capt_oats

Being honest I find it difficult to get worked up about anything McDonald's said there. He's pretty much just confirmed that what everyone assumed had happened, happened. As soon as it was clear when the window closed that we'd kb'd the Australian offer I don't think anyone expected him to be at Fir Park next season. The club were perfectly within their rights to seek a fee/compensation and let's face it, there was a difference in worth to the squad/team between McDonald and Josh Law (who was also under contract and we let walk for free to Oldham). I totally get that kb'ing the Australian offers twice in one season would be disappointing for McDonald and I don't really have too much of an issue with him acknowledging that. He's had an opportunity to take up and the club have told him (twice) to stay put. That's fine, they were entitled to do that and equally he's entitled to feel a bit disappointed that the move(s) didn't materialise. As others have said in the separate McDonald thread, it's been a pretty natural parting of company. A conscious uncoupling, if you will. The club told him to stay put 'til the end of the season, he's clearly decided that's his cue to leave. He's done his bit for Motherwell now, been a key part in us staying up twice in this recent stint and it's time to draw a line under it.

There's probably an argument that this could well have informed our position with McDonald as well tbh. We've taken the cash (however much it was) for Pearson and struggled to replace him. There's every chance we've reflected on that and thought "let's not do that again".

Again, I've no idea if that's what we got or not but it was probably an unexpected bonus to be offered cash for a 34 year old for what was essentially a loan. The only thing you could say is that it seemed to leave us scrambling about looking for another central midfielder. Had we retained Pearson would it have been likely that we'd have brought in Clay and Lucas on trial?

The fee that was reported in the press at the time was £100k. Whether that was what we actually got or not, who knows?

The Bruce thing is #banter (I can't believe I actually used that word) on Twitter, done for the FAVs and RTs which they seem to have got. It's absolutely chronic patter though, SportBible-style pish.

The thing is, if the sort of fee/deal that is being quoted is correct then it's well within reach of any number of League 1/Championship sides who, I'd argue, will be in a better position to sell the player on for an inflated fee which suits us better in the long run. How many players have gone to Ibrox lately and actually improved or have been sold for profit? They're talking about possibly accepting less than the first instalment Preston were due for Garner just to get him out the door.

You can ask the same question about the penalty as it was his through ball to Clay that "won" the pen.

Interesting if that puts him above Cadden who's essentially playing in the same position and I'd imagine will have far more minutes on the park (though obviously was more WB/RB in the run in).

Cheers Joe. Those were the 2 that came to mind, wasn't sure about any others.

Out of curiosity, I know he was our 4th top scorer with 4 goals (10 starts 20 sub appearances in the league), but is there a record kicking about of how many of our goals Ainsworth either directly or indirectly contributed to?

As has Aaron Taylor-Sinclair, formerly of the same Thistle side.

Worth mentioning the points gained since Robinson came in as well; Celtic 30 Aberdeen 24 Rangers 24 Ross County 22 St Johnstone 21 Motherwell 14 Partick Thistle 13 Kilmarnock 13 ICT 12 Hamilton Accies 11 Hearts 8 Dundee 7 Yeah, the style of football may have been agricultural at times but his remit was to keep us in the division. He'd got the manager's gig off the back of us having lost games 7-2 and 5-1. Our goal difference under McGhee was -23 after 26 games, in the 12 games under Robinson the goal difference in those games is 0. Robinson kept us in the division and stopped us shipping ludicrous amounts of goals, if not managing to completely stop us shipping ludicrous goals. He was hamstrung having to play one of our best midfielders at centre half because we only had one fit centre back and shuffle an injury prone left back in to a back 3 to make some vaguely coherent defence before eventually having to make do with Cadden at right back. Were people seriously expecting flowing, fluid, easy on the eye football to be high on his list of priorities given the circumstances? Jay alluded to it on the podcast that went up last night but it's difficult not to feel that had it been Valakari or Coyle or Hughes (LOL), basically anyone but Robinson, that had come in and achieved the same outcome then you'd imagine the response would have been quite different.

I was thinking earlier that we hadn't really done much to talk up our "sellable assets" recently. Pretty quick out the traps now the season's finished and we're safe. In fairness, he's still under contract and the window hasn't even opened yet. We'd be as well sitting back and seeing who else pitches up making enquiries and how much they're prepared to offer.

Well, he's from Stoke so who knows? Derby might be quite appealing to him. (I've no idea if there's any bitter rivalry there tbf).

You would have thought if Derby & Oxford are interested than that's where we'd be looking to sell given there's far more likelihood of a sell on % coming through from those sides than Sevco, when did they last sell anyone on for worthwhile money?

Paul Quinn released by County. http://www.rosscountyfootballclub.co.uk/news/archive/senior-and-development-players-released/

Making Lionel an offer or at least having a conversation rather than just binning him off makes sense to me, the question is whether or not it suits. When he got the job Robinson talked about how there wasn't enough pace in the side and over the past few weeks he's been talking about getting crosses into the box. Ainsworth if nothing else has pace and good delivery, his assists back that up. Where the obvious question lies is application. If we sit down and have an honest conversation saying "this is what we want from you, you maybe won't start every week but this is how we see you fitting in the squad. here's a contract that reflects that." in that case it's up to him to make the decision. If he knocks it back then fair enough, if he's on board then both he and the management know how things stand unlike the situation with McGhee where rightly or wrongly it felt like he had just kind of been inherited. Gordon's not on loan. He signed during the January window. No mention of Pain though, I'd assume he'd be away back to Sunderland as he was only brought in as Morrison broke his hand/wrist (can't remember which).

There's still time tbf.

Depends if we're speaking to him about being first choice or not tbh. If we are, then yeah, it's a worry. If not then we're looking at a 21 year old goalkeeper who probably has potential to improve and has at the very least shown in the past few games that he's capable of coming in and doing a job. Last season we retained a known liability in Samson as first choice despite him having been at the club 7 months before making his debut (and even then it was only after we'd secured Top 6 and the results didn't really matter) and offered a contract to a 30 year old who had only played 20 mins of football in 18 months on account of his knee having fallen apart. Even having only been vaguely OK Griffiths still seems a better option than those two!

There seem to have been issues with Blyth pretty much since he signed. Even that early press conference where he got roasted in the press for the "Rangers are a League 1 side" (which isn't really what he said) meant he didn't exactly get off to a positive start PR-wise. Also, if Blyth had actually picked up an injury early on then bringing in Bowman kind of makes a bit more sense. With Blyth out of action (assuming that's what it was) then we'd have been going in post-window with Moult, McDonald, Mackin and our assistant manager as our forward options. Which in anyone's book is light especially as it's worth remembering that Moult himself was only just back after surgery.

Had a quick look on the official site and they posted up a news story last year about who was being released and who we were offering new deals to the Monday after the season finished (16th May 2016, final fixture was 15th). So every chance there may be a similar announcement today I guess. That Sun story is hardly a surprise though it's curious they note Jules being away (he's not even our player) but no mention of Griffiths who's also a loanee. I take it all those mentioned are getting booted straight into the bin with no discussion whereas with Ainsworth and McFadden there may be some sort of conversation to be had about intentions/plans.

That's Alan Mannus signed a new one year deal with St Johnstone so we can put that rumour in the bin. https://twitter.com/st_johnstone_fc/status/866564316195147776 Edit: Missed Lobey_Dosser mentioning this in the post above

National League South and managed by our short-lived former Head of Recruitment Gary Owers no less (and current Head English Scout for Partick Thistle).

9th: £1,155,00010th: £1,100,000 http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/how-much-your-premiership-side-9784650 Edit: for comparison we'd have received £1,424,250 for finishing 5th last season. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/scottish-premiership-prize-money-who-7831218

Pretty much. If McHugh's head hadn't exploded and if he hadn't needed to revert to centre half on account of us only having one fit centre half do we really think Clay would have played anywhere near as much as he has? If another team is willing to take him on then I doubt we'll be difficult to deal with and I'd have thought Robinson would have that conversation but ultimately he is what he is, a fairly limited player who's been brought in to be around the squad.