capt_oats

Cheers Joe.

Would be interested to know how the GPG stats looked the season before as well. I seem to recall a discussion that seemed to indicate he shored things up a bit then as well.

Lasley played on Saturday, so you'd think so. I'd think it'll probably be something like; Samson Tait Heneghan McManus Hammell Cadden Lasley Thomas Ainsworth McDonald Johnson There are a couple of options left side of the central midfield 3 Thomas is probably most experienced but you could also look at Turnbull who's a natural CM and was on the bench at the weekend or Campbell who's more defensively minded, Chalmers is also an option given he played there against The Rangers.

Not sure it was ever clarified here but the bold Scott Mullen reporting in his match write up for the Herald that it's a 2 week deal Lucas signed, essentially to make him eligible for the Cup games.

Having just watched that really long YouTube video posted by Swansea's academy, and assuming the clips lifted from the games last season are representative of his game then I wouldn't describe Lucas as an attacking midfielder. If I was chucking labels about I'd probably say he looks more like a deep lying playmaker. He seems very tidy, always willing to receive the ball in the centre of the park and picks the ball up off centre halves, takes a touch moves it on, can pick a forward pass and seems to have a decent range of passing at his disposal. Caveat being they're u21 games but he rarely takes more than a couple of touches, first touch gets the ball under control, 2nd moves it on. However there's nothing there that suggests he's your man for lung bursting box to box runs or driving from the centre of the park. As a player to pick the ball up, retain possession, and keep it moving through midfield to wingers and strikers, yeah I could see that. Assuming you know what he looks like and roughly where he plays (in the same area as Lasley) you should be able to pick him out easily enough.

From the bits and pieces I've seen on YouTube (yes, I am bored) Lucas looks like your fairly typical "Swansea" central midfielder, receives & recycles the ball. Curiously the highlights package I linked to of Tait's pal from Grimsby who's been training at the club looked a lot more like a player in the Pearson-style box-to-box mould. Again I'm only going on clips that are thrown up on YouTube I've seen neither in the flesh. So you take all of that with a pinch of salt, highlights reels are by definition skewed in terms of bias.

I think that's fair tbh. It's the first thing that stands out though having said that you can put it down to 2 (separate) serious injuries rather than recurring niggling injuries. Weirdly his international record show he was playing regular 90 mins. http://www.transfermarkt.com/lee-lucas/nationalmannschaft/spieler/143851#ath He'd be a risk with those two injuries behind him, no doubt, which is why I think it's sensible for the club to be taking a good look over a decent length of time however there's an argument to be made that in order for us to bring in a "quality" player on the budget we're running there would need to be a trade off somewhere. Giving a player at a low ebb coming back from injury a platform to prove himself and get back in the game may be just that. I mean I'm saying all this, I've not even seen him play other than Motherwell's YouTube highlights and a cracking free kick for Swansea's u21s. Edit: if you're spectacularly bored there's a 43min package of him playing for Swansea's u21s over the course of last season uploaded https://youtu.be/D-rxOgoOWI4

That assumes that Lucas isn't already part of the budget. To recap, when Pearson left McGhee was quoted (June 28th) saying we were light in midfield and that an attacking midfielder was a priority. Since then we've signed McHugh and Lucas has come in on trial (July 5th). After that the public position changed to McGhee saying he'll work with what he has. The assumption people seem to have been making is that he's been referring to the players who have had their wee press conferences and have "officially" signer rather than just the broader group of players he's been working with day to day. Lucas has been a part of that day to day squad for almost a month (albeit unregistered until the other day). Looking at Lucas' background; Swansea academy graduate, Wales u21 captain etc it's plausible that the trial is less focused on his ability and more about proving his fitness given he missed a year with a fractured back and the best part of 2 years with a ruptured anterior knee ligament. Would it be that surprising if we had actually agreed provisional terms with him subject to him proving his fitness? It'd go some way to explaining how we now seem to have "spent our budget". You'd think the player would be more amenable to committing to what has turned into a fairly extended trial if he knew what the deal on the table was. Edit: same goes for Faddy. There was a deal offered to him back in May that as far as I'm aware has neither been accepted nor rejected. If it's still on the table you'd think (hope) that deal would already be built into the budget. There was an indication that he's doing pre-season with us and rehabbing following his injury so with Moore away on loan there's vacant squad position for a 4th choice striker whose main job description is to give us 15 mins off the bench and provide cover, a role that would have done Moore's career no favours IMO.

Quite. And again, details...what has McGhee been saying? "We won't be adding to the squad, or bringing in other players just now. At the moment it looks like I'm working with what I've got." Lucas has been a part of the squad (albeit unregistered until the other day) for what? 3 weeks now?

Just watched McGhee's post-match, either he completely forgets Blyth's name at the end and just chucks Lucas' name in after a couple of seconds of "ehmmmming" or there's a chance that Lucas may be fit to get another look at him.

Because he's signed a short term deal and is registered to play.

If he's signed a short term deal then he's signed there's no need for the official account to list a (T) against his name. Post the team line and clarify he's signed on a short term deal. The way they've done it there is just wilfully inviting confusion tbh.

Scott Mullen has just tweeted saying he' signed short term deal so he's eligible to play (same as Thistle keeper I'd think). No idea why we're listing him as a trialist though!

Alan Burrows replied to someone on Twitter a while back saying that he'd do pre-season and they'd see where things were. Given he was offered a deal as per the club statement on the squad update on 16th May http://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2016/05/16/squad-update-may-2016/and there's not been any word one way or another I'd be inclined to think the offer is still on the table. If that's the case, would it be unreasonable to think that the club are building that wage into their current budget until there's been a yes or no?

I quite like Laing, though much of that is probably down to thinking you're better off with a ball playing defender alongside a stopper like McManus. The problem I see with McManus and Kennedy playing together is that they're a bit too similar and Kennedy's habit of committing himself often leaves McManus exposed. That said, it's worth remembering that Laing had actually dropped out the team by the time McGhee arrived, Craigan played Kennedy in both his interim games while Baraclough had Kennedy as first choice in 3 of his last 4 games (Killie, Accies & Morton) so of the 6 fixtures prior Laing had only started 1 (vs County) by the time McGhee was even through the door. As others have pointed out Laing was brought in as a first choice centre half, and is presumably on a wage that reflects that. At the moment his squad role is as a back up centre half and back up right back, a role that Kennedy also fills. It's one of those where given the circumstances (budgets, squad balance etc) I'm not hugely surprised to hear that we wouldn't stand in the player's way if he can find another club.

I wouldn't claim to know but I do wonder as a passing general interest how the income from player trading is treated (not saying that it should be one way or another, I don't mean it like that). Given it's been pointed out that we've scaled back our budget expectations based on 10th place, no player sales or cup run, which I totally agree with, I'd assume (perhaps incorrectly) that that is by definition our "budget". Seeing as the reported income from Hall's development fee, Pearson's compensation wouldn't, I imagine, have been budgeted for I'd think that the "budget" such as it is remains fixed so to speak and those fees along with any others will be treated or processed separately. That's ignoring the speculation as to whether we did/didn't get compensation for Robbie Leitch or even Stephen Robinson for that matter. It'd make sense in terms of budgeting if it wasn't just being piled back into the playing budget but rather was being re-distributed over a longer period. However given the turnover of players in and out you can see how the playing budget is something of a juggling act at the moment. Again that's, pretty obviously, just speculation on my part but it'd make sense with a view to the whole longer term perspective if we're maintaining a budget at a certain fixed level and any additional income is being (hopefully) treated as profit.

Quite. It's all about the details I suppose, clearly I'm speculating but I can imagine a scenario where we could legitimately claim to have "exceeded our budget" but still have some money available.

depending on how much you believe Twitter (and Grimsby Town messageboards) it seems we have a former Grimsby midfielder on trial, Craig Clay. He's agents (same folk as Tait & Heneghan) have a wee highlights package of his up on YouTube. Edit: for what it's worth here's the highlights reel

Dunno, I think the statement from the club has been robust and unequivocal. So that's a good thing. Their approach seems a curious coincidence though, in so much that it appears to have been heavily reliant on MFC showing extreme benevolence. Despite being on record as having received compensation for Pearson the line seemed to be that it was an opportunity for him so the club wouldn't stand in his way and in the case of Law the club were "sympathetic" to his wishes. I can't really argue with either of those cases tbh. That's not a dig at the club btw, just get the impression that WSW may have decided to fly a kite and see what happened. Personally I'd say hoping a club would just simply release a key player for free a couple of weeks after signing is optimistic at best.

Interesting quote from Alan Burrows in the Record: "Burrows told Record Sport: Effectively we have blocked the move because we made it clear to Wanderers we wouldnt be prepared to let Scott move for free." So it'd appear that WSW's gambit was to ask nicely and hope MFC just rolled over. I wonder if the nature of Pearson & Law's departures perhaps gave them ideas that it's the sort of thing MFC would be amenable to.

The statement seems pretty explicit and unambiguous. At the very least it clarifies the club's (and from what I can tell, the player's) position and there will be no ripping up of contracts. Well done everybody.

Amusingly there's a big photo of Lennon in the Mail piece which also seems to have been updated at 14:17, presumably to change the name of the team he's been linked to which is now Western Sydney Wanderes which is in line with Jackson's story (and ran 11:50). The BBC gossip page still quotes the Mail story as Sydney FC (whose CEO dismissed the story when it ran).

I'm sure he'll clarify it if he's doing his usual punditing gig for Radio Scotland's coverage of the Celtic game tonight.

Billionaire no? there's nothing to stop a club making an approach so I'd have said qualifying the statement with "at this time" is perfectly fair. Who knows a club may come in for McDonald. As it stands what Burrows has said seems a reasonable appraisal. - McDonald is a contracted player. - The club have not received any offers for him. - The club have not received any enquiries about him.

"the club have been compensated for releasing him." http://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2016/06/29/pearson-departs-for-india/