2020/21 Transfer Discussion Thread

[Andy_P]

I can see this from both sides. 

If you'll pardon the pun you can only go to the well so many times and when there is a relatively limited number of us it is understandable that people may become weary of the message and stop listening.

But that's not to say that the contents of the message  is incorrect.  Going back to the AGM for example I remember it being said that whilst the playing budget was raised for this season it was still reckoned to be second or third lowest in the league.  Whilst they had reached a position where debts to former owner and directors were paid off they were still balancing the annual running of the club whilst trying to build some longer term contingency for bad seasons.

Some times the message just isn't what we might want to hear.

But I do think there's a fairly regular effort to "condition" supporters about the finances from both Robinson and the board so there isn't any complacency and people are still encouraged to join and continue to donate to the Well Society and are aware of the operating model. And to have the effect, or at least attempt to have the effect, of playing expectations down publicly too. 

 

 

[Yorkyred]

Lowering supporter expectations while reminding other clubs we can’t afford to pay transfer fees.

[weeyin]

1 hour ago, Yorkyred said:

Lowering supporter expectations while reminding other clubs we can’t afford to pay transfer fees.

Except every club and every agent that deals with us knows our wage structure and what we can afford to pay in transfer fees. So who are we trying to fool?

[Welldaft Mk1]

The financial discussions on lost income seem to omit a final home game v one of the Old Firm. Which in itself  would be worth six figures. 

I have absolutely no problem with the club pleading poverty. 

What is the alternative - tell everyone we are awash with cash or even in a healthy position. At a time when we don’t know when we will be playing in front of crowds. At a time when we are releasing players no doubt using the excuse we have a small budget to play with. At a time when we are still hoping to encourage season ticket sales and Well Society donations. 

If we eventually sell Turnbull for £3m plus and then the next day say we don’t have 2 beans to rub together I might think they are extracting the urine but fine with this message just now. 

 

[weeyin]

9 minutes ago, Welldaft Mk1 said:

The financial discussions on lost income seem to omit a final home game v one of the Old Firm. Which in itself  would be worth six figures.

 

I was working on crowd averages which factors in the increase of an old firm visit and the decrease in attendance from a visit by Livi or St Johnstone.

Even if you wanted to add an additional 100k to my rough calculations, finishing 3rd  would still put us ahead of our budget for the year.

[superward]

So, we looking at then...

By my count, 10 perm players out of contract.

Illic, Manzinga, Maguire will be gone I think.

Long and Gillespie have offers on the table knocked back I believe. Someone can correct me there but sure I heard that.

Watt I'd think might get a deal put to him.

Tait, Hartley, Grimshaw, Dunne were all on longer deals coming to a natural end. Would be surprised if we dont offer all 4 some sort of deal. But maybe not on terms the likes of Tait or Hartley perhaps would want at this stage....

Players in- Looks like we have signed Lamie from Livi, a big striker from Inverness and making o'Hara loan permanent.  Aryibi seems to be knocking about too.

 

[Yorkyred]

48 minutes ago, weeyin said:

Except every club and every agent that deals with us knows our wage structure and what we can afford to pay in transfer fees. So who are we trying to fool?

Just a guess mate, could be way off the mark.

[Onthefringes]

21 minutes ago, superward said:

So, we looking at then...

By my count, 10 perm players out of contract.

Illic, Manzinga, Maguire will be gone I think.

Long and Gillespie have offers on the table knocked back I believe. Someone can correct me there but sure I heard that.

Watt I'd think might get a deal put to him.

Tait, Hartley, Grimshaw, Dunne were all on longer deals coming to a natural end. Would be surprised if we dont offer all 4 some sort of deal. But maybe not on terms the likes of Tait or Hartley perhaps would want at this stage....

Players in- Looks like we have signed Lamie from Livi, a big striker from Inverness and making o'Hara loan permanent.  Aryibi seems to be knocking about too.

 

The picture you paint is somewhat different... Grimshaw is contracted to summer of 2022 for one.

[Shaka]

2 hours ago, weeyin said:

Except every club and every agent that deals with us knows our wage structure and what we can afford to pay in transfer fees. So who are we trying to fool?

Thats the crux of it for me. This isnt done to "fool" Clubs or Agents so what does it actually achieve? 

Ive been a Well supporter all my life, I was at Hampden as a 10 year old Kid in 1991, at every cup final, had season tickets and even followed the team away in Europe and Im getting scunnered with the continual pleads of poverty. If Im feeling like that I can only imagine how that can/will affect more casual fans.

What incentive is there for a Casual fan or a novice looking for a Club to support tocome see us? Instead of thinking "hey thats a great achievement from the Well, I think Il pop down to Fir Park next season and give them some support"  its now more like " thats some achievement from the Well, pity they are skint and will lose their best players next year, oh well"

Sometimes its like the guys in charge actively look to make our club look miserable as fuck. This season (clearing our Debt, Finishing 3rd in the League, Developing & selling another 2 Highly Rated kids Down South) is something the Club, and town should be proud of, especially at these times! Why do we immediately need to bring money into it and drag it down?

[superward]

8 hours ago, Onthefringes said:

The picture you paint is somewhat different... Grimshaw is contracted to summer of 2022 for one.

Aye, just opinion and pulling together what I've read. 

Good shout on Grimshaw - I was going by transfermarkt

[superward]

7 hours ago, Shaka said:

Thats the crux of it for me. This isnt done to "fool" Clubs or Agents so what does it actually achieve? 

Ive been a Well supporter all my life, I was at Hampden as a 10 year old Kid in 1991, at every cup final, had season tickets and even followed the team away in Europe and Im getting scunnered with the continual pleads of poverty. If Im feeling like that I can only imagine how that can/will affect more casual fans.

What incentive is there for a Casual fan or a novice looking for a Club to support tocome see us? Instead of thinking "hey thats a great achievement from the Well, I think Il pop down to Fir Park next season and give them some support"  its now more like " thats some achievement from the Well, pity they are skint and will lose their best players next year, oh well"

Sometimes its like the guys in charge actively look to make our club look miserable as fuck. This season (clearing our Debt, Finishing 3rd in the League, Developing & selling another 2 Highly Rated kids Down South) is something the Club, and town should be proud of, especially at these times! Why do we immediately need to bring money into it and drag it down?

I'd rather realism every time personally

Specifically this year we are looking at a few missed home games from 19/20 and starting down the barrel of no fans in grounds until 2021. This next couple of years will be a huge task to manage financially.

[middleeastdave]

It will be very interesting transfer window indeed,  I am not sure what SR meant by saying that he cannot afford to take any chances with incoming players Does that mean we will be going for more established players?
 

Another point we usually bring through one or two players through the reserves into the first team by the end of season which unfortunately not possible this season, having looked at the reserves we don’t have an abundance of players ready to come through, I think Jamie’s Semple probably the best chance of getting into first team, I am not convinced about Macivor even although he was getting his opportunity this season, the other prospects Cornelius, Devine, Starrs not seen enough of them to be convinced they are ready to take the step up.

[Andy_P]

11 hours ago, Shaka said:

Thats the crux of it for me. This isnt done to "fool" Clubs or Agents so what does it actually achieve? 

Ive been a Well supporter all my life, I was at Hampden as a 10 year old Kid in 1991, at every cup final, had season tickets and even followed the team away in Europe and Im getting scunnered with the continual pleads of poverty. If Im feeling like that I can only imagine how that can/will affect more casual fans.

What incentive is there for a Casual fan or a novice looking for a Club to support tocome see us? Instead of thinking "hey thats a great achievement from the Well, I think Il pop down to Fir Park next season and give them some support"  its now more like " thats some achievement from the Well, pity they are skint and will lose their best players next year, oh well"

Sometimes its like the guys in charge actively look to make our club look miserable as fuck. This season (clearing our Debt, Finishing 3rd in the League, Developing & selling another 2 Highly Rated kids Down South) is something the Club, and town should be proud of, especially at these times! Why do we immediately need to bring money into it and drag it down?

I would say that they bring money into because they feel they have a duty to keep supporters informed where they possibly can in the knowledge that it's a fan owned club.  Clearly they aren't going to reveal everything but I can't see that they try to inform supporters is a bad thing. Again I'll say just because people might not like what they're hearing doesn't mean it shouldn't be said.

It's why you'll get a chairman's report every year when the figures are released.  Why you know what sort of budget they have in comparison to others so you can put things in context on the pitch.

And it isn't just negative stuff you get from them either.  The clearing of historical debt was given a lot of coverage back in February for example. That brought days of coverage across the media about what had been achieved.  Looking at the report that this discussion stemmed from and the social media releases in the last few days there is an appreciation that these issues will be felt across the country and not just at Motherwell, and loads of acknowledgement from Robinson and across social media of what has been achieved.

I would suggest it would be more of an issue if they weren't giving an indication of where they believe things are.  For I can absolutely guarantee if they kept everything close to their chests and things went tits up in a big way you would have droves of people apopleptic at how they put money into Motherwell every month but they weren't given the facts in the preceding months and years.

What I genuinely don't see is that the club are making themselves look "miserable as fuck" as you put it.  I actually find it amusing that you have suggested that when in the last couple of days there have been a swarm of opposition fans hammering the club for the stuff they've put about us finishing third and accusing us of over-celebrating.

I agree it can be wearing when no sooner has one fundraising campaign concluded than the next is underway but over the piece I think they provide a fairly good flow of information to give an understanding of where things are at.

 

 

[Onthefringes]

34 minutes ago, middleeastdave said:

It will be very interesting transfer window indeed,  I am not sure what SR meant by saying that he cannot afford to take any chances with incoming players Does that mean we will be going for more established players?
 

Another point we usually bring through one or two players through the reserves into the first team by the end of season which unfortunately not possible this season, having looked at the reserves we don’t have an abundance of players ready to come through, I think Jamie’s Semple probably the best chance of getting into first team, I am not convinced about Macivor even although he was getting his opportunity this season, the other prospects Cornelius, Devine, Starrs not seen enough of them to be convinced they are ready to take the step up.

On what do you base your thoughts on? Missed a large chunk of last season. Definitely don't see one of those mentioned stepping up at ours.

Expect Alan Campbell to be our fundraiser in chief.

[C&A not the shop]

It's almost like people need something to moan about.

 

We finished third but the situation dictates that we need to carry a smaller squad next season so some people who we would have liked to offer contracts to parent going to get them. And I imagine some players will be offered less generous new deals than they otherwise would have.

Explaining our financial situation is about setting fans expectations more than anything else, we shouldn't expect everyone to be here next season that was part of this team and we shouldn't expect a load of new signings.

That's where we are and without statements like this people might not appreciate that.

[middleeastdave]

2 hours ago, Onthefringes said:

On what do you base your thoughts on? Missed a large chunk of last season. Definitely don't see one of those mentioned stepping up at ours.

Expect Alan Campbell to be our fundraiser in chief.

I was basically saying that there was nobody that I could see that stood out on the young reserve players, I thought Semple had the potential but certainly not a definite for going into the first team, I knew he missed most of the season through injury, which in my opinion is not a good sign as we have enough players injury prone, but I would like to give him the benefit of doubt and hope turns out a great player for us.

Talking of the younger players have the club made any statement on who they are retaining as they usually sort out who they are retaining before they deal with the first team players.

i would imagine there will be plenty of youngsters getting released right across the country, as the coronavirus situation dictates finances.

[Ross]

Talking of the younger players have the club made any statement on who they are retaining as they usually sort out who they are retaining before they deal with the first team players.
i would imagine there will be plenty of youngsters getting released right across the country, as the coronavirus situation dictates finances.

I had heard that Yusuf Hussain a young centre half was being kept on but that was a month or two ago so don’t know if that’s changed now


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[grizzlyg]

A premiership club has offered £16 million for Turnbull.  Club statement says this is a great deal but we still have no money available to buy players!! Ba boom.   Sorry couldn't resist it..COYW

[Onthefringes]

1 hour ago, middleeastdave said:

I was basically saying that there was nobody that I could see that stood out on the young reserve players, I thought Semple had the potential but certainly not a definite for going into the first team, I knew he missed most of the season through injury, which in my opinion is not a good sign as we have enough players injury prone, but I would like to give him the benefit of doubt and hope turns out a great player for us.

Talking of the younger players have the club made any statement on who they are retaining as they usually sort out who they are retaining before they deal with the first team players.

i would imagine there will be plenty of youngsters getting released right across the country, as the coronavirus situation dictates finances.

Think you'll find club coaching staff have a very different opinion.

No official statement - those affected know and then there is those who also know.

[superward]

Cant imagine a statement on both youth and first team contracts will be that far away.

I'd be  disappointed if Semple doesn't get a chance. Finances will dictate but the reserve games, and one Scotland game, I watched him I thought he looked good.

[0Neils40yarder]

10 hours ago, Onthefringes said:

Think you'll find club coaching staff have a very different opinion.

No official statement - those affected know and then there is those who also know.

You're an awfy cocktease

[middleeastdave]

Out of interest does anyone think like myself that there will be no reserve football next year probably due to financial restraints caused by coronavirus, so our squads will be a lot less.?

[supermarv]

Statement of who’s being kept on and who isn’t is due to be out tomorrow. Seems we will be looking for a new captain...

[Welldaft Mk1]

Interesting time of the year for sure. 

For sentimental reasons you could make a case for a number of Players Hartley included. 

But what I like about Robinson is he seems able for the most part to separate sentimentality v pragmatism and will take steps to ensure we have the strongest squad possible when football eventually returns. 

Cannot remember which seasons in particular but I am sure there have been a few where quite a few players were kept on where based on form alone the majority of fans would have had no issues with them leaving the club. Was Faddy one of those in his last spell ? 

Would like to have Watt, OHara and Long stay. OHara should happen unless another club tries to hijack. Watt hopefully too.  Long will no doubt get more lucrative offers down south but with Covid 19 you never know. 

[Yorkyred]

35 minutes ago, supermarv said:

Statement of who’s being kept on and who isn’t is due to be out tomorrow. Seems we will be looking for a new captain...

The timing is probably right if true. Hartley was perfect for the way we “used” to play, he’s pretty much a round peg in a square hole these days. Even so sad to see him go, he will do a very solid job at another club.