His non-departure is likely to divide opinion among the Motherwell support although only time will tell if this was a good piece of business. On one hand we are keeping a regular in our eleven and our second top scorer. Beyond that, our squad basically contains 15-16 players trusted by the manager so letting one of these go for anything less than top dollar would have been extremely painful.
However, we are a selling team. We need to sell our assets to fund the next round of youth players, free transfers and even our day to day bills. Additionally, the Well Society may have benefitted from an additional lump of income to protect the future of the club.
How will Murphy react to the club accepting the bid? He is unlikely to respond badly given we did agree the offer but there is little doubt he has struggled for a while. Perhaps it is just a natural dip in form which he will recover from or perhaps his exile to the left wing is proving hurtful.
The interview given by Gordon Young on BBC Alba made the club’s thinking clear – it’s time to move the boy on. If he does fulfil his previous potential he is likely to secure us a bigger fee and possibly a bigger club for his move than Blackpool.
The worry of course is that he never recovers his top form - he could be like McCart, Reynolds or many others who missed their chance for a big move when at their best.
Murphy has played around 160 times for Motherwell and has already provided his share of great memories. He produced some spectacular goals and has the honour of being the club's top European scorer. We can only hope we can look forward to many more!