Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Swello]

3 minutes ago, Luke92 said:

Personally I don't think getting another 500/1k fans in the well society is going to get us to the level we need to be financially and so I think the strategy to look a financial beneficiary is the right one. I don't think most fans want us to splurge money on players but the player budget at the moment isn't adequate to meet a lot of fans ambitions.

From my perspective - I would like us to get additional investment but not at any cost (you aren't suggesting that obviously). When I see the state Dundee Utd (for example) have got into, posting huge losses every year for no appreciable gain simply because there is currently a rich guy involved - I don't want that for us. At a minimum, I want us to be sustainable and not in hock to anyone or at risk of the money tap being turned off one day when the rich guy gets a new toy - and I think that is the most important function of fan ownership as it stands.

@Casagolda is entirely correct to say that we are currently picking up the tab for a couple of seasons of fairly chaotic management (on and off the park), which probably exaggerates the problem a bit but the fact is that if/when Utd appear next season with their magic credit card, we are going another step down the pecking order and we wouldn't need to perform much below our budget to end up going down. The 12 club division normally means there are a few clubs below us in terms of playing budget - this is maybe the first time (admin aside) that we have been so close to the bottom of the financial league table since we last got promoted in prehistoric times - so our risk of going down in an averagely bad season is now pretty high, so we probably need to get used to that.

 

[well fan for life]

8 minutes ago, 'WellDel said:

Thank fck thar one fell through, I've never really been a massive fan of his and May has been shite at this level for a while now imo. Was there not talk earlier in the window of him being loaned to Hamilton? I think he's more at that level now. Pissing away our limited funds on another striker who doesn't score goals isn't going to help our situation. 

I thought years ago he looked handy but after his knee injury he never looked the same. When he rocked up at Aberdeen he looked rotten and I don't think there's been a big improvement since. 

[Desp]

29 minutes ago, Luke92 said:

but the player budget at the moment isn't adequate to meet a lot of fans ambitions.

On the striker situation more specifically, it is just a really bad look for all involved. If someone gets injured we are going to completely humped
It feels like we are betting on Livi being relegated rather than trying to secure any kind of financial safety ourselves. I really hope we can pull a rabbit out the hat in free transfers because this is a bad look for recruitment and the manager

The player budget has been decimated because a succession of first-team managers, supported by someone who fucked off to Aberdeen, made a succession of utterly horrendous decisions.  None of the investements, shall we say, have paid off.

Now, unless you're made of money, if an investment goes tits up and you lose a load of cash, you don't then turn around and throw more money at another thing. You cut your cloth accordingly, hoping that over time you can grow again.

That's where we are at this season.  Kettlewell has had a massive job getting the budget down.  This isn't for a laugh, it's to secure our short-term and medium-term future of the club.  Now, you can very well argue (as most will) he hasn't used his budget as best as he could have, but for me if we're sitting today with Mika Biereth in our squad then the vast majority of punters are happy with where we're at.  It could very well be at Kettlewell has decided to go with 1 up top for the remainder of the season, and feels Bair, Vale and the ghost of Jon Obika will be enough to get us through.  Time will tell on that.

It's been said already, but the sole aim for this season is to cut the budget and stay in the league.  Reset the aims with a new CEO and probable manager come June.  We're on course for that, I'd say.

Edited February 2 by Desp

[Wellwatcher]

32 minutes ago, Cloontang said:

He shaved his ponytail off, not interested.

He is the Samson of football

[Doctor Manhattan]

5 minutes ago, Wellwatcher said:

He is the Samson of football

The Craig fucking Samson?

[eliphas]

29 minutes ago, KirkySuperSub said:

St. Mirren are fan owned as well, so where they getting this endless pot of money from?

Not to drag this back into finance world. But in their last accounts to 22 they posted a 1.5m loss with 1.8m in loans due within the next 5 years. This year will be interesting.

[Busta Nut]

St Mirren are fucked

[YassinMoutaouakil]

I really hope we do fullbacks vs everyone else in training just once for a laugh

[well fan for life]

1 minute ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

I really hope we do fullbacks vs everyone else in training just once for a laugh

Thelonius takes on the world. 

[YassinMoutaouakil]

2 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

Thelonius takes on the world. 

I think you've found Kettlewell's notebook

[EK2DK]

Scunnered.

I have the impression that anything Fir Park way varies between bowling club committee behind the scenes and a slow motion car crash on the park.

There is absolutely no joined up thinking across the club whatsoever 

 

[well fan for life]

Just now, YassinMoutaouakil said:

I think you've found Kettlewell's notebook

Heavily abridged here, for the benefit of everyone. 

[MurrayWell]

After St Johnstone away, I said I reckon we'd be fine and I still think we will be. We're actually a striker up since then!

On the subject of Stevie May, if I was given the choice of Stevie May or nobody else coming in, I'd go with the latter. 

Edited February 2 by MurrayWell

[Cloontang]

36 minutes ago, eliphas said:

Not to drag this back into finance world. But in their last accounts to 22 they posted a 1.5m loss with 1.8m in loans due within the next 5 years. This year will be interesting.

Lasley taking the Leanne Dempster approach to finances. They were banking on making some serious coin from Baccus but he is out of contract come the summer.

[Desp]

8 minutes ago, Cloontang said:

Lasley taking the Leanne Dempster approach to finances. They were banking on making some serious coin from Baccus but he is out of contract come the summer.

I would imagine those at the club have similar ambitions with Lennon Miller over the next 6/12 months.

[Stevie Kirk]

1 hour ago, JayMFC said:

This is spot on for me.

There's two issues here - the basic expectation that should fall upon any club to be able to fill a squad with the numbers required to navigate a season/half a season, and the whole KVV thing. On the latter, I'm quite relaxed - if folk genuinely do want us to compete with what Kilmarnock are (reportedly) paying (and what St. Mirren (reportedly) wanted to be paying), then I think there's perhaps a wider discussion about fan-ownership & safeguarding the financial future of the club through strict wage structures, budgeting etc to be had.

However, on the former, I think it's a massive failing to be going into a second half of a season where relegation is still a possibility with three strikers that includes an untried young loanee, a long-term injury worry, and a guy who - albeit decent so far this season - was only ever brought in as a 4th choice project.

As always with these things, hindsight will be a wonderful thing in the summer and hopefully then we'll be in a place where that failure to ensure a suitable squad in terms of attackers hasn't actually cost us. But criticism for that at the moment is, for me, entirely justified, and is a separate issue from the KVV stuff. We should have been able to bring in another forward - I don't believe that the choice should ever have been a binary one between obliterating your entire wage structure or bringing in nobody.

[capt_oats]

3 minutes ago, Desp said:

I would imagine those at the club have similar ambitions with Lennon Miller over the next 6/12 months.

McMahon pretty much straight up said that when he was stumbling his way through that interview tbh.

[Stevie Kirk]

I guess I’m at the “ old man yells at cloud “ stage but yes we just need to wait and see how the lack of signing an experienced striker plays out.

My very short term take was a one-off “ throw £100k at a decent striker “ in an effort to get us to safety . Time will tell if we made the right move keeping our hands in our pockets. Stating the obvious but the wage structure will be about half of what it is now if we go down. 

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

I saw that Scott Burns said we are paying for last January, but for me our current playing budget is probably paying for years of mismanagement.

Season 2020/21 - Robinson overloads the squad on forwards and ignores massive gaps in defence.
Season 2021/22 - Alexander gets a massive wage bill and spends circa £500k on transfer fees, probably going down the "speculate to accumulate" line, but Slattery and Kelly look set to leave for free this summer.
Season 2022/23 - We sack our manager before the league season starts, then overspend letting the new manager bring his own players in, to then sack him after using two of them for the first time (admittedly deservedly so).
Season 2023/24 - The manager who performed miracles with the squad he inherited is forced to slash his squad massively, with his first eleven often made up of players who were at the club the previous season, but couldn't get in the starting XI.

As for this window, I would sum it up as:

Centre-back: Repurposing SOD as a centre-back, where he has looked very comfortable makes perfect sense, rather than entering the market - especially with our track record of signing centre-backs probably since Aldred left. Aside from Sammon's goal, there's also encouraging signs the Butcher of last season is on his way back.

Wing-backs: There's been much exaggeration for effect. As per @capt_oats formation thing, I would consider McGinn and O'Donnell as centre-backs now. Elliot is a project. We have aspirations to play Gent further forward. We are now in a place where we won't need to use Spittal there for the rest of the season.

Centre midfield: Signing Halliday (as well as Miller returning to fitness) is again another encouraging sign that we won't need to use Spittal as a 6, a sitting midfielder or whatever it's called in FM these days. 

Forwards: Nicholson will hopefully give us other options and perhaps even allow for a change of shape. Gent could end up being decent in that role too. Vale has potential to be a good signing. Would I have wanted another striker? Absolutely. However, there have been plenty of other times in recent past where our squad has only had two number 9s.

I honestly think we will be just about fine this season. It's next season that's giving me the scaries...

 

[Handsome_Devil]

11 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

I saw that Scott Burns said we are paying for last January, but for me our current playing budget is probably paying for years of mismanagement.

...

I honestly think we will be just about fine this season. It's next season that's giving me the scaries...

 

I think 20/21 is far enough away to ignore by now....Robinson's approach at least allowed for mega easy cost-cutting. The change in approach under Alexander (which was near universally welcomed) is all fresh line.

For me it's quite clear our current strategic difficulties come from May 22 when we neither backed or sacked him and either lost our nerve on the plan or were forced out of it. On a lower level, simply not replacing Watt was probably a huge sliding doors moment.

Summer 2022 started a chain of 'no good option' decisions and is undoubtedly why the board have clearly said, until it is beyond saving, we're sticking with SK now.

Bizarrely if we survive this season with a wafer-thin squad, we should in theory be a bit more bullish for next term, even allowing for the obvious challenges from the competition. That, and fresh faces in the offices, is a proper base to start from rather than lurching from crisis to crisis as we are now.