Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Have we broken Ketts?

[camer0n_mcd]

31 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

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.

In the 21/22 season we spent just over 500k on player fee's

[capt_oats]

7 hours ago, camer0n_mcd said:

In the 21/22 season we spent just over 500k on player fee's

In fairness that came off the back of 2 seasons where we posted almost £4m in profit.

2019/20 - £346,590
2020/21 - £3,575,615

It was a strategic choice and 3 of the players signed that season were sold for fees - nominal or otherwise (Woolery, Johansen and Van Veen).

Edited July 10, 2023 by capt_oats

[camer0n_mcd]

12 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

In fairness that came off the back of 2 seasons where we posted almost £4m in profit.

2019/20 - £346,590
2020/21 - £3,575,615

It was strategic choice and 3 of the players signed that season were sold for fees - nominal or otherwise (Woolery, Johansen and Van Veen)

Majority of the 20/21 profit was from a Scot Gov loan though 

[capt_oats]

13 minutes ago, camer0n_mcd said:

Majority of the 20/21 profit was from a Scot Gov loan though 

It was actually from the Turnbull sale. The accounts literally say it's the biggest factor in the profit:

The Government grant and how it's treated is also mentioned in the Strategic Report

Edited July 9, 2023 by capt_oats

[Handsome_Devil]

There's no doubt we've gone from being very well run to significantly less so in all kinds of areas but I'm not nearly as bothered about the past as the future.

Part of it is because like on the pitch, off pitch cycles exist at our level too. And finding a Burrows who both nails it and spends the majority of his life working for us is obviously never going to last.

Another part is being very philosophical in the fact that you can do all the theory right and some sporting decisions just don't work out. Everyone was happy we were moving away from the revolving door squad, Kelly, SSJ, Slattery for example, seemed just what we were after. They weren't. It happens.

The bigger concern is not losing the odd youth cheaply because they were misjudged, it's that the collective eye has been off the ball for 18 months and there is absolutely no indication we have any idea how to fix it.

The 'we' in the above is particularly apt as a fan owned club - ultimately it's on all of us.

The knock on effect of being crap and spending emergency money is clear and there's a reason clubs who get sucked into a relegation battle but survive one May often struggle not to be back there the next.

I'm not saying we're doomed in season 23/24 by any means (indeed looking at the league I'd back us to stay up) but if you operate increasingly like a lower league club, eventually you'll end up there.

Edited July 10, 2023 by Handsome_Devil
Typo

[Dosser1886]

9 hours ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Have we broken Ketts?

If we keep calling him that we probably will.

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

I don't think it's as black and white as Ketts makes it out to be. I still think that if a left-back that we were after wanted to sign for us tomorrow, it would still happen, albeit with a subsequent outgoing to balance the books. I think he's trying to temper expectations.

For what it's worth, I think the squad that we have currently should have enough about them to top a group with Elgin, East Fife, Queen's Park and Queen of the South in it over four games. Obviously with this format, there are years where top-flight teams make shock exits and who knows, it might be us this season, but it certainly shouldn't be. It's sad to be so flippant with the prospect of being out of one of our two chances to win a trophy before the end of July, but that's the way it is.

Unfortunately, it's not as simple as Kettlewell getting rid of the players in the order he wants to. To get a player in, I think we all know he'd quite like to punt Danzaki, but it might be a case that he has to punt a player he was borderline on keeping because somebody actually wants them.

[MurrayWell]

Thought that Kettlewell came across well, again, in that interview. Calm and honest and personally I didn't think he sounded anywhere near as frustrated as was suggested in the written versions of the story. I don't think there is any real reason to panic at the moment, as @crazylegsjoe says this squad should have enough to get through our League Cup group. 

If we're still looking at the same group of players at the start of the league campaign, or when the window 'slams' shut, that's perhaps a different story. 

[Swello]

11 hours ago, Busta Nut said:

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.

I think the January window might have been the main reason (although the reason for the January window was GA and SH) - financially, we chucked everything at staying up, which is something that we all agreed with at the time to be fair.

The decisions taken in Jan/Feb were really successful and did what was needed but they have left a big hangover that will take this season to get rid of.

One thing about all this is that pre-season optimism isn't a thing and our expectations are as low as they've been for a few years (I'm currently expecting a 7th-9th type of season) - so if we do anything decent this season, it will be a bonus.

[well fan for life]

The whole Max Johnston thing is a series of stupid decisions. We chucked him in during the injury/covid/suspension shit under Alexander. He then got the media stuff and we seemed to have him marked as a very promising talent. To then ship him on loan because Alexander's a fucking idiot and fell out with everyone, in the last year of his contract and nothing about it is even questioned is fucking bananas. And that's before you consider that the newly appointed manager was THE FUCKING HEAD OF THE ACADEMY.

Honestly lads. We couldn't run a hot bath.

Edited July 10, 2023 by well fan for life

[welldaft]

2 hours ago, MurrayWell said:

Thought that Kettlewell came across well, again, in that interview. Calm and honest and personally I didn't think he sounded anywhere near as frustrated as was suggested in the written versions of the story. I don't think there is any real reason to panic at the moment, as @crazylegsjoe says this squad should have enough to get through our League Cup group. 

If we're still looking at the same group of players at the start of the league campaign, or when the window 'slams' shut, that's perhaps a different story. 

Agree with the above

What I was interested in and encouraged with were his comments about finding workable systems to match the players at your disposal. A not so thinly veiled dig that players in our current squad are not as good as those who have left and so I may have to change it up. I think every Well fan agrees with that summary, but we have seen some Managers in the past stick rigidly to a formation / system even when it is patently not working. 

Quite liked his wee dig at Uncle Roy suggesting teams rein in their spending all the while splashing out on signings and fees for Brophy and others. Tax deductible no doubt…..

Edited July 10, 2023 by welldaft

[Ron Aldo]

The chat about needing to move players out before we can bring any in is confusing me slightly. 

We offered deals to Goss, Casey, Johnston and Cornelius. Obviously none of them have signed but I assume our offers to them weren't based on others leaving so why are we now dependent on getting folk out the door before we can replace those who haven't signed new contracts? 

[welldaft]

1 minute ago, Ron Aldo said:

The chat about needing to move players out before we can bring any in is confusing me slightly. 

We offered deals to Goss, Casey, Johnston and Cornelius. Obviously none of them have signed but I assume our offers to them weren't based on others leaving so why are we now dependent on getting folk out the door before we can replace those who haven't signed new contracts? 

I suspect the truth is somewhere in between.

He also mentioned wanting to keep Mandron but could not offer what Mandron was looking for due to size of current squad. Could be interpreted as St Mirren splashing the cash (again) .  I actually took that as being kind to Mandron. Perhaps if we did not have Shields we could have signed him. But clearly we need to prioritise other areas before the league season starts. 

What I would dearly love to know is how many conversations if any have taken place with Shields, Maguire etc to say they may not feature much this season, so crack on and find another club….please. 

[capt_oats]

25 minutes ago, Ron Aldo said:

The chat about needing to move players out before we can bring any in is confusing me slightly. 

We offered deals to Goss, Casey, Johnston and Cornelius. Obviously none of them have signed but I assume our offers to them weren't based on others leaving so why are we now dependent on getting folk out the door before we can replace those who haven't signed new contracts? 

Tbh, @crazylegsjoe_mfc covered it on the previous page - I think some folk are just taking what Kettlewell is saying *far* too literally.

3 hours ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

I don't think it's as black and white as Ketts makes it out to be. I still think that if a left-back that we were after wanted to sign for us tomorrow, it would still happen, albeit with a subsequent outgoing to balance the books. I think he's trying to temper expectations.

It's clear that neither the manager or the recruitment team are sat waiting for someone to move before we make offers to players but we're not about to see a complete overhaul of the squad.

In the event of one of those players was to give Kettlewell a phone and say "Yes, I accept your magnificent offer and would love to play for your great wee club." it seems unlikely that our response would be "Sorry, we can't do anything until we get Connor Shields and Riku Danzaki out the door".

Equally though, we've a current First Team squad of 24 bodies so it stands to reason that assuming we want to avoid a Robinson style collection of waifs, strays and "can play anywhere across the front 3" forwards then we'll need to move players out to keep things manageable.

Edited July 10, 2023 by capt_oats

[YassinMoutaouakil]

I forgot we were playing Queens Park ngl. I'm worried they might actually be one of the better Championship teams we've played in the groups so far.

[real-name-hidden]

Has there just been no/little movement at all on bringing in a new chief exec? I’m not 100% on how this works but would the lack of a chief exec impact the ability of the club during transfer/contract negotiations?

 

I see on the football careers website that the position closed from a recruitment perspective on feb 21st…. Has there been no movement at all on this since then?

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, real-name-hidden said:

Has there just been no/little movement at all on bringing in a new chief exec? I’m not 100% on how this works but would the lack of a chief exec impact the ability of the club during transfer/contract negotiations?

I see on the football careers website that the position closed from a recruitment perspective on feb 21st…. Has there been no movement at all on this since then?

It took a while for this to be confirmed but we've got Derek Weir involved on an interim basis.

Weirdly this wasn't actually communicated by the club but was, instead, tagged on at the foot of a Well Society mailshot:

It shouldn't really have any impact in terms of transfer/contract negotiations - we've re-signed Obika, Paton extended his contract and we've brought in Wilkinson plus we obviously negotiated KVV's move to Groningen.

Where I'd imagine it does have an impact is the Big Picture stuff (that @Handsome_Devil alluded to earlier) with no permanence in that role there's no direction and it appears we're in a weird sort of limbo as a result. We've a load of staff vacancies that remain unfilled, our comms are an absolute fucking shambles and it feels that not having the permanent CEO in place contributes to the sense that we're really just treading water more than anything.

That's not to say that the situation around the CEO and us failing to replace Burrows isn't a total riddy given his stepping down was announced on 12th January along with the unfortunate messaging from the club that accompanied it and we're now heading into mid-July but there still seems to be at least a vaguely functioning structure for the moment.

Even then, Kettlewell said himself that this was/is only supposed to be a short term thing.

Edited July 10, 2023 by capt_oats

[Swello]

Slightly cheerier news.

[fat_tony]

I'd bite your hand off for that, provided he's not going to be stuck with Lamie and Mugabi next to him. Furlong really came onto a game towards the end of the season and a huge part of that was Butcher and Casey constantly talking to him through games. Neither Lamie or Mugabi are that type of player and I'd be worried we'd be hanging him out to dry without an experienced head coaching him on the pitch.

He's certainly very talented but still young and needs leaders alongside him.