capt_oats

This is 100% where I am. There's been a lot of discussion recently about poor judgement, to me launching that video (well meaning as it may have been) at a point at which we have no permanent CEO and a chairman who had indicated he's stepping down felt ill-judged and that's regardless of what I thought of the content or the messaging. To me, sorting that stuff out first then approaching the subject of investment from a position of relative stability and allowing for some joined up thinking would have made far more sense than just launching that video in the way we did. Instead, as you say, we find ourselves in a circumstance with an urgency attached that isn't helpful in the slightest.

Something that crossed my mind kind of relates to @Busta Nut's point about the hierarchy at the club. It's maybe one for @JayMFC or Dee so if you'll indulge me, I get it's also maybe not something that you'd want shared on a public forum given we've already seen The Sun run an "exclusive" that has basically just aggregated some of the detail from posts on here, Steelmen and FPC: Anyway, I understand that Dickie and Feely are both on the board of the club and also the WS. Are they part of the discussions/negotiations re: investment on behalf of the WS and it's then fed back to the broader board or is it just being led by McMahon with details being shared on a need to know basis (I thought it interesting that Weir kind of put himself at arms length on Wednesday - he cut the figure of a man scunnered that he was still interim CEO because the board hadn't sorted their shit out but that's a different conversation)? Either way, the way it was presented was that the WS were being "kept in the loop" for lack of a better phrase which to speak to Busta's point a few pages back seems a bit backward. I realise I'm someone whose posts on here have shown that the more I've heard from McMahon over the past while the less convinced I am but the reason I'm curious is that having McMahon leading this kind of throws up a potential scenario where it's unclear whether the WS (as current majority owners) and any potential investor are on the same page or capable of working together before it goes to a vote. Dunno, that doesn't seem to be a particularly healthy starting point should something get voted through the section of the fanbase/membership being discussed above.

Just popping my head in to say Graeme McGarry’s post-AGM ‘Claret and Amber Alert’ mail shot via The Herald is excellent.

Maybe it was just the bits I could hear (honestly lads, get a fucking PA...even a small one) but it felt like the general conversation from board members leaned very heavily towards the US option. I don't know if that was a steer towards preference or if that one is just more advanced. I think it was Weir who said something along the lines of the guy having made his money in streaming and it was a platform that we all use. Assuming we're not on Daniel Ek's radar but tbqh it could be anyone from someone who's actually credible to someone who's an absolute shitehawk as @AnderooMFC suggests. There was also a comment that it "isn't Ryan Reynolds". I mean, until it's clarified who the bid is from and we get some sort of prospectus/pitch deck it's kind of difficult to rule anything in/out.

Aye, I was away to say that IIRC Kettlewell said that he didn't feel it was his place to discuss the specifics of the contract in terms of who it favoured but Weir chimed in to say something along the lines of they were/are "comfortable" with the deal. Take from that what you want. In fairness Kettlewell also put his hands up to the (good) question of <paraphrasing>"if we (correctly) didn't pursue Moult because of his injury record, how did we justify extending Obika whose injury record is equally as bad"</paraphrasing> and said that the Obika deal was on him and explained the logic and thinking behind it which was in line with what I think most of our understanding of his reasoning was ie: he did well playing in a specific role, St Mirren offered Mandron a better deal than we were willing to so we stuck with Obika and his burst hamstrings.

A point that has kind of got lost in all of this (especially the hand-wringing about plugging shortfalls etc) is that through the fan-ownership model the club has actually been profitable. Posted it before but these are our Profit/Losses since 16/17: 16/17: (£104,000) 17/18: £1,720,000 18/19: (£436,000) 19/20: £346,590 20/21: £3,575,615 21/22: (£1,082,000) 22/23: (£1,605,000) Net profit: £2,415,205 Yes, that profit is largely generated by a quirk in which we reached two cup finals and sold 1 (ONE) generational talent but there's a certain mentality from folk who are talking like us posting £1.6m losses has been a regular occurrence or that that's an amount the amount that needs to be bridged when it's simply not the case. Sure, that's the loss in the last financial year but that's easily explainable...we were cash rich with £4.2m in the bank so spent a chunk of it on capital investment projects. Presumably if we hadn't had £4.2m sat in the bank we wouldn't have been spending £1.2m on a pitch. We spent that money because we had it (and the work needed done). @thisGRAEME's post above really speaks to where it seems things have gone wrong post-Burrows and I'd ask the question as to how much the current board have actively sought investment or progressed any sort of strategy to grow the club? We absolutely need fresh investment but as I said it at the time when McMahon's video went live that was not the work of serious people. Having read @JayMFC's posts both here and on SO along with hearing both Sean and Derek last night it feels like there's a willingness to treat the WS with a degree of seriousness rather than have it stymied by a bowling club mentality.

Absolutely gone at that btw. Possibly the first contract extension that's announced by way of an apology.

Don't apologise. You wrote it up and there's far more detail than an idiot like me would post so I appreciate being able to crib your post. Welcome btw.

FWIW: there's been additional reporting on that SO post.

Lifting this from the Club AGM thread on SO:

I could be wrong but beyond Weir effectively saying he’s out of there in 5 weeks they didn’t actually mention it until someone asked. They’ve apparently interviewed and the WS have had input or spoken to folk but the whole “investment” thing has meant they find themselves between two stools in that anyone putting money in might have their own ideas.

100% this. Mention it here and absolutely no one bats an eyelid...

I was there. Some laugh. There were people taking notes so I imagine there will be a full report of what went down on other sites. McMahon seemed genuinely baffled as to why people thought Kettlewell's contract was up in the summer but he just wanted to clarify because he'd heard that there had been discussion on "social media". Weir confirmed later on that it was an automatic trigger and (I think) he said he didn't realise it hadn't been communicated until the other day. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Surely he's not eligible to play for them with the recall happening outside the window. Anyway, 23/24 has been a wild ride.

Curcic was one of the first ones I thought of as well. Shivute as well. and this guy...

Yeah, I mean I don’t expect to pitch up tomorrow and there be a big bag of money on the table but it’s been brought up at previous AGMs and IIRC McMahon conceded that it was something they’d let slip. Given it’s something that they’ve put on the agenda so it’s not unreasonable to ask how it’s developed. Bearing in mind McMahon felt he had to point out that the video wasn’t the only part of the project I’m curious to hear how they’ve got on with whatever else they were working on… Agree completely re: the CEO, ideally you’d be expecting it to be announced they have somehow set to go. If not then…fucking hell lads.

Looking forward is a stretch but I'm definitely interested to see what's going to be covered as I get the impression that with McMahon having stated his intention to step down and Weir being clear that he had no intention of being interim this long in the first place there's probably far less tolerance towards them for the sort of flannelling and kicking the can down the road that we've heard before. They bought themselves a bit of time with those updates in January but given the sort of timelines they've set themselves there really has to be some sort of concrete progress now (IMO).

It definitely wasn't clever. So... It's our AGM tomorrow so I'm looking forward to finding out how successful it's been (my expectations are not high).

In fairness, I'm pretty sure Spencer has started almost every game for Huddersfield since he was recalled and by all accounts he's legitimately doing well. Ultimately that's the difference - if we're picking up the players at that level who their clubs are investing in to make a step up rather than the makeweights then chances are we're getting someone in who can do us a decent turn. Genuinely laughed reading that because I felt daft at having not joined those (quite obvious) dots...Yes! I'm curious to see precisely what's on the agenda at the AGM on Wednesday with all this sort of stuff floating around in the background.

In fairness, I don't disagree that we've been panicked into bringing him back but in terms of timeline it depends on how long it took the English FA to process Barnsley's appeal. The English FA are generally quite strict with that sort of thing so I'd be surprised if Barnsley actually Jedi mind-tricked them into Shaw coming back. Bear in mind they basically told Blackburn to f**k off after there was an "administrative error" in their submission for Duncan McGuire's loan: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/feb/06/mcguire-transfer-collapsed-after-blackburn-pressed-wrong-button-on-website We announce Shaw was back on 8th February (2 days after that Blackburn appeal) so I guess there's a chance that we've legitimately agreed the deal prior to the close of deadline then sorted out the paperwork - similar to Butcher last season who was announced on 4th February - with the window having closed on 31st January. Anyway, vaguely related to our Oli Shaw mercy dash I just noticed this on a thread on FPC (it's been a while). It's possible it got lost in all the noise around chucking a 3-0 lead but it seems we had a late bid for Aidan Keena binned on deadline day. Either way it seems as if Shaw coming back was the most last resort thing going.

Thinking about this it reminded me of Kettlewell's comment on a podcast (maybe Open Goal?) back when he got the job along the lines of he felt that we were understaffed. It kind of makes me wonder if this is still an issue - I know we promoted Ricky Foster to replace Archibald's short stint in the LDC role and I know we've had Clarkson in the dug out most games but given his actual job is Head of Academy you wonder if we're either short or asking people to double up. Either way, we definitely feel lighter in the coaching department than we were when either Robinson or Alexander were at the club. In fact @Handsome_Devil's comment about the stat Alexander threw out about not conceding from set pieces feels especially relevant in that respect.

Not even a cult hero. Just a straight up hero for 'well fans of a certain vintage ie: many of the posters on our thread. 61 goals in 156 games. Part of of a team that finished league runners up and finished the top scorer in the league that season. Played at a World Cup while on our books. Some boi.

I found myself unreasonably annoyed at Kettlewell's post-match yesterday largely because it was such a callback to Hammell last season. It's good that SK is acknowledging that we're losing soft/bad/cheap goals and it's probably fair to say that players need to take individual responsibility. However, last season Kettlewell fixed the issue by adding a new player to the group (Hammell signed Butcher to play in midfield) and moving away from the back 4 to a back 3 - which worked very well. In this case we didn't sign another centre back (fair enough we have something like 6 anyway), we've not changed the shape and Kettlewell shows no appetite to swap out an underperforming goalkeeper. If we're not actually going to make any changes like that we're back to asking the same players, in the same shape to...just defend better? That brings us back round to a question about defensive coaching. You can get away with blaming individual mistakes every now and again but as you say, if we're losing the same types of goals on a regular basis then it's absolutely pointing to a deeper problem. Besides the unpleasantness this is sort of the problem I have with Paton as well along with the fact that I don't actually think he's particularly suited to the role that he's currently being asked to play but he's a fixture there anyway.

I clipped a GIF of it but it's so low res it's not really worth posting. The highlights of the game are here though and the wee man scores both.