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Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons


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55 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

If Murphy's body is up to it then I think we should take him. I'm not his biggest fan but considering our current wide options are guys from Solihull Moors, Wolves u20s and TSV Hartberg we'd be daft to reject someone with proven quality.

For me it depends on the actual deal.

Assuming we're interested, which all things considered I'd imagine we are: ex-player, someone who's (potentially) "better" than what we have, someone who plays in a position that we're lacking an experienced option and potentially available on a budget? He ticks a lot of boxes - he falls into the McFadden, McDonald, Pearson, McCormack sort of bracket of signing that we're fond of.

If we're not getting Gboly back then I suppose we have to look at other options and something short term might suit.

You've got Gerrard in the press the other day basically saying he's 4 to 6 months away from being considered for the Rangers team and implying that even before the injury his level wasn't good enough to get into the current Rangers side it doesn't exactly sell Murphy well in terms of where he is. Obviously it's a slightly lower bar for him to get into a Motherwell side whose wide options are a guy from non-league, a EPL academy player, a left back and our own long-term injury in Tanner.

That said it's 3 players who are going to have to adjust to this level of football and one who hasn't played a competitive game since the start of 2018 and with the best will in the world, will surely have a question mark over his recovery from injury.

If Rangers are willing to give us him for buttons (preferably for zero wage contribution) as we'd be doing them a favour in giving their player games to get fit then yeah I'm all for it. He's 29 and out of contract at the end of next season (he'll be 32) so it's not like we're developing an asset for them and if there's no real impact on our budget then if his knee falls to bits then we're not hugely invested/exposed.

If they're looking for us to subsidise a portion of his wage in any meaningful way then they can bolt.

Edited by capt_oats
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45 minutes ago, Swello said:

Is this Murphy chat some sort of ITK thing - or is it just a "we always sign ex-players" thing?

No idea, I thought the chat was largely off Gerrard announcing to the press that they're keen to get him out on loan.

For me it's heavy 2+2 = logic with Robinson having spoken about anyone else coming in needing to be a "starter" who's "better than we already have" and that we'd wait for them to become available (or words to that effect). It just sounds like the sort of thing we'd be open to particularly as we're currently hinging our whole gameplan on wide options who have little experience at this level.

For me I'd still say that we need an obvious goalscorer, #9 and that feels like it should be the priority but given the context of the Murphy chat from Gerrard and the "please take him off our hands" vibe if it's a cheap option...

giphy.gif

Edited by capt_oats
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Murphy is a complete no go in my eyes, a guy who's not kicked a ball, for what a year ? Gerrard reckons it's another 4-6 months before he is playing again, and that's before we even know if he's anywhere near the level he can be? 

I don't even think its something we should be considering.

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39 minutes ago, Neil86 said:

Murphy is a complete no go in my eyes, a guy who's not kicked a ball, for what a year ? Gerrard reckons it's another 4-6 months before he is playing again, and that's before we even know if he's anywhere near the level he can be? 

I don't even think its something we should be considering.

Agreed. Let's wait until January before we even consider entertaining this. If he's already at a club by then then it ain't a disaster anyway. 

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1 hour ago, Neil86 said:

Murphy is a complete no go in my eyes, a guy who's not kicked a ball, for what a year ? Gerrard reckons it's another 4-6 months before he is playing again, and that's before we even know if he's anywhere near the level he can be? 

I don't even think its something we should be considering.

He came on for a while in one of our pre-season matches and looked pretty rusty, as you'd expect.  He won't get a competitive game for us this season, either.

But if we're paying his wages (no club will put in a bid for him) wouldn't he be a decent bench option to come on with 15/20 minutes to go in some games?

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19 minutes ago, The_Kincardine said:

He came on for a while in one of our pre-season matches and looked pretty rusty, as you'd expect.  He won't get a competitive game for us this season, either.

But if we're paying his wages (no club will put in a bid for him) wouldn't he be a decent bench option to come on with 15/20 minutes to go in some games?

NO

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I thought we were very good for 25 minutes on Saturday, other than that I thought we were pretty pish and really struggled to compete. It could have been a lot more in the end.

I actually thought a lot of the players looked tired and therefore failed to keep up the pressing tactic for as long as we had wanted. I think a few of the new guys really struggled to handle the frantic pace of the game.

Biggest disappointment from the first two games for me has been the wingers. I don't think anyone has really stood out after all the hype about them. Robinson saying they aren't completely sharp is pretty meh as well to be honest. They really should be march sharp at this stage.  We will see how they do on Friday but none of them look like they are anywhere near the calibre of Gboly. Generally I think all of them are lacking the physical attributes required to play in the SPFL but hopefully they will adjust quickly.

I like Charles Dunne but the whole passing from the back thing is giving me the fear. This is working for Gallagher but every time the ball goes to Dunne it really is a problem. I predict this will be a common theme this season, opposition teams are going to let Dunne have the ball because they know it is going to go nowhere. I'm not suggesting anything happens to Dunne just think we should be looking for some sort of tactical solution to this.

Up front I thought Long held the ball up well at times but was blowing out his arse after about 20 minutes. We need a QUALITY striker

On a more general point, Robinson was banging on about how good some of our play was. Honestly, I thought some of our passing on Saturday was pretty bad at times. Polworth and Gallagher had some nice play but we really need to pass the ball better as a team if we are going to play the sort of style we all want.

Friday is a big one, Hearts are absolutely hopeless just now. They have some great players but are struggling big time under Levein.

Really hopeful we can get a result otherwise it is going to be a real downer of a start to the season. We have Accies away, Hibs then Tynecastle so it's not going to be an easy next few weeks.

Edited by Luke92
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Interesting tweet here from Narey’s Toepoker. Seems like we were willing to offer Gboly £3k a week to sign permanently but he’s on more than double that at Forest.

The article is from The Athletic so cant read the full thing without a subscription but I’m amazed we were willing to offer anyone £3k a week. I always thought our highest earners would be on 1.5k-£2k a week.
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22 minutes ago, dezz said:

Interesting tweet here from Narey’s Toepoker. Seems like we were willing to offer Gboly £3k a week to sign permanently but he’s on more than double that at Forest.

The article is from The Athletic so cant read the full thing without a subscription but I’m amazed we were willing to offer anyone £3k a week. I always thought our highest earners would be on 1.5k-£2k a week.

£3k p/w?

giphy.gif

Fwiw: there was a Tweet from Burrows to someone mewling re: Cadden suggesting he was offered a (relatively) "lucrative" contract.

Quote

We offered him several contracts, the last of which the manager has said publicly was one of the most lucrative we’ve put in front of a player in quite some time. We tried hard to get him to stay. Sometimes, regardless of what a club does, players just want to try something new.

We also apparently put more cash on the table for Gallagher than others and I seem to remember it was mentioned we were interested in putting a decent offer in for O'Halloran when he was "available".

I'd always imagined our high end would be somewhere between £2k-£2.5k p/w (eg: someone like McDonald when he was with us) given the sort of "average" wage that's generally reported.

£3k p/w seems like the sort of thing that should probably be taken with a crate load of salt but as a general point of conversation it's interesting to read that we'd be willing to go the "extra mile" for a player we were particularly keen on.

Edited by capt_oats
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I assume Gboly is sitting twiddling his thumbs as he's nowhere near the Forest team - seems like a total waste of a decent player. If we offered him £3k* the club couldn't have done any more I guess...

 

*probably the same day we accepted the offer on Turnbull :)

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2 minutes ago, Swello said:

I assume Gboly is sitting twiddling his thumbs as he's nowhere near the Forest team - seems like a total waste of a decent player. If we offered him £3k* the club couldn't have done any more I guess...

*probably the same day we accepted the offer on Turnbull :)

To the surprise of absolutely no one Oxford (his home town-ish) were reported as having had an interest in him a couple of weeks back. 

https://the72.co.uk/140448/nottingham-forest-attacker-subject-to-interest-from-rotherham-united-and-oxford-united/ 

Quote

Born in Arlington, Virginia in the United States to a Nigerian parent, Ariyibi moved to England when he was two months old and resided in London before spending a short period of time living in Nigeria. Ariyibi later moved back to England and settled in Oxford. Ariyibi considers Oxford as his home town

 

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34 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Fwiw: there was a Tweet from Burrows to someone mewling re: Cadden suggesting he was offered a (relatively) "lucrative" contract.

Relatively being the word...reliably informed he's picking up £10k pw from Columbus / Oxford.  

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Just now, Pettigrew said:

Relatively being the word...reliably informed he's picking up £10k pw from Columbus / Oxford.  

Aye, I mean you can find Columbus' salaries published as a matter of record and that sort of figure wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

Their highest earner is on $1,010,004.00 basic.

 

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1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

Aye, I mean you can find Columbus' salaries published as a matter of record and that sort of figure wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

Their highest earner is on $1,010,004.00 basic.

 

Knew they were available but had never really had a look before - fair play to Johnny Russell!

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