Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[welldaft]

1 hour ago, Richie said:

Encouraging results, only thing of concern is the significantly increased costs (+£1.35m ) although a lot of these appear to be one-off items(roof, scoreboard etc) or enforced by Project Brave criteria

Think they did state that a large % or I would imagine a large % is based on player bonuses. The players would have been on healthy bonuses to get to semi finals and finals. That is understandable as it shows the extra income and profit it brought into the club. 

[capt_oats]

Obviously the headline is the £1.72m profit but if you strip out the £1.03m reported in player trading (Heneghan, Moult and presumably the Johnson add on) that leaves you with £690k profit from a 7th place league finish and 2 cup finals (of which there will be associated costs/expenses etc).

The aim with the '5 year plan' (before Les bailed) was to reach a point where we were running at least at break even. Presumably we must be reasonably close to achieving that?

The fact we've banked decent cash for Kipré already this season should hopefully mean that assuming our budget is roughly the same as last season (and we stay up) then we'll be likely to post a profit next year and our cash situation is reasonably stable.

I'd imagine that's how we're framing the financial review rather than us needing to scale back because we've gone mental on coke and hookers.

I suppose this is where the 12-18 comes in. We extended contracts for Dunne, Kipré, Tait, Bowman, Rose and Grimshaw then replaced those we released. Whether we needed to is a question for the ages but I'd be surprised if the playing budget was increased massively to accommodate: ATS, Ally Gorrin, Johnson, Gillespie, Donnelly, Mbulu, Watson, McLaughlin. With Sammon in on loan and Aldred coming back.

Bearing in mind we released: Griffiths, Plummer, Watt, King and Petravicius with Ciftci, Hendrie and Aldred returning to their parent clubs. I'd imagine Thistle and Morton are picking up Shea Gordon and Ross Maclean's wages.

That's 10 out and 10 in. There may be a modest increase I guess but surely not enough to bite us on the arse?

Would it be that mental to suggest that any review may be asking precisely the same question re: approach to recruitment that we have?

Also, I'll not lie a £1.72m profit really softens the impending acceptance of us presumably having to write off Conor Sammon as a terrible, terrible mistake.

Incidentally, going by the detail on the official site the £1.03m in this year's accounts was an improvement of £481,000 on the previous year. That would suggest that we got roughly £500k initially for Marvin Johnson (assuming the 'undisclosed fee' for Pearson was nominal).

Edited November 29, 2018 by capt_oats

[Swello]

As everyone has said, genuinely heartening to see that a good season = big profit (and £1.7m on a turnover of £6.8m is impressive however you look at it) - because given the farcical situation where we lost money in seasons where we finishing runners up under Boyle/Dempster, that has not always been the case.

One thing that I couldn't get from the statement was whether the £550k paid to Boyle and Hutchinson came out of the headline figure or not. In any case, that is a lot of money paid back and (presumably) with another big chunk from the sale of Kipre, we must be getting fairly close to our goal there.

The costs rising in a successful season is par for the course - but it does suggest that the bonuses are set at a sustainable level and allow us to be profitable when we over-achieve (something that again has hurt us in the past).

The main things I'm taking from the results is that player trading (yeuch) is pivotal and although we had a fantastic result with Kipre, we did a poor job of selling Carson when you would think it was the optimal time to do so (although I am mystified as to why no-one would take a chance on him). The bottom line is that if we have a couple of poor transfer windows, the supply of saleable assets dries up and we are reliant on selling a home grown player to make us a profit. 

Lastly - the cup runs were a huge bonus but in truth, the cups are vital to us and no Motherwell manager should ever be resting players or tinkering with the team regardless of opposition for that reason. It would have been interesting to strip out the cup run and transfer money to see if we could have broken even by finishing 7th in the league only as that would be the real test of the current business model.

[Desp]

2 hours ago, Swello said:

It would have been interesting to strip out the cup run and transfer money to see if we could have broken even by finishing 7th in the league only as that would be the real test of the current business model.

I'm sure that will be one of the things the directors are looking into as part of their evaluation.

 

Going through a couple of your other points.  Carson - to be pedantic, someone did take a chance on him.  Celtic.  Albeit, their offer wasn't acceptable to us at that time.  However, if you revert to the model, selling a player for 37.5x what you paid for him, six months earlier, would have been an outstanding piece of business.  MFC were right to turn it down though from a footballing perspective.  I do believe now we've lost any chance of selling Carson.  By the time he's fit again, he'll be going into the last year of his deal, and even at that time I can't see many touching him given he won't have played for the best part of nine months.

 

As things stand, do we have any sellable assets?  Allan Campbell would be probably the only one but is currently going through a quieter spell (probably burnout as he's played pretty much non-stop for 14 months when you factor in the international games he'll have been involved in).  After that?  Turnbull has only six months left on his deal at this moment in time.  I'm convinced no team in England will fork out the rumoured £600k development fee for Cadden, considering it'll be bottom half Championship/League 1 teams he'd be going to.  I'm of the belief he'll sign a 12-month extension and be off for zip in 2020.  The likes of Tait, Bigi, McHugh, Main, Grimshaw, Johnson etc are all decent players but we're not going to be making any cash from them. 

 

Finally, it's good that we're bringing down the figure owed to Hutchison & Boyle, but let's be honest, neither of them are in any major rush to get it back. 

[Swello]

29 minutes ago, Desp said:

I'm sure that will be one of the things the directors are looking into as part of their evaluation.

Going through a couple of your other points.  Carson - to be pedantic, someone did take a chance on him.  Celtic.  Albeit, their offer wasn't acceptable to us at that time.  However, if you revert to the model, selling a player for 37.5x what you paid for him, six months earlier, would have been an outstanding piece of business.  MFC were right to turn it down though from a footballing perspective.  I do believe now we've lost any chance of selling Carson.  By the time he's fit again, he'll be going into the last year of his deal, and even at that time I can't see many touching him given he won't have played for the best part of nine months.

Finally, it's good that we're bringing down the figure owed to Hutchison & Boyle, but let's be honest, neither of them are in any major rush to get it back. 

Correct. I should have added "in the summer" to my sentence - as his profile was as high as it was going to get. Along with Moult, Carson was our best player in the first half of the season and at the time of the Celtic offer, we were 100% right to turn it down for the money they offered.

I have said a few times that it would be a mistake to pay down the debt too quickly, to the detriment of the club as a whole - businesses practically all run with some debt and ours up until this point has been of the "very soft loan" variety. I believe that the club will soon (if they are not already) be paying Hutchinson on a fixed payment schedule, so there was some urgency to get the amount owed down so that those payments were comfortable for us - so I guess the profit we made last year (and the profit we will presumably show in the next set of accounts) are well timed for that.

[capt_oats]

One of the more curious quirks about this whole thing is the impact of the player trading given that the deals themselves weren't huge amounts. It's been more of a cumulative effect.  Good value certainly (especially in Heneghan's case) but given we apparently received £500k from Leeds for Erwin and £210k from Brighton for Hall in previous seasons they're not unrealistic or particularly unattainable numbers.

Going by the total posted; £1.03m was from Heneghan, Moult and Johnson's sell on. So going by the figures reported at the time you're looking at £500k for Moult £300k for Heneghan and £230k for Johnson (when he signed for Boro it was reported the fee could 'rise to £3m') so say 10% of £2.3m or £2.5m less any payment due to Kidderminster seems about right? 

Obviously as Burrows was saying on Twitter these are a 'Halley's Comet' set of accounts. Two cup finals plus player sales is a circumstance you can't rely on as a regular occurrence. Clearly the ideal situation is that we bring in as much as possible for our assets but in a general sense it looks like a couple of modest sales should keep us ticking over and respectable.

Edited November 29, 2018 by capt_oats

[thisGRAEME]

In addition to all of this: once Boyle and Les are paid, we don't necessarily need to make money, do we?

Good runs and good sales then become the bonus payments we can spend on other stuff.

[ropy]

Did it cover what the Well Society ploughed in?  The original idea of the WS accumulating a fund that MFC could dip into and then pay back was the one I bought into.  This turned into a constant flow of money into the club which only told me that the club was not self sufficient.  With these positive results did the club also take income from the WS?

[capt_oats]

46 minutes ago, ropy said:

Did it cover what the Well Society ploughed in?  The original idea of the WS accumulating a fund that MFC could dip into and then pay back was the one I bought into.  This turned into a constant flow of money into the club which only told me that the club was not self sufficient.  With these positive results did the club also take income from the WS?

Yeah, it's all in the accounts. Listed as a loan received for working capital and repayable on demand.

It's not clear when the loan was made, as it's working capital it wouldn't be a huge surprise if it was drawn down over the close season. Given we only officially became fully fan owned in October 2016 and Les had bailed out of the original 5 year plan early then I wouldn't have expected us to have been self sufficient by summer 2017.

It's a legitimate question whether this profit (and operating profit) has a positive impact on the extent to which the club is self-sufficient (you'd think it would).

Did you buy shares as part of the offer last year btw (they're repeating it this year as well)? If you did you're due a copy of the audited accounts.

Spoiler

Is there a buffet at the AGM?

 

Edited November 30, 2018 by capt_oats

[ropy]

2 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Yeah, it's all in the accounts. Listed as a loan received for working capital and repayable on demand.

It's not clear when the loan was made, as it's working capital it wouldn't be a huge surprise if it was drawn down over the close season. Given we only officially became fully fan owned in October 2016 and Les had bailed out of the original 5 year plan early then I wouldn't have expected us to have been self sufficient by that point. It's a legitimate question whether this profit (and operating profit) has a positive impact on the extent to which the club is self-sufficient (you'd think it would).

Did you buy shares as part of the offer last year btw (they're repeating it this year as well)? If you did you're due a copy of the audited accounts.

  Hide contents

Is there a buffet at the AGM?

 

Expected shares as a Christmas present but she clearly doesn't read the appropriate forums, may have to go it alone this year.

if not a buffet, surely some peanuts?

[Swello]

I may be miles out but I worked under the assumption that (even if it is called a loan) the Well Society funds are basically an income stream for the Club in the same way that TV money or gate receipts are - and it isn't really dependant on financial performance and will never be paid back.

Looking forward to attending the AGM to make sure my MASSIVE SHAREHOLDING is being protected properly - I hope there are pies.

[capt_oats]

25 minutes ago, Swello said:

I may be miles out but I worked under the assumption that (even if it is called a loan) the Well Society funds are basically an income stream for the Club in the same way that TV money or gate receipts are - and it isn't really dependant on financial performance and will never be paid back.

Looking forward to attending the AGM to make sure my MASSIVE SHAREHOLDING is being protected properly - I hope there are pies.

That's sort of how I saw it but I think my take was that the WS really just performs the function of a bank and/or benefactor. If there was a shortfall or if extra expenditure was required the club was able to draw down a 'loan' from available funds. Once it's paid over it really just becomes a number on the books.

While I don't think I'd ever really expect the money to be repaid once it's been paid over speaking hypothetically if the club are self-sufficient and sustaining themselves through their own business operations are they still going to call on that cash because they can or do they allow it to build as a fund to bail us out after we get relegated or something? (In which case would be not have been better spending the money in the first place and hopefully not get relegated?).

Edited November 30, 2018 by capt_oats

[Gianfranco]

Ben Heneghan is playing for Blackpool on bbc 2. We got actually money for him.

[well fan for life]

Ben Heneghan is playing for Blackpool on bbc 2. We got actually money for him.

I assume whoever put that deal together went on to a lucrative career in punting sand to Arabs.

[capt_oats]

Ben Heneghan is playing for Blackpool on bbc 2. We got actually money for him.

Did we not use a cross-border loophole to avoid having to pay Chester a fee for him too?

[Busta Nut]

On 11/27/2018 at 17:05, wellinwigan said:

Don't get the Tony Watt love in at all pretty meh imo. Looking outside the box i know he's had a stinker at Aberdeen but if  he was allowed to leave i would take a chance on Stevie May i think he would suit our style

I agreed with the Tony Watt bit then you suggested Stevie May.

 

 

 

[Guest]

Ross McLean any good?

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, Back Post Misses said:

Ross McLean any good?

I always saw him as a natural replacement for Cadden at right midfield for us tbh. He never really did anything wrong in the limited amount of first team football he had here but then again unlike Cadden, Campbell or Turnbull he never really established himself. So it's difficult to say one way or another. He was always one of the stand-outs for our u20s and was part of our Youth Cup winning team alongside the three I mentioned plus Dom Thomas, Ben Hall, Jack McMillan and David Ferguson who have ended up at other clubs.

He started to get a run in the side then picked up an injury in the 3-4 game against Celtic a couple of seasons ago, then he dislocated his shoulder in a u20s game against Thistle when he was making his way back to fitness and needed an operation. He scored off the bench at County to put us through in the LC at the start of our cup run last season but then Robinson settled on a 352 and it kind of fucked things for MacLean as there wasn't really a position for him. He's not a wing back and we had/have a million centre mids so he really just seemed to spend his time on the outside of the squad looking in.

I seem to remember reading that he'd asked to go out on loan a few times last January but Robinson blocked that for some reason but he never really got close to our first team other than the odd spot on the bench. So from his POV I'd imagine he'd see it as 6 months wasted. 

I've not really heard much about how he's been getting on at Morton tbh and when Robinson's talking about players breaking through Hastie's usually the one who's out on loan that's mentioned along with Barry Maguire, Adam Livingstone and James Scott who are still at the club.

One of the few complaints I have against Robinson is that he gave Petravicius a spot on the bench for the SC final ahead of MacLean.

He's a decent player and had he had better luck with injuries could have been around our first team but he's at the age where he absolutely needs regular games and it kind of feels like it's passed him by at Fir Park now.

Edited November 30, 2018 by capt_oats

[Casagolda]

Difference a week makes eh? 

You had us all praising Grimshaw and there was talk of him deserving a new deal last week, after yesterday's display you'd genuinely consider terminating his current one. Mbulu as well was being talked up after his debut, he lost his man and was beaten far too easily for both goals yesterday. Bigi once again switching off and not tracking his man for the opening goal, he got away with it last week when Shinnie missed a golden chance but no such luck yesterday. I could go through the whole team really though with Gillespie, Maguire and Ally Gorrin  probably being the exceptions.

Also calls to jettison McHugh and the question was asked where he fits in, just have a look at that weak, powderpuff mess of a team yesterday. Say what you like about him being a bit of hothead or his questionable distribution, at least he would never have allowed himself to be bullied the way some of those empty jerseys did. On a day like that, that's where you miss his aggression and his dominance in the air.  Not that McHugh would single-handedly have made the difference of course, just an observation that he is still very much required and I'd be shocked if he wasn't straight back into the team on Wednesday night now.

The problem for me was far too many of our players failed to meet the basic standard required for an acceptable performance at this level and not for the first time this season. We all know as Motherwell fans that we won't play as well as we did against Aberdeen every week, that's a given. However the basic levels of attitude, work-rate, desire etc shouldn't greatly differ, even if the performance levels sometimes do. Unfortunately far too many of our players looked like they just didn't fancy it yesterday and were beaten by a team that simply wanted it more and that for me is when it becomes unacceptable. Unthinkable as well as these were the things that defined us as a team last season, that same hunger and appetite just doesn't seem to be there this season.

Not that Robinson's blameless, his assertion that we'd spent all week working on defending set pieces(before conceding twice from set pieces) was painfully obvious by how clueless we were in possession. Also 3 different formation changes in 45 mins with young Maguire in particular being shifted from centre back, to holding midfielder to right back during in his first start of the season was farcical. As was actually expecting Elliott Frear to come and change a game like that.

Basically(just a bit of a rant after wasting £24 on that) I think we're in for a frustrating as f**k season where we should have just about enough to keep us out of danger but not enough to see us ever really climb away from it at any point, which I guess isn't really where many of us thought we'd be after last season. There's then some big decisions to be made this summer, although just as things have changed since last week a lot will probably change between now and then.

Edited December 2, 2018 by Casagolda

[capt_oats]

Chilli D getting a run out for the reserves today.

Also, the lesser spotted Taylor-Sinclair and Newell.