capt_oats

I mean, in one of his post-match interviews towards the end of the season (I can't remember which one) Kettlewell basically said he was keen to keep as many of the current squad together as possible so taking him at face value it shouldn't actually be that much of a surprise if he's true to that. It's interesting that we don't seem to have committed to any PCAs though - certainly not Scottish based anyway. That said, in signing Obika (and in the event we also sign Mandron up again) it'd suggest we're sticking with the shape that worked. By my count, unless something unexpected happens, we're still down at least 3 starters (Johnston, Furlong, Goss) and it depends on whether or not there's the view that Blaney can step in to do what Casey did and whether Slattery is a fair enough replacement for Cornelius. Then there's the question of what we do in the event KVV leaves (beyond banking the cash to cover the impact of us having to sack 2 managers last season). The main issue feels like it's going to be addressing the players who are under contract who....probably aren't going to get much game time.

I'm fully expecting us to #announce Mandron as well btw. He wasn't on the list of players leaving the club we put out during the week so it doesn't seem a massive leap to think he's been offered something. If he has then I'd be surprised if he didn't accept it tbh.

Just realised that Matty Connelly is in that photo with Tierney as well. He's another we've not announced has re-signed despite The Record reporting it in the middle of May.

1 year with 1 year option

I mean, I have an idea why but it's a bit weird that the press are running a story about month old comments from Kettlewell about Danzaki eh? The quotes in these articles are lifted from his press conference posted on 26th May before the United game.

3 players there whose contracts all officially expired this summer. None of whom the club actually announced had signed any sort of extension. SOD mentioned he had another year in a press conference. Craig Cairns pointed out Mahon had another year on his deal in an interview he did with him at the start of May. and...there's Obika - surprise! What are we like, eh? Fwiw, I'm fairly sure the boy with the hoodie is Paton as well.

Aye, It wasn't a dig. I figured he'd have been on holiday. I hope he's been somewhere nice. It's just that there are quite a lot of unknowns around us at the moment, our end of season squad update was announced in a pretty weird way and it's been pretty quiet comms-wise especially with Burrows having moved to Pittodrie. For those of us who still follow him on the socials the job he's doing for Aberdeen is *quite* the reminder of what we're currently not getting from the club at the moment. As I say, given this is Kettlewell's first window and pre-season with us it'll be genuinely interesting to hear what he's got to say about things.

See if you're still doing radars, I'm curious to know what Sean Goss' looks like for last season? I know he's a favourite of yours. Kind of feels like he's leaving a pretty massive hole to fill in the midfield now.

Cheers. I thought he had a decent turn while he was there. As far as LB goes as I mentioned in my reply to @YassinMoutaouakil it seems that's Brighton taken up their option on James Furlong who was playing LWB so, as it stands, we have no LB or LWB options (the story is that Ewan Wilson's resigned but that hasn't been announced by the club and it's not clear what the plan would be with him anyway as he was out on loan at Albion Rovers last season). Tbh, it all depends on what Kettlewell's looking to do - he got a lot of joy out of playing a 3412 with Johnston and Furlong as attacking wing backs but clearly WBs and FBs are different skillsets and we're in the position where most of the players who made that shape work are OOC (Furlong, Johnston, Goss, Obika/Mandron) or probably leaving (KVV). Is Milne exclusively a full back or does he fit as a wing back - he's one that a few in the thread have touted as someone we'd do well to take a look at before.

Aye. I see it's been reported that's Furlong signed a new deal with Brighton. I mean, good for him and he's not one I was really expecting back but he's another one of the core who really made the 3412 work. I could see Brighton wanting to loan him out to the Championship next season to see how he gets on. I still have my reservations about Ketts, which is very much a *me* problem rather than anything he has/hasn't done but he hasn't had a window with us and as you say our squad is in a really fucking weird place in terms of the gaps that need filled and the handful of players who are contracted that have question marks over them. It'd be quite nice to hear from him and get an idea of what his plans are tbh.

@CoveRangers1922 is maybe best placed to say how Johnston got on up there but broadly I think this is the thing that we haven't quite worked out yet tbh, not just with Johnston but generally. In short, with the way Modern Fitba' has changed I don't think we get the chance to wait until a player at that level of development impresses for the first team because chances are they'll already have been flagged - see McKinstry, McAlear, Rice etc. Johnston seemed to have been earmarked as the next one off the ML1 conveyer belt, we were doing bits of #content with him before he'd made his debut eg: 'Introducing the Next Talent' (16th January 2021) and you'd like to think that at least a few around Fir Park recognised his potential longer term ceiling. In terms of an actual plan for him though, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯? Without wanting to labour the timeline point; he made his debut against Accies 13th February 2021 (1-4) and his first start against St Johnstone on 20th February 2021 (0-3). The following season we loaned him to QotS for the season (Alexander), the first link of apparent interest came 9th March 2022 - Luton and Sheffield United (a year after his debut) before Sheffield Wednesday's name appeared on 7th October 2022 after we'd loaned him to Cove Rangers (Hammell). We eventually recalled him in January 2023 and we know what's happened since then; Scottish Writers Young Player of The Year and apparent interest from Bologna, Torino, Augsburg, Monaco, Sporting Lisbon, Burnley, Brighton and Norwich amongst others. Turnbull, Scott and Hastie were all offered their extensions at the same time and at the same point in their careers that Johnston is now and it feels like we'd seen a lot more of them at Dev level than we did with Johnston. 2 signed, 1 didn't (Hiya Jake). Turnbull signed his 2.5 year deal at 19 on 29th January 2019, Scott signed his 3.5 year deal on 15th February 2019. Hastie obviously fucked off to Ibrox. Clearly I've no idea when we opened discussions with those players - I'd imagine that we'd been looking to sort them out for a while before they were eventually announced and we're at the mercy of the players and their representatives as to when that happens. Either way in the case of both Turnbull and Scott they signed their contracts with less than 6 months on their existing deals. Again, without actually knowing all the details, from the outside looking in it feels high risk if you're talking about players that you have hopes of actually cementing themselves as first team players. The exception to that, for whatever reason, seems to have been Allan Campbell who we announced had signed a 4 year deal on 13th October 2017 when he was 19 (having previously been announced as having signed a 3 year deal on 30th March 2017 - when he was 17). The next one is obviously Lennon Miller who's currently contracted to 2025 and we seem to have been getting in and around the first team at a young age. Youngest ever Motherwell player and all that.

That's a fake account. Same one that had Theo Walcott to Hibs the other day.

In fairness I can’t take credit for it. That’s all @thisGRAEME’s.

The Johnston one definitely feels annoying although being objective about it I suppose the way things have panned out we probably had a relatively small window to do anything about it. I wasn't in the room, I know a few on here were, but Hammell's "confidence" at the AGM that he'd sign feels pretty naive given by that point - when we'd bounced him out on loan to Cove - he'd been linked with a bunch of English clubs, before we even hit the Bologna, Torino, Sporting Lisbon, Monaco stage of rumours. Similarly It seems unlikely that those clubs only started taking notice when he started getting a run under Kettlewell and he's pinging in worldies against St Mirren. He's 19, he signed pro in the 2020/21 season presumably when he was 16/17? Happy to stand corrected but I don't recall any announcements of extensions since so presumably that first contract was a 3 year deal? It's really on us to have a plan for him and it doesn't really feel like we had that. I get that the mothballing of development level football has probably impacted things but similarly I don't think we've helped ourselves in this situation by only really seeming to pay lip service to development. He made his debut at 17 against Accies when they scud us 4-1 after Bevis got injured and SOD was sent off and makes his first start in the following game against St Johnstone where we lose 3-0 and only have 1 touch in their box all game or whatever. I mentioned it the other day but it kind of feels like him spending the next season on loan with his old man was best for everyone concerned given the type of player Johnston is and the type of full back Alexander was after in his particular brand of football terrorism. He then picked up an injury that cut his season short but, I may be doing him a disservice here, I don't remember the reports from QotS being anything more than that he got on fine. And that's the problem I guess, if it was a 3 year deal he was on - when do we offer that extension? After he makes his debut? After the first season? It's worth bearing in mind the 'links' to other clubs aren't recent either. The first mention of Luton being interested in him appeared in March 2022 while he was still on loan at QotS - so around a year and a half into his deal. We were burned by dishing out long term deals in the Dom Thomas and Luke Watt era but equally by the time his agent is flying kites about clubs who are apparently interested it already probably feels a bit too late. I think the frustration for me is that Kettlewell's shown that there was a shape we could have set up with that could have kept Johnston in the building regardless of the fact we'd ended up with two Scotland international right backs on the books by mistake. There are a bunch of posts in this very thread at the time suggesting McGinn goes on the right of a back 3 - I'm guessing none us making those posts have our Pro-Licenses. Instead, our former Academy Director was wedded to his 4231 and Johnston was collateral damage and a 3rd choice. I've seen the argument made on another forum that his going to Cove helped prepare him for our first team and contributed to him making the impact that he has, which is factually true - butterfly effect, sliding doors and all that - but equally, as @Kapowzer's alluded to if he's a year left on his deal and our former Academy Director is papping him out on loan for 6 months...what are we actually doing lads? Yes, the argument is he'll get minutes but the flip is that it doesn't exactly scream confidence that he's ready to contribute. Tbh, I'm not certain that there's any version here where Johnston actually signs a new deal with us given the timelines but equally, I don't think we've done ourselves many favours in the way he's been handled. Hopefully he heads off to Torino or Bologna and has a fucking lovely time. Fucking hell, that's a long post but it's something that I've had thoughts about.

Aye. There's "I'd quite like us to get a bit more" (I'm sure the club would as well) and there's "the club are shitebags because the reported figure is a bit short of my completely arbitrary valuation and expectations.". @Desp has covered it perfectly with his recent posts. Over the past 7 or 8 years we've accrued actual millions in income from player trading - whether that's transfers or development fees. The way we've done that has broadly been by being open to brokering deals that suit both club and player without pricing anyone out the market. I've said it before on here but it bares repeating - KVV has been saying the quiet part loud for the past couple of months (just as Moult did before him). He's actively open to moving. It's clear that since the club and player put a pin in the China move the quid pro quo is that the club will help facilitate a move this summer. We get a chunk of money for a player we picked up on a free and he gets PAID. The idea that we'd simply let him walk out the door or alternatively that we're going to tell a player he's not getting his move (especially one who's absolutely knocked his pan in and dug us out of a massive fucking hole) because we've been haggling over £100k or whatever is just people who haven't been paying attention and from the looks of things there's a number of Owners of the Club on Twitter dot com who genuinely don't seem to get it. It's fucking exhausting tbh (and why my mute list is littered with the usual suspects from Motherwell Twitter). As @Desp says on the previous page:

In similar news it seems Paul McMullan has 'opened talks' with Derry City.

David Devine signs for Alloa.

That's the thing, aside from bailing us out of our injury crisis when we ended up with 35 or whatever first team players on the books - we literally spent £500k on players in the season after the DT sale. Your mileage may vary on the quality of those players but it's pretty clear that the idea that we've only put money into stadium improvements is wide of the mark.

As expected, @thisGRAEME's Patreon season review is a smashing listen. Quite the treat.

Hang this post in The fucking Louvre.

Dunno. I'd say turning our season round when we were heading for relegation under Robinson would probably be worth a "Thanks".

He was out of contract when we signed him. So...you're wrong.