2024/25 Ins & Outs Discussion

[wellfan]

35 minutes ago, Kmcalpin said:

There are options to trim the squad. The likes of Callachan could be mutualled surely? The loans for Tavares or even Watt could be terminated presumably? Could Ebiye and Koutroumbis be loaned out? If Jordan McGhee signs this month could Davor be loaned out or mutualled? Not all of these options would be feasible of course but there are possibilities. SK did hint at one or two moving out.  

I've no idea what Kettlewell's signing policy and approach is other than to amass quantity over quality at the same time as pleading poverty regarding the budget. 

[Toxteth O'Grady]

https://www.footballinsider247.com/exclusive-notts-county-motherwell-race-to-sign-cardiffs-michael-reindorf/

Quote

Notts County and Motherwell have joined the race to sign Cardiff City forward Michael Reindorf on loan, sources have told Football Insider.

 

[Kmcalpin]

1 hour ago, FirParkCornerExile said:

I get that point completely but even if we get that hold up player we have a shocking midfield that will try and feed off it. I would like to see SK try and strengthen the midfield and certainly move on some of the players you mention in another post

I think we also need another LWB as Wilson seems burn out and Seddon is out of action for a good month or two. 

[grizzlyg]

Armstrong looks like a big powerful striker so .....use your force Luke!! 🤪🤪

[weeyin]

29 minutes ago, grizzlyg said:

Armstrong looks like a big powerful striker so .....use your force Luke!! 🤪🤪

Jar Jar Binks level hilarity

[Onthefringes]

2 hours ago, Kmcalpin said:

There are options to trim the squad. The likes of Callachan could be mutualled surely? The loans for Tavares or even Watt could be terminated presumably? Could Ebiye and Koutroumbis be loaned out? If Jordan McGhee signs this month could Davor be loaned out or mutualled? Not all of these options would be feasible of course but there are possibilities. SK did hint at one or two moving out.  

Committed to season long loans as having played for parent clubs can’t feature for others…

[Spit_It_Out]

1 hour ago, Kmcalpin said:

I think we also need another LWB as Wilson seems burn out and Seddon is out of action for a good month or two. 

That should be the priority at this point Wilson looks out of his depth and really not offiering much in an attacking sense that could be said of the RWB.

Both flanks have really not been cutting it for me been offering next to nothing but what do we know we not walked in Kettlewells shoes mind so we all must be blind aswell.

[Kmcalpin]

1 hour ago, Onthefringes said:

Committed to season long loans as having played for parent clubs can’t feature for others…

I don't know the details of these deals obviously, but that implies that we now have no control over the length of the loans. As such, serious questions need to be asked as to why we agreed to these deals in the first place.

[weeyin]

31 minutes ago, Kmcalpin said:

I don't know the details of these deals obviously, but that implies that we now have no control over the length of the loans. As such, serious questions need to be asked as to why we agreed to these deals in the first place.

Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

If any of them hit a bit of form and we lost them in January, we'd be hearing the "questions must be asked why we didn't sign them on season long loans" 

I actually prefer season long deals, as it can take a player a couple of months to get up to speed and fit in, and then it's almost time for them to leave.

[grizzlyg]

2 hours ago, weeyin said:

Jar Jar Binks level hilarity

Jeez!! Was that bad? 🤣🤣

[wellsince75]

5 hours ago, Kmcalpin said:

I think we also need another LWB as Wilson seems burn out and Seddon is out of action for a good month or two. 

Potential LWB

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/14227400/motherwell-january-transfer-1million-arsenal-thompson/amp/

[joewarkfanclub]

3 hours ago, wellsince75 said:

Potential LWB

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/14227400/motherwell-january-transfer-1million-arsenal-thompson/amp/

Seems like we can actually scout more than one position at a time!

Funny that!

Hopefully he is of the required standard and we get the deal done!

[Kmcalpin]

If we wrest Jordan McGhee from Dundee this month, and land Dom Thompson then that's our problem positions addressed, at least on paper. 

However we will then have a huge squad  albeit with a substantial injured component. Surely some need for trimming around the edges.

[thewelllfan]

If we get Thompson and add a holding mid I'd be quite happy.

Need to get top 6 to help off-set the cost of this huge squad we've got.

I'm not convinced it's off the level to end up there without Lennon but it looks better than it did this time last week

[AllyMax]

So that's the left back in. 

[weeyin]

12 hours ago, thewelllfan said:

Need to get top 6 to help off-set the cost of this huge squad we've got.

You used to be able to get insurance to help offset wages when players had long term injuries.

Not sure if that's a thing any more.

[joewarkfanclub]

Jordan McGhee would complete the set and should be enough reinforcements to see us through to the injured players returning.

I suspect though, that things will continue to look ugly and dysfunctional for a few weeks yet.

I do think that eventually we will have enough quality to see us safe, but its not looking great right now.

Where that will leave the manager in the summer is anyones guess.

[stv]

8 hours ago, weeyin said:

You used to be able to get insurance to help offset wages when players had long term injuries.

Not sure if that's a thing any more.

If it is,  our premiums would be unaffordable and our no claims bonus rating will be fukd.

[wellgirl]

11 hours ago, stv said:

If it is,  our premiums would be unaffordable and our no claims bonus rating will be fukd.

It is a thing apparently 

[texanwellfan]

Perhaps it’s thru the SFA so maybe not a specific club based premium? 

[fizoxy]

Ok, here goes.

As far as who we've signed, that's up for debate as to who is good and who isn't. As far as filling areas of need, it has been pretty organized and methodical, outside of signing Vale and Tavares when we needed 2 midfielders.

All rough working based on the website, but coming into this season we had:

GK - Ox (re-signed), Connelly
WB - Wilson (kind of), SoD
CB - Blaney, McGinn, Casey
Mid - Slattery (re-signed, injured), Miller, Nicholson (re-signed), Davor, Halliday, Paton
FW - Moses, Bair

Youth (that looked like they might get games at the time)- Ferrie, Ross, Wells. None look to be worth worrying about, which is a shame, I'd prefer to have 3 of our own youth products on the bench. 

So we needed:
- a goalie,
- 2 WBs,
- at least one CB.
- at least one midfielder
- at least 2 forwards

I might be off in the order here, but pre season we signed
GK - Hegyi
WB - Seddon, Johnny K
CB - Balmer, gordon
Mid - Callachan, Sparrow
FW - Stuparevic, Robinson

At the time, we thought maybe one defender too many, but that balmer and Gordon were good gers, then.....

Mcginn injured pre-season

So logically, as expected. We filled holes in the required positions, and left with a squad of 23 outside of the younger players, so room to add 1 or 2, with bair expected to go, and mcginn injured.

Consensus at the time was that callachan was a bad signing, Sparrow was bench fodder, and Robinson was a good call.

July 11th - koutroumbis out for months
- Down a RWB
July 15th - Kaleta joins
- Back even on RWB
July 16th - Theo Bair sold for actual money
- Down a striker
July 26th - Harry paton injury (and should have been a pen)
- Down a midfielder
July 30th - AP signed
- back even on strikers

Nicholson injury mentioned on August 5th
- Down 2 midfielders
Callachan injury (big fucking surprise) reported on August 8th
- Down 3 midfielders
Blaney out 6 weeks on August 8th
- Down 2 defenders, but we signed two, so covered.
August 13th - Watt came in
- ok 5 strikers, maybe that's enough

Aug 14th - AP injured for 6 weeks
- Down to 4 strikers, uh oh
Aug 19th - Maswanhise joined
- back to 5 forwards, yay

August 29th ish - Tavares and vale joined at the end of the summer window
- 7 forwards now, wtf?
Aug 20th - Stuparevic sent out on loan
- Just the 6 forwards now
- still down 3 midfielders

3rd Dec - Robinson out for season
- only 5 strikers left
20th Dec-ish - Nicholson back
- Down 2 midfielders
30th Dec - mcginn back, yay
31st Dec - Miller injured for months, well baws.
- Down 3 midfielders
1st Jan ish - AP out for some time, double baws.
- 4 forwards, bare bones
1st Jan ish - where's Jair?
- 3 forwards 
6th Jan - Slattery back, wooo.
- Down 2 midfielders
7th Jan - Kai andrews signed
- Down 1 midfielder

11th Jan - Ox injured
-Down one keeper
11th Jan - Hegyi recalled by west ham
- Down 2 keepers, oh no
11th Jan - Mair signs, Connelly recalled
- back to two keepers, for now phew.

- 13th Jan - Mcginn injured for months again, fuck
- Down a cb
Jan sometime - seddon injured for months, again fuck
- Down a wb

24th Jan - signed armstrong
- 5 forwards, but vale suspended, Moses ill
23rd Jan signed balcombe
23rd Jan - Connelly sent back on loan
- back to 2 keepers
23rd Jan - Mair injured
- one keeper again
23rd Jan - Connelly temp recalled
- 2 keepers again
24th Jan - signed Dom Thompson
- back even on WBs

So numbers wise, outside of the vale and Tavares signings, we've tended to replace what we've lost, other than midfielders. Stuparevic and Johnny K not being up to scratch hasn't helped.

I'd say that if it wasn't for injuries we wouldn't have signed Mair, Balcombe, Kaleta, one of Gordon or Balmer, Andrews, Armstrong, Thompwe'reat least one of Watt/Tavares/JT/vale.

If we sign Mcghee then I'd say we're covered numbers-wise. He probably covers CB too.

As such, I don't think the signing policy has been chaotic or scatter gun in itself, the fact that we have needed to sign replacements for replacements has meant we really are scraping the bottom of the barrel for incomings. 

With AP due back, and just signing Armstrong, I wouldn't expect another striker unless someone goes. Saying that, we did have 7 at one point.

Moses and Slattery were Ill at the weekend, but could see Moses moving on. Looks like Tavares and Watt will stay unless their parent clubs want to play them. They don't.

So the scope for outgoings are Miller and any of those up in the summer on pcas, ie Casey.

The only incoming loans we can make have to be u21 due to rules.

In conclusion, outside of selling someone, I don't think we need to be online on deadline day. Unless someone else gets injured.

[Kmcalpin]

Excellent, a well researched and compiled piece of work. Well done. 

Unsurprisingly our personnel changes have been greatly influenced by injuries and long term ones at that.  I agree that SK's signing policy hasn't been chaotic or scattergun in that he has addressed areas of need that most of us would have identified anyway. There are one or possibly two exceptions. A defensive midfielder, although a deal is in the pipeline.  However, it does seem a bit unbalanced with the number of strikers that we've signed despite only playing one for most of gametimes. My gripe would be that despite playing that system, which relies heavily on fielding a target man, we haven't signed one. Perhaps Armstrong will fit that bill, although I'm not so sure. 

Where I think SK has fallen down is that many individual signings were high risk. Ross Callachan is a case in point. No manager will have a 100% success rate with transfers, but I think we've fared a bit poorly.  Koutroumbis, Davor, Jair, Ebiye, Robinson, Balmer. Maybe scope to add one or two more?

I'm expecting some transfer actiivty before the deadline but mainly outwards. Jordan McGhee could be an exception.  Lennon MIller is anyone's guess.  Its not unlikely that one or more of Koutroumbis, Davor, Callachan, Ebiye or Stuparevic could leave either permanently or on loan. 

[MelvinBragg]

By my maths, we have a 31 man squad. Remove Oxborough, McGinn, Seddon, Robinson and Callachan. That's down to 26. Tavares and Koutroumbis don't look fit for purpose. Down to 24. Miller and Stamatelopolous out currently, 22. So currently a 22 man squad while relying on Nicholson and Slattery staying fit. So a 20 man squad. We're not quite at 'if you're fit you're getting a game' but we're not a million miles away and that's how standards slip.

That's the real cost of so many injured players. Those in the eleven don't have to maintain standards to keep their place in the team...

[wellfan]

45 minutes ago, MelvinBragg said:

That's the real cost of so many injured players. Those in the eleven don't have to maintain standards to keep their place in the team...

You could say the same about the manager. That is, any manager who knows he can survive come what may (e.g. 15 game winless run) has no reason to fear for his position or need to up his game. His attitude towards the fans of a fan owned club suggests to me that he’s never been put under any real pressure from his employer to toe the line or sort it out.