Macia to Leave

Bad fit at Everton and question marks over his ability as a DoF.

No questioning his ability at leading a scouting team though!

He’ll probably want to stay up north now anyway.

What is critical for this person is they work well on a long term plan with the manager. If Puel stays I’d like us to support him, but I don’t want his man in per se who will have done most of their scouting for the French leagues.

We need someone who has a good knowledge of the prem and a solid book of contacts!

Oh, and someone that can oust Rudkin ASAP 😂

I find it difficult to tell how good or bad a job Macia is doing/has done. Over the last few years we have made some good signings, but also some bad signings. I'm not convinced our hit rate is great, particularly for signings from the continent rather than our own leagues, so perhaps the scouting hasn't been that good (there are exceptions, but in general). It's also difficult to know how many of these players we've been watching for longer periods of time, and therefore how much criticism or credit he deserves. And that's quite aside from the fact that he'll have other scouts reporting to him and taking their recommendations.

All that said, some of the recent recruitment doesn't look particularly well scouted. Ghezzal looks a waste of money to me and a desperation signing as I feared. Ricardo was a real primary target and looks useful, but not at the right back position for which he was surely sought out. Evans looks a shadow of the player he was, although he was cheap so I take little issue with that. Soyuncu, we'll have to wait and see. Some of the issues here look like things that a real top scout could have figured out. So maybe Macia is not bad, but not great either?

As for Steve Walsh, I wouldn't be against a return. It didn't work out for him at Everton but he's proven in the past that he can unearth players and has good instincts. Whether he'd be happy working under Rudkin as DoF (and whatever people want or say, he ain't going anywhere) is out of our hands.

Under Macia we’ve bought in:
Ndidi, Maguire, Pereira, Maddison, Soyuncu, Dragovic, Evans, Silva, Iborra, Iheanacho, Benkovic, Ward, Ghezzal

Definitely a mixed bag of success there and, as stated, it’s sometimes difficult to know precisely who is most responsible for the recruitment. I would imagine that N’didi, for example, was well scouted before Walsh left. How much did Puel influence the signings of Pereira and Ghezzal?

With Walsh we obviously had massive, unprecedented, success in finding the likes of Vardy, Kante and Mahrez for not much money. That’s balanced, however, with the summer of 2016 when we built on our title winning team by adding: Ron Robert Zieler, Luis Hernandez, Bartosz Kapustka, Nampalys Mendy, Ahmed Musa and Islam Slimani. Some very expensive misses there, but how much was Walsh’s involvement? Presumably Rudkin signed off on £30m for Slimani and £17m for Musa on someone’s advice?

We’ve tended to do quite well during and since Walsh on signing players that fit a profile in terms of being able to develop their character as well as their technical ability - where research has been detailed and painstaking. We’ve done less well on the big money signings with some hits: Maguire, Maddison; some big misses: Slimani, Musa; and quite a few somewhere in between: Silva, Iborra, Ian, Ward and Soyuncu (although, insufficient evidence on the latter two).

We could do with tidying up our performance when we sign reasonably well known players, on big fees, and where the data supporting their recruitment should be more readily available.

Under Macia we’ve bought in:
Ndidi, Maguire, Pereira, Maddison, Soyuncu, Dragovic, Evans, Silva, Iborra, Iheanacho, Benkovic, Ward, Ghezzal

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Out of that mix I think there are some very big hits in Maguire, Ndidi and Maddison who all came for reasonable fees and are now worth much more.

A key measure of success.

The only big money we’ve potentially wasted is on Nacho (who on paper should be superb and we all lauded the signing) and Soyuncu.

So, for me he’s not done a lot wrong. We got the title transfer window utterly wrong though. What a mess that was.

How much of it is Walsh’s fault we’ll never know.

I keep thinking to mention Ahmed Musa, then remind myself that we ended up selling him for nearly £10m profit which kind of nullifies the criticism somewhat.

^
In fact, to really think about it, there's something very dodgy about that. Not saying it's necessarily at our end but that's odd at best given we'd probably have taken around £5m quite happily.

I think it’s a completely different thing scouting/recruiting players for a mid to top half Prem league team than it is for top of championship/avoiding relegation from prem league team. Walsh and his team appeared very good with the later but after what went on at Everton i am not so sure about the former.
Yes I know we won the league with Walsh recruitments but I’m sure that wasn’t the plan.
Anyway if we are to push on into top 8 like we keep getting told it needs someone better than either of the two previous incumbents

The World has changed for us since wining the League, we're too high profile now to find hidden gems in a way, anyone we look at suddenly becomes hot property and the price rockets up.

Maybe OH Leuvren could be a smoke screen for that type of player but we really need to be looking at Ready to Go players now, the impatience won't allow for us to limp along for too long.

Still need squad strengthening in the Winter Window but they really do need to fit straight in.

"Maybe OH Leuvren could be a smoke screen for that type of player but we really need to be looking at Ready to Go players now ........"
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I don’t really know why we/the owners don’t exploit that link more. It would be ideal to use King Power buying power to hoover up young prospects and have them playing genuine, competitive, football rather than reserve football or lower league loans. A try before you buy type arrangement.

I’m not sure whether there are rules that would preclude it being done in a really obvious way.

comment by Jobyfox (U4183)
posted 2 hours, 31 minutes ago
"Maybe OH Leuvren could be a smoke screen for that type of player but we really need to be looking at Ready to Go players now ........"
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I don’t really know why we/the owners don’t exploit that link more. It would be ideal to use King Power buying power to hoover up young prospects and have them playing genuine, competitive, football rather than reserve football or lower league loans. A try before you buy type arrangement.

I’m not sure whether there are rules that would preclude it being done in a really obvious way.

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It’s a really good point TB, and aren’t we actually doing this by sending our you players there and snapping up the likes of Hirst who was obviously desperate to play in Belgium 🙃