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.

[star sail]

13 hours ago, David said:

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.

I think you definitely know more about the metrics than I do. It is interesting to read. Thanks.

All I can tell you is if you lined up Just, Raskin, Engels and Bowie and asked me to pick one for this coming season at Motherwell, I would pick Just. 

 

 

[weeyin]

13 minutes ago, star sail said:

I think you definitely know more about the metrics than I do. It is interesting to read. Thanks.

All I can tell you is if you lined up Just, Raskin, Engels and Bowie and asked me to pick one for this coming season at Motherwell, I would pick Just. 

 

I'd sell Just and JT and pick Bowie 🙂

[texanwellfan]

It’s a very tricky time for the club although I’m hoping they have a lot more information than we do. Trying to determine who to bring in but not knowing how much you can spend, not sure who will be here for the new season or even who will be here initially, since our first competitive game is only 3 weeks away. 
 So much up in the air, an unenviable task. 

[El Grew]

1 hour ago, David said:

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.

A sound argument well put. So given that, what would you estimate his transfer value to be.

[David]

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!

[weeyin]

Sounds about right to me.

Without doing all the sums, I was thinking a ballpark of around 4 million give-or-take, plus add-ons. Unless, as you say, we get lucky with a bidding war.

Of course, we all know it's going to be "undisclosed" and we'll still be guessing after the deal is done.

[texanwellfan]

On the negative side we have to spend some of that money to get a replacement which will be a gamble for us. Will we finish lower down the table or go out of competitions ‘cause we miss him on the park, leading to loss of money? 
Can’t really accurately assess the possible negative  financial aspect of the situation but I think it Will all really be driven by Just amd his agent. Once the lure of a Much better pay day is up for grabs it’s hard to retain a player per contract amd keep them settled happy amd playing well. 

[joewarkfanclub]

1 hour ago, David said:

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!

So we actually agree roughly on the numbers?

[joewarkfanclub]

24 minutes ago, texanwellfan said:

On the negative side we have to spend some of that money to get a replacement which will be a gamble for us. Will we finish lower down the table or go out of competitions ‘cause we miss him on the park, leading to loss of money? 
Can’t really accurately assess the possible negative  financial aspect of the situation but I think it Will all really be driven by Just amd his agent. Once the lure of a Much better pay day is up for grabs it’s hard to retain a player per contract amd keep them settled happy amd playing well. 

I guess this is where we have to trust Nick Dawes and his data, unless of course Alfred already has a replacement in mind......

[David]

8 minutes ago, joewarkfanclub said:

So we actually agree roughly on the numbers?

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?

[MelvinBragg]

I can't be the only one checking in here more for incomings.. ?

[joewarkfanclub]

27 minutes ago, David said:

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?

I tend to think about the headline figure rather than how the deal is broken down, as its hard to compare like for like otherwise.

Ive no idea how the Lennon Miller deal breaks down, but we are led to believe the headline figure is around the £4.5m mark. Whether thats in total or including add ons I have no idea. But its a useful guide to start with when valuing Just.

FWIW, I dont think Just is worth anywhere near what Raskin or Engels are worth purely based on the wages they currently earn and how that factors into transfer fees. (Despite the fact that he had a better season than both last year.)

But you would think Just is on at least the same, if not more than Miller was, so thats a fair comparison.

I guess only the club know exactly what the Miller deal is worth and therefore will be best placed to put a valuation on Just. 

I totally accept we cannot stand in the players way when we sell ourselves as a club that provides players a platform to progress their careers, but he still has 2+1 years on his deal and we are a long way past the point where we bend over as a club at the first offer.

In short, I think £3.5m plus add ons is the minimum we should be looking for and probably the starting point for negotiations. I would hope to be pushing it towards the £5m mark.

Anything short of that they clubs should be told to jog on.