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Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons


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On 05/01/2019 at 15:23, Swello said:
Delighted (and still genuinely surprised) to get McCormack signed up- it's the type of imaginative signing we've all been crying out for regardless of our league position - the possibility of actually being entertained makes this worthwhile. Moving Bowman out for actual money and getting McCormack in for less that Sammon in wages seems like a mental piece of business TBH.
Happy to have this chucked back at me in May - but I think being at a more modest club - and one he knows  - will suit McCormack at this point in time, and I think he'll do well.

It’s obviously not exactly the same but (for me) this has echoes of Cooper signing for McLean.

 

Edited by capt_oats
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3 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

 


It’s obviously not exactly the same but (for me) this has echoes of Cooper signing for McLean.

 

There are certainly parallels as Coop *fucking loved* going from (by that point) an unloved bit-part player at Rangers to being unquestionably the main man at a smaller club. The thing that signing Cooper did  - as much as we got a class act of a player out of it - was that it very obviously raised the game of the other players at the club at that time - and this signing has potential to do that in the way that signing (no disrespec') Danny Johnson or Connor Sammon would never do. 

Even moving away from Cooper who was the extreme example - the return of Scott McDonald under Barraclough had the halo effect too - the other players got a shot in the arm when they saw a class player being signed as opposed to a jobber from the English lower leagues.

Lots can go wrong here - but our track record in handling returning players has been pretty good  - and we do this more than most....

 

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One of the more interesting McCormack stats for me is that given the criticisms of his fitness he only missed one game for Melbourne City and the 6 games he missed for Central Coast Mariners should probably have an emphasis of air quote around his "injury" given that he seemed to be fully ghosting them.

Top one is his Melbourne City record (for whatever reason his deal there was only until January '18) and the bottom one is for his Central Coast Mariners games (of his 5 games he played the 90 mins in 4 of them):

5c30ee7511c14_ScreenShot2019-01-05at17_26_42.png.5452b7898a9d44d6e819b96c97463b53.png5c30ee742f5a7_ScreenShot2019-01-05at17_27_10.png.1be8dfe9aab759d933ba8c41d20df585.png

Edited by capt_oats
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3 hours ago, Swello said:

There are certainly parallels as Coop *fucking loved* going from (by that point) an unloved bit-part player at Rangers to being unquestionably the main man at a smaller club. The thing that signing Cooper did  - as much as we got a class act of a player out of it - was that it very obviously raised the game of the other players at the club at that time - and this signing has potential to do that in the way that signing (no disrespec') Danny Johnson or Connor Sammon would never do. 

Even moving away from Cooper who was the extreme example - the return of Scott McDonald under Barraclough had the halo effect too - the other players got a shot in the arm when they saw a class player being signed as opposed to a jobber from the English lower leagues.

Lots can go wrong here - but our track record in handling returning players has been pretty good  - and we do this more than most....

 

Think we signed big Nick Cusack along with Cooper 

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6 hours ago, Swello said:

There are certainly parallels as Coop *fucking loved* going from (by that point) an unloved bit-part player at Rangers to being unquestionably the main man at a smaller club. The thing that signing Cooper did  - as much as we got a class act of a player out of it - was that it very obviously raised the game of the other players at the club at that time - and this signing has potential to do that in the way that signing (no disrespec') Danny Johnson or Connor Sammon would never do. 

Even moving away from Cooper who was the extreme example - the return of Scott McDonald under Barraclough had the halo effect too - the other players got a shot in the arm when they saw a class player being signed as opposed to a jobber from the English lower leagues.

Aye, that's almost exactly what I was getting at. My memory of the pre-Cooper side is pretty vague as I was a wee guy at the time and the fitba' was just 22 guys on a park knocking a ball about rather than anything more nuanced but my memory is the signing was quite literally a game changer in terms of levels. Your point about it being an imaginative signing nails it too, while I agree with the point about McDonald being added to the Baraclough squad, as key as it was, I don't think anyone was necessarily surprised he signed.

Whereas us bringing McCormack in has made people take notice. The announcement video already has 143k views on The Twitter already.

Had a root around some old programmes and found one from 88 against Accies and the team listing is:
1. Duncan, 2. Wishart, 3. Philliben, 4. Paterson, 5. McAdam, 6. Boyd, 7. Farningham, 8. Russell, 9. Cowan, 10. O'Neill, 11. Kinnaird, 12. Mair, 14. Gahagan.

I'm maybe just projecting but the parallels between then and and where we are now seem notable (we finished 9th of 10 that season).

3 hours ago, wellinwigan said:

Think we signed big Nick Cusack along with Cooper 

Yep.

Always a treat to delve into this YouTube channel...

Edit: :lol: wee Tam making a point about being branded a "negative" team, qualifying it by saying we go out to make things "difficult" for the opposition. 

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Edited by capt_oats
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45 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

The announcement video already has 143k views on The Twitter already

The media team - god bless 'em -  after a season of having to do "the story of..." after grim defeats and tweeting "we go again" are all over the McCormack signing with the enthusiasm of british holidaymakers at an all-inclusive buffet.

giphy.gif

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2 hours ago, supermarv said:

£50,000 transfer fee when was the last time we paid that 

Louis Moult, Elliott Frear, Ryan Bowman & Marvin Johnson were all around that figure. 

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