Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[capt_oats]

40 minutes ago, CoF said:

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? 

15/16 was Baraclough into McGhee. Bara's summer window was an absolutely wild trolley dash where we ended up with a daft number of centre forwards (Moult, McDonald, Fletcher, Robinson, Clarkson) and McGhee had to do a fair bit of trimming in the January window.

The other players we signed that window were: Chalmers, Clarkson, Fletcher, Laing, Moult, Kennedy, Ripley (loan)

16/17 was McGhee into Robinson and felt like the budget had been unexpectedly cut after Hutchison announced he was bailing on the 5 year plan in March 16 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/35826768

17/18 onwards was all Robinson.

Tbh, it's only as we're getting a bit of distance from that period that it becomes clear how mental the turnover and wastage was.

Like, at the time you could rationalise the churn by pointing out that a high percentage of those signings were 1 year deals with a number of loans as well so it was simply a case of no harm, no foul if they didn't work out.

There was also a lot of transition with moving into fan ownership earlier than anticipated and finding our feet in terms of a sustainable business model and regardless of the faults we still got 2 top 6 finishes and 2 cup finals out of it (and made a pile of cash) but there's no doubt that in hindsight it was a pretty unsustainable strategy.

Edited June 11, 2022 by capt_oats

[capt_oats]

Vaguely related to the turnover of players chat, with Grimshaw away SOD is now the player with most appearances.

The players with over 50 games are:

• Stephen O'Donnell (75)
• Jake Carroll (73)
• Bevis Mugabi (71)
• Ricki Lamie (70)
• Liam Kelly (67)
• Barry Maguire (61)
• Nathan McGinley (53)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022–23_Motherwell_F.C._season

I suppose it's worth pointing out that 5 of those 7 still have 2 years on their contracts with 4 of those 5 having extended recently.

Edited June 12, 2022 by capt_oats

[rowsdower]

Good chance all of them get to 100. Carroll maybe the least likely.

[Phillips455]

Well, at least he is safe. Remember 

 

Travel insurance for those going to the Away Europa Conference league tie.

[Phillips455]

Sorry for the double post, but it seems the League fixtures will be announced this Friday.

 

 

['WellDel]

58 minutes ago, Phillips455 said:

Well, at least he is safe. Remember 

 

Travel insurance for those going to the Away Europa Conference league tie. 

Hope he wasn't relieved of any documentation pertaining to his continued ownership of the Aberdeen FC defence, and in particular of one Mr Declan Gallagher Esq. ....

[Archie McSquackle]

It's amazing how much your mood can be lifted on a soul-destroying trip to IKEA when you see a random stranger go by with the club badge tattooed on his lower leg [emoji16] . And yes, he was wearing shorts before you ask.

[Kapowzer]

7 hours ago, Archie McSquackle said:

It's amazing how much your mood can be lifted on a soul-destroying trip to IKEA when you see a random stranger go by with the club badge tattooed on his lower leg . And yes, he was wearing shorts before you ask.

"To the cute guy wandering around Ikea Sunday 12th of June. I was transfixed your shapely calves, I could hardly take my eyes off them, I'd love to meet you again maybe over a pie, see where it goes. First home game back, East stand, half time? .... What do you say? Fingers Crossed, Archie xxxx"

[Archie McSquackle]

You can read me like a book, what more can I say.

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

On 11/06/2022 at 20:17, capt_oats said:

Vaguely related to the turnover of players chat, with Grimshaw away SOD is now the player with most appearances.

The players with over 50 games are:

• Stephen O'Donnell (75)
• Jake Carroll (73)
• Bevis Mugabi (71)
• Ricki Lamie (70)
• Liam Kelly (67)
• Barry Maguire (61)
• Nathan McGinley (53)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022–23_Motherwell_F.C._season

I suppose it's worth pointing out that 5 of those 7 still have 2 years on their contracts with 4 of those 5 having extended recently.

Feels weird that O'Donnell is the guy with the most appearances in the squad.

And Liam Kelly being up there too. 67 games is a season and a half.

[rowsdower]

The Twitter search has Callum Butcher linked with us. Quitting Twitter now, again.

[Phillips455]

Just seen the Europa Conference League 1st round has the same regional group split ahead of tomorrow's draw.

Expect the 2nd round to be announced similarly tomorrow.

 

Here is yhe groups for the 1st round btw. I'm not sure if these are regionally separated or not

Quote

Which teams are involved in the draw?

The 60 teams are divided into six groups of ten teams (groups 1 to 6) in accordance with the club coefficient rankings established at the beginning of the season. Within each of the six groups, the teams are divided into an equal number of seeded and unseeded teams.

Group 1

Seeded
1. Dinamo Tbilisi (GEO)
2. Alashkert (ARM)
3. Drita (KOS)
4. Lechia Gdańsk (POL)
5. Milsami Orhei (MDA)

Unseeded
6. Inter Turku (FIN)
7. Panevezys (LTU)
8. Paide Linnameeskond (EST)
9. Akademija Pandev (MKD)
10. Hamrun Spartans (MLT)

Group 2

Seeded
1. KuPS Kuopio (FIN)
2. Laçi (ALB)
3. Mura (SVN)
4. Liepāja (LVA)
5. Kauno Žalgiris (LTU)

Unseeded
6. Sfintul Gheorghe (MDA)
7. Ružomberok (SVK)
8. Dila Gori (GEO)
9. Gjilani (KOS)
10. Iskra Danilovgrad (MNE)

Group 3

Seeded
1. Olimpija Ljubljana (SVN)
2. Budućnost Podgorica (MNE)
3. B36 Tórshavn (FRO)
4. Gzira United (MLT)
5. St Joseph's (GIB)

Unseeded
6. Borac Banja Luka (BIH)
7. Larne (NIR)
8. Differdange (LUX)
9. Atlètic Club d'Escaldes (AND)
10. Llapi (KOS)

Group 4

Seeded
1. Bala Town (WAL)
2. Breidablik (ISL)
3. Europa (GIB)
4. DAC Dunajská Streda (SVK)
5. Fola Esch (LUX)

Unseeded
6. Víkingur (FRO)
7. Tre Fiori (SMR)
8. Sligo Rovers (IRL)
9. Cliftonville (NIR)
10. UE Santa Coloma (AND)

Group 5

Seeded
1. Shkëndija (MKD)
2. Dinamo Minsk (BLR)
3. Partizani (ALB)
4. SP Tre Penne (SMR)
5. Petrocub-Hîncești (MDA)

Unseeded
6. Saburtalo (GEO)
7. Floriana (MLT)
8. Ararat Yerevan (ARM)
9. Tuzla City (BIH)
10. Dečić (MNE)

Group 6

Seeded
1. Flora Tallinn (EST)
2. Pogoń Szczecin (POL)
3. Crusaders (NIR)
4. HB Tórshavn (FRO)
5. Riga FC (LVA)

Unseeded
6. FCB Magpies (GIB)
7. Derry City (IRL)
8. SJK Seinäjoki (FIN)
9. Newtown (WAL)
10. KR Reykjavík (ISL)

 

[Bigaldo]

Anyone got any news about new strips yet?

[Busta Nut]

2 hours ago, Phillips455 said:

Just seen the Europa Conference League 1st round has the same regional group split ahead of tomorrow's draw.

Expect the 2nd round to be announced similarly tomorrow.

 

Here is yhe groups for the 1st round btw. I'm not sure if these are regionally separated or not

 

How does the "regionalisation" work?

[Kapowzer]

Just looking again at Bert's website. Both Dundee United and us have the same coefficient (7.380). I'm sure it's been discussed before about how these are worked out but I assumed a portion of it was attributed to your own performances.

For example Real Madrid have dropped from 4th to 6th this season despite winning the CL but due to the fact they didn't cover themselves in glory in the group stages and missed out on a few bonus points.

Looking at the Wikipedia page it seems the points scoring changed in 2021/22 and it's the last 5 years used and 20% club association. SPFL are on 36.900 so 20% is 7.380 (Wikipedia had a different result).

Over 5 years as that's that is measured Dundee United have no points and we have (W2 L1), elimination at 3rd qualifying round = 2 points.

The higher value is used out of the SPFL total or what your club has achieved, but not cumulatively. So to really affect it at all you either need to get into a group stage to start putting serious numbers to your club total from the 6 guaranteed games, which Hearts may achieve. Or have a consistent run of qualification getting to Q3 or higher and using those points added up to help over 5 years.

Not making it qualifiers or groups means we will continually rely on our league coefficient which is artificially high because of the OF and doesn't reflect the other clubs performances in Europe. You'd expect that to get bigger over the season too as Celtic have 6 group games guaranteed, Newco could too and Hearts have 6 Europa games but it is not going to be big movement to aid our coefficient enough.

Considering Flora Tallinn from Estonia currently have 9.750 as the lowest team in the third Qualifying round seeded side (Where Dundee United enters and you'd hope we'd be involved being seeded from Q2). In future years to breach that 9.750 threshold (which will move) you'd be looking to beat the odds against a seeded team and get a run yourself to outstrip the SPFL coefficient.

If you get into the group, 6 games, depending on who's in it W1, D3, L2 gets you 5 coefficient points, possibly a runner up bonus of 1 and 4 guaranteed for the last 16. plus the 2 for the 2020/21. So a superhuman effort from us would change our coefficient to 12 and safely as a seed in future ECL rounds you'd think. plus our 12 would be safe for another 2 years until it drops off our 5 year group.

The other option using the Cinch 20% figure. This needs the SPFL to get to 49 points (20% of which equal 9.800). The league lost 4.000 from 2017/18 and will have 3 teams in group stages this year but we need and increase of 16.100 which is the sort of numbers the German and Italian teams put in cumulatively per season (our best score is 9.750 in a year). We'd also jump ahead of the Portuguese, Dutch and French leagues. So we won't be relying on this.

For a club like Motherwell, looking back over the last 10 years, we do yo-yo a lot at times, so getting consistent Euro qualification and building up a wee war chest of coefficient points doesn't help, we really need to breach the play off round to make progress and in the future that be on the left side of the draws as seeds.

Edited June 14, 2022 by Kapowzer

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Hope we win

[Handsome_Devil]

5 hours ago, Kapowzer said:

Geek stuff.

Aye, I said something similar when looking just after we qualified - the 20% thing, to ensure a small club from a big league who surprisingly makes Europe isn't unseeded - is farcical in our case. The notion we'd be nominally considered favourites, having scraped fifth in Scotland, against an AIK or Lillestrøm for example, because we happen to have the OF in our league is madness.

In Q2 I wouldn't quite say we need a good draw to have a chance but a bad draw would certainly stuff us. United in Q3 are probably looking at only truly fancying their chances against a handful of teams.

[Kapowzer]

All I suppose I was trying to convey is, if you can get your coefficient above 10 (which means you have to amass the points yourself) then you break the back of the qualification phase moving into the left hand side of the draw in Q3 as a seed and in theory favourites to progress. Once you're there, you can amass more points and cement yourself by earning UEFA's generous money kickbacks. This is SPFL/Cup placings dependent but as you have a war chest from European involvement then you'd hope to raise the standard of your squad.

Lot of variables like having a successful transfer window, avoiding duds, etc. When we do start announcing additions to the squad I'm looking for more than SPFL jobbers if we want to give this a serious go.

Edited June 14, 2022 by Kapowzer

[Swello]

20 minutes ago, Kapowzer said:

I'm looking for more than SPFL jobbers if we want to give this a serious go.

I'd love us to have a serious go too - but I don't think we have the budget to really do that. I don't think a financial gamble on qualifying for the group stage would be a sensible one given that games at the very early stage of the season - our first competitive games in fact - are probably even more of a lottery. Being left holding an expensive squad after being pumped in QR2 would not be a good thing.

The Conference League is clearly a step down in quality over what we have been involved in previously and so qualification is feasible, even if it's not likely - but our biggest hurdle is actually putting in some decent (or even competent) performances, as the brutal truth is that we've been mostly shite in Europe even allowing for the level of teams that we've played. One season under Craig Brown we looked consistently competitive - other than that, we've rarely looked like we belonged at that level of football (or looked likely to go against our seeding) throughout the 30 odd game we've played. 

That said - I'm quite looking forward to the draw tomorrow

 

[Kapowzer]

On 26/05/2022 at 19:05, Kapowzer said:

Joel Sked in the Scotsman:

“If Motherwell lose in the second qualifying round they will get €350,000. It rises to €550,000 in the third round and €750,000 if knocked out at the play-off stage. Group stage qualification is worth €2.94m with each group win €500,000 and €166,000 for a draw”

It has been covered before, we have room for maybe 4/5 players and there more if we can move those currently under contract out the door (Carroll & Ojala).

I'm not advocating filling the team beyond what our resources allow but I also don't see any point in treading water. It's simple as we got more money due to our exploits last season, I'd like to see that all reinvested in making the team better, most of us would agree: less bodies, more starters. It no different to what we're doing with the pitch after all. A capital investment to save on maintenance costs long term and be in the mix to host more at FP increasing revenues.

While the group stages are not beyond us, its the easy(ish) qualifiers before that that have a decent financial return to target. Having what you described as an expensive squad does not mean they would be unsuccessful domestically. Surely that attainable prize has to be considered as contributing to their wages for the season?

We have at least £500k more than an average summer to dabble with on the transfer market due to the league prize money and Q2 minimum, we've got perceived high earners in O'Hara and Donnelly off the books too (another £200k).

While being seeded, a Q2 victory is not guaranteed and considering a total of €650k awaits successful progression in a two tie game it would be criminal to try and get though it with what we have on the books at present or not add quality to attain that achievable prize. Is it considered a gamble to have the players recruited available to play in a definitely winnable game against a team roughly commensurate or poorer than us when a prize of €650k is waiting?

We have a real chance to double or treble our current summer war chest with progression to Q3 and the Play Off. Making the Group is a bit far off yet to be considered and i think would need a few gems recruited. But €550k for Q3 and €750k for P/O (+€200k) are well within our abilities if we enhance the parts of the squad that are deficient.

All I'm looking for is getting bodies in of a certain quality that the likes of a Stjarnan don't walk away with a 5-4 aggregate win especially when €550k is at stake to progress.