Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

2 hours ago, dezz said:

It feels strange to be sitting 4th in the league going into December, 3 points off 3rd and 11 clear of 7th following a 4-0 win, and still not be entirely convinced that we’re actually that good.

As with most teams, our ambitions for the season will probably become clearer come the end of the month with 6 games in the next 4 weeks. I’m quietly positive we can have a good month though - a return of 12-13 points would be decent and set us up for a European push I hope.

It feels not unlike the last full McCall season. We are going out and beating the teams we should be beating even if we aren't playing brilliantly. 19 points out of 24 against the bottom 6. If we keep putting away the bad teams we will be right up with Aberdeen near the end again.

Jake Carroll has been sent off in both games where we should be expecting a better result. Away to Livi and Home to County. (and even that Livi result isn't too bad).

[ropy]

Technically wasn’t sent off against Livi, or perhaps technically he was but he wasn’t actually, got it?

[Casagolda]

Agree with 13/14 season comparison. 

Like then, I think there’s a lot of absolute dross in the league this season. The fact that St Johnstone team we pumped yesterday is only 3 points off 7th speaks volumes.

We were awful for the first 25 mins or so and while we stepped it up 2nd half, we were still no more than alright for the most part. Yet we cantered to a 4-0 win without Gillespie having a save of note to make.

With that in mind, plus given our start and squad depth, a top 6 place is definitely there for the taking. Still reckon a lot could depend on what happens in January mind- as you can imagine teams like Hibs, Hearts and Aberdeen will probably be quite active. 

Other than mutually terminating Sloth’s contract and trying to extended Cole’s loan, I can’t see us being too busy. 

[Gianfranco]

Maybe punting Illic out on loan as well.

Did I read that we’d offered Turnbull and Gillespie new deals? It’s gone very quiet on both of those.

[capt_oats]

Carson and Gillespie were two who were supposed to have been offered new deals around the time Donnelly extended his.

The whole Turnbull extension story ran in one of the tabloids shortly after the Celtic thing fell through. I'm not sure how much truth there was in it or whether it was just someone making assumptions.

I'd guess that depending on how things look around the winter break we may be in a better position to commit to contract extensions if we feel we're safe.

Here's who's out of contract in the summer: Carson, Ferguson, Gillespie, Tait, Grimshaw, Hartley, Livingstone, Maguire, Long, Manzinga, Ilic (plus Morrison, Hemfrey, Hussain, Brown, Cornelius, Kettings, Starrs and MacIver from the Reserves)

Loans expiring: Cole (January), O'Hara

Robinson's already mentioned that he'd be keen to extend both Cole and O'Hara's stays. Although he "transfer listed" (how quaint) O'Hara's deal at Peterborough runs til 2021.

Clearly it depends on whether there are significant outgoings but other than the elusive 15+ striker everyone wants then looking at the squad as is I'm not sure what else we'd be looking to add in January. Robinson's been talking quite regularly about our relative inexperience in the final third so who knows if we're going to make a proper tilt at the Top 6 an experienced body or two might be useful.

Edited December 1, 2019 by capt_oats

[ropy]

So, no keepers next year, interesting 

[Mitch]

I expect Carson to move on, but would expect Gillespie to sign a new deal.

We can’t really be running with both of them in the squad, as they will both be on #1 levels of dough!

[capt_oats]

Incidentally for the sake of comparison with McCall's team(s) our form this season is exactly as it was after 15 games in the 13/14 season: P 15 W 8 D 1 L 6.

A league place higher and 9 goals better off having conceded 1 goal fewer.

We're 4 points better off than this point in the 12/13 season but 4 worse off than the 11/12 season...

It's actually an eye opener to see that currently this team has scored more goals than the Higdon side (after 15 games).

Spoiler

 

[crazylegsjoe]

16 hours ago, Mitch said:

I expect Carson to move on, but would expect Gillespie to sign a new deal.

We can’t really be running with both of them in the squad, as they will both be on #1 levels of dough!

My instinct was at the start of the season, that we'd find ourselves spoiled for choice this season, but snookered next season. I thought that one would go due to limited first team football and the other to another club having impressed whilst in the team. 

[nsr]

I may be missing something obvious, but how are Oxford better off paying a "big bid", indeed a "substantial bid", to some US mob for Cadden than they would have been paying presumably a similar amount of money to us? 

[craigkillie]

It will presumably still be a fair bit less than the compensation Motherwell were after - when Oxford, Columbus and Cadden put this deal together in the summer all of this would already have been worked out.

[Busta Nut]

15 minutes ago, nsr said:

I may be missing something obvious, but how are Oxford better off paying a "big bid", indeed a "substantial bid", to some US mob for Cadden than they would have been paying presumably a similar amount of money to us? 

someone told me the guy who owns the American mob is a director at oxford or something, It's dodgy as f**k and Cadden can pretend he knew nothing about it all he wants.

[Swello]

I thought the idea was that Columbus get him for a low (or in the best case, zero) compensation fee due to the way that MLS clubs are classified by FIFA and then Oxford put some money their way to allow Columbus to make a profit and Oxford to get the player for a bargain price. Or something.

[capt_oats]

Depending on how gullible you are it appears the Oxford manager has said Columbus have rejected their bid so Cadden's going back to Columbus in January:

Quote

CHRIS Cadden looks likely to leave Oxford United in January after their transfer bid was turned down by Columbus Crew.

Head coach Karl Robinson revealed on Thursday they had made a 'big bid' for the Scot, who joined on loan in July.

Cadden's influence was again on show this afternoon, when he set up the only goal of the game as the U's beat Walsall in the Emirates FA Cup.

But with United seeing a 'take it or leave it' offer turned down by the MLS club, Robinson is resigned to having the 23-year-old recalled in the new year.

He said: "They've rejected it, so that's the end of it.

"We've half known that to an extent. Let me tell you, the bid was very high as well."

He added: "To be fair to Tiger (U's chairman Sumrith Thanakarnjanasuth), he didn't want to haggle. We had an amount of money, which would break my record transfer - for a right back in League One.

"That's the board doing everything they can.

"We'll have to wait and see. They (Columbus) might change their mind, you just don't know."

Link

Far be it from me to suggest that it's a pretty weak attempt to make it look less of a carve-up than it obviously is...

Edited December 2, 2019 by capt_oats

[nsr]

Where does "very high" rank in relation to "substantial"?

[YassinMoutaouakil]

28 minutes ago, nsr said:

Where does "very high" rank in relation to "substantial"?

Or a "magnificent" offer?

[Gianfranco]

Haha I’d forgotten about the magnificent offer statement. We move on.

[Phillips455]

Dundee vs Well Scottish cup game times confirmed.

Will be shown on BBC Scotland and will take place on Saturday 18th of January at 7.20pm.

What the Hell?

 

 

[YassinMoutaouakil]

I was quite up for it but navigating my way home from Dundee on a Saturday night isn't massively appealing. I'll probably end up boosting along though as I'm always at a wit's end after the winter break.

[Busta Nut]

This makes a relatively boring tie interesting.