Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Luke92]

It was great to be back on Saturday, thoroughly enjoyed the game to be honest. I got put in the main stand (where I don't usually sit) so I found it interesting to get a different perspective on the game. With the lower crowd you could pretty much hear eveything that was getting said between the manager and players. It felt to me like a lot of the boys were very much still getting used to how eachother play which is normal at this stage but I would hope we will add a few in the next week to give the team a chance of gelling together before too many league games have been played.

Lawless, KVV and Woolery all looked lively. I don't really see Woolery as an actual striker and am starting to think its more likely he will play out wide in a starting front 3 of Watt - KVV - Woolery. I'm not really sure you get the best out of Watt out wide, always seen him more of a central deep lying striker in my book but will be interesting to see how it plays out. I would be quite keen to see another formation trialled at some point in these cup games, Watt and KVV playing as a two sounds appealing!

Central midfield is my main area of concern just now. I'm always an advocate of young players being given the chance but I'm still not really convinced Maguire is at the level to be a starter with us. I mean he's okay but I would really like to see a couple of experieneced boys coming in to challenge him. Cornelius and Crawford are very much bench players IMO.

Looking forward to a wee trip to Airdrie in the sun on Wednesday

[capt_oats]

There are some interesting comments from Woolery in the Record (and I'm guessing other outlets that are paywalled). Basically he's saying that, unsurprisingly, he's not anywhere near match fit and the boys who were at the club last season and were following their programme are ahead of the new boys.

Quote

He said: "The gaffer told me yesterday [Friday] he was going to rest me anyway, because he didn't know what I did in the off-season; all these boys had a programme that Motherwell had set them, and I didn't really do too much, so I was a little bit behind on fitness when I came.

"He's looking after me and a few other players, and I think he's going to rotate us. It all depends on my performance as well, so if I play well I hope to be in the team."

Link

Coming off the bench and chucking boys about the park is a massive change up from where we were with Seedorf and Hastie though. So...aye, more of that please. Based on nothing but photos of him Shields looks like he's from the same mould.

Both Watt and Van Veen seem very much, to use @Busta Nut's choice of phrase, finesse players so having someone who's physical and direct on the park with them is probably a good thing.

Tbh, I think our issues are still exactly the same as they were at the start of the window, we need replacements for Gallagher, Campbell and Polworth. I thought Cornelius showed up well on Saturday but it's a big ask to pile the midfield on his shoulders as we did with Campbell.

Anyway KVV...

Quote

"There were 2000, and they booed us off after the first half, because we deserved that, it wasn't good enough to be 2-0 behind when you were quite dominant."

Link

#ICONIC

[Ron Aldo]

I don't mind Maguire but can appreciate some of the reservations people have about him. I feel he really needs to kick on this season as the way it looks at the moment he'll probably be playing more games than not. Up until now he's shown himself as being a midfielder who can play a few passes but doesn't create anything and doesn't score. I'm also not buying that he's good at set pieces with both feet.

I worry that we're maybe sticking with him since he came through the academy rather than him actually being able to offer much to the team. There's definitely a hint of Stuart Carswell about him.

[ropy]

Maguire is entry level good enough for us, the assumption is that anyone we bring in will be better which can only be a good thing.

[MP_MFC]

Anyone any idea who the new tannoy guy was?

[one m in Motherwell]

1 hour ago, Ron Aldo said:

I don't mind Maguire but can appreciate some of the reservations people have about him. I feel he really needs to kick on this season as the way it looks at the moment he'll probably be playing more games than not. Up until now he's shown himself as being a midfielder who can play a few passes but doesn't create anything and doesn't score. I'm also not buying that he's good at set pieces with both feet.

I worry that we're maybe sticking with him since he came through the academy rather than him actually being able to offer much to the team. There's definitely a hint of Stuart Carswell about him.

He’s like Marc Fitzpatrick but really good at bleep tests.

[well fan for life]

3 hours ago, MP_MFC said:

Anyone any idea who the new tannoy guy was?

He sounded like they'd grown a Clyde 1 presenter in a laboratory.

[rossd98]

Had Motherwell player Steven Lawless on my podcast this week, if anyone fancies giving it a listen it’d be much appreciated! 
 

A Chat With... Steven Lawless 

Steven discusses his time at the Motherwell academy as well as spells at Partick Thistle, Livingston and his return to Motherwell. 
 

Youtube: 

 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6yreaP0bxRA4tNY2Gyfo9W?si=B7ArZvx6Qieu6mTw91y3lg&dl_branch=1

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-chat-with-steven-lawless/id1570371231?i=1000529244423

[Busta Nut]

5 hours ago, MP_MFC said:

Anyone any idea who the new tannoy guy was?

He was the boy fae Kilmarnock I think. Speedie was away on a day trip to Islay on a whisky tasting. He almost shut down Lagavulin I heard.

[Phillips455]

Just seen this twitter recap of the 19/20 season finance figures (the season that was cut short). It does go into a lot of detail but I am surprised that we had a turnover to wage ratio of 85% which is thr 2nd highest in the league at that time.

Id suggest looking at the twitter chain down below.

 

[Onthefringes]

Conjecture is usually from incomplete information?

Makes for some interesting reading, but, I’m not sure their figures align with the published accounts offered.

[Phillips455]

Yeah, but even incomplete it does provide a nice picture of how everyone was performing. Sadly there isn't anything about 20/21 yet as that has only recently finished. Guess we will have to wait a year before we get some kind of figure.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Phillips455

[capt_oats]

21 minutes ago, Phillips455 said:

Just seen this twitter recap of the 19/20 season finance figures (the season that was cut short). It does go into a lot of detail but I am surprised that we had a turnover to wage ratio of 85% which is the 2nd highest in the league at that time.

Id suggest looking at the twitter chain down below.

 

IIRC this was something that was brought up at an AGM and discussed.....at length with the how and whys explained in detail. I could be wrong but I think @Swello was at that one?

Obviously as a "headline" it looks problematic especially with the Boyle era not quite a distant memory but given the short term nature of a lot of our contracts at the time (and the season it's reporting we turned a modest profit even with the Covid curtailed season) I'm not sure it's something that's as dramatic as it sounds.

Edited July 20, 2021 by capt_oats

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

Don't get me wrong, the people that do these kind of things obviously put a hell of a lot of work into them but I'm always a massive sceptic of their accuracy.

However, that said, you can instantly work out that we were paying Casper Sloth, David Turnbull, Trevor Carson and Charles Dunne first team wages when they barely kicked a ball between them the entire season.

I'm guessing had Hull not came in for Scott in January we might have been a lot further down the profit graph.

[capt_oats]

4 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

Don't get me wrong, the people that do these kind of things obviously put a hell of a lot of work into them but I'm always a massive sceptic of their accuracy.

However, that said, you can instantly work out that we were paying Casper Sloth, David Turnbull, Trevor Carson and Charles Dunne first team wages when they barely kicked a ball between them the entire season.

I'm guessing had Hull not came in for Scott in January we might have been a lot further down the profit graph.

In this case it probably is accurate in the sense that it's an analysis of the company accounts for each team that has published them. It's not one of those that's speculating on our playing budget etc. It's literally looking at our turnover vs wages and saying it was an 85% ratio.

As you say though, there will be reasons for that and while the Scott sale inflates the profit you can also say that had the season completed without the Pandemic then that profit would probably have been higher. Swings and roundabouts. I've always found Kieran Maguire's Price of Football account slightly disingenuous in making a point of highlighting transfer income eg: "If club X hadn't sold that player, they'd have lost money".

Income from player trading is as much a part of a business model as ST money and has a direct impact on how much a club spends.

But anyway...I'd imagine the next set of accounts will be similar even though the budget was cut last summer on account of the 'rona (see the Richard Tait pantomime) according to Burrows we ended up with as high a playing budget as we've had in years as a result of the injuries. Although, having said that the David Turnbull big cash prize, Business Interruption Insurance and Government loan may skew things (I'm not sure how the loan will be treated in the accounts as I'm not an accountant).

[Swello]

39 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

IIRC this was something that was brought up at an AGM and discussed.....at length with the how and whys explained in detail. I could be wrong but I think @Swello was at that one?

Obviously as a "headline" it looks problematic especially with the Boyle era not quite a distant memory but given the short term nature of a lot of our contracts at the time (and the season it's reporting we turned a modest profit even with the Covid curtailed season) I'm not sure it's something that's as dramatic as it sounds.

It was discussed at the last 2 AGM's - the last in-person one, it went on for what felt like 3 days

My recollection is that there was no magic answer to it - we are running with quite a high wages:turnover ratio and I think that the figures for that season as reported on twitter are accurate. Basically, the board seem to view the finances of the club with a view to the medium term (in our world, that means 2 or 3 seasons in advance) and make decisions based on that. So in our case, our finances are (were) healthy enough to sustain the current levels for a couple of years but if the outlook changes, they would need to bring it down to a lower level.  I think the feeling is that if we cut our budget too much and make ourselves less competitive as a result, then it would be counterproductive - and therein lies the most difficult balancing act that every diddy club board needs to deal with.

When I looked through the twitter thread earlier, my impression was that fundamentally we are in a decent place both relative to our peers and the figures tied in with what we should see in a decent season (and I had seen them in the club accounts anyway). The interesting one will be what state we are in after an utterly mediocre season on the park and the COVID impacts off of it. On one hand, we've got record transfer income, on the other hand, we've got no supporters in the ground and running the biggest squad we've seen since the early days of the Boyle era - so we will likely make a sizable operating loss which will be covered by other stuff (Insurance, Loans, Transfer income)

Meant to add - I think the slide on debt is one that needs a disclaimer - our debt is to the 'Well society and is never intended to be repaid in the way a commercial loan would be - that will simply mount over the years as the 'Well society pays in.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Swello

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

11 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

As you say though, there will be reasons for that and while the Scott sale inflates the profit you can also say that had the season completed without the Pandemic then that profit would probably have been higher. Swings and roundabouts. I've always found Kieran Maguire's Price of Football account slightly disingenuous in making a point of highlighting transfer income eg: "If club X hadn't sold that player, they'd have lost money".

I don't doubt that selling players from the academy is a vital stream of income for a club like us and should be credited accordingly when we manage to do it and obviously the pandemic was absolutely outwith our control, just saying it was a bit of a close call, managing to get £1m at quite literally the eleventh hour for a player who was still on the face of it, relatively unproven.

However, on the other hand, another contributing factor to the 85% thing was that there was probably a crossover in accepting £3.25 million from Celtic and deciding the budget for the season. The benefit from that will probably be in the 20/21 accounts, presuming the balance wasn't tipped too much by the likes of overloading on players in January, or having to sign another goalkeeper every couple of weeks.

[capt_oats]

24 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

I don't doubt that selling players from the academy is a vital stream of income for a club like us and should be credited accordingly when we manage to do it and obviously the pandemic was absolutely outwith our control, just saying it was a bit of a close call, managing to get £1m at quite literally the eleventh hour for a player who was still on the face of it, relatively unproven.

However, on the other hand, another contributing factor to the 85% thing was that there was probably a crossover in accepting £3.25 million from Celtic and deciding the budget for the season. The benefit from that will probably be in the 20/21 accounts, presuming the balance wasn't tipped too much by the likes of overloading on players in January, or having to sign another goalkeeper every couple of weeks.

Oh, absolutely.

Tbh, I was speaking generally about the idea that there can be this idea promoted that in a way transfer fees don't count when in reality they often inform what clubs are spending eg: if we hadn't sold Turnbull does anyone thing we'd be spending money doing up Fir Park? Of course not.

@Swello's pretty much covered it in his post above but the next set of accounts (covering last season) will be interesting as you'll have the impact of playing in an empty stadium along with a mediocre league placing/prize money, inflated squad with 27 goalkeepers and capital expenditure on the stadium but it'll be offset by the Turnbull money, Insurance, Government Loans etc.

We'll be looking at a sizeable operating loss (which IIRC the SG factored into the credit facility made available to us) but could quite possibly be looking at a record turnover depending on how the Turnbull fee, Insurance and Loans appear in the accounts.

Edited July 20, 2021 by capt_oats

[Swello]

2 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

However, on the other hand, another contributing factor to the 85% thing was that there was probably a crossover in accepting £3.25 million from Celtic and deciding the budget for the season

I think the 85% thing was a conscious decision - and was likely based partly on future transfer income, some of which in the case of Scott, Turnbull & Campbell, etc was still hypothetical at that stage (as nothing was finalised when that budget was set). I think we assumed that we would get "x" amount for these players (maybe that was based on training compensation, I don't know). 

Since I've been going to the AGM's, I've been struck by how finely balanced a lot of decisions are - we are operating on razor thin margins between doing fairly well financially and having a really bad outcome. My instinct looking at us as a fan owned club would be a  really simplistic "cut your cloth" approach but if being overly conservative puts you at greater (or more regular) risk of relegation or constant 9th or 10th place finishes that puts you into a bit of a death spiral, is that really a lower risk approach? It's not easy.

[Yorky]

21 minutes ago, Swello said:

I think the 85% thing was a conscious decision - and was likely based partly on future transfer income, some of which in the case of Scott, Turnbull & Campbell, etc was still hypothetical at that stage (as nothing was finalised when that budget was set). I think we assumed that we would get "x" amount for these players (maybe that was based on training compensation, I don't know). 

Since I've been going to the AGM's, I've been struck by how finely balanced a lot of decisions are - we are operating on razor thin margins between doing fairly well financially and having a really bad outcome. My instinct looking at us as a fan owned club would be a  really simplistic "cut your cloth" approach but if being overly conservative puts you at greater (or more regular) risk of relegation or constant 9th or 10th place finishes that puts you into a bit of a death spiral, is that really a lower risk approach? It's not easy.

My take on it is it’s always going to be a mix of financial prudency and luck, two ot three things go our way transfer wise and it’s all good, it goes the other way and we look on shaky ground. There will always be pressure from the fanbase to sign better quality players ( we all hope to see a good standard of football), that comes with risks. Don’t spend enough on the playing budget and we risk getting relegated, it’s not easy and would not be something I would want to take on.