David

Never seen him getting caught out, but I did see him show some pace to to come from virtually a standing position to not only catch the St Mirren player, but ease him off the ball and come away with it.

Can't agree with that at all, I thought Dunne was immense at the back today. He looked a class above anything St Mirren had to offer, both on ability and sheer physical presence.

Has to be McHugh followed closely by Dunne. Turnbull was decent enough, but I think the goal aside he never really got going today.

Carroll is like a lot of the players we sign, he's someone who's not set the heather alight elsewhere but who we hope can come in and do a job for us. Let's be honest, if he was doing well at a club like Cambridge he'd likely be looking to nab a contract with a League One side down south rather than try his luck here. He may be a success, he may not. That's the risk you take 99% of the time when you're operating in the areas of the transfer market that we do.

I hope Cadden signs for another year at least, he's a decent player. After that, I wouldn't grudge him his move.

Agreed. Let's look forward to seeing the players who want to stay here, and the new players we'll be signing this summer.

Yeah, but what if the club that the player wants to join, and has perhaps even agreed a contract with says they're paying fuck all. no fee, no add-ons, nothing. Do the authorities block the move? What happens to the player if his original club refuse to accept that he's going to just walk for absolutely nothing?

The only reason I ask is because, as good as Cadden is, I don't see anyone stumping up over £500,000 in developmental fees for him this summer.

What happens if the player doesn't want to sign a contract offered by his club, but no one wants to match the development fee valuation?

That's obvious, considering the idiots called him Liam Turnbull in the article header.

Obviously it would be ideal if he signed a new deal, but I'm just wondering if he walks away for bugger all this summer, or if we're due some sort of developmental fee? I swear I can recall people talking about us being due one a while back?

Here's a question for anyone who may know more about these things than I do. If and when Cadden goes this summer, are we due any compensation payment for him? I saw that Burrows had said in his newspaper interview regarding Hastie's contract situation that “I’ve made sure that even if we do lose players like Jake, we won’t lose them for nothing. “How you do that is by making certain their contracts expire on or before the season of their 22nd birthday. If you do that then you will receive compensation." So, Cadden turned 22 in September of last year according to what I can see, and his deal is up at the end of May this year. I remember a while back there was talk of £600,000 in developmental fees being due if & when he left, but I've heard nothing the past few months, which is strange. Anyone know?

I guess it depends on how good Livingstone is, doesn't it? If he's not better than said 28 year old journeyman then maybe he doesn't deserve a first team spot?

My apologies, I had assumed we were still discussing the topic that we'd been covering for the previous four posts, which was Turnbull "looking to Hastie who had a run of half a dozen good games and is probably on more money already" as you put it. Hastie being explosive or not had no bearing on the fact that both players had the same options in front of them until recently. They could have both tabled the offer from us and waited to see what else was on offer. Hastie went down that path, Turnbull didn't. Which is why I disagreed when you mentioned Turnbull "looking to Hastie who had a run of half a dozen good games and is probably on more money already." If Turnbull was concerned with the money at this stage in his development he'd have held on and waited to see what happened the rest of the season. If we get to the summer and the club receive a less than satisfactory offer that would see Turnbull earn ten times what he does now and he is unhappy about that, I'd be inclined to say "well, you signed a two and a half year deal a few months back David, so the club is perfectly entitled to demand a reasonable fee for you. If you wanted to have the option of accepting an offer of ten times your wages you should have hung fire on signing that new deal like your pal Jake did." I disagree, for the reasons I mentioned above in my reply to Scoojy. Turnbull is younger and has played less first-team football (at any level) than Hastie has. He also knows most likely that he's far more talented, and as such can afford to gamble a bit more by sticking around for another season or so.

Maybe. I also think that age and development comes into play. I see a lot of people comparing Hastie's situation with that of Turnbull, but with Hastie we're talking about a player who made his first team debut for us almost three years ago, and when he was 18 years of age he also put pen to paper on a two and a half year deal with the club, just like Turnbull has. Since that point he's spent a season on loan at Airdrie, and then half a season at Alloa. Both stints were pretty unremarkable as far as I'm aware, and while he was certainly earmarked to come into contention for a place in our squad at some point I don't think he was ever considered a real hot prospect. He then bounced into our team and hit a hot streak of form just before his current deal expired. If we're honest, the form he's shown over his entire career thus far would suggest that it was maybe a case of "right place, right time" of late, and that he'd maybe have went on to be decent enough, but maybe not quite to the level where he'd still be attracting the kind of clubs and offers he received recently. What do you do in that situation? Gamble that you're going to maintain a level of form that you've not shown in the previous season and a half at a much lower level? Or do you cash in while the iron is hot and take that four year deal on great money? Personally, I think Rangers are mad to offer a kid like Hastie that kind of contract based on what he's done thus far, but it was a no-brainer for the lad to take it. I don't think the same level of money or interested club would have been knocking on his door in January or next summer if his form had plateaued to the extent where he was a good player in our squad but nothing more. I also don't think we would have been in a position to look for more than we're getting in development fees for him either, so it's a win/win all-round in my view. Turnbull is in a completely different situation and at a different stage in his development.

No, you said that if a club comes in this summer with an offer of a salary ten times what he's getting in his new deal with us "Turnbull may find himself asking why not and looking to Hastie who had a run of half a dozen good games and is probably on more money already." My point is that if Turnbull was interested in seeing who was going to come in for him this summer he could have put the deal offered by the club on the backburner and left it sitting on the table as a possible option, just like Hastie did, and waited for a while to see who came in and offered him what. He chose not to do that, and rather than look on the deal offered by Motherwell as a nice safety net that allows him to explore further options he decided to put pen to paper reasonably early on a two and a half year deal. That tells you that he has the intention of plying his trade here for another year or so, surely? otherwise why would he sign the deal so early?

It doesn't matter how explosive he was, Turnbull could have chosen to wait until the summer to see what else was on offer, just like Hastie did. The club would have to have kept a deal on the table for him in case he wanted it as part of the conditions to get a developmental fee if he had moved on, just as they did with Hastie. He chose not to go down that route, and signed a two and a half year deal with us, which is a bit of a signal of intent I think. He could easily have said "nah, I want a one year deal" which would have allowed him to push for a move this summer or even in January, but he didn't. I really do believe that all the signs point to him being here next season and potentially moving on next summer.

In fairness though, Turnbull could have went down the route Hastie went down if he'd wanted to. He could have easily held out until the end of the season and seen what was on offer. The fact that he didn't suggests to me that he's looking for another season here at least.

Ryan Gauld had played two seasons for Dundee United when he left them, so he'd shown what he was capable of on a consistent basis over a season, which is something Turnbull hasn't done as of yet. I have no doubt he will, and see him being a regular player for us next season. As for Gauld being "half the player" Turnbull is, I'm not sure that's the case. We're looking at things through claret & amber tinted glasses for sure, but he's absolutely one of the best talents in the Scottish game at the moment. Again, we're speaking as Motherwell fans, so such talk is only natural. I think he has incredible potential, but we've yet to see him truly show us what he's capable of over an entire season. Kids can see dips in form, can go through so-called purple patches and so on. A very good point, fans can and do get carried away when they see a talented kid coming through the ranks, especially if he's one of their own. Truth is, he's only 18, he's only really been playing regular for half a season. I don't get the way that fans think sometimes. We yearn for a youngster to come through and do really well, then as soon as he does we're virtually selling him off at the first available opportunity. There's going to be a lot of teams monitoring him next season I think, and we may even see a few offers this summer, with sides trying to test our resolve. I don't think we'll see anything close to the £3 million some are mentioning, and doubt we'll see offers of £2 million this summer, so if we do sell him it'll be disappointing as it'll likely be for a lot less than we'd get next summer after he's got a season under his belt. Time will tell I guess.

Yeah, that may be a good comparison finance-wise, as I think if we were willing to accept around £500,000 we've have offers on the table right now for Turnbull. Hopefully we aren't though. Again, it comes down to what the player has managed to accomplish to that point. Turnbull is playing for a mid-level Scottish premiership club and has done very well for half a season thus far. Someone like Joao Felix is playing for a huge club like Benfica, which means he's obviously very good to even get a game for them, not to mention that he's doing the business against sides like Eintracht Frankfurt in the Europa League. I rate Turnbull highly, but I wouldn't say he's comparable to someone like Felix yet. He's doing extremely well at the level he's at, but I do think that for a club to spend in the region of £2 million or even £3 million he's going to have to do what he's done already on a consistent basis over a whole season. The whole "if he was playing for Celtic or Rangers" thing is kind of like the Benfica scenario to an extent, as he'd obviously need to be very good to break into their side and become a regular (we've seen our own fans claim that Jake Hastie, who would walk into our side all things being even, won't even get a game for Rangers next season), and if he's a regular for Celtic or Rangers he's likely playing on the European stage as well, which is another level altogether. As it is, he's playing for us, and he's doing really well. If he continues to do really well next season I can see us getting maybe £1.5 million or £2 million for him, with add-ons that could push that higher depending on how he does. I hope you're wrong, because if that's the case it probably means we've accepted a relatively low offer for him.

Ah, okay. I don't have a clue about all that, I just play FIFA whenever I get permission from the wife!

Derby paid £5 million for Waghorn, which goes up to £7.5 million if they win promotion, and they paid that money off the back of him scoring 16 goals in the English Championship for Ipswich Town the season before. Oxlade-Chamberlain had spent five seasons at Arsenal and played over 100 games for them. I don't really see where either player can be used as a comparison to an 18 year old who's played around 25 first team games for Motherwell? My point was that I don't see an English club chucking down £3 million on a player who's not really done much at this point, even if what he has done has been impressive. I have absolutely no doubt he's being monitored, and if he was available under freedom of contract then that would be a different story, but regardless of us thinking that £3 million isn't a lot of money down south, it's still a sizeable investment for someone who they'll consider relatively unproven as yet. I've seen it mentioned that we should be looking for John McGinn-type money, which is where the £3 million talk is coming from. McGinn had played almost 200 games over his time at St Mirren and Hibs before he signed for Villa, and had already played for and captained both the under 19 & under 21 Scotland sides and also made his senior international debut. I have no doubt Turnbull will eventually go for big money, but my feeling is that it'll be next summer at the earliest, when he's hopefully played well over 50 games for us and has performed consistently over an entire season, and having made his debut for the under-21 Scotland side last month he'll hopefully have another few caps at that level and maybe even higher under his belt by then. I have absolutely no idea what you mean by the FIFA on Playstation stuff though, but that could just be me showing my age

Exactly. I think we'll get another season out of him, with an offer or two maybe dropping in January depending on circumstances.

Yeah, but there's taking a punt on someone, like Rangers are doing with Hastie to the tune of between £350,000-£400,000 from what we're told, and investing millions in a player who's 18 years old and played half a season of top flight Scottish football. I don't know if the sides capable of paying the money we'd want will be willing to part with a couple of million based on what he's done thus far, as impressive as it is. I know they have money to burn down south, but that doesn't mean they just chuck it around for the sake of it. If he moves on it'll be next summer I think, after a solid season where he's not only continued his fine form, but actually improved upon it.

That part in bold is why I say it's up to the manager, who watches the players in training, who sees their body language, how they're interacting with their team mates and so on, to make the right choice. If the likes of Main doesn't have his head in the game at the moment and is pre-occupied with looking at where he'll be next season then by all means drop him if it's potentially going to affect his game and bring in someone who's looking sharper and more switched on in training. What I wouldn't like the think is that the manager is viewing these games in the same way as many fans are, nothing more than extended pre-season games to try out the kids and see who looks decent for next season. As I said, if this weekends game against Dundee was a cup semi-final and the manager still wanted to go ahead and pick the likes of James Scott based on their current form in training and so on then fair enough, I'm 100% behind that.