Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[joewarkfanclub]

8 hours ago, Vietnam91 said:

All this talk of 50+1 or 49% is moot and mostly symbolic, the Bois in Block E should be making banners with "MIN 4 EXEC DIRECTORS & CASTING VOTE" as that is much more important.

I hadnt actually thought about this before. But you are 100% right.

We own the club right now, but what actual control can we exert?

That needs to be rectified

[Handsome_Devil]

2 minutes ago, joewarkfanclub said:

I hadnt actually thought about this before. But you are 100% right.

We own the club right now, but what actual control can we exert?

That needs to be rectified

What kind of control do you want to exert? 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against a society majority on the board but I think the model where the executive are basically the heads of department, accountable to the Society, is a much more solid basis to run things.

The fans through the Society should set the very strategic, long-term vision but relying on them to actually implement it on an executive level... different gravy.

[Handsome_Devil]

3 hours ago, capt_oats said:

AFAIK the rumours came from here and it wasn't even a rumour. The bold @Handsome_Devil mentioned they'd heard we'd signed a player from the Rovers on a PCA last week and there was a subsequent bout of speculation around which players of theirs are OOC.

Just shows you shouldn't believe what you read on the internet.

[joewarkfanclub]

1 minute ago, Handsome_Devil said:

What kind of control do you want to exert? 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against a society majority on the board but I think the model where the executive are basically the heads of department, accountable to the Society, is a much more solid basis to run things.

The fans through the Society should set the very strategic, long-term vision but relying on them to actually implement it on an executive level... different gravy.

Enough to stop things we think are clearly not in the interests of the club. 

I think what is being suggested is that 51% shareholding doesnt adequately protect us if we are a minority on the executive board and one or more of those individuals is in the pocket of the new investor who may be a minority shareholder.

I hadnt thought of that, but its a valid point.

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

35 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

There's an element of "well, of course they'd say that" but at the last AGM (clearly not the one where Hammell told everyone he was confident Johnston would sign a new contract despite having bounced him out to Cove Rangers on loan because we ended up with SOD and McGinn on the books by mistake) they pretty much said that they made offers to keep him but it was made clear to them that Johnston wanted to try his luck abroad. Basically, the implication was "well, what can you do - if he doesn't want to sign the contract".

I mean, everything up to the point where we actually started playing him with 6 months left on his deal and realising he was actually really good? Massive fumble.

To be honest, I think Hammell was just a broken man by then and answered the question in the manner that he thought would get him least grief.

[capt_oats]

45 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

To be honest, I think Hammell was just a broken man by then and answered the question in the manner that he thought would get him least grief.

I think I've always had the suspicion that he didn't actually rate Johnston all that highly and just (wrongly) assumed that first team football with us would be the best offer he'd have on the table.

[StAndrew7]

15 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

I think I've always had the suspicion that he didn't actually rate Johnston all that highly and just (wrongly) assumed that first team football with us would be the best offer he'd have on the table.

I think that tells you all you need to know about his skills as both manager and a head of youth development... 

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

16 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

I think I've always had the suspicion that he didn't actually rate Johnston all that highly and just (wrongly) assumed that first team football with us would be the best offer he'd have on the table.

Perhaps. You almost think he couldn't not rate him, but the example I always use in this case is that the last man to get Scotland to a World Cup rated East Fife's Jonathan Page higher than Millwall's Shaun Hutchinson.

[capt_oats]

42 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

Perhaps. You almost think he couldn't not rate him, but the example I always use in this case is that the last man to get Scotland to a World Cup rated East Fife's Jonathan Page higher than Millwall's Shaun Hutchinson.

I mean, I don't know one way or another and it's pretty pointless re-litigating Hammell-ball, everyone is scarred enough by the experience the first time round, but I have a degree of sympathy to the extent that we're kind having to reappraise what a development 'pathway' actually looks like now.

For years we were probably looking at integrating Academy players into the first team when they hit 18-ish whereas given how the landscape has changed with PL academies hoovering up talent we're having to find a way to get 16-17 year olds in and around the first team in a meaningful way. To all intents and purposes it was while he was in that bracket that we were bouncing Johnston around on loan (and of course there was Covid hitting).

I mentioned it at the time but rather than find a way to involve Johnston in the first team alongside SOD and McGinn (as Kettlewell did successfully) he opted to just loan him out (again). Which, don't get me wrong, is his prerogative - but it also felt quite instructive.

He was older by a margin but it was notable that Dean Cornelius' minutes dropped under Hammell compared to both Alexander and Kettlewell (he averaged 76.6 mins per game under Grezza, 64.1 mins pg under Ketts but dropped to only 41.8 mins pg under Hammell)

It's entirely hypothetical but if Hammell was thinking that Johnston still needed regular football to develop and was risk averse to it being with us then that's kind of a luxury that unfortunately we don't seem to have now. I guess a parallel of sorts is Turnbull, who although he didn't go out on loan, Robinson purposely held back making him a first team regular because he felt he needed to learn the 'free stuff', same with Campbell who made his debut at 18 under McGhee.

I can't remember who mentioned this whether it was McGhee, Robinson or Craigan but we apparently made a conscious decision to hold Campbell back after his first start where he ran the show against Accies rather than put pressure on him in a relegation scrap.

Given how Robinson handled Turnbull, hypothetically, would we expect that we'd have seen Lennon Miller playing as much as he has if he were still the manager? I don't know but I kind of suspect not.

Either way with Johnston you could say we fumbled things by not having a development pathway in place for him or you could also say that our being risk-averse cost us. In fact, both are probably true.

Edited April 24 by capt_oats

[Gianfranco]

Bair would have broken all the scoring records if Miller was feeding Johnson to give Theo all those plates. 

[Handsome_Devil]

8 hours ago, joewarkfanclub said:

Enough to stop things we think are clearly not in the interests of the club. 

Sure but how do you define that? Is someone there day to day overseeing each decision? Are these paid roles - which opens a can of worms - or unpaid - which brings another set of issues?

 

At some point you need to leave the experts to get on with it and trust the folk hired to do their jobs. 

"Fan owned, not fan run" has been mocked a bit recently because it's all gone to hell but the theory behind it is probably still sound.

[MurrayWell]

7 hours ago, capt_oats said:

Given how Robinson handled Turnbull, hypothetically, would we expect that we'd have seen Lennon Miller playing as much as he has if he were still the manager? I don't know but I kind of suspect not.

My thoughts too, as much as Robinson was a decent manager for us, the Turnbull/ Hastie (I know) breakthroughs were by (happy) accident and not design imo. Worked out well, particularly in the case of Turnbull, but I don't think Robbo intended to chuck either in for extended periods that season. 

[Handsome_Devil]

38 minutes ago, MurrayWell said:

My thoughts too, as much as Robinson was a decent manager for us, the Turnbull/ Hastie (I know) breakthroughs were by (happy) accident and not design imo. Worked out well, particularly in the case of Turnbull, but I don't think Robbo intended to chuck either in for extended periods that season. 

You might be right but we've seen various youngsters thrown into the team, become regulars, burn out and drift away. Robinson brought DT in gradually, he became great and we sold him for a fortune... picking over it as luck is a very harsh call imho rather than just saying well done. Hastie was such a one season wonder I think making any judgement is difficult.

We'll never know on Miller under a different manager but I suspect he'd have had roughly the same treatment he's had under SK - not only is he a tremendous talent but he appeared at 16 with a physicality and mentality (we're all assuming ingrained from his dad) I've never seen with any other Motherwell youth. He was simply ready in every aspect much earlier (this is also why I'd be happy to sell him this summer rather than next, unless he fancies extending to 2027, but that's a different argument!).

[MurrayWell]

5 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

You might be right but we've seen various youngsters thrown into the team, become regulars, burn out and drift away. Robinson brought DT in gradually, he became great and we sold him for a fortune... picking over it as luck is a very harsh call imho rather than just saying well done. Hastie was such a one season wonder I think making any judgement is difficult.

Really didn't mean for it to come across as harsh, I don't think it's unfair to suggest that in the breakthrough season Turnbull probably wasn't down to be a regular starter at the start of the campaign. He and Hastie were outstanding when they came in, but circumstances dictated that we had to rely on them for creativity, that's what i was getting at with the happy accident description, Turnbull in particular was clearly intended to be part of the squad (ie not out on loan) but I think he became far more important than what was first intended. 

Fair play and well done to Robinson for going with them though, rather than trying to find some free agent jobbers. 

[Neil86]

12 hours ago, well fan for life said:

Doubt it. He was out of contract so we were due whatever compensation amounts to these days.

We've fumbled a lot of things in the last few years but that's got to be the worst of them.

I think there are wee quirks like that even in OOC deals these days. You can negotiate the compensation down, for add ons.....I THINK.

Was there not something similar in Campbell's deal for Luton.

I could be miles off it.

[capt_oats]

12 minutes ago, Neil86 said:

I think there are wee quirks like that even in OOC deals these days. You can negotiate the compensation down, for add ons.....I THINK.

Was there not something similar in Campbell's deal for Luton.

I could be miles off it.

Nah, you're right.

https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2021/06/15/allan-campbell-signs-for-luton-town/

[djchapsticks]

22 hours ago, Vietnam91 said:

We really shouldn't be getting twitchy about teams like St Mirren using our squad from 4 years ago to emulate our league placings/summer tours from 10 years ago which will ultimately lead to a similar financial reckoning that we had 20 years ago. 

I'm sure that sounded intelligent and insightful in your head.

[Vietnam91]

3 minutes ago, djchapsticks said:

I'm sure that sounded intelligent and insightful in your head.

Any of it untrue?

[djchapsticks]

1 minute ago, Vietnam91 said:

Any of it untrue?

Apart from pretty much all of it, not really.

Love this 'they are doing better than us just now so they must be spending 2004 Motherwell levels above their station' mindset, though. Keep up the delusion.

[Vietnam91]

18 minutes ago, djchapsticks said:

Apart from pretty much all of it, not really.

Love this 'they are doing better than us just now so they must be spending 2004 Motherwell levels above their station' mindset, though. Keep up the delusion.

I said you're going to have a reckoning like we did back then, to assume otherwise I agree is delusional.

Ours at the time were mental fuelled by a host of craziness both in our boardroom and with digital TV which is a different age.

Let's set a date in the diary for 2030 and see who gets to whip out the "told you so".