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A good assessment but for me wilson needs moved on hes not not up to the standard required, irrespective of how many minutes he gets at Raith, so we need LB cover. As for the strikers Robinson and Stuparavic wont play for us again, they will be moved on as soon as they are fit. The other 2, Stamatelopoulos and Hendry are hopeless and show no signs of being anything else so they need moved on as well, maybe in the summer though as i cant see another striker coming in during this window.

2 keepers is always fine to me Connolly looked decent enough against County and worst comes to worse we bring a keeper in on a short term deal to see us through the season.

We probably do need to trim the squad some, but we need 3 keepers. We're only a year removed from a goalie crisis, and you jist need to look at killie for an example of the downside of not having decent backup keepers.

If you look at our squad we have something like 25 senior players + 2 out on loan as much as we want new signings I can only really see 1/2 more coming in. GK - Ward/Oxborough/Connolly - probably need to shift Oxborough RB - SOD/JK/Sparrow - Fine all utility players who can cover other pos CB - McGinn/Mcghee/Gordon - Need 1 more in that area and we will be paying a portion of Balmer's wage. LB - Longelo - Need 1 more in that area as cover/competition and let Wilson get minutes at Raith CM - Watt/Preistman/Fadinger/Slattery/Halliday - Probably enough depth might need 1 if Halliday goes. RW - Maswanhise/Just/Nicholson - Enough options with all 3 able to play other pos need 1 if Maswanhise goes. LW - Said/RCC - Fine ST - Bjorgolfsson/Stama/Hendry/Robinson/Stuperavic - Probably need to shift 1 or 2 If you take injured players out of that and the loans we have 20 available

They also have to consider the alternative. Imagine Jake Hastie had stayed with us and taken on board the coaching turning him into a better player and was now a regular starter for Cardiff City on 7 grand a week, I get that it's a tough decision, and never criticise any player that chooses the money option. No idea what I would have done in the alternate universe where I was a player in that situation.

Football doesn't work like that, say he takes a wage cut, highly unlikely, gets a serious injury with us, career ruined. What then for him? Players cannot play fast and loose with a short career. Imagine Jake Hastie had stayed with us and became the pish he is. He wouldn't have had a 3 year contract on 5 grand a week to soften the blow. As it is he should be comfortably off even though his career came to fuck all. Players have to live for the moment.

I wouldn't pay 400k for a cup tied Welsh. I rather look elsewhere. I'm sure there are central defenders who can pass a ball that we can pick up cheaper than that. As for Watt and JT, no need to sell in January and no indication they want to leave. If a Scottish club is interested, then the price goes up at least 50% - call it a tariff.

If Welsh had any sense he would take the wage cut come to us and for a couple of years then get his move and earn x amount of money in the championship down south. He will only benefit himself coming to us and the way we play earn 5 grand a week then now and earn 8 times that in a year or so. However we have to have a set of balls and pay the fee to get the player my big fear is we sell all these players yer Watts,Tjs and Just and don't reinvest in the squad.Bums are back on the seats and will only stay on the seats if we keep up momentum it won't cut it now going back to Dom Thompson and Tony Watt of this world. We are on the cusp of something very very special and really proper club changing forever.

The way he's playing if it continues regular starts with us he could be thinking a wee chance for Scotland squad. That could be a factor. No even a sniff of Scotland if he stays at Cmeltic

Happy to pay Celtic the £400k if they use that to pay up his contract and he can move to us as a free agent. Basically means he can play for free for 18 months. We would obviously offer him some sort of deal which is additional money he wouldnt have had should he stay at Celtic, maybe with the proviso that we dont stand in his way if a bigger club comes in for him. We shouldnt be wasting any more of the Miller money than that though. The boy is a good fit for us. But we still need be smart about our player trading. It needs to generate revenue, not the other way about.

When is your next gig there mate?

Captain 7?

I would hope there would be a way we could sign Welsh. When Liam Kelly signed from QPR he must have taken a huge drop in wages. Maybe the option is we give Welsh a big signing on fee and maybe guarantee say 5% of any transfer fee we might sell him on for. With the money we got for Miller which I know isn't all up front I would hope we were a bit more flexible in negotiating deals. As for Watt and TJ absolutely no pressure to sell as plenty time ledt in contract, in particular TJ.

I suspect any Welsh transfer to us is a no goer. The stumbling block of course is likely to be his wages. I accept that not all players are purely and solely money driven, but thats unlikely. Its likely he's on something like £10,000 a week and even if he was to drop that by 50% it would represent a huge drop. My other concern is that we hold onto Watt and especially TJ this window as their loss would impact on us both results wise and financially. Summer is a different matter. Hopefully, the club would be involved in any discussions with other clubs before deals were signed. As their contracts are with us, it would be nice to have even a nominal amount of say in the matter. Is that a lot to ask?

Welsh still has nearly 18 months left on his contract. Who is paying that out if we pay them £400k transfer fee, cause he sure as hell isnt giving that up. If its them, fair enough, if its us, that could be another £400k and a no from me. Maybe they just want him off the wage bill and the £400k transfer fee is just enough to allow them to do that. Welsh may then be happy to accept lower wages on a short term deal to get regular football, but we would still have to move him on to get our money back. Quite a complex situation.....

And wouldn’t it be good if we were the ones selling him. Seems like a good deal to me. We either have a quality player on the books or we make a few quid selling him on after getting the benefit of his services for the rest of this season. I’m thinking it would be making a few quid

We're not going to pay 400K for Welsh he'll head down South or to Hearts/Hibs in the summer if I was to guess.

Well there's 2 done from that list hopefully the big man is ready to go straight in given he was in the stand Saturday I'd assume he's probably had a few sessions with the team and done some fitness work himself in the off season to keep himself fit. We've let 2 CBs go out so I'd expect us to replace 1 even if that's just Welsh coming back to make that pool back up to 4, for me SOD is a RB he can play CB but I wouldn't be advocating him starting there. If you look across the squad we have near enough 2 players per position which is what we need to be able to compete and i suspect what Jens wants as that drives competition.

I’m reading that Celtic looking for $400k for Welsh. If he can accept lower wage at Motherwell, short term, We could get him and sell him on for more than that.

I like the announcement. Our first signing of January suggests more to come. The chat about the analytics also fills me with hope. They have seen something in this guy so hopefully he will hit the ground running. I take it it will be a few weeks till we see him anyway as the Swedish season finished months ago. Anyone know if he had been doing a pre-season with a team?

Yes I believe the rule is 6 at any given time and no more than 2 from other SPL clubs

So can we get more players on loan or we used up all our chances?Like I know you are only allowed x amount at same time so now we don't have any does that mean we can bring in a few again?

Don’t panic folks - I hear the owners have banned him from going anywhere near the microphone when the band’s setting up.

And Celtic. 😁