2026/27 Ins & Outs Discussion

[David]

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.

[joewarkfanclub]

3 hours ago, Spiderpig said:

At this moment he is a whatever another team is willing to pay player, if and when the club gets a genuine bid then maybe we can discuss it, until then its all hypothetical made up BS.

I thought message boards were about opinions.....