David
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Posts posted by David
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22 minutes ago, dennyc said:
What is Foley's track record? I've not been aware of anything of concern from the various organisations he has bought into. Football or otherwise. Or that he is into asset stripping or lining his pockets at the expense of an Organisation. Scotland has had its home grown share of those in the past and he does not fit that pattern. .
The fact his Group has interests in numerous Clubs worldwide sets them apart from any Group with one established Club looking for a wee feeder Club. And with their money, why would they need a feeder Club? He could just buy who he wants.
I understand your suspicion and caution. But I really don't see what the issue is in this case. Time will tell if it works out but I think it is interesting and exciting times ahead for Hibs. Certainly on a more stable basis than when Boyle decided we could take on the big boys.
Again, what does he get out of this? That's all I want to know. Why doesn't he lay out exactly what he gets from this? Beyond the warm fuzzies of being a good egg and all that, of course.
18 minutes ago, Stuwell2 said:On the main point of the - potential - future of the club, yes there seems to be benefits in some sort of tie in with others and at this moment in time there appears to be decent protection against investors screwing clubs but that can change and is possibly why people are investing so I’m nervous about that.
Having said that the potential downside that we could be left dropping further behind our competitors and those below us leaving us a championship team or worse means that I think we must seriously look at the options before ruling them out.Again, the same question applies here. If, in theory, a bigger club wants to "affiliate" with a club like ours, the question is why? They obviously don't need us, so why are they doing it?
And it's not so much getting screwed over that doesn't sit right with me. It's the fact that such relationships often change the club at its very core.
It's extremely rare that extremely wealthy people or organisations part with their money without wanting something in return. If they were the type of people to do that, they wouldn't be where they are in life.
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2 hours ago, gaz7 said:
personal opinion i cant see any downside of a tie up with some big gun.
It depends on what you mean by a "big gun."
An individual with money? Someone like Bill Foley, who fancies losing a few million for a laugh by "investing" in a Scottish football team?
Or the ownership group of an already established English club that sees us as a feeder or "B team" of sorts?
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1 hour ago, dennyc said:
Given the terms of the Hibs deal, Foley purchases a minority share holding of under 30%. And has no direct control over football matters. The Board continues to run the show as happens everywhere. Again Foley is a minority. The deal must also to meet UEFA criteria re multi ownership. I have heard no suggestion that Foley is even seeking Security of Easter Road or other Hibs Assets although that could be a condition that would concern fans. .
In return Hibs are getting £6m up front to be spent on facilities, youth development and transfers. With more funds to come for next season.
It's very clear what Hibs would be getting.
What I'm wondering is, what exactly is Foley getting? From what I see, he's putting in some money to have no direct control over football matters. The board wouldn't change, and he gets no security of Hibs's assets.
Guys like him don't spend their money for a laugh, despite what he claims. There's more to this, long-term, than what's being let on to the regular punter.
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14 minutes ago, Kmcalpin said:
Aye, and thats changing too. The days of cuddly wee junior clubs are well and truly over. Kelty Hearts and Bonnyrigg Rose anyone? Even the junior game has become much more professional and ruthless. Many of those teams are living well beyong their means.
Just more news to depress me with, eh? 😂
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17 hours ago, Yoshi-1991 said:
Its quite mad that not only is he getting away with that stat, but there's folk that actually think it's OK. Feels like an episode of the twilight zone.
The only stats that matter are those that show we've won four, and drawn nine in 22 games, and sit 9th in the table.
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14 minutes ago, steelboy said:
There's talk of Eamon Brophy now. Embarrassing.
If I told you we were going to bring in a striker this window who was 27 years old and had scored over 50 goals in our top flight, you'd think that was a signing we didn't want or need?
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17 hours ago, ForthThistle said:
I’ve literally got the fear.
The boy from st Mirren. Is that all we can muster in the time all other strikers are gone.
miss management is an understatement.
A few things on Stav Nahmani as a potential target.
First of all, he's only just turned 21 years old. He's still young in football terms, so he's still improving.
He's also not had much of a chance at St Mirren. He's only started two games or something like that. Also, how St Mirren play and how they utilise their strikers may differ from how we do.
Also, we can only afford what we can afford. Finances and availability within the market during this window is a huge factor.
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20 minutes ago, joewarkfanclub said:
But, what is the alternative?
Honestly, I'd rather we continued to operate within our means. And if that involved a drop down to the Championship or even lower, then so be it.
I'd rather watch a fan-owned Motherwell Football Club play in the Championship with the best players we can afford and a healthy smattering of youth in our ranks, than some 2nd-rate, oil-backed English teams reserve outfit plying our trade in a weird frankenstein league.
But that's just me. Maybe the majority would be happy to go along with it, in the hopes of a few of the oil dollars rolling off the big table and into our hands.
I'd likely pack it in and follow junior football at that point.
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13 hours ago, wellgirl said:
What exactly does that mean .. being a B Team? Does it mean them getting our youth players?
I imagine it would mean we'd get access to more Mika Biereth's. But it also means we'd have more players taken away at the drop of a hat, just like Mika Biereth.
The truth is, at that point, you need to ask if we're really still Motherwell FC? Or just QPR B, or Sheffield United B? If it did happen, it's likely the closest I'd actually come to just chucking it altogether and following rugby instead.
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1 hour ago, FirParkCornerExile said:
PCA should not allowed to be made public
We live in an age where people seemingly know the age and schooling plans of players kids. You think a PCA has any chance of being kept quiet?
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6 minutes ago, Stevie73 said:
Surely Spital not going to St Midden in the summer, club needs to really look at themselves if this is true.
It's not that much of a stretch. They're similar to us as far as league and cup ambition goes, and can reportedly offer more money. Plus, it wouldn't require the player to uproot his family or take kids out of school.
It's a no-brainer.
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18 hours ago, stv said:
Will you also admit that the manager can see things in a player you can’t ?
I would admit that if I'd ever claimed it, but I haven't. In fact, when fans on this forum slate the manager, I often say there's a reason he's being paid to do the job he's doing while we're all discussing it on an internet forum.
If you're looking for people to admit to what you're asking there, I think there's probably more than me you need to ask.
Like most fans, I'll give my opinion on things, but I've never claimed to know better than any manager we've had.
It should also be said though, that one signing that has come good in Bair isn't a vindication of our transfer business and approach to it as a whole. There will always be outliers and surprises that pop up, but for every Bair there's an Obika, Souaré and Shaw.
It could still be argued that one of the reasons Bair looks like such a decent signing is because the overall bar set by the recruitment team and our playing squad this season has been set so low.
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So, after this weekend I have to say that I've officially been won over by Theo Bair.
As most of you know, I had very little hope of seeing him be a success at Motherwell, despite really hoping he would be. He's worked hard and has proved his doubters, including me, wrong. And I've never been happier to be wrong. We all love a "lad comes good" story, and this is one of them.
Let's hope it continues for him and he can even hit double figures!
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2 hours ago, steelboy said:
What are you basing this on?
He's barely kicked a ball other than against bottom six teams in the past 18 months.
As much as it pains me to say it, he's worked daily with the likes of Brendan Rodgers and Ange Postecoglou. He's spent his time there training with a much higher quality of player than you'd find at Fir Park, and Norwich City as well.
He's also spent his time there getting accustomed to life and how to deal with living as a player at a big club. At Norwich, he could have been wandering the city without many people bothering him. Not the case at Celtic, and it won't be the case if he ends up at a club like AC Milan or whoever picks him up this summer.
Yeah, he's always going to be a talent. That doesn't go away. He was talented when he left Motherwell. Add in the above and he leaves Celtic as a better player than he was when he arrived there.
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4 hours ago, MelvinBragg said:
I'm assuming he'll move abroad. Having seen what it's done for Ferguson, Hickey and young English talent, he probably should. He probably should have done before moving to Celtic but hindsight is a wonderful thing...
I'm not so sure he was mentally ready to move overseas. I wasn't even that sure he was mentally ready to move down south to be honest, so I think Celtic has been a relatively decent move for him financially and from the perspective of getting used to dealing with being at a big club with a lot of fan pressure and so on.
Wherever he goes, he certainly goes there as a better player than he was when he arrived at Celtic.
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On 1/21/2024 at 7:29 PM, steelboy said:
Now he's 24 and he's lucky if he'll get a move to Norwich.
Considering the clubs sniffing about him just now I'd think moving to a midtable English Championship side would be the last thing on his mind.
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6 hours ago, Kmcalpin said:
Surely you mean he asisted in 2 goals David? He didn't score at all.
That's exactly what I meant. The price I pay for using my phone to mess about on a forum when I should be working 👀
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15 hours ago, MJC said:
That’s true and yes it is much easier to say he’s been a failure after six months of him being here rather than when he signed. Every signing we make is a gamble, I know that and I accept it.
But regardless of what I or anyone else thought before he had kicked a ball for us the fact in the matter is that this is another signing made during the summer that didn’t work out. The manager and the head of scouting are the ones paid to take responsibility for signings and are in a better position than anyone in the support or this forum to judge a player, or so you would hope anyway.
Yes, but there's only so much that a recruitment team and manager can do when they are recruiting players. From virtually every angle the Shaw signing looked like a sound piece of business.
He's 25 years old, Scottish and knows our league, he has scored 24 goals in our top division with Hibs, Kilmarnock and Ross County, and 23 in the lower leagues of Scotland.
In fairness, he started two league games for us and scored two goals. In one of those starts, he came off injured after less than an hour and had been deployed as an attacking midfielder rather than a forward. As a sub, the most time he got on the park was 30 minutes against Rangers.
Would it have been different had he gotten a run of actual starts? We'll never know. The stats would suggest he would have found the net for us, but he didn't really get much of a chance beyond coming on with anywhere from ten to twenty minutes to play in games.
I could accept criticism of how Kettlewell utilised him for sure, but criticism of the actual signing? Not so much.
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3 hours ago, MJC said:
Another failure from Kettlewell and Daws.
Kettlewell and Daws weren't the only ones who were behind the idea of us signing Shaw. Go back and read the responses when he signed. He was considered a "decent signing" who would kick on if given playing time.
Funnily enough, there's no sign of you claiming he would be a disaster and that Kettlewell and Daws had got it wrong. You only jumped in and made that claim with 20/20 hindsight.
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9 hours ago, gaz7 said:
Think your wrong here spider. Biereth wages are miniscule in a club like arsenal and reason he is away is quite simply better league for him to be tested in.
I agree, it likely has very little to do with financial savings on the relatively low wages Biereth gets at Arsenal.
It's more likely that the loan management team in London has looked at his numbers and performances up here and figured he's shown that he can perform at this level and that it would be more worthwhile seeing if he can do a job at a higher level for the next six months rather than continue as he is here, which would really tell them nothing.
What this situation should tell us is that we cannot rely on loan signings. They will either come in and do terribly like Shaw or do well like Biereth and end up becoming a loss risk.
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48 minutes ago, bobbybingo said:
As I said, I've no problem with anyone thinking certain players aren't good enough for us, far better than Bair have had that accusation thrown at them. It's the amateur stuff I can't agree with.
Ideally, we'd be signing higher quality all over the park, but we are where we are these days, and we're not on our lonesome. Bair being so high up the scoring charts proves that.
I think if you look at his record to now, the amateur accusation is perfectly valid.
He played for a largely terrible Vancouver Whitecaps side that finished 23rd & 17th overall in the two seasons he played double figures for them. He managed three goals in three seasons.
He then moved on to HamKam in the Norwegian 2nd tier, where he hit four goals in 17 games.
At St Johnstone he scored 1 goal in 33 games.
Now, I understand everyone is getting all giddy because he scored two against Livi and got another against Hibs, but as I said, it'll take more than a wee purple patch of a couple of decent games to really change my mind.
And again, I hope he does. If he goes on to repeat those performances and manages to grab another two or three goals then I'll be a happy camper.
But you're right, we are where we are. And so long as we continue to sign players largely based on "gut instincts" and having a checklist that consists of him being "an honest professional" and "running his socks off" we likely won't see much improvement.
47 minutes ago, Yassin said:I rate Bair more than you do but think you've been pretty reasoned and fair about your view on him. Do find the way this has been worded a little odd though. He'd already scored 5 by the 2nd of January, its obviously entirely possible he doesn't score another goal this season but he's already been about twice as productive as you had predicted so far.
Well, I said that his stats and career average suggested anywhere between 3-5 goals for us. So, he's hit that. Hopefully he can do above average numbers for us.
He's been a halfway decent player, who has done more than the extremely low bar we all set for him, in a very poor Motherwell team. Credit where it's due I guess?
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1 hour ago, bobbybingo said:
I'd be interested to know what stats suggest he is not a footballer.
Okay, a footballer at the level we should be signing and playing.
I feel many think he's done relatively well based on the fact that the bar was so low with him to begin with.
Basically, he's done okay-ish in possibly the worst Motherwell team I've seen in many a year. If that's good enough for you then that's perfectly fine. I still don't rate him, and definitely not enough to warrant a two-year contract. It'll take more than two or so games where he looks decent to change my mind on that front.
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Just now, bobbybingo said:
Yeah, I know you think certain players aren't fit to play professional football. How's that going?
It hasn't changed much really. I said before a ball was kicked that I reckoned he'd get us around 4-5 goals this season. He's played a couple of good games, and hopefully he kicks on from that. I doubt he will, but you never know.
From almost the start of the season until the Livi game he looked like someone who tries really hard but doesn't actually accomplish much. And that's in a terrible team.
But again, hopefully he confounds all the stats and miraculously becomes a footballer at the age of 24.
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Kettlewell is known for his love of Canadian amateur-level players. He hangs his hat on those kinds of signings.
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2023/24 ins & outs discussion
in Club Chat
Posted
Considering that even if we sign Brophy and A.N Other we'd have three fit strikers available. There's a good chance that youth will get a look in.