capt_oats

I'm not sure there should be any great surprise in that. For better or worse, Kelly is currently our captain and if nothing else has been entirely present over the course of his contracts with the club (loan and permanent). I don't think there was ever a chance that we wouldn't speak to him/offer him a new deal and just bin him off. As it stands he has 149 appearances for us, which counts for something when you consider the context of him having arrived at the club in the Carson/Archer/Chapman season and the litany of injuries for Carson (which wasn't helped by Robinson rushing him back).

On the Kelly point I noticed this from McGarry in his weekly mailer: I know that it's a general opinion piece but it's interesting to read that it's likely Kelly's away. I mean, I think it's the right choice for him if he is as tbqh a fresh start somewhere would do him good but still...

Presumably it would need to involve Callum Butcher being very much launched first.

Both are Pitch Perfect alumnae (not Benji Siegrist of course).

Aye. This feels very on the nose. I see it's been *liked* and re-posted by Barmack as well. He's liked Dee's post about the ST video too. Although he's also 'liked' a Tweet by one of the many Motherwell Twitter accounts I have on mute and I've just cringed myself to death when I saw the content.

I've just realised that the script at the start is erm...echoing Friday Night Lights. And I for one am absolutely here for it. Clear eyes, full hearts... Texas forever.

Can I just say, last year's season ticket video got a fair amount of pushback (probably not helped by the hike in price) but I really like this season's. Well played everyone.

The interesting thing with McAlear was that it was implied that he'd told us he wouldn't be signing a new deal - so we went ahead and accepted whatever it was Norwich were offering. He was 17 when we accepted the deal. Related to Rice, I noticed this yesterday. In other news, Season Tickets.

Sligo finished 8th (in a 10 team league) last season so unless you're just wanting to visit I'd hold off.

Aye, from what I can tell when it comes to loaning out their good players (as opposed to the dross that fills the Academy system) the clubs take a holistic approach as to where they place them. Which is kind of my point. Qualifying for Europe isn't really going to level you up, it's not going to unlock 'access' to a *better* quality of player which a lot of fans assume to be the case because *Europe*. And again, that's not a dig - it's just that whether or not a club is playing a couple of European qualifiers in July/August isn't really going to factor into the thinking of that sort of club if they think that you're a good place to send their players to develop. Broadly speaking the "access" you'll have to players will be the same if you finish 6th and don't qualify for Europe as it would be if you finish 5th and get dropped into the qualifiers. If Liverpool like what you've done with Beck then they're going to be open to sending you similar players regardless of whether you're playing Sligo Rovers or whoever in mid-July or not. On the point about the success of your loans, Kettlewell has been exactly the same with us pointing to James Furlong, Brodie Spencer, Georgie Gent, Jack Vale and the most obvious of the lot Mika Biereth. It stands to reason if you have a track record of developing players (both your own and loans) rather than just parking them on the bench or freezing them out then your reputation will probably open doors for you.

I think this is probably one of the biggest misconceptions fans have about "qualifying for Europe" at this level. Which isn't a knock if you do end up qualifying but if you look at the various peer group clubs who have qualified for Europe in the time since Dundee last competed in European competition (us, St Johnstone, Killie, Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen, United etc) how many of them can you honestly say had access to any "high quality" loans as a direct result of qualifying for Europe that they wouldn't have had a decent chance of getting anyway. You've got your tie in with Burnley and you got Beck through the door when you were a newly promoted side. The prospect of playing a few qualifying rounds in the Conference league isn't really going to make much difference in a club like say, Liverpool, deciding on whether Dundee is a good destination for their player to develop.

Nah, you're right. https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2021/06/15/allan-campbell-signs-for-luton-town/

I mean, I don't know one way or another and it's pretty pointless re-litigating Hammell-ball, everyone is scarred enough by the experience the first time round, but I have a degree of sympathy to the extent that we're kind having to reappraise what a development 'pathway' actually looks like now. For years we were probably looking at integrating Academy players into the first team when they hit 18-ish whereas given how the landscape has changed with PL academies hoovering up talent we're having to find a way to get 16-17 year olds in and around the first team in a meaningful way. To all intents and purposes it was while he was in that bracket that we were bouncing Johnston around on loan (and of course there was Covid hitting). I mentioned it at the time but rather than find a way to involve Johnston in the first team alongside SOD and McGinn (as Kettlewell did successfully) he opted to just loan him out (again). Which, don't get me wrong, is his prerogative - but it also felt quite instructive. He was older by a margin but it was notable that Dean Cornelius' minutes dropped under Hammell compared to both Alexander and Kettlewell (he averaged 76.6 mins per game under Grezza, 64.1 mins pg under Ketts but dropped to only 41.8 mins pg under Hammell) It's entirely hypothetical but if Hammell was thinking that Johnston still needed regular football to develop and was risk averse to it being with us then that's kind of a luxury that unfortunately we don't seem to have now. I guess a parallel of sorts is Turnbull, who although he didn't go out on loan, Robinson purposely held back making him a first team regular because he felt he needed to learn the 'free stuff', same with Campbell who made his debut at 18 under McGhee. I can't remember who mentioned this whether it was McGhee, Robinson or Craigan but we apparently made a conscious decision to hold Campbell back after his first start where he ran the show against Accies rather than put pressure on him in a relegation scrap. Given how Robinson handled Turnbull, hypothetically, would we expect that we'd have seen Lennon Miller playing as much as he has if he were still the manager? I don't know but I kind of suspect not. Either way with Johnston you could say we fumbled things by not having a development pathway in place for him or you could also say that our being risk-averse cost us. In fact, both are probably true.

I think I've always had the suspicion that he didn't actually rate Johnston all that highly and just (wrongly) assumed that first team football with us would be the best offer he'd have on the table.

There's an element of "well, of course they'd say that" but at the last AGM (clearly not the one where Hammell told everyone he was confident Johnston would sign a new contract despite having bounced him out to Cove Rangers on loan because we ended up with SOD and McGinn on the books by mistake) they pretty much said that they made offers to keep him but it was made clear to them that Johnston wanted to try his luck abroad. Basically, the implication was "well, what can you do - if he doesn't want to sign the contract". I mean, everything up to the point where we actually started playing him with 6 months left on his deal and realising he was actually really good? Massive fumble.