Last night, Motherwell delivered an almighty slap to Sevco over their alleged interest in two of their players, striker Louis Moult and central defender Ben Heneghan. The interest may or may not be real – Motherwell aren’t convinced, which suggests that contrary to some people’s comments there’s not yet any concrete bid on the table – but the club have made it pretty clear what their position on this is; the players will only go if the price is right.
This is where Sevco is going to have a problem or two.
As we’re all aware, there’s been a lot of big talk from Caixinha and the board over there.
King says he will spend all the season ticket money, as if that makes any sense and is not reckless, delusional, nonsense. The truth is, Sevco almost certainly has to try and pull some kind of rabbit out of the hat. Watching our storming successes this week has their fans in melt-down mode. You can only imagine how they’ll feel if all the club does this summer is signs some out of contract SPL players and a handful of rejects from Doha.
I don’t know how they are going to afford it, but that’s a problem for them. If they put down a big bet on this guy and he blows it – nothing is surer by the way – then that club will come apart over the course of the season. King has already moved to insulate himself from any blame – he didn’t interview the guy, wasn’t involved in selecting him – but even he won’t be able to hide if this all blows up in their face, and they need to hit the ground running.
But Motherwell are not going to be bullied. Neither are other clubs. If an SPL side is telling them to get the money out, rather than just talking big, then you can imagine how teams elsewhere view their shambolic efforts.
South American players? Do they ever settle?
We’ve tried this a few times ourselves; Rafael, Efrain Juarez, Juninhio.
None of those deals worked out. Rangers tried it with Rosenthal and others. This is Scotland. We have rain 200 days a year. We have snow. How’s a Mexican player going to get on running out on a Thursday night at Inverness? Not very well, I would wager. The idea is madness.
The Fir Park club are determined that their own players will not be joining the Ibrox circus.
Their statement is pretty brutal, and to the point.
Alan Burrows, the club CEO, is well aware that he has his own season tickets to sell and he’s not about to allow their own plans to be derailed so the desperate Sevco board can paint themselves as progressive to their fans.
“There has been some speculation about some of our players,” Burrow said. “It’s public knowledge, or certainly public speculation, that Louis Moult and Ben Heneghan and others are targets for other clubs. That remains to be seen … We will not, and I say this categorically, have our pants pulled down by any club looking to try and get a player on the cheap here.”
It doesn’t get more emphatic than that.
Sevco has two choices this summer; either they are going to have to pay – and pay well – for players, and find the money from somewhere, or they will have to do business the way they have over the last few years, by signing out of contract footballers or unknowns on daft salaries and then rely on The Daily Record to paint them as superstars.
Of course, the most gullible fans in Europe will lap it up either way.
They’ll still be “going for 55” when we’ve left that number way behind.