Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[capt_oats]

I don't mean this in a snarky way but it feels like we've kind of struggled a bit to market Campbell. Certainly initially. It's been discussed before but the pivot to player development and player trading for profit as a business strategy after Dempster's radical "let our best players walk out the door" policy has been a learning curve for the club.

The whole #LanarkshireKante, "will tackle his Gran", "first in, last out model professional" #brand fits "Wee Al" to a tee but at the same time it's also saw him fly under the radar next to a natural #baller like Turnbull or a goal every other game striker like Moult. Even Scott was someone who was playing in an area of the park that caught the eye.

Is being a model pro ever sexy?

It's not like Campbell's not turned up in big games for us before eg: his goal against Rangers but it's never really translated into a wider audience paying attention. I mean, I'm sure coaches all over the place are more than aware of him but his career has felt like more of a slow burn when it's come to recognition. The flip of that is that we've got 130+ games out of Campbell which is more than Turnbull, Scott and Hastie combined - so who knows, maybe it's been part of a broader plan as to when we push certain players to the front.

One of the issues with Cadden in his last season was that he missed the bulk of it through injury and even then he'd kind of plateaued so his options had narrowed and even then the development fee would have been prohibitive to an Hearts or Aberdeen who might have taken him. Again, I'm not being snide but for a number of reasons that were out of his control the heat around Cadden when he left was less than it was at the end of his first full season and a bit.

In that respect Campbell's timed this well.

This season feels like a proper breakout for him and if he continues in the form whatever the development fee we'd be due will feel like a bargain to whoever is buying (assuming he holds out until the end of his contract). Unlike Cadden this is probably the point in his 5 seasons in the first team where there's peak Allan Campbell hype and aside from the fact that he's running our midfield it also feels like the club have found a sweet spot for in in terms of profile - he's essentially our unofficial captain.

As I say, there's zero snark to this post - selling a football player for seven figures is, I'd imagine, an extremely difficult thing to do from our position. There's a reason why you can count our outgoing £1m+ transfers on one hand.

It's something that we're definitely learning as we go and for all it's easy to dunk on brand strategy documents and the like the fact that we're regularly taking in fees for players where previously we were not is a.good.thing and I suppose if it means that we're in a position where we get 5 seasons out a player like Campbell with a trade off that he leaves at the end of his deal for €600k or so then that's fair enough.

Edited October 1, 2020 by capt_oats

[Swello]

4 hours ago, Luke92 said:

I'm a big fan but maybe I'm a wee bit less on the hype train than some. I think he is a stick on to get a decent club in the England Championship and do well. Do I think it will be a promotion chasing side? Probably not. He has great attributes but I still think his size and to some extent technical ability might work against him. Like I say, I think Campbell will thrive when he leaves us but there is definitely a reason why we haven't been receiving bids left right and centre for him.

I agree with this - his logical next move would be to a mid-Championship side down south. If he continued to develop, he could go a bit higher but in any case (the effects of Covid on english club finances notwithstanding) - a decent career in the mid-reaches of that league would still leave you playing at a decent level and a very wealthy person afterwards. I guess a Jamie Murphy style career would be pretty attractive to any of our players...

 

[RostokMcSpoons]

3 hours ago, capt_oats said:

I don't mean this in a snarky way but it feels like we've kind of struggled a bit to market Campbell. Certainly initially. It's been discussed before but the pivot to player development and player trading for profit as a business strategy after Dempster's radical "let our best players walk out the door" policy has been a learning curve for the club.

<snip>

I'd say the marketing is working well at this point.  Yes I'd agree that the solid Kante role is harder to market than the flashy stuff, and so it might need a bit more of a slow build-up, but when a player reaches that critical mass of acclaim then you can hear it in the match commentary where everyone is falling over themselves to praise every thing the player does right, and gloss over the mistakes (the whole cliched "that's not how he likes to receive the ball" if he mis-controls etc), all of which seems designed to keep the hype train rolling.  The flavour of the month eventually gets knocked off his pedestal of course, so it's a question of cashing in.  If we want to.

[Phillips455]

The SPFL twitter showing their true allegiances today

 

Edited October 1, 2020 by Phillips455

[capt_oats]

6 minutes ago, Phillips455 said:

The SPFL twitter showing their true allegiances today

 

@thisGRAEME, thank you.

[HarleyQuinn]

5 hours ago, welldaft said:

I am hoping he signs a new deal.  I suspect he is quite rightly waiting to see what options present themselves before the transfer window closes apart from Hibs or Aberdeen. 

It is all very quiet and I suspect there may be some interest, but whether it is at a level the club would be interested in I very much doubt.  Assuming he went to a Grade II side we would be entitled to circa 600,000 Euros or thereabouts in compensation. So it would have to be an offer of £1m+ for us to be remotely interested.  

That is why it is a no brainer to dismiss interest from either Hibs or Aberdeen this transfer window. 

The club should also be thinking about ramifications of letting arguably our best player leave.  We have sold Scott and Turnbull for reasonable money this year.  Still think Turnbull was a steal and still am bemused no other sides were interested !! So to let Campbell leave and replace him with another average Joe would enrage the support. Especially if it coincides with us struggling even more than we are now.....

Keeping Campbell for a season and getting compensation is looking the more likely outcome unless he signs a new contract or we get a deal we cannot turn away.  I suspect the latter will not materialise. 

 

If Aberdeen sell Cosgrove for the same figure (2.5 million) we were offered earlier this window then MAYBE and its big maybe we might be in a position to offer Motherwell a decent fee that would be of interest. We did fork out 800k for Hernandez back in January - granted it was prior to the current covid climate.

Putting aside the speculated compensation fee and Motherwell's evaluation of him, I'm not entirely sure Campbell would even consider joining Aberdeen at this time. Clearly he has ambitions to play in England and if he continues to perform as he is currently is then that will become a reality sooner rather than later.

Edited October 1, 2020 by HarleyQuinn

[Busta Nut]

You just got £3m for that donkey centre half, Geez £1m and you can have him (plus sell on)

[capt_oats]

Motherwell have as transparent a position re: players as you can get.

If a club meets our valuation we'll sell them the player. Our business model is literally based on player trading. We've spent the past 5 years or so making a big deal about getting value for our assets and we've brought in something like £4.5m in fees this calendar year alone.

For me there are heavy echoes of Aberdeen bidding for Moult with all this. "But you'll lose him for nothing at the end of the season!!! You should accept our £300k". In the end Moult had more than £300k value to us in the 6 months he was in the side with his goals and bodying Aberdeen out the LC on our way to the final and he still brought us in more than Aberdeen had originally offered despite only having 6 months left on his deal to run.

As it stands we're due £550k-ish development fee next summer when he's out of contract so any offer we're going to consider would need to be over and above that in a risk/reward of selling our best player and having to replace him at short notice. Generally speaking £1m seems to be our tipping point for a big cash prize (Turnbull excepted).

So, long story short as @Busta Nut says, geez £1m (plus add ons and sell-on) and you can have him.

Edited October 1, 2020 by capt_oats

[HarleyQuinn]

33 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

You just got £3m for that donkey centre half, Geez £1m and you can have him (plus sell on)

The 3 million we just received for Mckenna will cover the forecasted losses from now until the end of January. There is a high possibility that fans will not return in any signifiant number to stadiums this season. Therefore I suspect that if we do receive 3 million for Cosgrove it will be used to cover the loses expected in the second half of the season. 

Personally, I think the compensation figure you are speculating for Campbell is undue but what do I know. I think Motherwell will listen to offers of 500-600K with substantial add ons.

[capt_oats]

23 minutes ago, HarleyQuinn said:

Personally, I think the compensation figure you are speculating for Campbell is undue but what do I know. I think Motherwell will listen to offers of 500-600K with substantial add ons.

We got £350k compensation for Hastie who was 20 at the time had 18 first team appearances.

I'd say the compensation we're quoting for Campbell who's 22 and has 5 seasons as a first team player and 131 appearances is entirely in line with that.

The training costs and categorisation set out by FIFA are clear:

Edited October 1, 2020 by capt_oats

[Busta Nut]

31 minutes ago, HarleyQuinn said:

The 3 million we just received for Mckenna will cover the forecasted losses from now until the end of January. There is a high possibility that fans will not return in any signifiant number to stadiums this season. Therefore I suspect that if we do receive 3 million for Cosgrove it will be used to cover the loses expected in the second half of the season. 

Personally, I think the compensation figure you are speculating for Campbell is undue but what do I know. I think Motherwell will listen to offers of 500-600K with substantial add ons.

Admin coming IMO

[Genuine Hibs Fan]

13 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

We got £350k compensation for Hastie who was 20 at the time had 18 first team appearances.

I'd say the compensation we're quoting for Campbell who's 22 and has 5 seasons as a first team player and 131 appearances is entirely in line with that.

The training costs and categorisation set out by FIFA are clear:

Sorry I feel you've posted this and explained it before but I take it these are per season costs? And where would an SPFL/english championship fit in terms of category?

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, Genuine Hibs Fan said:

Sorry I feel you've posted this and explained it before but I take it these are per season costs? And where would an SPFL/english championship fit in terms of category?

Yeah, I believe they're per season costs.

I'm by no means an expert but I think it depends on the category of club and in terms of the SPFL/English Championship cross-border thing it's classed as a 'solidarity payment'. SPFL Premiership clubs are Cat II I think as that the max category allocated for Scotland and I'd think EFL Championship clubs could fall into either Cat I or II (I've dropped the schedule in the spoiler)

We've actually had a couple of examples of that in that Erwin moved to Leeds for £500k and Ben Hall moved to Brighton for roughly £200k. Both were Championship clubs at the time.

For comparison Erwin had been at the club between 06-15, was 21 and had 37 appearances. Hall was 19 and had only been at the club between 13-16 and had 18 appearances.

Other than Cadden who snaked us and Robbie Leitch inexplicably signing for Burnley we've largely been on it with the development compensation stuff and it's fair to say we'll have an accurate idea of what Campbell's value would be should it come to that stage.

Spoiler

 

 

Edited October 1, 2020 by capt_oats

[RandomGuy.]

2 hours ago, HarleyQuinn said:

I think Motherwell will listen to offers of 500-600K with substantial add ons.

Aberdeen fans, man.

[capt_oats]

2 hours ago, Genuine Hibs Fan said:

Sorry I feel you've posted this and explained it before but I take it these are per season costs? And where would an SPFL/english championship fit in terms of category?

Mea culpa: there's a difference between cross-border and same association as Burrows describes below. 

However it's an academic point since I'm pretty sure Burrows confirmed elsewhere (around the time Hastie moved to Rangers) that the tribunal uses the FIFA guidelines as a benchmark (it's implied in the quote from The Express).

Quote

FIFA rules indicate that Rangers would liable to stump up as much as £355,000 for Hastie, although the Ibrox club could try to prevent the deal heading to a tribunal by settling on a fee with their Fir Park counterparts.

However, unless this deal approaches the £355,000 mark, it’s likely the Steelmen will take their chances with the FIFA system.

Link

In the end Rangers paid what we were after (and more apparently):

In Burrows example re: the Ferguson tribunal - Accies were awarded £237,950 he had been at the club 5 years so = £47,590 (1 GBP = 1.11 EUR on 20/08/18 so €52,824.90 per year)

Edited October 1, 2020 by capt_oats

[Al B]

Learn from what worked in the past and get Campbell on a horse. Watch the bids flood in.

[Desp]

Hawd on, Aberdeen paid £800k for a guy in January? Why have I never heard this before? Who the f**k is Hernandez?

[YassinMoutaouakil]

I totally forgot about Aberdeen trying to sign Moult for buttons, him scoring 4 against them and going in January for more than they offered 

[MP_MFC]

I totally forgot about Aberdeen trying to sign Moult for buttons, him scoring 4 against them and going in January for more than they offered [emoji38]

Aberdeen thinking and acting like they're a big club is one of my favourite reasons for seeing them constantly fail to reach their expectations and enhance all glee when we dish out our routine skelping to them.

[Busta Nut]

7 hours ago, Desp said:

Hawd on, Aberdeen paid £800k for a guy in January? Why have I never heard this before? Who the f**k is Hernandez?

Some guy fae Venezuela or something, He's ended up a permasub there.