Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

14 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

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.

What was the risk for Johnson of not signing a deal? He tests the market and sees what is on the table elsewhere. It isn't like we are going to pull the offer and make him a free agent.

Same for Cornelius. We aren't going to break the bank for signing bonuses or wage rises. May as well let your contract run out and see what else is out there.

[well fan for life]

17 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Absolutely wild misjudgement and naivety on so many levels.

This is the Hammell era in a sentence tbf. One absolute calamity after another. 

[Allroy for Prez]

He’s so good for him only to have been in the team for 6 months definitely feels like someone has fucked up.

This was also my opinion on Turnbull.

[MurrayWell]

Not to go over it all again, but I still find it mental that Hammell got that job, over actual managers, because of some birthday caird pish that the board peddled. 

[Div]

4 hours ago, Archie McSquackle said:

I certainly can't be arsed trawling through the St. Mirren thread but was it not a bit of an open secret that they were spending more and viewing it as a top six budget? They finished sixth so mission accomplished and they seem to be using it as a springboard but, as you say, it's a risky business when the bigger teams have got themselves in order and realistically sixth is as high as you're likely to manage. At least Dundee United are a basket case.

Saints have set a budget against finishing 7th the last three seasons.

We lost a lot of money in the most recent accounts, for the period to May 2022 but still had the guts of a million in the bank last Summer. That was down from £2.7m in the bank in May 2021 of which £1.7m was the COVID loan.

Not all of that spend was on the squad. A good chunk went on our academy infrastructure which needed heavy upgrades (pitches/buildings).

Since then we’ve sold Ethan Erhahon, Dylan Reid, Jay Henderson and Eamonn Brophy. Probs brought in the best part of £700K across those deals.

Baccus will also go this Summer for around £300K.

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

Max was clearly not in the first team plans when we went out and got McGinn. We already had O'Donnell and Mugabi as emergency cover.

the thing is that Max was getting linked with moves last summer when all he had was a couple of ok loan spells.

[santheman]

Would we realistically have got more than the development fee of 380k/400k as a transfer fee if he had signed a new contract?

[YassinMoutaouakil]

4 hours ago, Archie McSquackle said:

I certainly can't be arsed trawling through the St. Mirren thread but was it not a bit of an open secret that they were spending more and viewing it as a top six budget? They finished sixth so mission accomplished and they seem to be using it as a springboard but, as you say, it's a risky business when the bigger teams have got themselves in order and realistically sixth is as high as you're likely to manage. At least Dundee United are a basket case.

I'll do it.

[Swello]

47 minutes ago, Allroy for Prez said:

He’s so good for him only to have been in the team for 6 months definitely feels like someone has fucked up.

This was also my opinion on Turnbull.

To have been in a position where GA was able to persuade the board to sanction signing McGinn (no disrespect to him) instead of going with SOD and Johnston should be a complete embarrassment to everyone involved.

To hear Flow and others on the board talking about "pathways" and then to do that sums up how desperately poor things had become.

[capt_oats]

41 minutes ago, Swello said:

To have been in a position where GA was able to persuade the board to sanction signing McGinn (no disrespect to him) instead of going with SOD and Johnston should be a complete embarrassment to everyone involved.

To hear Flow and others on the board talking about "pathways" and then to do that sums up how desperately poor things had become.

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.

Edited July 9, 2023 by capt_oats

[Munoz]

2 hours ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

I'll do it.

Well, you practically live there anyway. 

[Luke92]

Refreshing to hear Kettlewell being so open and honest

There's no point trying to make excuses for the club on the Max Johnstone affair, it is a complete shit show. Clearly Hammell was partly responsible but I don't think he or GA can be held solely responsible. A total failure to protect our investments. I always refer back to the 'introducing our next new talent' video in 2020/21. Folk at the club and around football knew his ability. Anyway we move on and hopefully 'lessons are learned' it is just good to hear Kettlewell say what we are all thinking.

Feels like we went well over budget to save our skin last January and are paying the price for it now. I doubt Riku Danzaki packed up and left Brisbane for heehaw. The fact we have lost 6 first team players and still 'have to move some on, to bring some in' says it all. It wouldn't surprise me if the budget constraints are the reason we can't get the likes of Casey to sign a new contract.

Not sure what Kettlewell's track record was like with recruitment at County but he seems pretty switched on so fingers crossed.

I'd really like him to push some of the young guys in to the first team this year. It feels like we are getting less and less game time out of young guys before they get sold on (or we let their contract run down) but the likes of Miller should hopefully get more exposure this year.

 

[capt_oats]

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.

Edited July 9, 2023 by capt_oats

[Dunning1874]

While it's obviously frustrating to end up losing Johnston the way you have, there's also an element of hindsight in looking back at your previous decisions.

I get that you don't judge young players wholly on how they do on loan as a 17 year old and his potential should have been taken into account as well, but the whole reason he ended up on loan at Cove for the first half of the season was that he struggled in the Championship for much of his season with Queen of the South. To be expected for someone so young getting their first exposure to first team football of course, but few people would have thought he was ready to play in the Premiership on the back of it and it's also not likely to lead to urgency in tying a player down for another 3 years.

[supermarv]

What I don’t understand is why we have such little budget to make new additions. Yes we have to sell a minimum of one decent player a season to keep us just ticking over. However a small compo for Dean, a decentish fee (approx 300k) for Max. As well as a fee between 500-1mil for KVV. That’s some pretty decent income, paired with others leaving such as Mandron, Goss, most likely Casey. Their wages are gone surely can replace 1/2 for a similar wage.

[Cloontang]

4 minutes ago, supermarv said:

What I don’t understand is why we have such little budget to make new additions. Yes we have to sell a minimum of one decent player a season to keep us just ticking over. However a small compo for Dean, a decentish fee (approx 300k) for Max. As well as a fee between 500-1mil for KVV. That’s some pretty decent income, paired with others leaving such as Mandron, Goss, most likely Casey. Their wages are gone surely can replace 1/2 for a similar wage.

It would be great to get some insight about what happens behind the scenes at the club. I know we ended up with a bloated squad as we added many new faces in January as we tried to save ourselves from relegation. But it would have been interesting to see how things would have worked out if the likes of Cornelius, Casey, Goss, Johnston etc all accepted new deals. Scott Burns has mentioned we have hit the post on two or three deals whereas we came close to Goss committing again but then the other day it's reported that we need to move players to sign some. 

 

[YassinMoutaouakil]

3 hours ago, Munoz said:

Well, you practically live there anyway. 

I need to keep Random company 

[thisGRAEME]

Hard to argue anything other than a significant portion of staff simply not having their eye on the ball in terms of what's actually important at the club; having good players, winning games of football.

The rest is nice and all, fair play, but if we don't do those things then the rest is irrelevant.

Anyway, how's that head of Comms/chief exec/left back recruitment going? 

[Busta Nut]

I am pretty sure GA blew the player budget out the water and that's the reason why we have to get more out before more come in.

[capt_oats]

20 hours ago, supermarv said:

What I don’t understand is why we have such little budget to make new additions. Yes we have to sell a minimum of one decent player a season to keep us just ticking over. However a small compo for Dean, a decentish fee (approx 300k) for Max. As well as a fee between 500-1mil for KVV. That’s some pretty decent income, paired with others leaving such as Mandron, Goss, most likely Casey. Their wages are gone surely can replace 1/2 for a similar wage.

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.

On 08/07/2023 at 19:16, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

We have a full team of guys who weren't first choice last year coming back. That is where the money is tied up.

Connelly

O'Donnell Mugabi Lamie McGinley

Tierney Maguire  Danzaki

Mahon Shields Efford

Is there anyone there you think is good enough to be starting every week? Or even coming on as a sub. Maybe keep O'Donnell, one of the centre halfs and Efford from that lot. And nothing really against Connelly as a 3rd choice keeper.

20 hours ago, Cloontang said:

It would be great to get some insight about what happens behind the scenes at the club. I know we ended up with a bloated squad as we added many new faces in January as we tried to save ourselves from relegation. But it would have been interesting to see how things would have worked out if the likes of Cornelius, Casey, Goss, Johnston etc all accepted new deals. Scott Burns has mentioned we have hit the post on two or three deals whereas we came close to Goss committing again but then the other day it's reported that we need to move players to sign some. 

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.

Edited July 10, 2023 by capt_oats