Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Swello]

And so it begins. We will definitely have some "outs" before the window closes down south, it's just a matter of how many and how much we rake in - I'll be sad to see Kipre go if it happens - one of the most fun defenders to watch in a good few years.

[capt_oats]

Barry Maguire signs a one year deal. http://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2018/06/26/barry-maguire-signs-new-deal/

Robinson interview:

He's saying there's one more player he'd like to add that would make him "quite happy with the recruitment process over the summer".

Spoiler

 

Edited June 26, 2018 by capt_oats

[WellView]

Kipre at a million would be excellent business. Even more so with a decent sell-on clause.   

The reported 40% sell-on fee for Carson has put the club in a delicate position.  What's a decent keeper worth to us per season? A quarter million in cup games and league position? It could well be that just for the feel-good factor as watching recent Motherwell keepers would put you off going to Fir Park. 

Burrows must be fuming he agreed to 40%.  We're very unlikely to get true value to the club for Carson, and we'll need to balance the potential income loss against irritating agents and players. The whole idea is to give players a shop window. To deny them moves which could treble their wages won't sit well. Especially players on the wrong side of thirty.   

[Onthefringes]

Reported?

[Swello]

The Sun has the million figure - but that may putting 2+2 together because we "turned down a six figure offer" from Hull. 

Also - interesting that Aldred was mentioned in one of these pieces as being of interest as I thought that wasn't something that either party were keen on...

Edited June 27, 2018 by Swello

[Desp]

6 hours ago, WellView said:

Burrows must be fuming he agreed to 40%.  We're very unlikely to get true value to the club for Carson, and we'll need to balance the potential income loss against irritating agents and players. The whole idea is to give players a shop window. To deny them moves which could treble their wages won't sit well. Especially players on the wrong side of thirty.   

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.  I don't think the board, or any of the fans for that matter, would have anticipated a goalkeeper approaching 30, having spent the vast majority of his career in the bottom two tiers in England, being one of our main 'sellable assets' a year down the line.

I also have absolutely no doubt we'll not stand in his way if an acceptable offer comes our way.  Celtic's offer in January wasn't acceptable to us, it's as simple as that.

If we were to lose Carson, I think it would be acceptable for us to walk away with a quarter of a million profit, after we've paid Hartlepool what they are due (whatever that may be).  For an outlay of £10k, it would be brilliant business, and a fantastic use of the model.  Albeit, I'd be gutted about losing a top 'keeper.

For Kipré, it's about getting a decent up front fee and a sizeable sell-on.  The sell-on is where we'll make our money, due to the English  markets (see Johnson for Exhibit A.  Wasn't his sell-on just about the same as the original fee we received?)  I'd take £750k with 20% sell-on for Cedric.  If the big man can spend a couple of years at English Championship level ironing out a few of his flaws, and fulfil the potential we all know he's got, he could move on for huge money (again, taking into account the silly transfer fees down there).

Edited June 27, 2018 by Desp

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, Desp said:

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.  I don't think the board, or any of the fans for that matter, would have anticipated a goalkeeper approaching 30, having spent the vast majority of his career in the bottom two tiers in England, being one of our main 'sellable assets' a year down the line.

I also have absolutely no doubt we'll stand in his way if an acceptable offer comes our way.  Celtic's offer in January wasn't acceptable to us, it's as simple as that.

If we were to lose Carson, I think it would be acceptable for us to walk away with a quarter of a million profit, after we've paid Hartlepool what they are due (whatever that may be).  For an outlay of £10k, it would be brilliant business, and a fantastic use of the model.  Albeit, I'd be gutted about losing a top 'keeper.

For Kipré, it's about getting a decent up front fee and a sizeable sell-on.  The sell-on is where we'll make our money, due to the English  markets (see Johnson for Exhibit A.  Wasn't his sell-on just about the same as the original fee we received?)  I'd take £750k with 20% sell-on for Cedric.  If the big man can spend a couple of years at English Championship level ironing out a few of his flaws, and fulfil the potential we all know he's got, he could move on for huge money (again, taking into account the silly transfer fees down there).

Pretty much. I seem to recall the chat from sections of the support around the time we signed Carson was "He got relegated to non-league with Hartlepool. He's clearly pish."

Swings and roundabouts really. Carson had 2 or 3 years left on his deal with Hartlepool, by rights he should probably have cost us 6 figures. The sell on % enabled us to get the deal done for a minimal up-front fee. From that we got 2 cup finals, mid-table safety and a player who equalled a club clean sheet record. If/when he moves Hartlepool get a fee that's relative to his value and we profit from it too. It's a pain in the arse that we won't get the full fee but we wouldn't have got the player otherwise so it seems kind of pointless to get worked into a shoot about it.

As for Kipré I'd say it's as much about him finding a club where he's going to play and improve as anything. As Desp says the real money is in sell-on fees (see our benefitting from Johnson's move to Boro, United getting money from Robertson's move and to take it to an extreme level Celtic getting hilariously rich from Van Dijk's transfer). It needs to be a club where he'll play, develop and crucially a club who'll want to maximise their potential income.

Thinking back it took 6 months solid of McGhee hyping Marvin Johnson and he ended up at a mid-table League 1 side. The last few deals for our sellable assets have been to Championship sides: Heneghan to Sheffield United and Moult to PNE. I'm not sure that 2 sales necessarily means anything but another Championship side showing interest in Kipré  (acknowledging that Hull have previous for chancing it with McKenna) plus the suggestion Cardiff had Carson on their list makes it feel like we've improved our standing in the marketplace a bit.

All in all, while ideally I'd like to see our best players stay, I'm pretty comfortable with our general approach these days. We've got prices that are money enough to benefit us but not prohibitive enough to make the sort of sides we'd want to be selling to baulk. If a team won't match our price then they don't get the player, if they do then we won't stand in their way. 

Cool.

Edited June 27, 2018 by capt_oats

[Pettigrew]

9 hours ago, WellView said:

Kipre at a million would be excellent business. Even more so with a decent sell-on clause.   

The reported 40% sell-on fee for Carson has put the club in a delicate position.  What's a decent keeper worth to us per season? A quarter million in cup games and league position? It could well be that just for the feel-good factor as watching recent Motherwell keepers would put you off going to Fir Park. 

Burrows must be fuming he agreed to 40%.  We're very unlikely to get true value to the club for Carson, and we'll need to balance the potential income loss against irritating agents and players. The whole idea is to give players a shop window. To deny them moves which could treble their wages won't sit well. Especially players on the wrong side of thirty.   

Once you factor in the money that goes to Les H/John B on transfer fees on top of that 40% (if true) it becomes an even more challenging decision making process for the club.

[Swello]

I see the point but view it differently. The debt needs to be paid down relatively quickly before we are on a fixed payment schedule to Les and even a net return of a couple of hundred grand would help make a dent in that. We also can't realistically hold on to someone who is being offered a huge wage increase in his 30's. As capt_oats alludes to above - I'd rather have had Trevor for a season and see the club's debt going down rather than us missing out on him because we wouldn't agree a sell-on. 

We also have the option to insist on a sell-on of our own of course...

[thisGRAEME]

Getting a 25% sell on or anything approaching that will be some laugh when Cedric goes for 15 million in a year.

Bookmark it, it'll happen.

[Desp]

Don't forget we've got our 40% sell on for Dom Thomas to cash in as well!

[Swello]

6 minutes ago, Desp said:

Don't forget we've got our 40% sell on for Dom Thomas to cash in as well!

That was free money, Killie were mugs

[Al B]

Earmarked for a new stadium apparently, and making a start on a training complex depending on how much is left over.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Somebody in this league is going to make an absolute fortune in sell on fees very very soon. When clubs are chucking about £20m odd for Championship players, it'll be interesting to see which lucky b*****ds up here are eventually going to end up getting 25-30% of that. 

 

Edited June 27, 2018 by YassinMoutaouakil

[WellView]

I think our club would accept a couple of scratchcards from Killie just now in exchange for the potential Dom Thomas sell-on fee. 

Anyway, I'm not being harsh on Burrows.  I'm saying that he'll be furious with himself for agreeing to a 40% sell-on. I agree with others that paying down the debt is the priority, and £250,000 as mentioned would be very handy. It would be a nightmare scenario for us to be relegated carrying any debt, never mind the current seven-figure debt.  

Potential relegation hasn't seemed to enter anyone's mind this close season.  With our current squad and manager, none of us believes we are prime candidates.   Livingston and St Mirren seem to have been very careless in losing their respective managers.  St Mirren have been double-dunted by losing Lewis Morgan too. You'd imagine at least one would be in the relegation mix.   Hamilton seem to be doing a complete rebuild.   Hibs also seem to have lost important players, and if McGinn goes, there may be trouble ahead. Anf I can't see Killie keeping up their form from last season, so - my prediction for league placings next year - 

Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen, Hearts, Motherwell, Hibs,  St Johnstone, Kilmarnock, Dundee, St Mirren, Hamilton, Livingston

[Mr. Brightside]

Might just be me, but I’d also prefer we let go of players when we receive a reasonable bid and they want to leave. It’s a good reputation to have for a club like ourselves, I believe in FM terms there would be a clause in the contract of the player which says “will allow the player to use the club as a stepping stone” that is good for us as it means we can attract better players with the knowledge that they’ll get decent exposure playing for a decent club that is willing to let players go when the time is right. We do this until we’ve repaid our debts, then we can make a push for the league.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

26 minutes ago, Desp said:

Don't forget we've got our 40% sell on for Dom Thomas to cash in as well!

It was probably just some lunatic on here/Steelmen but was there not talk of us trying to get Jordan Jones +cash for Thomas at first?  Deal of the fucking century that'd have been 

[well fan for life]

1 minute ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

It was probably just some lunatic on here/Steelmen but was there not talk of us trying to get Jordan Jones +cash for Thomas at first?  Deal of the fucking century that'd have been 

Fairly certain it was Steelmen Online because I vividly remember laughing like a drain after I read that. 

[ONeils40yarder]

I hear we are using the Kipre money to buy Ryan Gauld rather than just loan him 

[rambunctious]

It was probably just some lunatic on here/Steelmen but was there not talk of us trying to get Jordan Jones +cash for Thomas at first?  Deal of the fucking century that'd have been 

I’m sure someone else was shouting we should loan Campbell to Newcastle who would then promptly bid £5mil to keep him permanently! [emoji28]