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Apart from anything else - with Tanner out for the season, we are going to need Cifcti more than before.

I've said before, I wasn't keen for us to sign him and had pretty low expectations - but I've been pretty much won over as his attitude has been good and he has contributed pretty well (although not been great every week obviously).

On his fitness, I do get the argument that a player should be basically (very) physically fit regardless of how many games they are playing (match sharpness is another thing obv) - and unfortunately for Nadir, he's dropped into the fittest Motherwell team there has ever been and so it definitely exaggerates his deficiency there. If he'd dropped into a late McCall team and been playing along side Vigurs and co (or later with Lee Lucas and Craig Clay), no-one would have noticed.

The way I see it is that Cifcti is a player we could not afford in normal circumstances (my info is that we are paying nothing like 2k/week BTW) and we have a chance to get him off the scrap heap and get him for next season - but it requires good handling from the club and patience from the supporters.  Basically, the gamble that we can get him fit and firing on all cylinders next year is one worth taking.

We have a real dearth of creative players at the club and for that reason alone, I think we need to make some allowances and not make him the next in the endless line of players who suffer the 'Well supports' need to have at least one player to moan about.

 

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1 hour ago, Al B said:

It boggles my brain that there are people that can't see what Ciftci has brought to the side. I'll be the first to admit that I would pick and choose when to play him, but that's more from the perspective of having options up front depending on the fixture.

The amount of goals we've scored that have gone through Ciftci is very impressive, but because the "assist" is only credited to the pass to the goalscorer then it goes un-noticed. He's not scored the goals I thought he would, but then he's been a very different player and character to what I expected also.

I've been delighted with him and would love him to stay and settle.

100% agree with this (and the subsequent posts from @Casagolda and @Swello).

I mean, I get that he's a marmite player so to speak. That was true when he was at United and still holds now. If you're the type of person who values "work rate". "effort" and "putting in a shift" then big Nadz is never going to be your guy. So much so it seems pretty futile even getting annoyed about it. Add in the fact that Celtic are his parent club then it makes it easier for certain sections of our support to be down on him, if that's the sort of thing that's important to them.

Through December we hadn't won in 7 games, we'd lost Moult, you had 'Robinson Out' threads on the go over on Steelmen and we were relying on Bowman, Fisher, Petravicius and Tanner to get us goals. As a team we scored 5 goals in 7 games.

We've recruited Ciftci and Main (along with Aldred) and whilst we've not been #flawless we've only lost 3 of our last 12 games and have scored 14 goals in that time. It seems weird to me that people can't see what he has added to the team either directly or indirectly. Then again, it feels like there's a lot of confirmation bias at play tbh.

It's understandable that someone would be underwhelmed if the expectation was for this version of Ciftci to pitch up but as Robinson said himself, if he was still playing at the level that got him his move to Celtic then there would be no chance of us getting him at Fir Park.

Swello was saying the other day in the general thread that he was surprised re: Carson in so much as we didn't have to do a "repair job" on him, he's been good from Day 1. Ciftci is the complete opposite, he's clearly a "repair job". We're not a side who can afford to buy in "creative" talent readily but the risk/reward with Ciftci is worth the punt. The fact that we've been doing alright even without him firing on all cylinders suggests that he's capable of contributing in a general sense.

When you strip it down we're probably the first club he's been at who have been willing to offer him regular first team football without expectations since he left United 3 years ago. Even looking at Plymouth's forum from earlier in the season when they were losing games left, right and centre Ciftci was given about half a dozen games (if that) before he'd been written off (it seems Moult's having the same experience at PNE fwiw).

That's a lot of confidence, fitness and match sharpness for him to rebuild. So far from what I've read in the press all the noises that have come from both the player and the manager suggest that everyone's on the same page about what we're offering him and his value to the club.

Realistic or not it'll come as no surprise to anyone to hear that I'm firmly in the "would bloody love him to stay" camp and right now, as I posted in another thread a while ago, I honestly can't see any side offering Celtic money for him.

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If Ciftci can do a job at Motherwell then that's great news as I do wish him well but he's not Celtic level and never really was IMHO.  I hope that you guys take him permanently in the summer so that we can get him off our books, you guys get a striker you like and he can get regular game time going forward but with his contract (8k per week until 2019) it would most likely have to either be a loan deal again next year or he moves permanently out of Scotland.  I can't see him wanting to have his salary slashed by 75% (or more) to leave Celtic early and I can't see Motherwell wanting to pay him anywhere close to his current wages.

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45 minutes ago, senorsoupe said:

I can't see him wanting to have his salary slashed by 75% (or more) to leave Celtic early and I can't see Motherwell wanting to pay him anywhere close to his current wages.

He is in the position now that he is going to have to take a step backwards to go forward in future as at this point, no-one will pay him anywhere near what he is on at the moment. He is young enough to get back to the same level of pay obviously but he'll need to get back to his previous level of form to do that. I'd imagine that will be our pitch to him in the Summer....

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1 hour ago, senorsoupe said:

If Ciftci can do a job at Motherwell then that's great news as I do wish him well but he's not Celtic level and never really was IMHO.  I hope that you guys take him permanently in the summer so that we can get him off our books, you guys get a striker you like and he can get regular game time going forward but with his contract (8k per week until 2019) it would most likely have to either be a loan deal again next year or he moves permanently out of Scotland.  I can't see him wanting to have his salary slashed by 75% (or more) to leave Celtic early and I can't see Motherwell wanting to pay him anywhere close to his current wages.

It's really up to him (and Celtic) tbh. There's no chance we can afford anything more than a fraction of what he's on at Celtic however I'm not sure that the sort of clubs who could offer more than us would be interested anyway. For all the positivity about him from me and some other 'well fans on here 1 goal in 11 games isn't the sort of return that's going to have managers falling over themselves with chequebooks open. As others have said on here though, he's integrated into our set up surprisingly well.

I've linked to this interview before but it depends how true he is to his word. It's easy to say that money doesn't really matter until you actually have to make that sort of decision. Who knows, maybe the fact he's only got a year left on his deal at Parkhead will mean that it'll be easier for him to come to a mutual agreement.

Quote

"I've been thinking seriously about stopping playing football lately. I've had that before in 2012, after a bad period in Turkey. The money that I would lose, does not interest me at all. That does not affect me. I really prefer to be happy in a flat, than unhappy in a villa. How often do you see that rich people have a hole in their lives?"

Either way another loan deal doesn't really help Celtic as he'd just walk for nothing at the end of his contract and I really can't see anyone offering Celtic cash for him. I'd say that their best option would be to release him on a free and get a sell on included in any deal so that if he does actually come good and move on then they can at least recoup some of their spend.

I've not actually read the interview below as it's paywalled but based on the pull quote it seems that he has a lot of time for Robinson and the club (the headline is "Nadir Ciftci: I've rediscovered my love for football at Motherwell").

As Swello mentioned at the top of the page by and large his attitude has seemed to be good since he's been at Fir Park and by all accounts it seems a good fit for everyone concerned. I'll not lie, given we've been able to source guys like Main, Kipré, Tanner, Hartley, Aldred, Carson and even Charlie Dunne then I'd be interested to see who we might be able to bring in through the close season to complement Ciftci if we were able to retain him.

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2 minutes ago, Tamdunk said:

What kind of reception will Jamie Murphy get?

Pretty poor, would be my guess.

Can't say I'm massively arsed, really. I loved Murphy for us, he was a massive part of one of my favourite Motherwell teams. He doesn't play for us any more, and hasn't for a while, so I'm not going to get all raging about it.

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I don't see any reason why Motherwell fans would boo Jamie Murphy anymore than any other Rangers player (they will - there's a fair chunk of Motherwell fans who are morons).

I'm not one for booing a former player.  I mean, what is the point?  He left Motherwell, what, six years ago?  It's not like if he went directly from Motherwell to Rangers, and even if he did, I'm not sure you could get raging about a player a) moving to the team he supported as a boy and b) moving a team where his wages will be increased substantially.

I hope Murphy plays absolutely shite on Saturday, but I hope every Rangers player plays shite.

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5 minutes ago, Desp said:

I hope Murphy plays absolutely shite on Saturday, but I hope every Rangers player plays shite.

This is both my reaction, and what I consider to be a reasonable reaction. 

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I won’t boo Murphy unless he scores and does a kiss the badge routine along the East Stand.

However I also won’t applaud him either since he’s signed for Rangers and has went all WATP/GSTQ on social media.

I do hope that if(when) Rangers get a penalty that he takes it as he is the worst penalty talent I have ever seen at Fir Park.

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2 minutes ago, wellboy1991 said:

I won’t boo Murphy unless he scores and does a kiss the badge routine along the East Stand.

I'd also say this is an almost certainty to happen, as he'll get stick for an hour, score, run along the East Stand kissing the badge, which will then further outrage people who have been calling him a c**t throughout.

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14 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

I'd also say this is an almost certainty to happen, as he'll get stick for an hour, score, run along the East Stand kissing the badge, which will then further outrage people who have been calling him a c**t throughout.

This would be hilarious, especially if we came back and won

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27 minutes ago, wellboy1991 said:


I do hope that if(when) Rangers get a penalty that he takes it as he is the worst penalty talent I have ever seen at Fir Park.

The only footballer to ever block me on Twitter.  I powered him after he missed a penalty against Aberdeen in a game at Fir Park (it was a shocking penalty) and the wee p***k blocked me.  Harsh, IMO.

23 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

I'd also say this is an almost certainty to happen, as he'll get stick for an hour, score, run along the East Stand kissing the badge, which will then further outrage people who have been calling him a c**t throughout.

The type of folk who'll go moaning to police/stewards about a player giving some back, despite spending the whole game giving it out to said player.  The absolute worst type of football supporter.

The one that sticks with me is Kallum Higginbotham.  He'd been getting stick from the East Stand (I mean, FFS?  He played about half a dozen games for us, on loan, and was the definition of bang average) and he then scored to put Thistle 3-2 up.  Cue about 20% of the East Stand go absolutely apoplectic with rage as Higginbotham runs along the East Stand.  I've got to say, I gave him some respect after that as it was funny as f**k.   I'm sure there was a beauty of a picture of said raging folk. 

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The Law of Ex-Motherwell Players more or less guarantees O'Murphy will score against us.

Unless of course he gets horrifically (and entirely accidentally) injured by one of our top-hatted and be-monocled gentlemen in claret and amber.

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