David

I don't think anyone would pretend there are no difficulties with it. Pitch renovation, preseason timing, supporter holidays, cup scheduling and the transition from the current calendar would all require proper planning. It also wouldn't necessarily mean a ten-month season. You could run from late March or early April until October or early November, which is broadly what several comparable countries already do from what I can see. The attendance question is fair too, although I don't think any of us can confidently say what most supporters would do without actually asking them or putting it to the test. Some would miss games through holidays, while others might attend more often because the weather and travelling conditions were better. There would be less call-offs due to weather, and it would certainly be interesting to see if we did see a more sustained higher attendance in better weather. My main point is that our present arrangement has a significant competitive cost in relation to Europe. Clubs like us regularly enter financially important European qualifiers while rebuilding their squads, bedding in new signings and trying to become match fit. At the same time, opponents from summer leagues can be halfway through their domestic seasons. That doesn't guarantee those clubs success of course, but being competitively ready when European qualification begins is still an advantage, particularly for clubs operating on fine margins. The question in my mind then is not whether summer football would be perfect. It wouldn't be. I'm sure fans in Norway, Sweden, Finland etc will readily tell you there's pros and cons. The question is whether Scottish football should seriously examine a calendar that might improve European performance, reduce weather-related disruption and create additional income for clubs outside the Old Firm? And then compare those benefits honestly against the operational and supporter concerns. At the moment, we tend to dismiss the idea before doing that work. We do things the way we've always done them and so on. Also, a summer calendar would give Scottish football a far more valuable place in the football broadcasting calendar. But that topic absolutely is for another thread.

So, the European football we fought so hard for last season has finally arrived. We're maybe not in the best shape for the game, but surely we still have enough about us to sneak through?

The glaring answer for a club our size is to employ the same advantage that other clubs of similar or smaller standing use in countries like Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Faroe Islands, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan and others. Summer football. Start our league between late February and early April, then finish between late September and early November. It's actually pretty interesting when you look at the teams from those summer leagues who have essentially turned that advantage they have into part of their business model. There's about 3 million Euros to be made by qualifying for the group stage of the competition we're in just now, I believe. Add on TV rights, higher attendances and prize money for performances, and you're talking about a decent chunk of change. The much-discussed Bodø/Glimt have gotten it down to a fine art. Even before they were well-known as the club they are now, they were able to regularly make a decent fist of it in Europe because in qualifiers they would catch the August/September to May teams cold. Those wins resulted in financial windfalls that they then used intelligently, of course. Rinse and repeat. It's why we see teams like them, Molde, Malmö, Djurgårdens, and even the likes of Shamrock Rovers do reasonably well in Europe. Clubs our size are never ready for these games, and we have to try to find a way through with a patched together team that involves players who might be eyeballing a move away from the club, who've just signed for the club, and a bunch of kids. Throw in the new manager effect and it can go wrong really quickly. But we'll never go down that route. Because it makes too much sense.

Or a squad player at a club like ours. Not every player in our squad can be first-team regular quality, we'd end up with players not being happy that they're not playing. There's absolutely a role for a fairly versatile home grown player like him if he's happy to accept that he's not going to be a regular starter. It takes a squad, after all.

Looking at his career history, he's basically signed for us from the equivalent of Ayr United or Queen of the South. And maybe he was looking at the East Stand because his last club sees crowds anywhere between 800-1100, and as low as 500. He might have been staring in wonderment in the same way as a former Motherwell player would if they signed for West Brom or Middlesbrough. EDIT: I should say, none of that means he won't turn out to be a good player for us.

Probably not long after the second pay cheque bounces. Although in all seriousness, hopefully his stint there goes very well. He did well for us.

I assume you weren't all that fussed if we got into Europe in the first place then? European football is very much an "event" for all concerned. The players certainly want to play in European competition, the fans get the chance to go overseas on a trip, see some sights, enjoy some time away and follow the team, and more importantly, the club benefits financially. Unless I'm mistaken, the club stands to pocket a minimum of 700,000 Euros if we progress past this stage. If we somehow get past this round and the next, we could be looking at over 3 million Euros. Even if we tumble out at this round we'll still walk away with 500,000 Euros. Not bad for a couple of "glorified friendlies", eh?

Certainly not the time to be getting worried, as the real business hasn't even started, but comparing where we are today to last season, this time last year we'd signed Fadinger, McGhee, Watt, Sule, Just, Longelo, and Said. I felt like we had done a decent chunk of our business earlier last summer, and it appears to have been the case. We had lost Shane Blaney, Steve Seddon, Dan Casey, Dom Thompson, Davor Zdravkovski, Harry Paton and Moses Ebiye by this point, mind you, while this season we've lost Halliday, Nicholson, Slattery, Liam Gordon, Ward, and Oxborough. So, weighing up the incomings and outgoings against this time last season is interesting. Again, absolutely not a time for losing the plot, but I don't think anyone can deny that we need to start getting some business done. Europe is right around the corner, and that's a big deal.

Rene Higuita was a master at that. He'd be worth a fortune these days with how teams play. Instead, he was seen as a novelty maniac back then when he was clearly ahead of his time. Saying that, he did get jailed for being part of a kidnapping fiasco involving Pablo Escobar, so maybe he was a maniac regardless. He could hit a tasty free kick as well...

He'll need to work on that accent out there unless he likes saying everything twice.

I think that's probably fair to a point but I'm not all that convinced it was simply a case of Jens looking at the squad and deciding he had no strikers available. A lot of what we did structurally pointed towards that being a deliberate choice rather than any kind of compromise. The front player was asked to press aggressively, pull centre-backs out of position, run channels and create space for runners from deeper areas rather than act as a traditional penalty-box focal point. The fact that goals came from all over the pitch rather than through one player feels more like design than necessity to me. That said, I do agree with the argument that we occasionally lacked somebody to turn good attacking play into goals. There were definitely games where we'd get into excellent positions, deliver dangerous balls into the box and simply not have that natural six-yard predator attacking the right spaces at the right time. The question for me isn't so much if we need a striker, because every team can make use of a striker. It's whether we need a traditional focal-point number nine. Looking at modern Scandinavian football and the sort of systems both Askou and Johansson favour, I'm not all that convinced that's the direction we'll go. My suspicion is that Johansson's version of the role probably sits somewhere in the middle. Maybe more of a recognised central striker than Askou used at times, but still somebody expected to press, run, link play and contribute to the overall structure rather than simply stand between the posts waiting for service.

More than likely. There will be certain segments of the media and Scottish football community that will be itching to see if the way we play blows up in our face, so they can say last season was a fluke, you can't play football that way, and we should have hired one of the usual suspects as manager instead of trying to be different.

I think the style and approach to the game will be quite similar, but the end results maybe not, which I'm sure will see the obligatory pile-on from the Scottish media and talking heads who grudgingly had to admit that there's another way of playing the game last season. If we're pushing for top six and hopefully get a decent cup run it should be considered a successful season.

Who knows? You may be a modern managers dream!

Hendry, if he was able to stay fit, actually ticks a lot of the boxes that are required for how Jens set us up to play. A quick look at his stats suggest a channel runner, a pressing forward, a link player, a creator of space, a facilitator for runners around him. It's clear why Jens wanted him. I doubt he looked on him as a first choice starter, but as a backup or player coming on from the bench, he ticked the boxes of what our style needed.

I don't think Jens used a system that required an out & out striker, and depending on your definition of an out & out striker, the new manager likely won't either. It's just not how we're set up to play these days. I have a feeling that we'll be looking for forward players who can press consistently, initiate the first line of pressure, link play, occupy both centre-backs, attack crosses, and run channels. My gut tells me that we'll see RCC given a chance, along with Vogt replacing TJ and Stama getting a chance early on if he can stay fit until we can get a Just replacement. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a regular selection of three across the front line, and not one of them being a traditional out & out style of striker.

It'll come down to what the manager wants I guess. Maybe he'll look at Connolly and see a starter in him? I think if we're all honest, we likely never saw Ward as the clear number 1 for Jens last year at this time, and it worked out that way.

The problem is, we don't play like an old fashioned team. If the new manager has been brought in based on continuity around how we play, as we've been told, then an old fashioned shot-stopper isn't going to cut the mustard.

It depends, really. From your post, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, it sounded like you thought we should be getting £4.5m cash as a basic fee. I figure we're likely to get around £3.5m as a basic fee, maybe a little more if there are more than a few teams interested and he's happy to go to either. If there's one particular team that he's really keen on, and they're offering £3.5m basic fee, and are open to add-ons as I detailed above, I'd take that. would you?

Fair question, and at the risk of writing too many words for some people, I'll give it a go. I’d probably value it by separating the player from the deal structure. As far as the player goes, I think Just is excellent. He’s 26, coming off a very strong Premiership season, has World Cup visibility, plays in a valuable attacking role, and we are not under immediate pressure because he has two years plus the club option. That matters, although we do need to factor in what the player wants as well. On top of that, valuation still has to sit inside the market he’s being sold from. The closest benchmark for us is Lennon Miller at roughly £4.5m-£4.75m, but that was for an 18-year-old midfielder with major resale upside. Hibs getting around £6m upfront for Kieron Bowie is a useful comparison too, but Bowie is 23, a Scotland international, had strong resale value and there was Serie A interest. So for Just, I’d break it down like this: Basic fee: £3.5m-£4m Appearance add-ons: £500k-£750k European/international performance add-ons: £500k-£750k Future sale add-on or profit clause: 15%-20% Total package ceiling: around £5m-£5.5m if everything lands That, to me, is the realistic sweet spot. I don’t think £6m-£8m guaranteed is how buying clubs will price a 26-year-old winger from Motherwell, even after a brilliant World Cup. But I do think Motherwell should be pushing for a deal that lets us benefit if the buyer is right and he kicks on again. The buying club is gambling on that happening, so we should position ourselves to share in that if it does. So my number would be: £4m guaranteed, or as close to it as possible (no less than £3.5m), plus serious add-ons and a proper sell-on. Obviously, the higher our guaranteed ask is, the less we can ask for when it comes to add-ons, usually which is worth keeping in mind. I honestly think that’s recognising his value while structuring the deal properly so Motherwell aren’t left short if he proves he’s worth more. Obviously something mental such as a bidding war between two or more clubs desperate for him could happen, even if the chances are slim, but we can always hope!

I think the World Cup has definitely increased his visibility, no question there. My only point is that clubs have become far more disciplined about how much weight they put on international tournament football, largely because history shows they’ve been burned plenty of times paying a premium off the back of short-term performances. The other bit I’d add is context matters. The World Cup is obviously the biggest stage in football, but recruitment teams don’t just look at the headline of “3 goals at a World Cup” and stop there. They look at opposition strength, tournament progression and overall sample size. Two goals against Iran and a consolation against Belgium in a heavy defeat is a very different data point from someone producing that level against France, Argentina or Brazil and dragging their team deep into the tournament. That’s not diminishing what Just did. He was excellent. I just think sometimes supporters overestimate how aggressively clubs react to tournament performances now. Ten or fifteen years ago, clubs would throw money at these situations far more often. Modern recruitment departments are a lot more process-driven. If the argument is now “a handful of elite level World Cup performances massively resets a player’s valuation”, then we’d need to apply that logic consistently across the market. Take Lionel Mpasi. He stood on his head against England and was arguably man of the match. By that logic, clubs should suddenly be lining up to throw millions at him. Same with Vozinha. Massive exposure, huge performance level, lots of coverage. But recruitment departments don’t work like that. For me, the World Cup absolutely moves his valuation upwards. I’m just not convinced it moves it upwards by several million pounds the way some people are suggesting.

You're clearly in the latter category.

I don't think I'd be looking at isolated transfer fees without looking at the underlying data sets. Kieran Bowie wasn’t bought purely because of goals scored over a few seasons. Clubs don’t price attacking players on raw goal output alone, otherwise half the market would make zero sense. They look at things like age curve, contract position, physical profile, league-adjusted output, projected development trajectory, injury history, resale potential and expected value over the life of the contract. That’s why younger players consistently command premiums over better current players. If you look across Europe over the last 5 years or so, players aged between 18-22 routinely transfer for significantly more than players 25+ with better immediate output. That isn’t my opinion, that’s just how recruitment models work nowadays. Same with the Raskin comparison. He plays for Rangers, is younger, has European exposure almost every season, and is sitting in a completely different transfer ecosystem. The Old Firm market is not the Motherwell market. I know we don't like that, but it's the truth. If we strip emotion out of it and look at Just objectively, here’s the career profile a buying club is probably looking at: 26 years old Spent years moving between Danish first and second division football Spell in Austrian second tier One very strong season in Scotland 3 World Cup goals, which absolutely helps visibility Now compare that to what I believe recruitment departments call “transferable asset value”. At 26, a club buying Elijah probably gets 3–4 peak years. At 18 like Lennon Miller, a club potentially gets 10+ years plus a second sale. That future value gets priced in. I think where I disagree is this idea that “performance merits a £Xm valuation”. Football doesn’t work like that. If it did, loads of players would be worth far more than they eventually end up moving for. Recruitment departments are increasingly data-led these days. They model future value, they don't tend to reward past performance all that much. Personally, I think Just has been phenomenal for us. But if I was sitting in a recruitment department trying to build a valuation model, I’m not getting anywhere near £10m (or even £6 million) based on one excellent Scottish Premiership season and three World Cup goals in a group-stage exit. And that’s not talking him down. That’s just how the market tends to price these things in my opinion.

It was said literally at the top of this page.

It's one of those shirts that will likely look pretty good as part of a whole kit, worn by footballers on a football pitch, but maybe not so much worn by the average Scottish guy with jeans and a pair of trainers. I'll likely wait and see what the training collection looks like this year.