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.....

[Yabba's Turd]

5 hours ago, joewarkfanclub said:

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

But some people have an inflated opinion of their own?

[wellfan]

Some people have opinions. Some write essays. Others live in fantasy.

£8-10 million.

[David]

18 minutes ago, wellfan said:

Some people have opinions. Some write essays. Others live in fantasy.

£8-10 million.

You're clearly in the latter category.

[wellfan]

4 minutes ago, David said:

You're clearly in the latter category.

That's the shortest essay you've ever written. Well done. 

[Wee Alpha]

Raskin or Just?

Having  seen that the Rangers are looking for £20million for Raskin . I feel if I was a manager I would go for Just and Watt and still have £13million spare to spend on a decent forward. Hope McInnes doesn't read this .

[Ya Bezzer!]

11 hours ago, David said:

The Old Firm market is not the Motherwell market. I know we don't like that, but it's the truth.

Celtic will get a lot more for Arne Engels than we will for Elijah Just. 

That's just a fact.  Same with Raskin and Rangers.  

But the Miller transfer has set a new bar and I think Just is worth at least £6 million and possibly has high as £8 million.  

Just has performed at the highest, most elite level of the game, no Motherwell player has ever done that before and I think that should be reflected in the transfer fee.  

I've said before that the poor standard of Scottish football keeps transfer fees down and that in some cases transfer fees are actually over valued.  You don't have to be that good to perform in this league and the step up to higher quality leagues is big.

Elijah Just has completely blown that doubt away.  His performances at the very top level have shown he can do it on the top tier.  

[Suprawell]

Have to agree. Just has outgrown us, but he's still under contract and hopefully there are a few clubs in to force up the price.  It's about time we got paid, instead of being treated like a diddy club. 

£7m has to be a starting point, anyone else can jog on. 

[weeyin]

33 minutes ago, Suprawell said:

Just has outgrown us

Maybe, but he's had one good season with us the year after his was deemed not good enough for his last club and punted out on loan to the Austrian second division.

So if you're a buying club looking at his history, that will play into it. Do you get the 2025/26 verision or the 2024/25 version?

There's no doubt he has been on fire, and was definitely my player of the season. The next thing he has to do is repeat it, and that's the punt his new club will be taking.

 

[David]

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.