of hesitant about the idea of chucking a new contract at Goss as he feels like one of those players who has absolutely got what he needed/wanted out his time at the club. I probably fall into the category of people who think he was misused for a fair amount of his time here and I don't think there's really any doubt that the fact that Kettlewell's approach of accentuating the positives, encouraging players to do what they're good at and mitigating their limitations was a huge factor in things "clicking" for Goss. There's absolutely no guarantee that he'd have maintained those levels though but what is probably useful is that he's given us a blueprint for what we actually need from a player in this shape/system. @thisGRAEME mentioned it often but the defensive shift that Goss put in under Kettlewell, in terms of interceptions etc was every bit as important as his cross field diags IMO. Absolutely fair play to him though I hope he gets weighed in wherever he ends up next.

A bit of clarity on Goss.

Aye, it looks like Obika claimed the #9 early on when KVV left. He was wearing it on his shorts in one of the first videos they put up from the Netherlands.

Wilko going the Chrissy Long direction. #numberpolis

That kit kind of reinforces why it was a good decision for our sponsor to adapt their logo for our design last season.

Well, if Ash Taylor says so... Joking aside, if we've been able to identify someone to come in who has similar strengths to KVV then that's clearly A.Good.Thing. As @Casagolda said in his original post about Wilkinson, it's not too difficult to see why he'd have caught our attention. Like, we all recognise we're not getting a 29 goal season out of Wilkinson but it's more about how he fits into the system and it allows Kettlewell to keep going with a shape that worked for him without having to blow everything up and start from scratch.

This is it for me tbh. Like, I get the shouts that Casey's thought of as being *better* than Lamie and Mugabi but that's kind of missing the point in so much as they're looking like squad options now. The question is not only whether he's better than McGinn but whether or not he'd be able to play the same sort of role in the back 3 or whether he's materially better than Blaney or if he's that good he's worth potentially blocking a pathway for Campbell. I'd imagine that if one of either Lamie or Mugabi were away then our offer to Casey would probably look different but they're not. They've both got another year and Blaney has another 2 years. I mean don't get me wrong, I'd like him to stick around not at the cost of eating up the budget we have left for other areas of the park.

Ach, nah. The way I had posted it sounded like it was just a straight collab with the band.

In fairness it's for a homeless charity.