Welldaft Mk1

Great weekend in Darlo. Apart from those pesky flies that took a liking to the colour Amber ! Decen enough game. Thought Gorrin was decent. Bit concerned how easily beat Sinclair was for their goal. Very decent away turnout. 800 fans in total and at least half were Well fans. Good hospitality although playing 3 lions and Vindaloo and others was whilst expected a bit grating...... Not quite a Euro tour, but plenty of laughs and grudgingly I admit the company was OK also.

Reading it back I think I did just that. Won’t be long before they start however. I will count to ten... Anyway we won and our new striker got his debut goal. A good work out.

53 minutes into our 1st pre season game and first negative comment :-) Not sure what you base that comment on. Perhaps it was losing to Gateshead and some other English non league outfit pre-season last year before going on to get to 2 cup finals and almost top 6.

No Carson either in the squad. Assume he has been given more time off also. Wanted to go to Belfast as never been, but the planned March and associated hotel costs were the deal breaker. £160 per night for Premier Inn in Belfast v £55 for Darlington PI. So a gang of us heading to Darlington next week. Our Euro tour so to speak.

No trying to be sarcastic and these are my own views + it is hardly earth shattering, but the higher up the food chain (of which Celtic undoubtedly are) the higher the fee clubs seem to get for players that are not demonstrably x times better than our players. Another example is Carson. Celtic reportedly offer circa £350k for him in January. Lets say for the sake of argument he went to Celtic. What are the chances if someone bid for him now whilst he was at Celtic they would accept or even be offered £350k. Multiply that by at least 3. My gripe is we tend to get quite a lot of derisory offers for our players and teams such as Celtic do not - in fact I would say they get more than players are probably worth such as Armstrong at £7m. A better player than Cadden - no doubt but 14 times better based on rumours of £500k bids from either Wigan or Millwall. It is what it is - but it does p1ss me off. You may have noticed :-)

I think the positives are that the club are prepared to walk away from initial low / silly bids. Probably has something to do with the fact that more than half of any transfers goes to pay off former owners. So to even make it worth our while they need to be at a certain level. We have a few sellable assets in Cadden, Kipre, Carson and Campbell. We probably are looking to sell at least 2 of the 4 this transfer window. The sooner we pay of Hutchison the better for all, but we do need a realistic figure for each player. What those are will vary greatly in terms of views on this forum. Truth is if any of them played for Celtic or were in their squad you could literally add another zero on the end. Armstrong is a good player but £7m. Is he £6.5m a better player than Cadden ? I think a reasonable price for Cadden is £800 + add ons. Carson - probably same again. Kipre and Campbell are younger and have greater potential so I would like to see both of them at Fir Park next season, not least because Kipre is literally a cult hero and nothing less than £1m + should be entertained. He is raw and relatively inexperienced but has the attributes to go far in the game. Who knows whether he will but again if he was at a more “fashionable” club or in championship the figures quoted would be well in excess of what Hull were reportedly willing to offer. Hopefully Hulls interest may spark more interest from other clubs.

I can see this being another Randolph situation. Us scratching our heads how we did not get a decent offer for him. Hope not as he would appear to be our most saleable asset as the moment. Clearly if he was playing for a 2nd division French side or in the English championship he would be bought for multiple millions by another club in English top flight or abroad. Does not seem to apply to unfashionable Motherwell..... He is an excellent keeper and could cope with a much bigger move. I mean if Karius is one of the benchmarks ! Would not be the worst thing for him to stay on at Motherwell from a fan point of view, but truth is we probably need to cash in at some point.

Many seem to think that but I am not one of them. The Motherwell badge (which I love dearly) is on everything including the training kits and leisurewear. I think it is a great idea to go back in the past and recreate the lettering from one of my all time fav strips. As it happens I think Puma was one of the poorest kit makers in that their quality was absolute mince. A big company but the cheapest materials however they did pull one out of the bag with the 125 anniversary strip which I still wear and is a belter. As UBH will know it also had the MFC lettering identical to the new away top. That is the one for me. Only irritant is the collar. Not sure what they were trying to do. Would have preferred the round collar on its own. It is like they have 2 collars on the one top. Hopefully both will sell well.

See if you were an auld bugger like me - the MFC letters were on my 1st ever kit in the mid 70’s in the days u had to sew the badge on. Yup you read that right. Of course I didn’t I had the nanny do it......... On 1st glance I am not sure if I am a fan of either but for the 1st time in a while there is not much between them. Probably means I will buy both.....wait to see what the still to be released unique feature is on the home. Until then the away edges it for me.

I love those posts. My favourites are usually on a match day when someone announces they are fed up with the team and cannae be arsed going to the game. Even though I would class myself as the older generation I still buy one strip per season. Of course it helps if you have a six pack :-) So I look forward to the annual unveiling of the strip even if it is later in the day than anticipated......ahem....

A strange one with Bigi. I like the guy and genuinely believe there is a player there. Perhaps wrong place at the wrong time in terms of how Robinson sets us up to play. Whilst he has not set the heather on fire I always thought he added some composure and skill to the midfield when he came on as a sub. IMHO he is the player most likely to leave but actually show us what we we re missing if he gets a good club and one that plays to his strengths. Then again maybe he is just average and will not be missed. We shall no doubt find out soon enough.

All that said I see Hearts have signed another midfielder. That makes 9 they have so far for next season so far ! I liked what I saw from Ross, especially his performance v Celtic at home. Thought on that form he could have kicked on but not to be sadly. I am sure he will have a good career in football even if it is not at Motherwell. Wish him all the best.

Someone who is more technically adept can cut and paste the tweet / message from McEwan Fraser. It is clear they wanted to stay on as principal sponsors and again after the coverage they got you can understand why - but a nice touch all the same.

I am sure they pay different rates to the different teams but you have to imagine that Motherwell represented the best bang for their buck last season. 2 National cup semi finals and 2 show piece finals. I doubt there is a premium paid if we reach those games. Just included in annual sponsorship. I suspect it was more down to us having a more lucrative offer than that of McEwan Fraser.

I suspect this falls into the category of happy with the size of the sponsorship deal. 888 would have been a bit of a PR coup even as a betting company as they are quite well known and sponsor Sky Sports news if I recall. Bet Park is a strange one. Very difficult to find anything out about them if you Google their name. I see no online site that you could actually gamble on if you wanted too. I have a bet on average once a month and would happily give my custom to a Motherwell sponsor than say Bet365 or SkyBet if the their is nothing in the odds.

Jaxx - another random betting company

But we will. It is how we roll. furthermore it has probably put a wee dampener on the midfielder when he is announced and it is not Ryan Gauld. Not sure it ties in with the stature description used by Robbo. If u r right....wow.

We have as much chance of signing Jack Wilshere. Maybe I am putting the fact he is leaving Arsenal and our imminent announcement of a midfielder together and well u never know........actually you do.

If it was not Bet Park I heard it may have been 888 who are probably better known but still a betting company. That is Dafabet with Celtic, Red32 with Rangers and Marathon Bet with Hibs. As long as they pay the money and it is lucrative then I am not overly bothered. In many ways Cash Converters was more of a red neck.

To be fair Pogba has been bang average at Man Utd. He could do worse than us.......

My understanding is that we had agreement on a sponsor all but signed and sealed but a last minute hitch meant we had to look at other options. These things happen and all Flow said is he hoped to showcase the kits as he would have been working on the assumption of no hiccups. Plus he was being asked the Q at the time by the fans. He could say nothing and would get more grief. In many ways a no win situation. Hopefully we get a decent sponsor and strips when the dust settles.

We have a limited budget to work with and if Ciftci was able to fit within that budget I would back the Gaffers judgement on whether he is worth bringing back to Fir Park. I am also of the opinion that I would be happy if he joins and not overly fussed if he does not. But that would depends who comes in. Simon Murray for example.......would rather take Ciftci. Truth is we were weak in the striking dept last season. Yes we had very decent strikers in either Moult or Main. If you class Tanner as a striker then he would be next - although I don’t see him as a forward as such. That left Bowman who always gives 100% and can score goals but just not often enough. After that pretty much nothing with all due respect to Newell and Petravicius. Assuming Main and Bowman stay and Tanner is fit we need an upgrade on the other 2. Big fan of Bowman but I guess what we are hoping for is we have stronger options to start next season and he as a decent back up for injuries and to give players a rest in certain games. If the Simon Murray thing is true I suspect we will drop it as £50k would be around our limit.

I like the Hibs kit. We could keep the Well one simple and classy and it would end up resembling the same top every year. How is that going to sell. I am in London and have seen 3 of the new Nigeria tops worn in one day. Someone told me they produces millions and have sold out. So maybe pish but clubs such as ours need tops to be revenue earners as well as smart looking.

Well that is a blast from the past. Completely forgot about him. He had HUGE potential and was a damn good player. Just kept getting bad injuries one after another. Be good to see him back at Fir Park as long as he has a crap game. No offence Steven.

Agreed. Tough for a young guy but I see he shaved his head as a result which for a guy often looks OK. Gail Porter on the other hand. Not so easy. Hopefully he does OK at Livvy apart from the usual caveat v us.