Magnússon on his way

[chinapig]

4 minutes ago, BTRFTG said:

Talent, good attitude, woefully mismanaged. No wonder he wants out. Good luck to him.

Vynar a natural replacement ? Sheff U game, really?

WeeLee needs to pull some very good bunnies from hats real soon else what's already turning sour could become necrotic come Xmas.

 

Which leads me to ask, if he is so good who should he have replaced in the side?

[TBW]

8 minutes ago, RedM said:

His song created an atmosphere though, and we did at least get the ball into the box with his throws. Another player we failed to get the best out of as far as I’m concerned. Failed him and Bristol City.

Couldn't understand it for a month before reading the words on here. It's so out of tune.

[Redandwhitescarf]

59 minutes ago, Olé said:

No - I agree with you on minimising the loss, the failure is not letting him go too early, it is signing him and players like him in the first place.

Our strategy I think seeks to sign players with potential who we can develop into assets that are successful for us and/or generate a profit.

That has now not worked with Magnússon. It is fairly obviously not going to work with a few other players signed in similar circumstances.

That is what I mean by a poor return on signings. It will quickly turn into a false economy - we'd lose less by paying more for a proven player.

So my point was not at all about clinging onto Magnússon, my concern is only for the people who continue to execute this transfer strategy.

Still think we could have got more for him and I expect Iceland to do well in the World cup which would have boosted his price. Hope we have plenty of add on's to the price Champions League etc and a good % sell on clause. Hes still young so his value will rise 

[Super]

So we have no players now at the World Cup 

[TRL]

Interesting one as I personally think he will go on to much greater things than us

.

 

Is it just me but it seems the better the opponent the better he played, certainly looked good playing against top level opposition but a bit weaker against lesser teams. A bit of the Rio Ferdinand about him in that respect.

 

I too think he has been mismanaged. Made a scape goat by the manager at times. And even blamed for goals by the manager when he wasn't on the pitch if I remember rightly on on RB interview.

 

He has been shunted around the defence when others are out injured and suspended and dropped when they come back even after good performances. I really do think he has been treated poorly by the head coach.

[BCFC Jimmer]

What a move that is for the lad... Good luck to him! 

[RedM]

46 minutes ago, Robin TBW said:

Couldn't understand it for a month before reading the words on here. It's so out of tune.

As are the best footie songs! 

[The Coach]

Good luck to him. Normally I'd feel disappointed if any player leaves who I feel adds value to the squad. However, I'm more relieved for the lad to get out of the club, away from LJ, and the likes of MA, and show what he can do elsewhere. Feel this will bite us in the behind in the future.

[Major Isewater]

2 hours ago, Alan Dicks said:

Not good enough for championship football simple as that.

We will be saying the same about Pisano next season too.

Stick with British signings Mr J

Alan Dicks , what do you know about football ? 

[Fuber]

Don't we can say with LJ constantly undermining, criticising, and dropping him did wonders for Maggers confidence. Comparably no matter how shit Pato plays he cant seem to be dropped.

Honestly would take Millen over LJ in the man-management department.

We say LJ struggles with 'bigger name players', but hes also done very poorly with the likes of Wright, Engvall, Eliasson, Paterson, Magnússon. He simply doesn't seem interested in learning from it. Its been going on for two years now ala Tomlin, Ayling, Freeman.

[Major Isewater]

1 hour ago, Ryan_BCFC said:

Hörður Magnússon - Out

Sam McQueen - In

 

That's what it It's all about .

[SuperDziek]

2 hours ago, CyderInACan said:

Aren’t they leaving this summer though!? 

Players I can trust = Frankie, Flint, Joe, Bobby, Korey and Marlon. Maybe Brownhill. 

Most of those will be gone by the time we kick off the season I’d expect. 

Players he can trust = players that other managers signed (bar Brownhill)

[SuperDziek]

1 hour ago, CyderInACan said:

He’s going to have to get up to speed on his written Russian pretty quick if he’s going to be as much of twitter hero over there as he was here! 

Don’t they have google translate in Russia? Failing that, he could employ Christian Ribeiro as his translator.....

 

[chinapig]

8 minutes ago, Fuber said:

Don't we can say with LJ constantly undermining, criticising, and dropping him did wonders for Maggers confidence. Comparably no matter how shit Pato plays he cant seem to be dropped.

Honestly would take Millen over LJ in the man-management department.

We say LJ struggles with 'bigger name players', but hes also done very poorly with the likes of Wright, Engvall, Eliasson, Paterson, Magnússon. He simply doesn't seem interested in learning from it. Its been going on for two years now ala Tomlin, Ayling, Freeman.

The Preston game is the only example I am aware of so I'm not sure that qualifies as constant criticism. In any event, if he should have been a first choice pick, as some now seem to be saying, who should he have replaced?

As to Wright and Paterson, the first is his choice of skipper and he regards the second as a key player.

Who are these bigger name players? A few might think they are perhaps.

I think we can see from Tomlin's career where the fault lies, while Ayling and Freeman were getting plenty of stick from fans before they left.

As for Millen, he was weak, most particularly in his grovelling to Maynard.

[Fuber]

11 minutes ago, chinapig said:

Who are these bigger name players? A few might think they are perhaps.

I think we can see from Tomlin's career where the fault lies, while Ayling and Freeman were getting plenty of stick from fans before they left.

As for Millen, he was weak, most particularly in his grovelling to Maynard.

Wasnt Maynard injured for most of Millens tenure?

On the happenstance that he was not, easy to criticise Millen for that when hes been asked to slash the playing budget. You'd want to play the players whose most likely on the highest wedge to make the most of the remaining investment or increase plausible return.

[Monkeh]

12 hours ago, SX227 said:

Massive mistake by the club.

Mags will end up being a very,very good player. The signs are there for all to see - we just dont play a system to bring out the best in him.

Personally feel this is a poor decision.

 

Good luck to the lad. 

how do you know that mags wants to stay?, he's been a bit part player and has been offered champions league football plus prob doubling his wages, theres no way the club can stand in his way

[Monkeh]

2 hours ago, Robin Ashton said:

Meanwhile, some are wondering is the manager capable of learning from his mistakes and if so when.

well we weren't in a relegation battle last season and finish a comfy mid table so i'd say yes

[chinapig]

1 minute ago, Fuber said:

Wasnt Maynard injured for most of Millens tenure?

On the happenstance that he was not, easy to criticise Millen for that when hes been asked to slash the playing budget. You'd want to play the players whose most likely on the highest wedge to make the most of the remaining investment or increase plausible return.

Millen, and Sextone, spent months grovelling to Maynard, often in public, trying to get him to sign a new contract when it was obvious he was messing us about.

While slashing the budget included paying Kilkenny more than Leeds were prepared to and trying to sign the likes of Billy Jones and Gareth McAuley. It was his successor who bore the brunt of the cuts.

[Merrick's Marvels]

3 hours ago, Robin Ashton said:

Meanwhile, some are wondering is the manager capable of learning from his mistakes and if so when.

He's "one for the future"!

[TheCulturalBomb]

Defending 1v1 was poor, and his positioning was pretty dire. 

[CyderInACan]

59 minutes ago, SuperDziek said:

Don’t they have google translate in Russia? Failing that, he could employ Christian Ribeiro as his translator.....

 

Arent googles the prisons over there? He might up in a cell with Pussy Riot. 

[BTRFTG]

2 hours ago, chinapig said:

Which leads me to ask, if he is so good who should he have replaced in the side?

The utter liability of Bryan played at the back any day.

[ZiderMeUp]

3 hours ago, Olé said:

No - I agree with you on minimising the loss, the failure is not letting him go too early, it is signing him and players like him in the first place.

Our strategy I think seeks to sign players with potential who we can develop into assets that are successful for us and/or generate a profit.

That has now not worked with Magnússon. It is fairly obviously not going to work with a few other players signed in similar circumstances.

That is what I mean by a poor return on signings. It will quickly turn into a false economy - we'd lose less by paying more for a proven player.

So my point was not at all about clinging onto Magnússon, my concern is only for the people who continue to execute this transfer strategy.

Like signing proven champ players like tomlin and o’neil You mean? 

[wendyredredrobin]

Great guy but always had kittens when he was in possession. Suspect if he hasn't developed by now for us it's not going to work so 2.5 million is decent business that can bolster the squad. 

[Davefevs]

3 hours ago, hodge said:

Think you're picking the wrong transfer for this case if its the wider issue of the strategy, Mags definitely had the potential to be a player at this level and has played fairly well for us. But it hasn't worked for him with the chances he was given and we're making our money back at minimal loss in the wages/signing on fee. If we can largely make the money back on players we pay bigger fees for then sell a few on for big profit then the strategy will work. 

Just questioning whether we are getting our money back?  In pure pounds and pence, yes, but In a market where fees have grown by between 33-100%, mighten we have expected more back than just what we paid.  With a year left on his contract I get the need to move him on now.  I don’t buy MA and LJ don’t want him to go, and not early in the window....but you run the risk of an injury in the WC.  LJ hasn’t done much to give him the feeling that he’s wanted, certainly not as a 1st team regular.

2 hours ago, Badger08 said:

I know the lad is a nice guy and all that, but he literally, on his own, through his errors, cost us around 9 points.

He's far too lightweight and soft. 

Love the guy as a person, but take the money and run.

Which of our defenders hasn’t cost us points over the last 2 seasons.  Perhaps you count Baker’s red card as earning us 3 points .  Seriously though Mags is a favoured scapegoat, and don’t get me wrong, he has been at fault for some goals, but some of the comments on here when he’s had decent games, yet someone says 4/10 is embarrassing.  I’m not saying he should be first choice above Baker at CB or Bryan at LB, but he’s a capable deputy in either position.

[chinapig]

30 minutes ago, BTRFTG said:

The utter liability of Bryan played at the back any day.

LJ was certainly stubborn in overlooking Joe's defensive limitations but the other side of the coin is that Mags is no great shakes going forward and still tends to make mistakes through lack of concentration.

In the modern game though there is more emphasis on full backs as attacking rather than defensive players as they have more space to play in than anybody else.

[Olé]

2 hours ago, Alessandro said:

Can I ask you a hypothetical question? Because I’m just wondering if people’s judgement is clouded by or over focusing on the fact we are signing more players from abroad. 

Would you say there is more chance of us signing a dud from the continent? 

Snipped for space, but really good post.

Yes of course a strategy that recruits for "potential" with upside on valuation is speculative and carries risk, as it does with any growth investment. My point and my view is actually that we're taking more risk than is necessary. And under MA seem likely to continue to do so.

 

But first to attempt an answer to your question: as someone who enjoys the contribution of foreigners  I don't actually think coming from overseas is the significant issue here: as you yourself pointed out, we also recruited for "potential" lower down the leagues in the UK.

However I do think there is a far better chance to judge standard and readiness when looking at players playing in England. Other leagues overseas can be hugely misleading as they do not correlate to the English hierarchy, single divisions may reflect three levels of standard.

As such we seem to have repeatedly acquired players who we perceive to meet our standard or "are ready to go straight in", and then aren't. I don't want to turn this into another list of LJ/MA signings with grades, but even for a speculative process, the hit rate is pretty terrible.

Magnússon is interesting because apart from Tomlin he is the first LJ/MA era purchase to be sold for serious money and certainly the first foreign one, and we're going to make a small loss, yet probably a better return that we'll get for several other foreigners LJ/MA signed!?

That is an awful reflection of a strategy not working, and yes, when you consider that Brownhill and O'Dowda are literally the only 2 LJ/MA signings you could be confident of making a profit on versus purchase price, that does make the preference from the continent more odd.

LJ/MA signings out of the first team of English league sides: Brownhill, O'Dowda, Baker, Paterson, Wright, Taylor - I'd say that was a much higher return than any of our overseas transfer work and versus Magnússon and our Scandinavian recruitment there's no contest at all.

 

But, like I said, I don't think "overseas" is the whole issue. It's this "potential" - this is my point about us slipping into a false economy. We have a record both with managers and players of never recruiting people with experience of the task we want them to do. That is high risk.

I agree it's tough to buy proven English players, but to use an SL analogy - what proportion of Hargreaves Lansdown investments are in high risk "growth potential" stocks and what proportion in low risk, reliable "proven yield" stocks? Most portfolios weight heavily to the latter.

So why does SL allow MA to do the opposite with his football club? This is what I meant about more risk than necessary. As it stands using Magnússon as a yardstick and thinking of similar signings who have been even less successful, we're spending millions to make a loss. 

Combine all that money on 1 or 2 more expensive players proven at the standard we want them to play - low risk acquisition - and I'm sure as an asset we would be losing less in the long run. Easy to sit on a forum and say this as all deals are hard but we make mostly bad ones!

Am I the only one who is amazed that Brownhill and O'Dowda are literally the only "up and coming" League 1/2 players that MA has signed? The same approach also netted us Flint and Pack. It is baffling given the success with these type of deals that MA does so little of them.

[BobBobSuperBob]

3 minutes ago, Olé said:

Snipped for space, but really good post.

Yes of course a strategy that recruits for "potential" with upside on valuation is speculative and carries risk, as it does with any growth investment. My point and my view is actually that we're taking more risk than is necessary. And under MA seem likely to continue to do so.

 

But first to attempt an answer to your question: as someone who enjoys the contribution of foreigners  I don't actually think coming from overseas is the significant issue here: as you yourself pointed out, we also recruited for "potential" lower down the leagues in the UK.

However I do think there is a far better chance to judge standard and readiness when looking at players playing in England. Other leagues overseas can be hugely misleading as they do not correlate to the English hierarchy, single divisions may reflect three levels of standard.

As such we seem to have repeatedly acquired players who we perceive to meet our standard or "are ready to go straight in", and then aren't. I don't want to turn this into another list of LJ/MA signings with grades, but even for a speculative process, the hit rate is pretty terrible.

Magnússon is interesting because apart from Tomlin he is the first LJ/MA era purchase to be sold for serious money and certainly the first foreign one, and we're going to make a small loss, yet probably a better return that we'll get for several other foreigners LJ/MA signed!?

That is an awful reflection of a strategy not working, and yes, when you consider that Brownhill and O'Dowda are literally the only 2 LJ/MA signings you could be confident of making a profit on versus purchase price, that does make the preference from the continent more odd.

LJ/MA signings out of the first team of English league sides: Brownhill, O'Dowda, Baker, Paterson, Wright, Taylor - I'd say that was a much higher return than any of our overseas transfer work and versus Magnússon and our Scandinavian recruitment there's no contest at all.

 

But, like I said, I don't think "overseas" is the whole issue. It's this "potential" - this is my point about us slipping into a false economy. We have a record both with managers and players of never recruiting people with experience of the task we want them to do. That is high risk.

I agree it's tough to buy proven English players, but to use an SL analogy - what proportion of Hargreaves Lansdown investments are in high risk "growth potential" stocks and what proportion in low risk, reliable "proven yield" stocks? Most portfolios weight heavily to the latter.

So why does SL allow MA to do the opposite with his football club? This is what I meant about more risk than necessary. As it stands using Magnússon as a yardstick and thinking of similar signings who have been even less successful, we're spending millions to make a loss. 

Combine all that money on 1 or 2 more expensive players proven at the standard we want them to play - low risk acquisition - and I'm sure as an asset we would be losing less in the long run. Easy to sit on a forum and say this as all deals are hard but we make mostly bad ones!

Am I the only one who is amazed that Brownhill and O'Dowda are literally the only "up and coming" League 1/2 players that MA has signed? The same approach also netted us Flint and Pack. It is baffling given the success with these type of deals that MA does so little of them.

Cracking post

Again

Eloquently summarised

[Olé]

3 hours ago, Redandwhitescarf said:

I expect Iceland to do well in the World cup which would have boosted his price

It's certainly odd to sell a player prior to a World Cup which rarely does anything other than enhance valuation and number of interested parties.

We've literally got a minimum of four and a half hours of free global TV advertising for our player, and we've sold him off before the ads have run.

[RedRoss]

Can't believe the uproar. 

You can't knock his attitude or commitment to us but Maggs was poor more than he was good so don't understand the love in.

Ridiculous to say he was mismanaged when no one has any proof there was a disagreement between the two. Also who would he have replaced out of CB's Baker, or Flint or LB's out of Bryan and Kelly? All in my opinion much better consistent players.  Even if Baker and Flint we're injured I would rather have gone with Bailey. 

Showed flashes of a good player, great commitment to the club, cool name and handy long throws sums him up.

Glad we got our money back to reinvest.