capt_oats

Am I right in thinking McDonald, Clarkson and Fletcher are deals til the end of the season with +1 options? Also, though they're out on loan at the moment both Reid and Moore's deals are up at the end of the season as well.

Yep, one year deal until the end of the season; "Robinson, who will wear squad number 17 for the season, has signed a deal initially to the end of the season" http://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2015/08/28/well-sign-striker-theo-robinson/

If Killie can go out and take points off Celtic then there's no reason why we can't. I'm a lot less concerned about this game than I would have been if we hadn't won on Saturday though. Either way I'd hope that we at least have a go at them, they're not a particularly good team and are there to be got at. The system we've been playing under McGhee should lend itself quite well to playing on the counter. Trying to sit in with our tendency for defensive lapses would just be daft.

The only players we have on loan are; Ripley (Boro - loan up in January) Grimshaw (Man Utd - loan up in January) Taylor (Reading - season loan with 'break' option in January) Edit: For what it's worth both Ripley and Grimshaw have said they'd like to stay on until the end of the season, I've not heard anything about Taylor in the press but the fact he's (not unsurprisingly) barely featured says a lot. Reading have just binned Steve Clarke so it'd probably be in Taylor's interests to go back to his parent club if he's clearly not going to get game time here. McGhee's already said he's decided what his plans are with regards extending their deals or not but needs to talk to clubs and players about it.

There's also the fact that this is his first season playing first team football. I was surprised Hall got the nod but equally Kennedy has had a decent run and has definitely looked the part more often than not but I don't see any harm in some rotation now and again.

I take your point but I think it's really a question of what's expected of him. You can kind of flip it round and point to the fact that yesterday and previous games recently we've looked worse when McDonald has been subbed off. It's a small sample of games but it's enough to suggest that particular role is key to how McGhee's wanting to set up. It's semantics but I'd say we're actually closer to 433 than 442, as McGhee put it in his post-match vs Aberdeen it's a 4,3.5,2.5 (with the winger as the 2x.5)

Can't fault any of the team yesterday. Thought Ben Hall showed up very well, it was a pretty bold move to start him but he didn't look out of place at all. McManus had his best game in ages. Big Ripley seemed like he was off his mark half a yard quicker as well and had a few decent stops. Vote goes to Moult though, he really looks like he's found his feet. He's got a knack of being in the right place at the right time and he puts in a shift but I thought yesterday was his most complete game for us so far in terms of his all round performance.

Thomas, Watt and Mackin on the bench as well.

I think that's one of the problems the WS face at the moment though. Rightly or wrongly, the impression that a lot of people have with regards the WS is that they will be running the club if not now then in 2020 following the 'handover'. It may well not be the case but based on the information being presented and the language being used; "Own MFC", "safeguard the club from foreign ownership" etc then the main takeaway is that the WS will run the club. If you own the club then it's not a massive leap in logic to assume that it will be incumbent on the owners to actually run it and I'd guess that's why there's hesitancy on the part of a large number of fans in so much as they'd, not unreasonably, want evidence that the Society is competent and fit for intended purpose as they see it. When it comes down to it incompetent owners are just as damaging whether they're from Lanarkshire or South America. Furthermore, the fact that Brian McCafferty was chairman of both Club and Society probably won't have helped in establishing any sort of separation between the two bodies in people's perceptions either. That may well not be the design when you get down to the minutiae of how it's intended to function but you certainly can't fault people if that's their interpretation based on the headline information and broad strokes they're being presented with thus far. Equally if the message fans are picking up is being misinterpreted or is not a fair reflection of how the Society is designed to function then it's down to the WS to streamline the information they're presenting and make sure that what they're saying is clear and unambiguous. As you say though, they people joining the Society board are volunteers so good luck to them. Hopefully they can get the WS back on track.

My main fear today has nothing to do with whether the team we put out is capable of beating Dundee it's simply that our recent record against them is so poor. The game against them at Fir Park last February was a crime against football. Like others I watched them on the telly against St Johnstone and Aberdeen and they looked at best bang average. There's absolutely no reason why we can't win this. Having read a few Dundee fans thoughts on their team it'd seem that a popular view is that their midfield is too lightweight without Thomson with others keen to see Hartley play 442. Given that Hearts started with a 442 against us and had to change within 30mins I wouldn't be unhappy if they did go with 2 central midfielders vs our 3, Grimshaw may be fairly limited in other areas but he bloody loves a tackle and I'd hope that a 3 of Pearson, Lasley and Grimshaw could get their foot in early and give us something to build on from there. If we match the performance against Hearts, with presumably the same starting XI and system then I'd hope we'd have enough to win.

The CVs are linked to in that URL I posted earlier today or at least they were.

Tweet from the club Twitter earlier today seemed to indicate pitch was holding up pretty well. Nothing to suggest a pitch inspection or anything like that.

There was a reminder about the deadline up on social media during the week. The form and the info about those putting their names forward was available from a link on the site. http://www.thewellsociety.co.uk/2015/12/07/reminder-last-chance-to-get-your-board-nominations-in/ I'm not signed up so I don't know if anything was emailed out or posted, sorry.

Not to mention the fact that by all accounts we're looking at playing with 1 winger for the foreseeable. At the moment is he likely to start ahead of Ainsworth or Johnson? With the best will in the world, probably not. It was different when we were going down the route of 2 wingers and 1 up top but at the moment with the system that McGhee seems to prefer I can't see him featuring in any more than cameo appearances which at the level he's at just now won't help him. I went along to the u20s game on Sunday and there's no doubt that he was (along with Watt & Cadden) clearly a level above Development League games (which isn't to say they're ready to start for our 1st team either) but all three should be more than capable of contributing to the first team in the future however at the moment they absolutely need regular games at a competitive level to develop.

It's not QPR or Romanov-era Hearts levels of ridiculous but at the same time, if that's our current level it's definitely concerning given the fact that we had as many players leave in the summer, you'd have thought given our recent history that we'd choose to be a bit more prudent. The point at which Hearts had their 'situation' I believe they were 126% wages to turnover. If it is 'in the 70%s' then it's manageable short term but those running the club shouldn't be letting it get out of hand. Taking a couple of examples; 2014: Aberdeen's ratio dropped from 67% to 55% http://www.afc.co.uk/news/5358.php#.Vmiq6BqLSRs 2014: Dundee United increased 61% to 63% http://dufc.co/news/dundee-united-record-1-2m-profit-2014/ 2014: Hibs increased from 49% to 64% http://www.hibernianfc.co.uk/news/5104 You'd expect a sensible ratio to be at most the 60% mark. I agree with Brazilian that the quote suggests that it's higher than 70% so let's say, for the sake of argument, it's 75% that's us looking to reduce player wages by some 15% to hit a more respectable level. I suppose one of the things that is in our favour is that there are a number of players on the playing staff at the moment who are only on one year deals or are out of contract at the end of the season. You'd think that it'd be in our interests to start reigning in that expenditure. ETA: In fairness McGhee's already said that if he wants to bring anyone in during the January window then he'll need to move people on so it seems unlikely we'd be adding on top of the already bloated squad. There's also been mention of trying to get a few of the younger players out on loan to get them first team experience so presumably that would include their wages being paid by whoever takes them on. Also, based on this STV article (linked below) from May this year our average annual wage was £67,639 (£1,301 per week) at Summer 2014 so assuming that is roughly the same moving on say 5 squad players would reduce the wage bill by approx. £338,195 per year which I'd imagine would reduce that % a reasonable amount. Obviously some earn more than others and moving on a u20's player would have less impact than one of the high earners but you get the point; a decent reduction could be managed indeed given the make up of the squad just now it could be managed and barely impact the first XI. http://sport.stv.tv/football/clubs/celtic/1321105-celtics-average-wage-bill-is-25-times-higher-than-ross-countys/ figures taken from Sporting Intelligence's Global Sports Salaries survey http://www.globalsportssalaries.com/GSSS%202015.pdf

Not disagreeing and it's certainly concerning given the issues Mr. Hutchison has raised, having listened back to his interview on Sportsound last night and also hearing what both Ann Budge and Roy MacGregor had to say it seemed fair comment and also the SPFL response seemed completely over the top. Publicly chastising member clubs for simply expressing an opinion isn't a good look. On the point of the winter break though, while it's certainly the case that they play more games than us down south and don't give players a rest there are notable European leagues that do; - Bundesliga - Ligue 1 - Eredivise - Serie A La Liga usually have one as well but it's been curtailed this season on account of fixture congestion ahead of the European Championships. As I say, it really depends what has influenced the decision or at the very least what they're hoping to achieve by having re-introduced it. To be clear, I'm under no illusions that there's every chance that it's been influenced by certain other clubs for commercial reasons however being charitable if they've looked at other leagues beyond England and saw that they have a mid-season break and thought that it could be beneficial in terms of performance or even if they've spoken to managers/coaches and asked "would this help you?" then fair enough. Similarly though if they've brought it back simply because Germany have one and there's not any joined up thought beyond that then it's pretty pointless.

Thing with copying the Danish idea is that they haven't even implemented it yet, so there's no evidence of how successful the switch will be as they're still a 12 team league at the moment. There are a whole host of utterly mental league structures across Europe with the Belgian model being particularly out there. You'd think if Doncaster was going to rip off a league structure he'd at least pick one that had been in place for a while. As a point of reference though here are all the UEFA member leagues and the number of teams that currently comprise their top division; 7 - Latvia 8 - Andorra, Armenia, 10 - Albania, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Faroes, Macedonia, Gibraltar, Lithuania, Moldova, Slovenia, Switzerland 12 - Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Malta, Montenegro, N. Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Slovakia, Wales 14 - Belarus, Cyprus, Israel, Luxembourg, Romania, Ukraine 15 - San Marino 16 - Belgium, Bosnia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Greece, Norway, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Sweden 18 - Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Turkey, 20 - England, France, Italy, Spain,

The thing with the winter break is that it depends what the point of it is ie: is it to avoid call offs or is it simply to give players a 2 week rest or whatever given the season starting earlier mean you're looking at competitive football running from July through to the following May.

Seems the announcement about the League Cup yesterday was indeed laying the groundwork for league reconstruction. Copying Denmark by all accounts http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/competitions/premiership/14-team-premiership-could-be-brought-in-for-2016-17-1-3970519

Only caught the last minute or so but it certainly seemed like Les wasn't being shy in the interview he gave on BBC's Sportsound this evening will be interested to listen back to the whole thing. His issues with the SPFL certainly seemed to be broader than just this one incident. Also interesting to hear Roy MacGregor from Ross County largely back up Budge & Hutchison's point by saying that they hadn't really been consulted much but he did so in a much more measured manner.

Fight! Fight! Fight! http://sport.stv.tv/football/clubs/hearts/1335255-spfl-slam-criticism-from-hearts-and-motherwell-over-league-cup-revamp/

So apparently the clubs weren't informed about the changes. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/35040077

I think it depends on what the point of the change is. Is it part of a more "joined up thinking" approach or is it a purely isolated thing designed to somehow reinvent the League Cup? If it's the latter it's a bit like putting lipstick on a pig and they're kind of overselling the whole bonus point thing. However if it's being implemented as a small step forward to address some wider issues that are being discussed (Summer football, winter breaks, viability of expanded league structure, match pricing etc) then it's interesting and it's certainly the right tournament to be experimenting with.

Only skimmed the announcement but was group stages in the league cup not always the suggestion of how to make up the shortfall in fixtures if the league was to be expanded?

I was under the impression that they were under contract as well though wasn't sure of the length of the deal. Also, that was MacLean injured yesterday with a fractured collarbone. Given he missed the start of the season with an injury that's pretty unfortunate. Either way their frustration is understandable, especially if they've been sold on deals on the basis of them getting first team involvement. Publicly the club have been going on about young players getting their chance and that being our blueprint/strategy then they go and pad the squad out in the manner they have done, you've even had McGhee remark in recent press conferences about the size of the squad. If the younger guys are a bit disillusioned it's not that difficult to see why. Doesn't necessarily mean looking to move on is the right solution though and it's up to the management and coaching staff to sort that out. There's a lot to be said for the coaching staff setting higher standards, the u20s involvement in the first team shouldn't be tokenist or just getting games on the basis of them being "youth". It's a two way street though, as much as it's fair enough to hear Craigan talk about consistency and maintaining a level of performance to justify the step up equally you have to look at the performance levels of those who actually have the first team jerseys, you've got players in the first XI who have been inconsistent at best and at worst have cost us goals this season yet have been almost ever present. That's where it becomes a question of perspective, if you feel that you're performing better than the guy in front of you but not getting a shot to prove yourself then rightly or wrongly you're going to start questioning your situation. Taking this season alone Dom Thomas has 11 first team appearances 3 starts and 8 sub, Cadden has 2 sub appearances and Watt has one sub appearance in the cup. I suppose the question is what their expectations are and how realistic they are given we're sitting 11th in the league at the moment. McGhee mentioned in that fairly lengthy interview a couple of weeks back about the possibility of a couple of the u20s going out on loan in January to give them first team games so that they're ready for first team consideration next season I'd be interested to see if that's a route we go down. I was at a loose end yesterday so went along to the 20s game and based on that both Thomas and Watt (even though he was playing centre half) both looked a significant level above development league football which I suppose you'd hope would be the case given their age and the fact both have first team experience behind them. Cadden had a few notable moments where he was stopped by cynical challenges and MacLean obviously scored a fine free kick. There's definitely a place for them in the squad but I think that's probably dependent on a lot of Baraclough's mistakes being fixed first not to mention us finding a bit of stability in the league.