Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[thisGRAEME]

Easy to pin duds on him like, and I dunno, maybe the millions of pounds line is a bit of a stretch, but the good outweighs the bad for us I'd say, certainly. 

 

[Kapowzer]

9 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

…… but the good outweighs the bad for us I'd say, certainly. 

 

Since he got his P45?

['WellDel]

25 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

Easy to pin duds on him like, and I dunno, maybe the millions of pounds line is a bit of a stretch, but the good outweighs the bad for us I'd say, certainly. 

 

I dunno, wouldn't have thought it was more than 50/50, but may be doing him a little of a mis-service and a 50% success rate might be considered acceptable by the boards. Would be interested to see his hit rate compared to others at similar sized clubs, and how many of these big money gems,  he's actually unearthed, other than the two mentioned above, and even at that the Heneghan was a bit of a lucky but welcome windfall as he wasn't much better than average

Just seems a fair and obvious stretch by Robinson when Motherwell and Morecambe, so far, have been the pinnacle of his scouting career. Although I suppose if his pitch to the St Mirren hierarchy when he asked to bring him on board was "My mate Martin is a so-so scout, can I give him a job"?, might not have been quite as likely to get him the gig.

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

Robinson / Foyle’s recruitment is an interesting debate.

There’s no doubt that they signed some dumplings, but I don’t think even they thought folk like Manzinga, Ilic, Newell and Petravicius would ever be playing regular first team football.

There were players like Taylor-Sinclair, Bigirimana and Alex Fisher who were signed to be first team players and were underwhelming, but most of the duds we speak of probably weren’t. 

[one m in Motherwell]

In fairness…did Ellis Plummer not get injured shortly after joining us and never played again?

[capt_oats]

Aye, like I don't know for certain but I'd be pretty confident in saying that George Newell arrived at the club because Robinson was pals with his old man. Others like Plummer, Petravicius, Lee Lucas etc we actually had in the club on trial before signing them.

Ultimately it'd be the manager who'd sign off on the player so if McGhee said "I'd like a big target man please" Foyle's job was to give him options. If McGhee didn't bother his arse to look at Jacob Blyth in any great detail ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Agree that Robinson's soundbite of "millions of pounds" is probably massaging things a bit (the bulk of our transfer income came from Academy players IIRC) but for the most part Foyle was able to source a decent number of players who more than did a job at our level within our budget.

Fwiw: He got the job in August 2015 after he replaced Gary Owers who was only in the post from 9th March 15 to 23rd June 15. 

The news story about Owers leaving attributes him for Johnson signing and "numerous targets currently being pursued for this summer’s Transfer Window." so I'm guessing Moult was one of those. In fact I think Bara might have confirmed that in an interview in one of the MFC Podcast books.

I've listed the players who arrived while Foyle was at the club in the spoiler below - I think he was around long enough to be able to have an educated guess about who he'd have been involved in us signing.

It seems unlikely he had much of a say in us signing Craig Samson, McFadden, Pearson and Morgaro Gomis tbf and it always seemed like Craig Clay ended up here on trial because he was pals with Tait and had played together at Grimsby:

Spoiler

15/16
Theo Robinson, Jake Taylor (loan), Liam Grimshaw (loan), Craig Samson, James McFadden, Morgaro Gomis (loan)

16/17
Ben Heneghan, Richard Tait, Jacob Blyth, Dean Brill, Carl McHugh, Craig Clay, Ryan Bowman, Lee Lucas, Elliot Frear, Shea Gordon, Stephen Pearson, Luca Belic (loan), Russell Griffiths, Zak Jules (loan)

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)

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)

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) 

20/21
Ricki Lamie, Jordan White, Nathan McGinley, Scott Fox, Stephen O'Donnell, Aaron Chapman, Jordan Archer, Steven Lawless, Sam Foley, Jake Hastie (loan), Callum Lang (loan), Robbie Crawford (loan), Liam Kelly (loan), Harry Smith (loan), Jordan Roberts (loan), Eddie Nolan (loan), Tyler Magloire (loan)

Edited June 10, 2022 by capt_oats

[capt_oats]

Actually, I dug this out from an old post.

Here are the reported transfer fees that came in during that period:

20/21 - David Turnbull (Celtic) - £3m - Transfer
19/20 - James Scott (Hull City) - £1.5m - Transfer
19/20 - Reece McAlear (Norwich City) - £250k - Transfer
19/20 - Jake Hastie (Rangers) £350k - Development Compensation
19/20 - Stuart McKinstry (Leeds United) - £400k - Transfer
18/19 - Ryan Bowman (Exeter City) - £30k - Transfer
18/19 - Cedric Kipré (Wigan) - c.£1m - Transfer
17/18 - Louis Moult (Preston North End) - £500k - Transfer 
17/18 - Ben Heneghan (Sheffield United) - £350k-ish - Transfer
16/17 - Marvin Johnson (Oxford United) - £750k-ish including sell on - Transfer
16/17 - Stephen Pearson (Atletico Kolkata) - £100k - Transfer 
16/17 - Ben Hall (Brighton) - £210k - Development Compensation

Total = £8.44m

So of those 12 players 7 were Academy products (including Pearson).

Heneghan, Kipré and Bowman would be Foyle signings. Moult and Johnson were Owers.

Edited June 10, 2022 by capt_oats

['WellDel]

13 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Actually, I dug this out from an old post.

Here are the reported transfer fees that have come in during that period:

20/21 - David Turnbull (Celtic) - £3m - Transfer
19/20 - James Scott (Hull City) - £1.5m - Transfer
19/20 - Reece McAlear (Norwich City) - £250k - Transfer
19/20 - Jake Hastie (Rangers) £350k - Development Compensation
19/20 - Stuart McKinstry (Leeds United) - £400k - Transfer
18/19 - Ryan Bowman (Exeter City) - £30k - Transfer
18/19 - Cedric Kipré (Wigan) - c.£1m - Transfer
17/18 - Louis Moult (Preston North End) - £500k - Transfer 
17/18 - Ben Heneghan (Sheffield United) - £350k-ish - Transfer
16/17 - Marvin Johnson (Oxford United) - £750k-ish including sell on - Transfer
16/17 - Stephen Pearson (Atletico Kolkata) - £100k - Transfer 
16/17 - Ben Hall (Brighton) - £210k - Development Compensation

Total = £8.44m

So of those 12 players 7 were Academy products (including Pearson).

Heneghan, Kipré and Bowman would be Foyle signings. Moult and Johnson were Owers.

So in 4 seasons or so with us, the total income attributable to signings he'd have had a hand in for us was the circa. £1.35M for Kipré and Heneghan, plus 30K for big Herbalife. Looking at the list of players over the period I'm willing to upgrade his success rate from 50/50 to 60/40.

As well as his mate Newell's boy, I completely forgot Robinson had also wheeled a ( obviously modest) wage for his own laddie tae for a wee while, who's quite possibly playing Sunday league by now.

 

[capt_oats]

8 minutes ago, 'WellDel said:

So in 4 seasons or so with us, the total income attributable to signings he'd have had a hand in for us was the circa. £1.35M for Kipré and Heneghan, plus 30K for big Herbalife. Looking at the list of players over the period I'm willing to upgrade his success rate from 50/50 to 60/40.

As well as his mate Newell's boy, I completely forgot Robinson had also wheeled a ( obviously modest) wage for his own laddie tae for a wee while, who's quite possibly playing Sunday league by now.

I suppose the unknown is whether or not Foyle was involved in platforming players in the English market so had an indirect influence on some of that income.

I don't think there would be much argument that our approach to recruitment changed dramatically in a broad sense while he was around the club and what is certainly true is that we generated a lot of cash through player trading while he was here.

Harry Robinson signed for Clyde on 7th June 2021 and left Clyde on 8th July 2021 to take a job in Dubai.

Edited June 10, 2022 by capt_oats

[fat_tony]

Actually, I dug this out from an old post.
Here are the reported transfer fees that came in during that period:

20/21 - David Turnbull (Celtic) - £3m - Transfer
19/20 - James Scott (Hull City) - £1.5m - Transfer
19/20 - Reece McAlear (Norwich City) - £250k - Transfer
19/20 - Jake Hastie (Rangers) £350k - Development Compensation
19/20 - Stuart McKinstry (Leeds United) - £400k - Transfer
18/19 - Ryan Bowman (Exeter City) - £30k - Transfer
18/19 - Cedric Kipré (Wigan) - c.£1m - Transfer
17/18 - Louis Moult (Preston North End) - £500k - Transfer 
17/18 - Ben Heneghan (Sheffield United) - £350k-ish - Transfer
16/17 - Marvin Johnson (Oxford United) - £750k-ish including sell on - Transfer
16/17 - Stephen Pearson (Atletico Kolkata) - £100k - Transfer 
16/17 - Ben Hall (Brighton) - £210k - Development Compensation

Total = £8.44m

So of those 12 players 7 were Academy products (including Pearson).

Heneghan, Kipré and Bowman would be Foyle signings. Moult and Johnson were Owers.

Trying to decide which one from that list is the biggest grift on our part. I'm thinking either Scott to Hull or Hastie to Rangers.

[Mr. Brightside]

It's one of the three H's.

[rowsdower]

So the Robinson and Foyle combo brought in and sold Kipre and Bowman, while McGhee/Foyle are responsible for heneghan, and that could possibly be a remnant from the other guy, who found moult. Funny to think we wouldn't have had Kipre if we'd got the other French trialist.

Some good players came and went during their tenure, but nothing that makes Foyle stand out as some kind of guru. So I feel like he and Robbo pretty much did what anyone else in that job could have done. They didn't use their magic to get us players we otherwise couldn't have, and also brought in some absolute duds. The likes of Turnbull and that whole u21 squad were there for all to see, so can't give them much credit for that either.

[Kapowzer]

A lot of the money we obtained for Kipre was down to the new contract he signed every 2 months it felt like at the time. So a fair bit of the credit for the money we obtained has to go to Flao for recognising he was a talent and ensuring his contract was extended and we maximised the sell on.

When it comes to scouting from Scotland we have in depth analysis on 11 other teams in our division, of which probably +80 players are beyond our pay structure and 50 or so more are prohibitive until their contract runs out, Spittal being a good example of that. 150ish no better than anyone we have at present, too old, slow or dugmeat (using 11 x 25 players per squad and city clubs carrying a few more = 300 or so). When it comes to the lower leagues well Alexander and Las were spotted at Firhill to watch Rudden.

I suspect between Alexander and Lucketti they have a pretty good knowledge of Div 1/2/National League already and a few contacts. A recruitment guy for a club like Motherwell I'd hope is looking at the host of English talent being released from academies and any guys bobbing along below and radars but putting good stats together. Kipre being the standout, Slattery good spot and big Darragh/Grimmy not cutting it.

Teams facing relegation will still have some decent guys they want off the books and who also want a move. Relegation doesn't make everyone in the team a dud. However I think those little GPS trackers now data get fed into all sorts of algorithms and databases so the data is available to all who subscribe, having a man in the stand on a Tuesday night in FA Cup replay doesn't give you any advantage any longer.

What did surprise me last season was the lack of any loanees from any big clubs. You'd think a mid level SPFL team with number of good progression stories to tell , community ethos, bowling green pitch, with TV exposure and a manager and assistant who must have a host of contacts couldn't secure one starlet looking to get games under their belt. Our Euro qualification too has to be a selling point. Our two were Roberts who was a known quantity and hope he'd continue in the same vein and Shaw who was was hardly used. Personally I'd only ever take a loanee form the same league in an emergency situation (GK, injury cover, etc.).

It felt when we got Ruddy and Jutkiewicz we had a tie in with Everton but nothing ever materialised beyond those two.

[Busta Nut]

10 hours ago, Nadroj said:

I know everyone loves to praise your lot for your apparently amazing social media content, but someone needs to take Laura Brannan's phone aff her.

A rocket of the highest order who's constant shitey views reflect quite badly on the club, and go against quite a lot of the good work you do. 

 

10 hours ago, Desp said:

Hopefully her boyfriend gets her a job alongside him down south and she fucks off.  Wherever Grant ends up, she seems to follow...

I quite enjoy when she posts on social media.  I don't follow her on any of the platforms, it's just the fun part I see when everyone replies or quote tweets absolutely powering her.  

"A rocket of the highest order" is a superb summary, sir.

I'd just like to say Brannan is a fucking clown.

[welldaft]

2 hours ago, capt_oats said:

Actually, I dug this out from an old post.

Here are the reported transfer fees that came in during that period:

20/21 - David Turnbull (Celtic) - £3m - Transfer
19/20 - James Scott (Hull City) - £1.5m - Transfer
19/20 - Reece McAlear (Norwich City) - £250k - Transfer
19/20 - Jake Hastie (Rangers) £350k - Development Compensation
19/20 - Stuart McKinstry (Leeds United) - £400k - Transfer
18/19 - Ryan Bowman (Exeter City) - £30k - Transfer
18/19 - Cedric Kipré (Wigan) - c.£1m - Transfer
17/18 - Louis Moult (Preston North End) - £500k - Transfer 
17/18 - Ben Heneghan (Sheffield United) - £350k-ish - Transfer
16/17 - Marvin Johnson (Oxford United) - £750k-ish including sell on - Transfer
16/17 - Stephen Pearson (Atletico Kolkata) - £100k - Transfer 
16/17 - Ben Hall (Brighton) - £210k - Development Compensation

Total = £8.44m

So of those 12 players 7 were Academy products (including Pearson).

Heneghan, Kipré and Bowman would be Foyle signings. Moult and Johnson were Owers.

So £8m over 5 years = £1.7m in transfer fees PA.

We may budget for 10th. No player sales and no cup runs. The reality is if that were to happen we would be £2m or so in deficit each season. 

We are walking a tightrope each and every season. Thankfully we have sold players. Have had cup runs. Have qualified for Europe etc. 

Lets hope it continue or we find a sugar daddy / sheikh….

[Gallus Numpty]

20 minutes ago, welldaft said:

So £8m over 5 years = £1.7m in transfer fees PA.

We may budget for 10th. No player sales and no cup runs. The reality is if that were to happen we would be £2m or so in deficit each season.

Well no, we'd just be exactly where we'd budgeted for. We've just been £2m a year better off recently instead.

[capt_oats]

10 hours ago, rowsdower said:

Some good players came and went during their tenure, but nothing that makes Foyle stand out as some kind of guru. So I feel like he and Robbo pretty much did what anyone else in that job could have done. They didn't use their magic to get us players we otherwise couldn't have, and also brought in some absolute duds. The likes of Turnbull and that whole u21 squad were there for all to see, so can't give them much credit for that either.

I think that's an interesting point to highlight as IIRC when Burrows was on the MFC Podcast last summer outlining the change in transfer strategy we were pivoting to under Alexander/Daws he alluded to the fact that it was actual policy with Robinson to not target a bracket of player we otherwise couldn't have.

The reasoning was essentially that if we were to invest time/effort pitching for players in that bracket we ran the risk of those targets declining our offer and finding ourselves in competitions with other, better financed teams who were working their way to their 2nd, 3rd and 4th choice for players we'd have had a better chance of getting earlier but meant we may not be able to compete for because we'd delayed when trying for more ambitious options.

It's why we'd end up with half a dozen PCAs locked in for players of a certain level every summer.

You only really need to look at St Johnstone's weird internal power struggle between manager and HoR last season to see how it can go wrong.

If nothing else, you can say that while Foyle was here he understood the assignment. The club, the manager and HoR all seemed to be on the same page - particularly under Robinson. Which, I imagine, is why he followed him to Morecambe and now to St Mirren.

Edited June 11, 2022 by capt_oats

[Kapowzer]

That and Foyle probably gives him use of his timeshare in Alicante for 2 weeks every summer.

Issue I had with Robinson is a few instances where merit was overlooked to do favours for friends and family.

[capt_oats]

12 hours ago, Gallus Numpty said:

Well no, we'd just be exactly where we'd budgeted for. We've just been £2m a year better off recently instead.

Exactly this.

It would be an issue if we were selling these players and just breaking even or we were needing to sell to keep the lights on but the fact is that we're in a position where these sales mean we're posting profit - which is the way the business plan and budget is supposed to work.

We've been in profit in 3 of the past 5 seasons - cumulative profit in that time is £5,025,026.

20/21 - £3,575,615
19/20 - £346,590
18/19 - (£435,970)
17/18 - £1,720,635
16/17 - (£181,844)

Edited June 11, 2022 by capt_oats

[CoF]

15 hours ago, capt_oats said:

 

  Hide contents

15/16
Theo Robinson, Jake Taylor (loan), Liam Grimshaw (loan), Craig Samson, James McFadden, Morgaro Gomis (loan)

16/17
Ben Heneghan, Richard Tait, Jacob Blyth, Dean Brill, Carl McHugh, Craig Clay, Ryan Bowman, Lee Lucas, Elliot Frear, Shea Gordon, Stephen Pearson, Luca Belic (loan), Russell Griffiths, Zak Jules (loan)

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)

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)

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) 

20/21
Ricki Lamie, Jordan White, Nathan McGinley, Scott Fox, Stephen O'Donnell, Aaron Chapman, Jordan Archer, Steven Lawless, Sam Foley, Jake Hastie (loan), Callum Lang (loan), Robbie Crawford (loan), Liam Kelly (loan), Harry Smith (loan), Jordan Roberts (loan), Eddie Nolan (loan), Tyler Magloire (loan)

 

No wonder I can't recall teams from year to year over this period - in my mind Robinson's tenure is all mashing into one massive squad. 80+ players signed over 6 seasons is surely a bit mental?