The Great Rebuild 2017'18

[superward]

Did you learn your analysis skills at Sportscene?

Haha. Not sure what happened there!

 

As for the direct funding of wages. Not the right way to go imo. Especially as we are fan owned and a lot of us contribute to that monthly/regularly, and it already goes into the club and taken into account with budgets.

 

It does raise a decent idea for targeting new members however to bring the idea to life - i.e. X amount paying X could mean = y for the club. Not that I want to end up in a situation like the brexit battle bus scenario and the NHS!

[rambunctious]

 

I would much rather we didn't give anyone a trial and just signed guys out of nowhere. I mean it worked so well last season with Belic & Jules.

Yeah, why are we letting guys play and train to prove themselves for free when we can pay them 6-12 months wages to do it.

 

BURROWS!!!!

[Jay]

It does raise a decent idea for targeting new members however to bring the idea to life - i.e. X amount paying X could mean = y for the club. Not that I want to end up in a situation like the brexit battle bus scenario and the NHS!

 

I think my main concern with that would precisely be the Brexit battle bus scenario! If the Society was to try and attract new members by telling them that their contribution could mean a playing budget increased by X, you would almost certainly get some who would expect and demand that to be the case regardless, even if there was a bigger priority one season that required financial attention ahead of the playing squad.

 

But it's definitely the Society's role moving forward to make sure everyone understands that, aside from the admin costs & a few other expenses relating to the Society itself, the rest of the money generated is invested in the club. Once you understand that, the rest should be pretty self-explanatory.

 

For example, as I mentioned earlier, the Society currently invests about £120,000 in the club. That's because it's the figure that is generated by the Well Society membership on an annual basis. There's currently about 1,400 adult members of the Society. Say over the next few months that increases to 2,000 and, on average, each member is putting in a tenner a month (there are a lot of members currently no longer pledging monthly). As a result, the Society would be generating almost a quarter of a million pounds yearly, the vast majority of which would go into the club. Therefore, the club would be receiving double the current investment from the Well Society and would subsequently be able to budget accordingly.

 

Would the extra £120,000 go straight into the playing budget? Who knows, I'd imagine probably not all of it. But I think it would be quite a bold claim to suggest that an extra six digit sum investment in the club wouldn't, at least in part, boost the playing budget in some way.

 

At the end of the day, it really is as simple as saying that the larger the regularly-contributing Well Society membership level, the richer Motherwell Football Club is.

[Dezz]

That's £6m Barrie McKay signed for Nottingham Forest for £500k. That should put to bed any of the rumours about them looking at Cadden.

[Kmcalpin]

 

For example, as I mentioned earlier, the Society currently invests about £120,000 in the club. That's because it's the figure that is generated by the Well Society membership on an annual basis. There's currently about 1,400 adult members of the Society. Say over the next few months that increases to 2,000 and, on average, each member is putting in a tenner a month (there are a lot of members currently no longer pledging monthly). As a result, the Society would be generating almost a quarter of a million pounds yearly, the vast majority of which would go into the club. Therefore, the club would be receiving double the current investment from the Well Society and would subsequently be able to budget accordingly.

 

Would the extra £120,000 go straight into the playing budget? Who knows, I'd imagine probably not all of it. But I think it would be quite a bold claim to suggest that an extra six digit sum investment in the club wouldn't, at least in part, boost the playing budget in some way.

 

At the end of the day, it really is as simple as saying that the larger the regularly-contributing Well Society membership level, the richer Motherwell Football Club is.

Agree with your posts Jay. I picked up the idea of Moult/McHugh wage increase sponsorship from other posters as it is a positive suggestion. Personally I'm not convinced of it. I doubt if fans would get behind it in sufficient numbers, but I might be way out with that assumption. You're right, the best way for fans to raise funds for the club is through the Society and that way the cash can be spent where it is needed most be it on wages or ground improvements or whatever.

 

What might be a good idea to help boost monthly pledges would be to let members and indeed the wider fan base know what our outgoings are, in general terms, and without breaching confidentiality. For example we have no idea what the rough cost of reroofing the East Stand actually is. That will have to be paid for. Is it £100k or £500k?

 

At the end of the day the club should only pay out the wages it can afford and yes, that will influence the quality of player we can attract in the 2017 rebuild.

[Jay]

What might be a good idea to help boost monthly pledges would be to let members and indeed the wider fan base know what our outgoings are, in general terms, and without breaching confidentiality. For example we have no idea what the rough cost of reroofing the East Stand actually is. That will have to be paid for. Is it £100k or £500k?

 

This might not give the specific info on the East Stand, but this is lifted from the Your Questions Answered page on the Society site (http://www.thewellsociety.co.uk/your-questions-answered/) that might give a bit of an idea:

 

Can we have a breakdown of where the money is going?

The money which is given by the Well Society to the Club is an investment, as owners, into the running and the improvement of the Club. As it stands, the Club currently invest approximately £2m into the playing and football department, which include players, scouting, coaching, young players, management, and medical team. The Club also currently invests approximately £130,000 into the Youth Academy. Over and above the footballing aspect of the Club, there are significant costs committed to the stadium upkeep (£110,000), Pitch Improvements (£123,000), Stewarding, Policing, Ambulance etc (£200,000), and training facilities and travel (£115,000). The list is not exhaustive, however it does indicate the level of expenditure required.

[Al B]

Quick question to the people that are advocating giving extra money to certain players to get them to stay, I'm assuming you're all quite happy to field the questions from all the other senior players as to why?

 

What a happy and contented dressing room you're all planning here....

[weeyin]

Quick question to the people that are advocating giving extra money to certain players to get them to stay, I'm assuming you're all quite happy to field the questions from all the other senior players as to why?

 

What a happy and contented dressing room you're all planning here....

 

Exactly. Like I said in an earlier post, we have a wage structure and need to stick to it. As soon as you make an exception, you have no structure and instantly cause unrest among the players.

 

When Moult moves on, it won't be because he couldn't get an extra few quid out of us. It will be because a better team, offering more career development opportunities comes in for him, and bumps his salary to a level we can't compete with.

 

Also, crowdfunding a player's salary is mental. If you want to throw extra money to the club, give it to the Society before the end of the year, and it will be worth double.

[one m in motherwell]

 

I'm not sure it's that weird tbh. Most of the teams around us have a few trialists in at the moment, if Dundee fans are to be believed they've got up to half a dozen in at the moment. I understand the point in that for a key area that's been known to need addressed by everyone including the manager you'd have thought we'd have targets in mind that we'd have gone out and signed straight away in the same way that we've done business early for other areas of the park but when you strip it back it is there that much difference between us ending up with a player having had him in for a fortnight to have a look at him then deciding he's a good fit over just signing him straight away? It's possible that they're players we've identified but wanted to have a look at before committing to.

 

Speaking hypothetically, had we just straight out signed Dembele and he had slotted in as he did on Saturday there's a fair chance people would feel a lot more comfortable about us having made positive steps to "address" the defensive area of the park however because he and others are trialists there's, rightly or wrongly, an implication that they're inferior players vs someone we've signed straight away. Similarly, again hypothetically, I'd imagine people would be a bit more comfortable had we gone out and signed someone like Meekings because he's known name in this league, yet he hasn't kicked a ball due to injury since December and has a patchy injury record in general.

 

In honesty I'm a lot happier if we've got trialists in early in order for us to take a look at them and make a decision early. If the process is us taking a look at them and making a genuine appraisal on whether they fit in/are good enough then fine. It becomes more of a problem if we just end up taking them regardless simply to fill a jersey. In truth I think there's more chance of the latter happening at the end of the window than at this stage.

 

In other news I see that's Everton chucking stacks of cash at Burnley for Michael Keane, if Burnley want to follow up their reported interest in Ben Heneghan then now's the time for them to do it.

It's not the concept of trialists that's an issue at all. It's just that, with Robinson apparently recognising that defence is one of our key target areas, we've not had folk identified to bring in early doors, as we have elsewhere in the squad. I appreciate that there are various factors which may work against this (and by all accounts the Dunne signing was sorted a while ago), but it's just something that jumped out.

 

All things considered, if folk are signed and do a job then it's irrelevant what process they've gone through to get a contract.

[superward]

 

I think my main concern with that would precisely be the Brexit battle bus scenario! If the Society was to try and attract new members by telling them that their contribution could mean a playing budget increased by X, you would almost certainly get some who would expect and demand that to be the case regardless, even if there was a bigger priority one season that required financial attention ahead of the playing squad.

 

But it's definitely the Society's role moving forward to make sure everyone understands that, aside from the admin costs & a few other expenses relating to the Society itself, the rest of the money generated is invested in the club. Once you understand that, the rest should be pretty self-explanatory.

 

For example, as I mentioned earlier, the Society currently invests about £120,000 in the club. That's because it's the figure that is generated by the Well Society membership on an annual basis. There's currently about 1,400 adult members of the Society. Say over the next few months that increases to 2,000 and, on average, each member is putting in a tenner a month (there are a lot of members currently no longer pledging monthly). As a result, the Society would be generating almost a quarter of a million pounds yearly, the vast majority of which would go into the club. Therefore, the club would be receiving double the current investment from the Well Society and would subsequently be able to budget accordingly.

 

Would the extra £120,000 go straight into the playing budget? Who knows, I'd imagine probably not all of it. But I think it would be quite a bold claim to suggest that an extra six digit sum investment in the club wouldn't, at least in part, boost the playing budget in some way.

 

At the end of the day, it really is as simple as saying that the larger the regularly-contributing Well Society membership level, the richer Motherwell Football Club is.

Yeah I do agree.

 

Going off track here from the thread, so apologies, but taking the wages element out of it maybe, it does feel like there is an opportunity there somewhere somehow to market for new joiners (and current/lapsed) to make the pesonal and summed input a bit more tangible. It's building on exactly as you say, Jay, that all the money goes in gets invested into the club as we are owners and the more we have the better. Some people wont know that and others do. Then breaking that down further even those that do, might not really know what £140k a year means to the club - is it a pittance? is it the equivalent of a couple of first team squad players? or a full U20 squad?"

 

"Increase the membership by 50 people at £10 a month and that would be the equivalent of having new freshly flowing craft beer taps in all the hospitality suites" - I jest.

 

I'm no marketing expert (hard to believe I know...haha) so don't have any examples on the tip of my tongue as to how I would word something like that but just some thoughts...and I should really go back to work or I'll need to explain my lack of budget after being sacked.

[Lukemfc1]

 

Exactly. Like I said in an earlier post, we have a wage structure and need to stick to it. As soon as you make an exception, you have no structure and instantly cause unrest among the players.

 

When Moult moves on, it won't be because he couldn't get an extra few quid out of us. It will be because a better team, offering more career development opportunities comes in for him, and bumps his salary to a level we can't compete with.

 

Also, crowdfunding a player's salary is mental. If you want to throw extra money to the club, give it to the Society before the end of the year, and it will be worth double.

 

Appreciate your point on structure but I think the thing being overlooked here is if we can entice Moult to sign a new deal with increased terms we are going to be in line for a much higher fee in January or next summer. If sticking to a structure means losing Moult for hee-haw this doesn't make very good long term financial sense. Blindly sticking to a structure could cost us money in the long term.. Now ofcourse this is all hypothetical because Moult may not even want a new deal but the point stands generally. We need to be smart with contract renewels in order to protect our assets. I think the club has been getting a bit better with this over the last year or so. Not sure if these fans are actually being serious about handing over their direct debit details but I guess it just shows how much affection they have for him.

[capt_oats]

It's not the concept of trialists that's an issue at all. It's just that, with Robinson apparently recognising that defence is one of our key target areas, we've not had folk identified to bring in early doors, as we have elsewhere in the squad. I appreciate that there are various factors which may work against this (and by all accounts the Dunne signing was sorted a while ago), but it's just something that jumped out.

 

All things considered, if folk are signed and do a job then it's irrelevant what process they've gone through to get a contract.

 

Yeah, I get that and my post genuinely wasn't meant as a dig btw.

 

I had thought the same myself initially so it was something that had been crossing my mind when I replied. I agree it seemed an obvious area that we'd need strengthening and was acknowledged by pretty much everyone including the manager. Maybe the other targets were viewed as being more attainable early doors or we felt we needed to move quicker to get them? Who knows? It may even be the case that there are more options available in defensive areas that we feel we can look about for options.

 

The more I thought about it the more I wondered about the emphasis on the process and how that's interpreted and how much of a difference it actually makes given the market we seem to be shopping in. Almost all of our signings, a couple of notable exceptions excluded are out of contract and free agents, the key part really should be the outcome rather than the process. It's a curious notion that somehow signing a trialist is perceived as being less considered or are more an afterthought than someone we've went out and signed straight away and they're simply there to plug a gap or fill a jersey.

 

Either way I'll be quite interested to see how the trialist players get on tonight and whether we make some sort of decision on them soon.

[Al B]

 

Appreciate your point on structure but I think the thing being overlooked here is if we can entice Moult to sign a new deal with increased terms we are going to be in line for a much higher fee in January or next summer. If sticking to a structure means losing Moult for hee-haw this doesn't make very good long term financial sense. Blindly sticking to a structure could cost us money in the long term.. Now ofcourse this is all hypothetical because Moult may not even want a new deal but the point stands generally. We need to be smart with contract renewels in order to protect our assets. I think the club has been getting a bit better with this over the last year or so. Not sure if these fans are actually being serious about handing over their direct debit details but I guess it just shows how much affection they have for him.

 

I think the thing that you're overlooking though, and the point that is being made, is that if you offer Moult increased terms for scoring goals, you're going to have Tait and Frear knocking the door asking where their increased terms are for providing the assists for the goals, Cadden phoning asking where's his increased terms if the club don't want him moving on, McManus and Hammell looking for increased terms as they are senior players, vice captains.

 

Sticking to a wage structure isn't just about staying within your financial means, it's about balancing the wages across the playing staff so as not to piss anyone off.

 

There seems to be a significant number of people on here who are quite happy to create a dressing-room full of unhappy players. You might think Louis Moult is better than the above mentioned players and therefore deserves it, but I guarantee you the above mentioned players don't agree with you, especially when money is involved. If you think any of them would be fine with a "let's pay Louis a ton of cash so he'll stay" approach, then you're dreaming.

[1991]

Really looking forward to first game of season now, Rangers are there for the taking would be a great start to season

[Lukemfc1]

 

I think the thing that you're overlooking though, and the point that is being made, is that if you offer Moult increased terms for scoring goals, you're going to have Tait and Frear knocking the door asking where their increased terms are for providing the assists for the goals, Cadden phoning asking where's his increased terms if the club don't want him moving on, McManus and Hammell looking for increased terms as they are senior players, vice captains.

 

Sticking to a wage structure isn't just about staying within your financial means, it's about balancing the wages across the playing staff so as not to piss anyone off.

 

There seems to be a significant number of people on here who are quite happy to create a dressing-room full of unhappy players. You might think Louis Moult is better than the above mentioned players and therefore deserves it, but I guarantee you the above mentioned players don't agree with you, especially when money is involved. If you think any of them would be fine with a "let's pay Louis a ton of cash so he'll stay" approach, then you're dreaming.

I'm sorry I just don't buy this at all. Do you believe clubs have parity across their team in terms of wages? It's a reality of the game that the star players get the most money. Not everyone is on the same wage, not even close. A lot of them will be on similar money but the prized asset should be on the most if they are playing the best. The dressing room being totally unhappy over this is a total exaggeration in my opinion. Crazy that people are making an argument to pay some of the above the same as Moult

[Lukemfc1]

More on topic I see Stephen O'Donnell is away to Killie, I know a few mentioned him as being a possibility. Think he will do well there. Not surprised we didn't go for him as he would need to be first choice right back and we obviously have Tait. Stephen is from Overtown however so could see how he might have been on the radar

[weeyin]

Good to hear Robinson say in his post-match today that he is still looking for a bit of pace up front. While guys like Sutton and Higdon were about as mobile as the Exxon Valdez, they benefited from speed merchants around them and a lot of our success has been due to pace on the break.

[siebsbarmyarmy]

Robinsons interview after the game tonight states we are making offers to both defenders. We should know by tomorrow afternoon about Cedric.

 

Will make an offer to Dembele aswell but there is other interest in him.

 

He was very vocal about players 'we need to get out this club'.....

[Lukemfc1]

Aye very strong interview from Robinson there. He clearly wants a few out, be interesting to see who he is referring to.. Encouraged he is still looking for something up top

[fizoxy]

He doesn't mince his words does he? "players we need to get out of the club"

 

I'd assume we're still talking at least Blyth and clay. Bowman does offer something, and I don't think we have any forwards knocking on the door from the u20s, so I'd expect us to have 4 in that area.

 

I guess we're not going for tuton then?

[weeyin]

Falconer is the best prospect from the U20s, but I don't know that he fits the "pacey" mould.

[wellfan83]

Hopefully McManus is a player we need out! And if we are signing 2 defenders possibly then it's a realistic possibility! He was a bomscare Saturday and tonight. Time to hang his boots up!

[weeyin]

Hopefully McManus is a player we need out! And if we are signing 2 defenders possibly then it's a realistic possibility! He was a bomscare Saturday and tonight. Time to hang his boots up!

The McManus that missed half of last season due to injury?

 

I have criticised him in the past, but he obviously needs game time right now.

[fizoxy]

Going by the managers interviews so far there's nothing to suggest McManus is one of those he wants out. We need 4 starting defenders and at least 3 backups. The possibility of dunne and kipre being able to play central and at full back is good for versatility, both for cover and switching from a 4 to a 3. Then considering Mick's age/fitness and the possibility of losing heneghan, another centerback is a must.

 

Looking at younger players, I could see Thomas and Watt going, mainly due to who we've signed.

[Dezz]

My money would be on Blyth, Clay, Thomas and Watt being those he's trying to get out the door.