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capt_oats

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Everything posted by capt_oats

  1. Aye. AFAIK you have to make the offer by a certain point prior to expiry of the current deal but other than that as long as the new offer is equal to/more than the current one the training club has a say. Anyway, looking at the squad as is with those contracted and who have been offered deals: GK: Carson, Morrison DF: Carroll, Grimshaw, Mugabi, Gallagher, Devine, Dunne, Hussain MF: Campbell, Turnbull, Polworth, Donnelly, Semple, Cornelius, Maguire FW: Watt, Seedorf, Hylton, MacIver, Long, Robinson Total: 22
  2. Difficult to say really. Robinson did an interview the other week that suggests yes but tbqh the idea of us giving Christy Manzinga and Christian Ilic another year is absolutely fucking terrifying. Maybe he was just being polite. I was thinking about it more being a DT23 scenario (although he was under contract) where we could possibly look at a sell on in lieu of a dev fee. Fwiw: I'm happy enough for him to stick around but if all it takes to "protect our interests" is to shove a piece of paper in his direction - whether he signs it or not - then it probably makes sense from our point of view.
  3. Tbh, I don't think there's any on the list that are much of a surprise to us. As popular as they are it's probably the right time for Hartley and Tait. There were questions about Hartley last summer as he hadn't kicked a ball the full 2nd half of the season - he was a permanent fixture on the bench and Tait's first team minutes had went off a cliff this season behind Grimshaw and Carroll in the full back positions. It's unfortunate as both seem like the sort of "characters" with the right sort of mentality for a Robinson side but lack the pace. The 4-4 Scottish Cup game against St Mirren where he was subbed off at H/T probably raised a question mark against Hartley again. I'd happily have seen the club keep Tait around as an option though. The rumour was Gillespie had a return to Newcastle lined up before the shutdown. Link There's no real surprise that he's away given Carson signed a new deal in January. Nice as it would have been we were unlikely to keep two of them at the club. We've supposedly got a deal for O'Hara agreed in principle - Barry Fry confirmed it as has Robinson (I think). Whether the current situation changes that IDK. There was mention in the local press down there that there was a nominal fee involved and that Peterborough would recoup what they paid, did Dundee get much for him? Ferguson's a weird one we signed him then loaned him back to Airdrie (ironically in a season when due to injuries we has to draft in a spare 'keeper to fill the spot on the bench), he was on the bench for half the 18/19 season and made one 22 min appearance after Gillespie picked up an injury. He's been on loan at Linfield this season so I don't think many will have seen him recently to say what sort of level he's at just now but he seems to have been a regular starter for them - they're sitting at the top of the league at the moment. His problem I suppose is that he had Carson ahead of him, then Gillespie - even if he signed up for another year he'd be going from a season as a regular first team player to being parked on the bench again behind Carson.
  4. I'm probably miles out here but though he's not played that much for us Maguire's been involved fairly regularly with the Scotland u21s recently. I take it we'd have to offer him something to protect any development comp we might be due - not to say we'd expect clubs to be knocking our door down but it'd be daft to enable a u21 international to just walk without us being part of a conversation I suppose. Nope. Gillespie, Tait, Hartley, Dunne, Livingstone and Maguire all have contracts that expire in June. The only ones whose deals were up in May are Ferguson, Manzinga and Illic.
  5. Long does only have a one year contract. It expires in June: https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/player/christopher-long/
  6. Some clarity on the Dunne one - it sounds a similar arrangement to Tanner.
  7. Happy anniversary everyone. To date, the assailant remains at large.
  8. It was a shiter that Aarons was really only getting to some sort of match fitness when the league was called. IIRC he'd barely kicked a ball in about a month and a half before he arrived. He's clearly a good player but he kind of felt like a short term fix IMO, a bit of a "take what we can get" signing with Scott moving late in the day. I don't think anyone would argue that he was a like for like signing and we saw the impact of that. Not that it's a criticism of Aarons but replacing 2 6ft odd units with 5ft 9 winger that's built like the side of a fiver would need some time to adjust. Given the way that whole thing worked out I'd have thought we'd maybe be looking at at least one 'forward' in the Cole/Scott mould. I mean Cole's only on a short term deal with Doncaster so is out of contract in a month. We could just look at getting the actual Cole back.
  9. In fairness it wouldn't be the first time Budge has been economical with the truth when being fluffed in a Sportsound interview. Tom English's incredulous "are you saying successful business woman Ann Budge doesn't know the difference between a loan and and advance?" shout springs to mind. It turns out either she didn't know the difference or she was deliberately obfuscating. Given the way this entire shambles as played out I'd be surprised if Budge hasn't been deliberately misleading in one way or another here. If Budge and Hearts could kindly f**k off that would be smashing.
  10. I think you're probably right but Watt's contract was up tomorrow (along with Ferguson, Manzinga & Ilic) so that may explain it being done/announced in advance. The others are June expiries which may give a bit of leeway. I think one of the more interesting aspects of the past couple of seasons under Robinson has been the number of goals from midfield - we've been that used to guys like Porter, Sutton, Higdon and Moult that having a centre forward that others play off rather than a 15+ a season guy still seems problematic. I'm pretty certain that in the time I've been going to Fir Park (since the late 80s) Turnbull's the first central midfielder we've had to hit double figures, this season it's been Donnelly (granted a number of them have been pens), even Campbell scored more last season than he had in the previous 3 seasons combined. Tbh, if Watt's sticking around then he's here as our first choice #9 - which is fine by me but I think it all but rules out Long extending given the way we've been talking about budgets. I could be wrong though. I think the wide areas are the most pressing concern. Also, at the start of the shutdown Robinson did that interview with Craigan for BT where he mentioned we'd been speaking to "another couple of players perhaps that we had last year that we're still looking at...players that we had on loan." I'm (obviously) curious if that's still a thing. Going back to the PLZ interview, it'll be interesting to see who the six or seven that Robinson sees filling the gaps in the squad: If Robinson's true to his word and we're binning the "gambles" then IMO, that's a good thing but you'd think it'd probably have a knock on effect in terms of our overall transfer strategy.
  11. So with #TONY signing this is (I think) how things stand in terms of who's currently contracted for next season. The rumoured pre-contracts/deals: Jordan White (ICT) Ricki Lamie (Livingston) Mark O'Hara (loan made permanent)
  12. It would appear that Mrs Budge's thoughts on relegation/legalling were very different when she thought the original resolution wasn't going to pass - because she had spoken to other clubs but not League 1 or 2 clubs because she doesn't slum it with them. I mean if that is what the community of football clubs agree...right?
  13. Definitely. I mean, you had Rohan Ferguson saying cheerio Tuesday last week, Robinson telling the press Manzinga wasn't getting his option taken up, now Tait's on the PFA list and Watt's giving heavy hints that he's sticking around (the club just 'liked' this tweet from him). As @welldaft said earlier - it's not that big a deal in itself but it's a weird look admin-wise.
  14. Going by the NareysToePoker Twitter account United, Killie, Rangers, County, Hibs and St Johnstone are the Premiership sides to have announced updates so far. Looking back to what Robinson was saying last week: If it really was the case that we were hedging our bets in terms of what was being offered until we had clarity I can understand the wait - although it's clear there were a number who were being let go anyway if we're holding off to announce stuff like pre-contracts and extensions it's probably a bit better than "X, Y & Z have been offered new contracts" only for them to sign up elsewhere. Fwiw: Ferguson, Watt, Manzinga and Ilic are the May contract expiries from the first team. Gillespie, Tait, Hartley, Dunne, Livingstone, Maguire and Long are June.
  15. I'm not sure that was actually the case. This is what Robinson said in his interview last week: By all accounts Robinson had yet to sit down and confirm the budget with the board this time last week. So it's understandable it's taken a bit longer than other years given the circumstances. Having said that given we're sat here on Thursday and we've yet to announce Burrows' "it'll be shortly..." Twitter reply to the guy on Sunday seems like it's definitely stretching "shortly".
  16. I'm kind of in the same place in terms of his versatility but I think Grimshaw and Carroll have the FB positions on lock now so there's also the possibility that Tait might want to be playing games rather than be a back-up on a reduced wage as you say. He signed his last extension at the end of the 2 Cup Finals season when he was a guaranteed starter. He made 20 appearances this season but only 12 league starts. That's compared with 45 appearances and 37 league starts in the 18/19 season and 45 appearances and 32 league starts in 17/18. If he is away then 142 games, it's fair to say he's more than done us a turn - he's the only player still at the club from those signed in the 16/17 season. I see Jack Brown from the Reserves/u20s is on that list as well.
  17. Throwing Copy Haho in here...a great bunch of lads.
  18. Annoyingly the Watt/Gallagher vs the **** spat has overshadowed the real Motherwell story of the day.
  19. I was wondering that myself. Robinson was saying in that interview last week that he'd spoken to players last Monday but he hadn't sat down with Burrows and the board yet to confirm the budgets which probably accounts for the delay in part. In previous, less weird seasons it's been 21st or 22nd May the updates have been published: 2017, 2018, 2019. Burrows replied to a guy on Sunday saying the update would be announced "shortly".
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