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Motherwell FC News
| March 2001 |
| Friday, March 2 |
Just in: Radio Clyde reported at lunchtime that McMillan and McCulloch have completed their moves to Wigan. The total deal is worth £1.25m - £700,000 for McCulloch and £550,000 for McMillan. (1.25pm)
This morning's papers are reporting that Stevie McMillan and Lee
McCulloch have agreed personal terms with Wigan and will complete their
transfers to the English second division side over the weekend. It is
believed that Wigan upped their offer to £1.4 million to push the deal through,
with the players claiming a percentage. Speaking at yesterday's press
conference, Pat Nevin said:
"At the moment it looks reasonable that at least one -
possibly both - will go. I've spoken to both the lads and they seem quite
comfortable with the club's position."
Nevin denied that Motherwell have made a huge financial loss by
refusing previous bids from Hearts and Bradford City for McCulloch and McMillan
respectively:
"I would thoroughly disagree that it's for a fraction of
what they are worth. I think it's viable when you take all things into the
consideration. There has only ever been one bid for Stephen and it's
almost exactly the same as this one. The deal with Hearts wasn't
necessarily a clear £1million like everyone seems to believe. You're
talking about a set payment before and then dependent on appearances, things
like that. So the fact that this one is purely cash means we've not lost a
great deal on that. As for the Stephen McMillan bid - if you compare the
Wigan one with the Bradford one, I would suggest that the Wigan one is far
better. Even if we lose money on it, the point was that it was acceptable
to do that because we were busily building and trying to do things over a
three-year period."
When asked what percentage of the £1.4m will be reinvested in
the team, Nevin replied:
"It won't be all of it, that is for certain. But I
don't think we will be isolated in this kind of thing come next season in the
SPL. You can see the other clubs with similar financial figures, although
perhaps they have more resources."
Nevin was then asked if Motherwell could
withstand bids for their best in-contract players. He replied:
"Don't do that to us. Other clubs may think that
just now but I think we are in a fairly comfortable position (to withstand
offers)."
Pat then went on to give Billy Davies the dreaded vote of
confidence:
"There isn't even a shadow of a doubt that he's got to be
given time. If you're rebuilding then you do have to give him time and
don't judge on one game or a number of games between now and the end of the
season. It's going to be damn hard for the manager and other managers are
going to have the same difficulties next year. I've got a lot of belief in
the manager and it's hard anyway, but it's doubly hard now. But you're
looking ahead and you could do the rash thing and go out and get three players
that you know nothing about. We will try to get in the top six but we also
have the wider, longer-term thing of the next two or three years. The
manager did a brilliant job getting to fourth last year in such a short period
of time, especially as a new manager. He's learned an awful lot in the
last two or three years and I'm delighted to have him sitting beside us, pushing
us forward, because I have total faith in his abilities. If it can be
done, he's one of the guys that I think can do it. "
"I know for a fact that we've got a substantial sum of this money to go back into our coffers and build a bigger and better team. The whole idea is to decrease the debt and that's the reason for doing it, but what I would underline is that the manager is having to do this right now as opposed to the end of the season."
Billy Davies added:
"We can start preparing tomorrow if the deal gets done today and we can
start to pick the team for Sunday which is obviously difficult. But we
just need to get on with it. We've got to go and pick the guys that are
available to us and go into Sunday's game and hopefully get those guys playing
at their best. It's going to be difficult because it's two really quality
players - there's no doubt about it. If you're asking me the question
would I like to have both of them available for Sunday, then the answer to that
would be yes. In another way, I'm delighted in a sense for these guys
because we have worked very hard with these young boys in the last couple of
years and it's great to see them now moving down to England."
Team news ahead of Sunday's game: Benito Kemble is struggling with a thigh strain while Don Goodman (hamstring), Paul Harvey (back), Steven Nicholas (flu) and Scott Leitch (ankle) are all rated doubtful.
Derek Adams, Benito Kemble and Derek Townsley will all be suspended for the Rangers game on March 17th.
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