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4Th Place & Possible Europa Cup


Welldaft Mk1
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This thread is going the same way the Scottish cup thread went. Football fans becoming financial experts, now their becoming football youth development officers too.

 

I remember the days when fans wanted to see their team finish as high up the table as possible and for their team to draw the easiest teams in the hat so they could go on and win something or qualify for Europe.

 

 

Changed days indeed.

 

I'm the same as I was as a wean, I just want Motherwell to win football games.

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Cadden and Hall are getting a good amount of games and doing well. Why not just aim for 4th place by playing our strongest 11 and we can then look at blooding in more youngsters next season. We already have 2 in the 1st team but lets not start throwing in youth for the sake of it. I'm sure McGhee has a better understanding on who is ready for the senior team than anyone on these forums.

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I honestly don't know what planet you've just been beamed down from mate.

 

Let's explore your example of the young Rangers player. I suspect all of the Motherwell u20s squad will be just like the 17 year old boy you describe. They too should be like a "dog with a bone" doing what they can to get into the first team. Such is the nature of forging a career in such a competitive industry.

 

It's been the way of the footballing world since Christ left Patrick. Do you HONESTLY think that Warburton will just put this lad in because he's been trying really hard?

 

Young players should break into first teams when they're ready to fight for a place in that first team. To suggest otherwise is idealistic nonsense.

 

The u20s reward will be a trophy. It is not a first team berth!!!

 

If the first team achieve 4th, there will be more money to secure the longevity of our homegrown talent and to source talent from elsewhere such as Johnson and Moult. It's a simple matter of business.

 

But hey, it's man management time. I'd hate for a potential cup winning youth team to feel "deflated" because they didn't walk straight into a premiership first team.

 

I honestly don't know what planet you've just been beamed down from mate.

 

Let's explore your example of the young Rangers player. I suspect all of the Motherwell u20s squad will be just like the 17 year old boy you describe. They too should be like a "dog with a bone" doing what they can to get into the first team. Such is the nature of forging a career in such a competitive industry.

 

It's been the way of the footballing world since Christ left Patrick. Do you HONESTLY think that Warburton will just put this lad in because he's been trying really hard?

 

Young players should break into first teams when they're ready to fight for a place in that first team. To suggest otherwise is idealistic nonsense.

 

The u20s reward will be a trophy. It is not a first team berth!!!

 

If the first team achieve 4th, there will be more money to secure the longevity of our homegrown talent and to source talent from elsewhere such as Johnson and Moult. It's a simple matter of business.

 

But hey, it's man management time. I'd hate for a potential cup winning youth team to feel "deflated" because they didn't walk straight into a premiership first team.

 

If you could point to a singular imported player that went for a decent fee in the last few years I'd agree with you.

 

You can't - so your argument is flawed.

 

And not one of us would be shocked if we ended up losing Moult and Johnston for nothing too.

 

Our transfer record is dire, appalling - and the amount of money we have blown on useless imports makes that even more painful.

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Let's explore your example of the young Rangers player. I suspect all of the Motherwell u20s squad will be just like the 17 year old boy you describe. They too should be like a "dog with a bone" doing what they can to get into the first team. Such is the nature of forging a career in such a competitive industry.

 

 

 

I think you have too much faith in the average 17 year old footballer.

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Amazed there's even any debate. Luke Watt getting a few games should be far more important to the club than petty matters like £200k and qualifying for European competition.

 

You must be drunk to come out with that. I presume you are at the wind up.we all follow football to experience the joys of victory and for a club like ours there are more lows than highs.I personally dream of getting a real big team in europa league ala inter milan liverpool or someone like that and it can happen.

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We can quantify the benefits of finishing 4th (approx $200k) but do we have any evidence that "blooding" youngsters over a handful of end of season games does anything? If a player isn't ready, will giving him games at a much higher level magically make him better?

 

In addition to this, are we assuming that the players who got us to 4th are happy to step aside to give the boys a game and forego any bonuses they will get for winning any of the next 5 games?

 

Cadden, Hall and Kennedy (do we count Laing?) all got into the team by working for it and earning it. They have all said that they were told by the manager what they needed to do to improve, and they did it and got their reward. There is also the benefits of being talked through the game by the old heads, so we need to keep a balance.

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Amazed there's even any debate. Luke Watt getting a few games should be far more important to the club than petty matters like £200k and qualifying for European competition.

 

You must be drunk to come out with that. I presume you are at the wind up.we all follow football to experience the joys of victory and for a club like ours there are more lows than highs.I personally dream of getting a real big team in europa league ala inter milan liverpool or someone like that and it can happen.

 

The best right back our great club has never had. Aye...

 

ob_f55afc_34542-bravo-applaudissement-mt

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We can quantify the benefits of finishing 4th (approx $200k) but do we have any evidence that "blooding" youngsters over a handful of end of season games does anything?

 

But how do you quantify the lost opportunity of carrying on as-is and finishing 6th anyway?

 

Whatever happens, if it doesn't work, it will be dead easy to say we should have done the opposite.

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If you could point to a singular imported player that went for a decent fee in the last few years I'd agree with you.

 

You can't - so your argument is flawed.

 

And not one of us would be shocked if we ended up losing Moult and Johnston for nothing too.

 

Our transfer record is dire, appalling - and the amount of money we have blown on useless imports makes that even more painful.

I don't think anyone would disagree with you that Motherwells transfer policy has been nothing short of woeful during recent years but during the vast majority of that time, we've enjoyed the longest run of highest top league finishes in the clubs modern history.

 

So on that basis, I wouldn't necessarily agree that our recent standard of import quality (January cull excluded of course) has been useless.

 

I for one WOULD be surprised if we saw Moult and Johnson leave at the ends of their contracts for nothing and the reason I say that is that the club has talked up that import, skill up, export business model and has spent quite a lot of money on building the infrastructure to resource that. Has all of this bypassed you?

 

But of course, you can never rule out the individual will of a young talented player who perhaps has had his head turned.

 

If the rumours are true, there will be nothing to stop Ben Hall refusing a new contract and swanning off chasing the big time after a few breakthrough games in our first team.

 

So yeah, IT IS man management time because for every Theo Robinson or Franny Jeffers I'll raise you a Paul Slane or Lee Erwin.

 

i sincerely hope McGhee keeps our young talent grounded and picks the best available team to have a cracking battle for that fourth spot

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4th should be the target and team setup should reflect that.

 

But it does not have to be one choice over the other. We can also introduce some young players and give them a bit more time than we have e.g. depending on the game give Thomas 30 mins, give MacLean 20mins, give Watt 20 mins etc. Better than a 2 min cameo and likely does not disrupt the game too much.

 

We can balance both without chucking the chances of 4th away I think.

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Seems a little unfair to criticise the club over transfer policy. If nobody offers the club a decent fee for a player then they are scarcely responsible for that fact. The whole system is against clubs of our size and situation (both financial and geographic) and, as such, we have tried to play by the rules and generally been screwed.

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Just out of interest, and with regard to European qualification, what is the scenario should New Rangers qualify by winning the cup? Are they in a position to take up the place? I am sure that there used to be rules concerning the amount of published accounts that a club possessed, before being allowed to compete on the European stage.

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4th should be the target and team setup should reflect that.

 

But it does not have to be one choice over the other. We can also introduce some young players and give them a bit more time than we have e.g. depending on the game give Thomas 30 mins, give MacLean 20mins, give Watt 20 mins etc. Better than a 2 min cameo and likely does not disrupt the game too much.

 

We can balance both without chucking the chances of 4th away I think.

100% agree. I started this "mini" discussion by defining 2 totally opposite approaches to generate discussion but of course there is a whole range of scenarios in between and the ideal approach would seem to be somewhere around the middle. We could play the likes of Cadden and Hall (unless there are other factors in the latter's case) for 90 minutes without weakening the team in any way. Dom Thomas could easily be given 20/30/40 minutes. Of the others, MacLean and Watt could be given 5/10/20 minutes depending on how the game is progressing. Maybe the likes of Campbell could be given 2/3/4/5 minutes at the end of a game.

 

All of these selections could be made without really weakening our push for 4th place. Much will also depend on how individual games are going and the management team will well know their charges' potential and maturity.

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Cadden and Hall are getting a good amount of games and doing well. Why not just aim for 4th place by playing our strongest 11 and we can then look at blooding in more youngsters next season. We already have 2 in the 1st team but lets not start throwing in youth for the sake of it. I'm sure McGhee has a better understanding on who is ready for the senior team than anyone on these forums.

 

Stop talking sense, you. This is not the place for such opinions.

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I always find it strange that people want to start preparing for next season when there is still stuff to play for in the current one. I can absolutely understand if you are Dundee or Partick the merits but nobody else.

 

Clubs should always be preparing for at least the next season. We should have transfer targets identified for every window, anticipate who might be leaving and how we can replace them, and gradually introduce young players as and when we can.

 

If you don't, you end up in the situation where one sumer you have 14 players leave and have to start from scratch.

 

It's no different in that respect from other buisnesses with 3 and 5 year plans.

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I always find it strange that people want to start preparing for next season when there is still stuff to play for in the current one. I can absolutely understand if you are Dundee or Partick the merits but nobody else.

We are now entering the final stages of this season, having fulfilled almost 90% of our fixtures. We're not going to win any cups this season and we'll finish in the top six in 4th,5th or 6th position with the season ending in a month. Not unnaturally a few of us are speculating on likely signings and departures. So I don't find it at all odd Tweed that folks are now beginning to look ahead to the next campaign.

 

Ian Baraclough said last year, at an AGM, that the club had begun to identify possible signing targets in January for the summer window (despite being in the relegation zone). He said that identifying, negotiating with and signing new players could often take several months. So, I'd guess with Mark McGhee having his own ideas, and the club being in a much more stable position in a playing & financial sense that our departure and signing plans will be at fairly advanced stage. The new season will kick off in about 3 months.

 

Rumours about possible departures and arrivals are already circulating in the stands and I suppose this discussion is simply reflecting that. Incidentally may I ask why you singled out Dundee and Partick?

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