Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Alert Mongoose]

Just now, Busta Nut said:

He's not been offered £1.8k, I am sure that chat was he knocked back our £2k offer. But maybe helping him move house was a big incentive.

Your Motherwell offer is overstated but not by much. The fact that it was only one year you offered was pivotal.

[Busta Nut]

I know nothing about our offer other than what I thought the amount was.

A 1 year deal? I doubt it.

[capt_oats]

Just now, Busta Nut said:

I know nothing about our offer other than what I thought the amount was.

A 1 year deal? I doubt it.

Aye, we've been dishing out 3 year deals like sweeties.

Anyway, it's wild Albert is getting any bites here tbh. I honestly thought folk would know better.

[Busta Nut]

3 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Aye, we've been dishing out 3 year deals like sweeties.

Anyway, it's wild Albert is getting any bites here tbh. I honestly thought folk would know better.

Ah! I haven't ever dealt with Albert. Wasn't aware.

[Kapowzer]

Is this deal signed and sealed though? Seems odd not to hold off till the end of the window based on his current form and season so far. Come late January there will be a few down South with money rattling in their hippy and willing to throw it at someone if it helps them secure promotion, fight for it or avoid relegation. (Louis to PNE for £500k with 6 months left is a prime example - for me Tony offers the same if not more than what Louis did at the time of his transfer).

If he was attracting decent interest from down South on a workmanlike but not great goalscoring season in 2020/21, then 21/22 surely has added to his value along with 6 months till he's a free agent.

Doing the deal now and announcing it just doesn't add up for me, unless staying commutable to Lanarkshire was paramount in the decision making and Hearts/Hibs were courted but not interested.

Even if the Arabs are doubling what our offer was, it will still be modest compared to England. Only thing I can think of is they put a time frame on a decision, no agreement by Christmas and we walk sort of thing.

As for us offering him 1 year, based on the fact we only seem to offer 3 year deals, he's been our sterling player by quite a bit in 2021 and he's in his footballing prime in terms of age, I doubt it.

Next thing we as a club need to address is, if Dundee Utd can outspend us, what do we have to do to overtake them in terms of revenue so it's not a thing in the future. That is one for the WS, marketing and commercial to address.

I don't think this story/deal is wrapped up however, time will tell.

Edited December 25, 2021 by Kapowzer

[welldaft]

Well  this has come out of the blue somewhat !

Fully expected him to leave but to go down south not to Dundee United. They have a bigger fan base of course but not by much. Historically in terms of league performances they are less successful than us. 

If this is remotely true then I would be scunnered. Moving to a direct rival in the same league.  Not sure but if true I don’t imagine the fans would be that forgiving if he stayed till the summer.  And how are United in a position to afford such wages ? 

This stinks. Again all paper talk but if true he has to move on in the window. Either that or we play players that are contracted beyond the summer and/or bring someone else in. 

[Rugbypark]

Is this deal signed and sealed though? Seems odd not to hold off till the end of the window based on his current form and season so far. Come late January there will be a few down South with money rattling in their hippy and willing to throw it at someone if it helps them secure promotion, fight for it or avoid relegation. (Louis to PNE for £500k with 6 months left is a prime example - for me Tony offers the same if not more than what Louis did at the time of his transfer).
If he was attracting decent interest from down South on a workmanlike but not great goalscoring season in 2020/21, then 21/22 surely has added to his value along with 6 months till he's a free agent.
Doing the deal now and announcing it just doesn't add up for me, unless staying commutable to Lanarkshire was paramount in the decision making and Hearts/Hibs were courted but not interested.
Even if the Arabs are doubling what our offer was, it will still be modest compared to England. Only thing I can think of is they put a time frame on a decision, no agreement by Christmas and we walk sort of thing.
As for us offering him 1 year, based on the fact we only seem to offer 3 year deals, he's been our sterling player by quite a bit in 2021 and he's in his footballing prime in terms of age, I doubt it.
Next thing we as a club need to address is, if Dundee Utd can outspend us, what do we have to do to overtake them in terms of revenue so it's not a thing in the future. That is one for the WS, marketing and commercial to address.
I don't think this story/deal is wrapped up however, time will tell.

You would have to attract as many fans as Dundee Utd. Given your club has tried everything, that’s probably not going to happen.

[Neil86]

Don't doubt your source at all @Alert Mongoose, I would be very surprised if we had only offered him a one year deal though, given how important he has been for us. On top of that, he is only 27 and presumably coming into his 'peak', I'm not sure he has missed any games through injury either so that's not going to make the board second think. 

With regards to the 40k, I can't envisage the club letting the leagues top scorer jump over to a direct rival for a top 6, and maybe a European spot for that amount. Especially as @Swello I think mentioned that each league position is worth 80k.

I would like to think the club would stand quite firm on a figure that would be much more than the 40k to make the January move happen.

Anyway, this is all pure speculation. Time will tell.

Enough football chat from me, merry Christmas everyone.

[Yorky]

11 hours ago, Alert Mongoose said:

Your Motherwell offer is overstated but not by much. The fact that it was only one year you offered was pivotal.

There is no way we only offered a one year contract, our dealings over the last year or so makes that statement absolute bullshit. That tells me you’r just another individual making things up.

[Yorky]

9 hours ago, Kapowzer said:

Is this deal signed and sealed though? Seems odd not to hold off till the end of the window based on his current form and season so far. Come late January there will be a few down South with money rattling in their hippy and willing to throw it at someone if it helps them secure promotion, fight for it or avoid relegation. (Louis to PNE for £500k with 6 months left is a prime example - for me Tony offers the same if not more than what Louis did at the time of his transfer).

If he was attracting decent interest from down South on a workmanlike but not great goalscoring season in 2020/21, then 21/22 surely has added to his value along with 6 months till he's a free agent.

Doing the deal now and announcing it just doesn't add up for me, unless staying commutable to Lanarkshire was paramount in the decision making and Hearts/Hibs were courted but not interested.

Even if the Arabs are doubling what our offer was, it will still be modest compared to England. Only thing I can think of is they put a time frame on a decision, no agreement by Christmas and we walk sort of thing.

As for us offering him 1 year, based on the fact we only seem to offer 3 year deals, he's been our sterling player by quite a bit in 2021 and he's in his footballing prime in terms of age, I doubt it.

Next thing we as a club need to address is, if Dundee Utd can outspend us, what do we have to do to overtake them in terms of revenue so it's not a thing in the future. That is one for the WS, marketing and commercial to address.

I don't think this story/deal is wrapped up however, time will tell.

We can’t match any bigger city club and Dundee is the 4th largest city in Scotland. Motherwell already have a bigger percentage of support than just about anyone else given the size of the place. What we can more than match most other clubs on is success over the last few decades at league level.

Edited December 25, 2021 by Yorky

[YassinMoutaouakil]

It's funny how brains work, if Watt ended up renewing I'd be buzzing but on hearing that United have offered him a 3 year deal I'm thinking "that's a massive risk".

[Archie McSquackle]

I get all chat about waiting for a bigger and better deal from England (that was my first thought too) but I can only assume he's not looking to move and having a settled family life is a big part of how he's felt recently.

[capt_oats]

31 minutes ago, Yorky said:

We can’t match any bigger city club and Dundee is the 4th largest city in Scotland. Motherwell already have a bigger percentage of support than just about anyone else given the size of the place. What we can more than match most other clubs on is success over the last few decades at league level.

I don't disagree in a broad sense but to look at United specifically.

Going by *world football dot net* United's average attendance is roughly 2k more than us. You'd think that them having a meaningful (to them) derby accounts for a chunk of that. An average of 2k more is still a decent amount but it's nothing like the other city clubs.

Spoiler

Unfortunately for United you have to go all the way back to 2016 for their last top flight season with crowds. It was also the season they were relegated (at Dens) but a quick look on Companies House shows that their turnover for that season was £4.6m (2016) with total wages of £3.4m (2016) and a £1.5m loss.

To compare that to our most recent season with fans (albeit shortened) our turnover was £4.9m, wages £3.7m and a profit of £346k.

Even looking at United's most recent accounts (when they won the Championship) ie: the comparable season to the MFC figures I just posted: Turnover was £3.9m, wages £4.1m and resulted in a £3m loss.

None of that is posted in a Tick, Tock way but it points to that fact that there's not actually a gap between the two clubs in the way that there perhaps is with other "City" clubs. Instead the major difference at the moment is that you've got their owner willing to chuck money at it and bankroll the club in a way that we're fundamentally not able to do (nor would we necessarily want to give our experience with Boyle).

I mean, the loss they posted for 2019 came in at £3.9m.

Anyway, cutting about the Companies House website is a pretty fucking tragic way to spend Christmas morning.

So, aye, Merry Christmas lads.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

From the outside it looks like United are happy to pad out the squad with young guys and workmanlike pros but stretch the budget for a few players of genuine quality (Siegrist, Mulgrew, Fuchs, previously Shankland and now Watt.)

An interesting approach to squad building but I suppose it's working fairly well.

['WellDel]

Is Tony not pally with Charlie the shite childminder, or did I just make that up? Possibly another wee bit of persuasion from him.

Watt and Motherwell have been good for each other in equal measure. His career was going nowhere and we were floundering badly at the wrong end of the table. Both parties are now in a much better position and he leaves with the best wishes of (I assume) the majority of our level headed supporters.

For the sake of competition when we meet in future though, if this deal is done I hope Utd inherit St Johnstone version Tony....

[welldaft]

22 minutes ago, 'WellDel said:

Is Tony not pally with Charlie the shite childminder, or did I just make that up? Possibly another wee bit of persuasion from him.

Watt and Motherwell have been good for each other in equal measure. His career was going nowhere and we were floundering badly at the wrong end of the table. Both parties are now in a much better position and he leaves with the best wishes of (I assume) the majority of our level headed supporters.

For the sake of competition when we meet in future though, if this deal is done I hope Utd inherit St Johnstone version Tony....

I consider myself level headed (most of the time ), but if Tony does join one of our nearest rivals I will not be wishing him all the best. Petty maybe but how I feel. He went down south and I would have been waving him off with a big cheer and good wishes.

Anyway nothing confirmed yet so we shall wait and see

[Kapowzer]

5 hours ago, Rugbypark said:

 

You would have to attract as many fans as Dundee Utd. Given your club has tried everything, that’s probably not going to happen.

 

No new targeted initiatives for a few years now, that and what we have done in the past hasn't targeted low hanging fruit, time for a new approach.

4 hours ago, Yorky said:

We can’t match any bigger city club and Dundee is the 4th largest city in Scotland. Motherwell already have a bigger percentage of support than just about anyone else given the size of the place. What we can more than match most other clubs on is success over the last few decades at league level.

If my commercial manager came in and said that to me they'd be getting a P45. We don't need excuses, we need solutions. If you start from a position of weakness you're starting from a poor place. Increasing our home attendance by 2,000 adults is not easy but not beyond us. We all got frustrated when McCall would go to Ibrox or Parkhead and apologise in advance. We all know the magnitude of the problem, the way forward is to find a new approach. Einstein succinctly defined "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

Also further to my "I think there's more to this story" previous post. I have it on good authority there isn't:

• Charlie Mulgrew's presence there a big factor in the move.
• He is planning on moving house to the Dundee Area.
• No doubt the timing is done to boost the feel good factor after a run of poor results and misfiring primary striker.
• Dundee United continue to spend beyond their income, seems some lessons haven't been learned.
• As fan owned and no rich benefactor we can't do what Ogren, Cormack or Gordon repeatedly do.
• Some of their players have salaries in way in excess of bigger clubs.
• Negotiations ongoing for a transfer fee to let him leave in January, it's in nobody's interest having him around now.

[capt_oats]

Shoutout to Kaiyne Woolery whose Christmas dinner looks fucking magic.

Anyway, back to the Low Christmas album...

[ropy]

We should have put a scheme in place to encourage those that couldn’t afford it to attend, get the numbers up.

[Ron Aldo]

If my commercial manager came in and said that to me they'd be getting a P45. We don't need excuses, we need solutions. If you start from a position of weakness you're starting from a poor place. Increasing our home attendance by 2,000 adults is not easy but not beyond us. We all got frustrated when McCall would go to Ibrox or Parkhead and apologise in advance. We all know the magnitude of the problem, the way forward is to find a new approach. Einstein succinctly defined "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".
Also further to my "I think there's more to this story" previous post. I have it on good authority there isn't:

• Charlie Mulgrew's presence there a big factor in the move.
• He is planning on moving house to the Dundee Area.
• No doubt the timing is done to boost the feel good factor after a run of poor results and misfiring primary striker.
• Dundee United continue to spend beyond their income, seems some lessons haven't been learned.
• As fan owned and no rich benefactor we can't do what Ogren, Cormack or Gordon repeatedly do.
• Some of their players have salaries in way in excess of bigger clubs.
• Negotiations ongoing for a transfer fee to let him leave in January, it's in nobody's interest having him around now.

I'm sorry but I really don't get what you're complaining about? Every club has a ceiling and whether we like it or not, Dundee United are probably a bigger club than Motherwell. That's just the way it is and United signing Tony Watt isn't too dissimilar to when we signes Gallagher from Livi, Polworth from Inverness, Vigurs from Ross County etc.

Some clubs are just bigger than others and no change of approach will alter that. I think our social media team do a, generally, good job of getting the club out there but theres only so much they can do. Fir Park isn't going to suddenly turn into the Westfalenstadion regardless of what we do.