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Once again I am staggered by the negativity (I should not be. I have been reading this forum long enough). The reality is that we have smashed our record transfer fee out the park on a player that is only 19 years old. Why has this happened? Did we just happen to strike it lucky with Turnbull, a Motherwell fan and local lad. To a very small degree, yes because he undoubtedly has natural ability but Turnbull is a product of decisions made some years ago now by the Board and Alan Burrows to invest in youth development. He has been nurtured through a system that allows good young talent to fulfil their potential. This is something we should be congratulating the club on. My opinion is that we are ahead of most, if not all, clubs in Scotland in this regard. Stephen Craigan must take a lot of credit too. This is something we should be celebrating, not criticising. Regarding the player himself, the money involved in his move to Celtic will be life changing. He is 19 years old with huge decisions to make about his future. Let's cut him some slack and just enjoy watching him develop, knowing that he is a Motherwell produced Motherwell fan, who has come good. The hypocrites on here who would no doubt sell their Grannies for a lot less, get the chance to take the theoretical moral high ground because they have not been successful enough to be making these decisions for themselves. I think you have to have walked in Turnbull's shoes before you can start spouting forth about his decision making. Like all Motherwell fans, I will be walking out of Firpark gutted if he is scoring for fun against us next season, but that's football. Let's enjoy the benefits that the transfer money will bring, be appreciative of Motherwell's forward thinking as we enjoy watching the young players break into the first team and take some pride in watching David Turnbulls career take off if he genuinely does have the potential we all think he has.

Buzzing for this...surely reaping the rewards soon! #DT23

In an ideal world we’d have kept DT for another season and sold for double next summer, but reality is never ideal. I don’t blame the club for taking the money, again in an ideal world we could’ve held out longer and for more but 99% of us plebs have no idea of what has gone on behind the scenes. The thing that really bothers me about this saga is that he’s away to them. When the Norwich bid came in I was probably as excited as I have been about any potential Motherwell signing. But regardless of whether he plays one game or a thousand games for Celtic, he’ll forever be known and associated as “ex-hoops midfielder”, etc, as others have previously pointed out. My rational self tells me that this is not an important thing in the big picture as DT has more than looked after the club and will always be one of our own, but until we pump them at Fir Park this season I don’t think I’ll be able to shake this feeling of being absolutely gutted.

Safe to say most don't like conjecture and hyperbole dressed up as facts. That gets called out far more than negativity towards the club. It is important that it is distinguished and continued to be called out. I'm sure you will agree.

Very much this^ Felt like the first time in decades we had a a squad worth developing, at a club who were equally in best financial postion in many decades, yes we had debt, but on very favourable terms, that most trading businesses would love to have access to. but the squad has been totally decimated, even the next phase of kids has been broken up we've not always been a selling club, the only success in most of our lifetimes came from allowing a manager to build a squad season to season for success, then Bosman reset that and it felt like last season was the first opportunity since that the club had worked to a position to build on, it will not hapen very often as the model includes offering players opportunity to relaunch career, so can only build core from within but it seems every single influencer in the club and society are chasing the income over the team capability, I'm sure they do it in good faith and with good will, but I just wish they hadn't been desperate to sell on the kids

A slightly less dark example of craziness many of us on here (myself included) got caught up in was the Abel Thermeus era of about 3 weeks. I think we had given him the nickname of “the flask” when he was just a trialist, and he quickly attained cult status only to get sent off in his first game (Killie away I think), not to be seen again.

Don’t think anyone foreseen his agent as a paedo either

Is there not another (very loud) PA for safety announcements?

The only DT in my heart ❤️

It could. Or it could just be there is no subterfuge involved whatsoever and it was an issue with the medical.

Again from what I’ve heard an initial offer from Celtic was agreed, as Motherwell media release originally stated. After Turnbull turned down initial terms Celtic withdraw the offer. Then terms were agreed between Celtic and Turnbull, with Celtic assuming the original offer to Motherwell was sufficient. Motherwell have effectively said naw let’s negotiate again. this has been further supported by it being muted by fir park officials that they were supposed Turnbull was at Parkhead for medical when no agreement between clubs was in place. it sounds all very cloak and dagger and I think the fact Turnbull has not been announced suggested something isn’t right

Chuks Aneke at MK Dons was the other one mentioned who Hearts/Hibs were interested in, who is out of contract this summer. Having watched some clips of him, he would be a great option for us if we could afford him, but again I think wages would be an issue.

If so could you promise not to post on this forum also. It is depressing stuff. You are a very sensitive soul..... Like Kmcalpin I have followed Motherwell for as long as I remember and whilst I am not as old as he is :-) I would not dream of supporting another club or not going to see Motherwell. I don’t like it but selling our better players has always been a thing. I still believe that selling Turnbull for £3.25m + add ons will prove to be a bargain for Celtic. That said the club could not gamble with that kind of money on offer. Knowing our luck he would get an injury and we could be accepting a lot less. But I do agree with Brazilian. Assuming everything is signed and sealed then for the near future we should not be in a rush to sell ANY of our promising youngsters. I accept you cannot force people to sign contracts. I do not know the background to the McKinstry move, but £400k (potentially) is still a lot of money to MFC and this was before Hastie and Turnbull so could be understood. This lad that is said to be interesting West Ham and other premiership clubs (McAleer ?) let him develop like Turnbull with us. We have a fanatical fan base but it is small. We cannot run on gate receipts so every year we need to finish mid table and have a cup run or sell a player to break even. The way it is and always will be unless Jeff Bezos takes a liking to MFC.

Would those "personalities" be the ones who make deliberately and sometimes repeated attention seeking posts who get miffed when they get called out for them? Like ones whose 7 year olds that turn into 8 year olds in the space of a couple of posts? Or the ones who tried to get away posting under different names, those kind of "personalities"?

Don't go then! You don't need to tell us you're not going every other post. Running out of hankies.

Enrol your 8 year old in the school of life.

Nobody disputes that, it just seems that for whatever reason right now, we're selling everyone at the same time, even hot prospects who've rarely or never played in the first team, when we don't have any particular financial need to do so. And while it would have been very easy to be excited about watching David Turnbull for a bit longer, it's much harder to be excited about starting the season with half a team of virtual unknowns.

I'd hate for anyone, including you, to buy or renew their season ticket under false pretences. We've always been a selling club and always will be. Other clubs are in exactly the same boat. At the age of 9 (showing my age here) I was heartbroken to see one of my boyhood heroes, Bobby Roberts, leave for Leicester City. My father gave me short shrift and said that if I couldn't accept that then I should give up football alltogether or go to Ibrox or Parkhead (he wouldn't help me to go to those venues and I'd have to do it under my own steam). I decided for better or for worse to stick with the Well and I've done so for a further 55 years or more. Since then I've seen scores of our players move on including : Joe McBride, Dixie Deans, Keith McRae and Tam Forsyth; and thats all before 1970. I could go on ad nauseum. David Turnbull is one of the best players I've ever seen in claret and amber but he'll not be the last to leave to better himself. I don't care. The club is bigger than any one player and if you can't accept that then perhaps its time to think long and hard about whether MFC is the club for you. Nothing wrong in deciding it isn't. We'll move on whatever.