Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Neil86]

12 hours ago, standupforthemotherwell said:

I wonder if we kept him after the window because he needed a visa rather than becoming a free agent and having to go back home. Would be very surprised if he doesn't have something lined up in a league with strange transfer windows as otherwise he'd be happy to sit tight until January in case Theo gets injured 

I might be totally missing something here, but if he is a free agent, he's free to sign anywhere he wants, even out with the window, so he could rock up at St Johnstone or something?

Ignore, just seen some similar messages and had no idea that was the case as @capt_oats referred too.

Edited September 12, 2023 by Neil86

[Guest]

[Al B]

Not sure how true it is, but I'd heard his plans revolve around a career change back home and he's not continuing in football.

[eliphas]

5 minutes ago, Neil86 said:

I might be totally missing something here, but if he is a free agent, he's free to sign anywhere he wants, even out with the window, so he could rock up at St Johnstone or something?

Nah, @capt_oats mentions above. You need to be without club before the window shuts basically. Which is why you usually see folk free'd to let them pick up a club easier in this neck of the woods

 

[Swello]

34 minutes ago, eliphas said:

Nah, @capt_oats mentions above. You need to be without club before the window shuts basically. Which is why you usually see folk free'd to let them pick up a club easier in this neck of the woods

 

Yep - if you think about the alternative, the transfer window system would be instantly broken.

36 minutes ago, Al B said:

Not sure how true it is, but I'd heard his plans revolve around a career change back home and he's not continuing in football.

This would at least make some sense rather than someone taking a payoff to sit on their arse until January.

[thisGRAEME]

1 hour ago, Al B said:

Not sure how true it is, but I'd heard his plans revolve around a career change back home and he's not continuing in football.

Seems a smart move for him, because he's fuckin humpty at it.

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

You can't argue with the job that Kettlewell has done in streamlining our squad since he came in. You can probably just about pair these departures with incomings. 

Jake Carroll - Georgie Gent
Barry Maguire - Harry Paton
Kevin Van Veen - Connor Wilkinson
Jack Aitchison - Oli Shaw 
Dean Cornelius - Davor Zdrawkowski
Mikael Mandron - Theo Bair
Max Johnston - Brodie Spencer
James Furlong - Pape Souare
Connor Shields - Mika Biereth

This means that on top of them, we have got rid of Lamie, Efford, Crankshaw, Danzaki, McKinstry, Morris, Tierney and Goss without effectively really replacing them. 

On top of that, you could probably argue that in an ideal world Shaw and Gent wouldn't be here and have been a necessity through injuries.

Spencer and Gent are still at the unproven stage and may prove to be as effective as Johnston and Furlong were, but apart from that, in this streamlining exercise, you would say that the only real drop off in quality has been Van Veen - which was always going to be the case. Even if he'd stayed, 2023/24 Van Veen would likely have been a drop-off in quality from 2022/23 Van Veen.

Signing two perma-crocks in Obika and Souare for them to both get lengthy injuries is probably the only slight in his dealings for me so far. But even within that, the fact they are here for a year and six months respectively, those seem like deals that would have been 2 year deals in the past.

[Allroy for Prez]

Didn’t manage to launch McGinley unfortunately but some/most blame  lies with Alexander there for inexplicably extending his contract. 

[capt_oats]

29 minutes ago, Allroy for Prez said:

Didn’t manage to launch McGinley unfortunately but some/most blame  lies with Alexander there for inexplicably extending his contract. 

Tbh, we saw the value of keeping McGinley around the other week when we chucked him on at Tynecastle.

If rumours are to be believed he’s on a relatively modest wage which means we’ve a player on the books who offers a bit of emergency cover at LWB/LCB. That’s…fine?

Equally, assuming he’s not on a significant wage, it’s unlikely that anyone we’d be able to swap in on similar terms would be any better.

I mean, would I be keeping him on after his contract is up? Probably not. Is it a surprise we’ve kept him around? Not really.

Obviously the loan window is still open for lower league sides if we wanted to loan him out and a team wanted to take him but given the numbers in the squad I’d be surprised if that was something we were looking at.

The fixation some folk have with Toby is pretty weird tbqhwy.

[well fan for life]

McGinley is a bit rubbish but he boils my piss infinitely less than Jake Carroll did. 

[capt_oats]

I suppose it depends on what the deal is with Efford's exit.

If it's similar to the Danzaki situation where he's got a club lined up and the mutualling is to allow him to take up the offer with no cost to us then it wouldn't be a surprise if we were in the Free Agency market.

If we've had to pay him off then it probably limits what we can do in terms of "one out, one in". Although, if that's the case then other than getting shot of a body I'm not sure what the benefit is to us.

It'll be interesting to see if any friendly journos get briefed as to what the sketch is. I think it was Scott Burns who got the nudge on Danzaki going back to the A League after we'd announced the mutual consenting.

As it stands though, based on our First Team:

23 bodies - @Swello alluded to it on the other page but while mileage may vary on the quality of of some of the players (and we've not seen much of the likes of Zdravkovski, Spencer, Shaw - or anything of Gent) this is probably as lean a squad as we've had in years - maybe since the McCall era?

3 of our 5 strikers are injured to varying degrees and given we've pivoted to effectively playing 2 #10s and 2 CMs we probably feel a wee bit light in there as well.

If we are looking at bringing in another body it'll be interesting to see what area we'd prioritise tbh.

Edited September 12, 2023 by capt_oats

[welldaft]

I think the job that Ketts and the management team have done in reshaping the squad on our modest budget has been excellent. 

I like how some get pissed off that Efford has not worked out. Hello…. Try spending a £Billion on players in the past 18 months like Chelsea and still manage to lose more than you win. And end up writing off £30m here and £50m there.

With minimal wages and no to little signing fees we ought to get more wrong than right. I am excited that both Gent and Spencer will be more than adequate on either side of the defence. Based on nothing but a gut feel. In my defence I did think Biereth would be a baller. In his brief cameo he kinda backed up that assertion. 

I am in Glasgow for the England game. I cannot help but think of the parallels right now between Scotland and Motherwell. A decent squad with a decent Manager and team ethics excelling In terms of results… Long May it continue

Edited September 12, 2023 by welldaft

[Handsome_Devil]

1 hour ago, well fan for life said:

McGinley is a bit rubbish but he boils my piss infinitely less than Jake Carroll did. 

Total guess but I suspect SK considers wages, work ethic and attitude to limited minutes and concludes that while upgrading McGinley might be nice, in the meantime he's allowed to stay.

When he was beginning to bomb folk out left right and centre late last season I always thought it notable he trusted SOD despite his form going off a cliff. Yes, MJ was first pick but SOD came ob virtually every week to see things out.

McGinley obviously doesn't have much potential so I would think it'd be his other attributes which make him acceptable in terms of the balance.

[eliphas]

8 hours ago, Neil86 said:

I might be totally missing something here, but if he is a free agent, he's free to sign anywhere he wants, even out with the window, so he could rock up at St Johnstone or something?

Efford was on c2k a week from what I heard. Similar to Lamie. Saved about 100k per year between the two of them is the info I got which is no mean feat. 'Managing out' springs to mind. Haha 

[Gianfranco]

I’ve read mutualed as mutilated at least twice.

Doubt he’ll be getting a club if it’s the later.

[redstarcvedza]

51 minutes ago, eliphas said:

Efford was on c2k a week from what I heard. Similar to Lamie. Saved about 100k per year between the two of them is the info I got which is no mean feat. 'Managing out' springs to mind. Haha 

If true whoever sanctioned 2k per week should get their jotters. To my untrained eye Efford had no first touch, no game awareness and no fight. It may be overly harsh but I think the few things he did right were by chance rather than deliberate.

[Allroy for Prez]

That’s a shocking amount for 2 absolute donkeys to be bringing in!

[well fan for life]

We also paid actual money for Efford did we not?

I don't claim to be an expert in football but even I could spot he was a dud pretty early on. 

[capt_oats]

59 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

We also paid actual money for Efford did we not?

I don't claim to be an expert in football but even I could spot he was a dud pretty early on. 

We did, aye.

https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2022/01/28/joe-efford-signs/

It's a fairly dull topic but as a comparison here are the signings by manager.

It's worth pointing out that Foyle handed in his notice when Robinson left and given the timing I'm unsure of precisely how many of the signings in the 20/21 January window you can genuinely attribute to Grezza. IIRC Lawless confirmed that the deal had been set up by Robinson for example.

Daws took over as HOR from 21/22:

Robinson:
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)
Total = 19

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)
Total = 9

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) 
Total = 17

20/21 (Summer)
Ricki Lamie, Jordan White, Nathan McGinley, Scott Fox, Stephen O'Donnell, Aaron Chapman, Jordan Archer, Jake Hastie (loan), Callum Lang (loan), Robbie Crawford (loan)
Total = 10

Robinson total signed: 55

Alexander:
20/21 (Winter)
Liam Kelly (loan), Steven Lawless, Harry Smith (loan), Sam Foley, Robbie Crawford (loan made permanent), Jordan Roberts (loan), Eddie Nolan (loan), Tyler Magloire (loan)
Total = 8

21/22
Connor Shields,  Justin Amaluzor, Kaiyne Woolery, Kevin Van Veen, Liam Kelly, Darragh O'Connor, Mich'el Parker, Callum Slattery, Juhani Ojala, Sean Goss, Sondre Solholm Johansen, Ross Tierney, Jordan Roberts (loan/loan made permanent), Victor Nirennold, Joe Efford, Robbie Mahon, Liam Shaw (loan)
Total = 17

23/23 (Summer)
Paul McGinn, Blair Spittal, Josh Morris, Aston Oxborough
Total = 4

Alexander total signed: 29

Hammell:
22/23:
Stuart McKinstry (loan), Matt Penney (loan), Rolando Aarons (loan), Louis Moult (loan), Shane Blaney, Ollie Crankshaw (loan), Mikael Mandron, Riku Danzaki, Jack Aitchison, James Furlong (loan), Jonathan Obika (loan), Dan Casey, Calum Butcher 
Total = 13

Hammell total signed: 13

Kettlewell:
22/23 (post-January):
Harry Paton
Total = 1

23/24 (Summer):
Jonathan Obika, Conor Wilkinson, Pape Soaré, Davor Zdravkovski, Theo Bair, Mika Biereth (loan), Brodie Spencer (loan), Oli Shaw (loan), Georgie Gent (loan)

Total = 9

Kettlewell total signed to date: 10

Edited September 13, 2023 by capt_oats

[thisGRAEME]

Jack Aitchison is going to be a great quiz question at some point, because I've already completely memory holed him.