Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[thisGRAEME]

25 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Can we please stop talking about the 6'3 lump before Ketts tries to bring him back, cheers

He'd hit 11 between September and December and be sold to Macclesfield for £750k.

[eliphas]

Ben Hall is 27 now apparently. Not sure that's right. Time has went all weird 

https://www.newsletter.co.uk/sport/football/northern-ireland/ben-hall-embracing-challenge-of-taking-on-more-responsibility-in-heart-of-defence-at-treble-chasing-linfield-4573467

[superwell87]

10 hours ago, Busta Nut said:

Jon Obika has to be our worst signing ever given we knew he was a permacrock. 

What about the "goal machine" aka Esteban Casagolda?

[DeadStar]

What is a Kaine Woolery anyway? How did we manage a fee for that one?

[camer0n_mcd]

Always felt like there a player in Woolery, he was just horrifically used by Alexander. A winger with ridiculous pace that we spent the entire season firing it long onto his head. 

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

I wasn't a massive fan of Woolery, but it seemed to me like we waited on him coming good and then dropped him, but that was prime Alexander for you. 

[Desp]

Woolery just summed up what English lower league football is these days.  Big guy, built like a brick shithouse & fast. 

Actual footballing ability? Don't worry about that, son.  Just run fast, barge people out of the way and you'll be fine.

He was shite.

 

[capt_oats]

[capt_oats]

I know folk are pretty much over the whole CEO/Investment chat but while admittedly very much looking at this from a distance it's been mildly interesting to see Shrewsbury fans scapegoating Ewan McVicar's Da after the £3.02m loss they've just posted for the year end when he left the club.

Quite timely given he officially starts with us next week.

Lots of finger pointing, rumour and blame being dished out by a support who don't seem to have worked out that lower league English football is just deeply, deeply fucked given their loss isn't anywhere close to being an outlier for their league (Oxford just posted a £6m loss) or the league below *waves at Van Wilder and Mac* and Stockport lost £4.5m.

Either way it seems Shrewsbury's cash balance has gone from £1.6m to £80k. Turnover was £6.2m (which is roughly the same as our £6.4m over the same period).

Edited March 29 by capt_oats

[MurrayWell]

23 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

I know folk are pretty much over the whole CEO/Investment chat but while admittedly very much looking at this from a distance it's been mildly interesting to see Shrewsbury fans scapegoating Ewan McVicar's Da after the £3.02m loss they've just posted for the year end when he left the club.

Quite timely given he officially starts with us next week.

Lots of finger pointing, rumour and blame being dished out by a support who don't seem to have worked out that lower league English football is just deeply, deeply fucked given their loss isn't anywhere close to being an outlier for their league (Oxford just posted a £6m loss) or the league below *waves at Van Wilder and Mac* and Stockport lost £4.5m.

Either way it seems Shrewsbury's cash balance has gone from £1.6m to £80k. Turnover was £6.2m (which is roughly the same as our £6.4m over the same period).

Aye, English football is eating itself, so many of the clubs down there are on the brink. My nan could run a football pyramid better etc, etc.

Edited March 29 by MurrayWell

[Handsome_Devil]

1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

I know folk are pretty much over the whole CEO/Investment chat but while admittedly very much looking at this from a distance it's been mildly interesting to see Shrewsbury fans scapegoating Ewan McVicar's Da after the £3.02m loss they've just posted for the year end when he left the club.

Not saying they're saying they're right or wrong but looking at a single set of accounts without all kinds of context and caveats is rather pointless...if someone is determined enough to dig that out and pore through it in detail fair play (I'm certainly not!) but i certainly don't see reason for concern because a headline number.

[capt_oats]

48 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Not saying they're saying they're right or wrong but looking at a single set of accounts without all kinds of context and caveats is rather pointless...if someone is determined enough to dig that out and pore through it in detail fair play (I'm certainly not!) but i certainly don't see reason for concern because a headline number.

Aye, I mean as I said I find it interesting in that there seems to be a scramble to assign blame and I'm not posting this to be sceptical about us appointing him. It's more that it's quite a pivot from the positive noises that were coming from Shrewsbury fans when he stepped down (McGarry was talking about how beloved Caldwell seemed to be in his Herald mailout yesterday).

From my POV I'm quite curious to hear from him and get a handle on how he approaches the role compared with Burrows and Weir.

There's a lot of "how did this happen" Helen Lovejoy-ing in this thread on the Shrewsbury forum. 
https://blueandamber.proboards.com/thread/107032/accounts-due

£800k increase in wages, £500k increase in "administrative costs". Again, that's interesting compared to the approach we've seen this season with Weir in the role as interim.

The main gist of the rumour, innuendo and slander seems to be directed towards their former manager Steve Cotterill and Caldwell. Cotterill for running up the costs and Caldwell for signing off on it.

It looks like it's been this statement from Shrewsbury's owner following Cotterill's exit that's lead their fans to jump to the conclusion that something was amiss:

Quote

A statement from our Chairman, Roland Wycherley MBE following the departure of manager Steve Cotterill.

As a lifelong supporter, as well as Chairman and custodian of Shrewsbury Town Football Club, it is my first priority and duty to secure and protect the club for future generations.

From time-to-time circumstances arise when difficult and unpopular decisions have to be made to safeguard the very future of our club.

We currently find ourselves in such a position and we would be failing in our duty if we shirk those decisions.

Unfortunately, because of confidentiality restrictions, it is not always possible to keep our supporters fully informed.

Premature leaks and gossip only exacerbate the situation, fuelling different agendas.

Going forward, be assured that management structures and new football strategies are already in place - the rationale for the actions we have taken will become evident in the coming weeks and months.

Link

Edited March 29 by capt_oats

[MurrayWell]

I don't really follow the EPL or EFL, but part of my football podcast rotation is the Guardian football weekly, the recent EFL round-up podcast (last week I think) covered the current state of finances in the lower leagues down there. Just in case anyone is vaguely interested and doesn't fancy reading through a bunch of accounts. Basically all about EFL clubs, across the leagues, overspending to ridiculous levels to try and get to the EPL or move up leagues. 

There was a mad stat like 125% of the turnover of English championship clubs is spent on wages.

Edited March 29 by MurrayWell

[Vietnam91]

Is it just me or does Butcher eye up those kids like the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?

Halliday and SOD and Halliday are natural and at ease, a lot of them are not comfy at all.

See at the end why Ox hasn't been able to shift Liam.

[Handsome_Devil]

10 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

From my POV I'm quite curious to hear from him and get a handle on how he approaches the role compared with Burrows and Weir.

The main gist of the rumour, innuendo and slander seems to be directed towards their former manager Steve Cotterill and Caldwell. Cotterill for running up the costs and Caldwell for signing off on it.

Yeah, I might browse that later. And definitely, I suspect sooner than later (no later than autumn) there'll be a meet the fans night organised through the Society which will give a more detailed insight than the standard press release quotes. Dare we risk another CEO video in the interim too?

of course the manager and CEO can be blamed for spending money badly but it wasn't their money so was signed off by the board somehow. And no matter how good your intentions, there's always the chance you appoint the wrong CEO to run things, the wrong manager when you're in a position to invest or a decent CEO manager just has a bad spell of signings/form. As we repeatedly say, sport is not normal business and the margins between happiness and a seven-figure loss can be small.

I expect our next accounts to be a bawhair off zero in the p/l (say 120k above or below) but the ones after will be much more interesting. I suspect they'll show a positive return because we'll have sold Miller but expenditure will be hugely increased - when we're all calling for calculated risk in investment on and off the park, you then can't cry about the new CEO when the figures are red for a couple of seasons.

As an aside, I'm only an occasional listener to the Terrace podcast but the lad from Monday (Tony?) summed up our position perfectly, in the sense that we're finding a new place in the world and the fans need to get used to it. The city clubs can obviously still f**k up but the more they spend, the bigger gap we need to leap to capitalise. So maybe truly exciting seasons are now once every five-seven years rather than three or so like the last decade. Which is not outrageous by any means but leaves the question of what we stand for, what our identity off the pitch is, how can we show medium-term direction etc because keeping people engaged while fighting for ninth six seasons out of seven will be a bloody hard sell.

[AdamMFC]

9 hours ago, capt_oats said:

I've got my ticket for this, it should be a good night.

[RandomGuy.]

19 hours ago, MurrayWell said:

There was a mad stat like 125% of the turnover of English championship clubs is spent on wages.

Aye. Apparently been above 100% for 5 seasons in a row.

Reminder that 70% is seen as the absolute top limit of what you should be going to.

There's currently a bitch fight between the EPL and EFL about how much EPL money should trickle down.

Feels very much like their day of reckoning, when the EPL clubs decide to go all SPL and ring fence all the money, is near.

Unbelievable amounts of clubs who'd have to absolutely cull their entire clubs just to survive and those with shite owners would likely just be asset stripped and dumped.

We will feast that day.

Edited March 30 by RandomGuy.

[Handsome_Devil]

59 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Feels very much like their day of reckoning, when the EPL clubs decide to go all SPL and ring fence all the money, is near.

Unbelievable amounts of clubs who'd have to absolutely cull their entire clubs just to survive and those with shite owners would likely just be asset stripped and dumped.

We will feast that day.

I can't bring myself to actually wish for clubs down south to go bust but it's very hard to have sympathy - they all jumped on the bandwagon for this madness and plenty were very happy to do so when they thought they'd benefit.

There are vague parallels to the current investment discussions in Scottish football though so I certainly wouldn't be gleeful either. There's plenty of us who will soon be making uncomfortable choices about risking the long-term future to avoid losing competitiveness and sinking like a stone short-term.

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, Handsome_Devil said:

I can't bring myself to actually wish for clubs down south to go bust but it's very hard to have sympathy - they all jumped on the bandwagon for this madness and plenty were very happy to do so when they thought they'd benefit.

There are vague parallels to the current investment discussions in Scottish football though so I certainly wouldn't be gleeful either. There's plenty of us who will soon be making uncomfortable choices about risking the long-term future to avoid losing competitiveness and sinking like a stone short-term.

Not to flog this dead horse again but in a way this is why the general messaging of McMahon's video seemed ill judged given we're a fan owned club with The John Boyle Experience still in relatively recent memory.

Kieran Maguire broke down the Wrexham accounts the other day and while I've no doubt that Van Wilder and Mac are good for the money presenting a scenario where there's £9m owed to the owners who are charging £8k p/w in interest as aspirational (as McMahon did - even if it was in a quirky or tongue in cheek way) definitely jars (IMO).

[Handsome_Devil]

22 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Not to flog this dead horse again but in a way this is why the general messaging of McMahon's video seemed ill judged given we're a fan owned club with The John Boyle Experience still in relatively recent memory.

Kieran Maguire broke down the Wrexham accounts the other day and while I've no doubt that Van Wilder and Mac are good for the money presenting a scenario where there's £9m owed to the owners who are charging £8k p/w in interest as aspirational (as McMahon did - even if it was in a quirky or tongue in cheek way) definitely jars (IMO).

Wrexham at least seem to be spending a lot on infrastructure which builds a bit of confidence the owners are genuinely in it for the long term...but yeah, I wouldn't be rushing to that model by any means.

McMahon and Weir both have business acumen infinitely above mine (and I'd humbly suggest the vast majority on here) so if they suggest there is viable investment to justify giving up control we could responsibly consider, I'm reluctant to be disrespectful in calling that bollocks.

But even financially illiterate folk like me can read our accounts, the accounts of other teams, compare that to the the publicly available prize-money and conclude very quickly that the numbers required for investment with the risk of giving up control seem a long way from adding up. Fucking miles in fact.

Things seemed to have calmed down a bit, which is good, but Caldwell and the Society need to take the initiative asap to...I was going to say correct the narrative but let's be fairer and say shape the narrative from here on.