and breathe...

Yes I know that Bricks.

But my point is everyone says Megson would be a great head scout, when in fact there is no evidence for that as its the scouts who flew out to Korea and saw CYL etc.

And for one we dnt know how the scouting system itself works, do the scout propose where to search, does the manager, is it joint etc. Just because you choose on footy man and FIFA doesn't mean that's how it is.

Average players were bought for big bucks and have no re-sale value, or ability to gain profit. Certain players could go for bigger fees. Cahill actually went for -£500k what we paid in fees( £5m up front and £2.5m with his first England cap) CYL, Muamba and Mavies cost £7.7m between them, I doubt Muamba Stock has risen, CYL and Mavies has. But the others, Steinsson, Knight, Robbo, Shuttu, Taylor, cost what... £17m? We had to pay Shittu £1m to leave, we also had to pay Riga £1m aswell. So that's £19m on 6 players who had no re sale value. The fact we got £2.2m for Taylor astounds me, West Ham paid way above the odds for him.

Let's not forget £8.2m on a striker who was 28 and wasnt prolific in his time before he joined us, never mind actually with us. Hi stock was never going to rise either. Poor signings by Megson. Coyles have the ability to improve and become better players leaving on bigger fees than we signed them.

HH, to be honest we've had this conversation about Megson and scouting in the past.

When people say the scouts should take the praise for finding the players, and thus the club signing them, it doesn't really ring true to me.

He had the ultimately responsibility for whether we took the player or not.

We really don't know for sure who found a player, how many times Megson watched them, how many potential bad signings he rejected, and so on.

It is alien to me to agree with Bricks two days in a row, but he's right, Megson had a good record in the transfer market with us, I would describe it as an excellent record but he spunked away £10m on a 27 year old Elmander on a 3 year deal, which was a disastrous decision.

What the $£&++? was Coyle doing? All he had to do was .....

Oh! Sorry! I thought it was Saturday already!

Holden I have agreed with you lately but your twisting reality a bit. I am not defending megson but in your defence of coyle you have got lost. You mention loss of money on Cahill. When coyle arrived Cahill had two and a half years left on his contract. In that time bwfc and coyle let it run to a point that he went for much less than he was worth. Elmander had 18 months so could have been sold. Yes at a loss but not for zero pounds. Also this idea of late 20s players is not true. Cahill, muamba, Lee, mavies all young with a value for resale.

What about eagles, mears, roe Coker, klasnic, Blake, petrov none of them are worth much if anything.

I am also not sure on your point about 451? Are you saying that because we lost two games with it that it doesn't work or are you saying we are placing too much emphasis on a the only system that has provided a run of results?

What about eagles, mears, roe Coker, klasnic, Blake, petrov none of them are worth much if anything.
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Petrov, Blake and Klasnic aren't worth much.

But Eagles, Mears and Reo-Coker are well worth fees.

We would get £1m+ for Eagles and Mears if we sold them this Summer, and £3m+ for Reo-Coker.

No not at all re 451. I was only saying that's why I believe Coyle was reluctant to move to 451 until recently, as in the past we had two bad performances. But since it's implementing it's been fanastic. Well much better anyway. I'd like to see Sordell in Same 11 as Ngog though somehow..


Also in your Cahill an Elmander scenario, you cannot just sell a player, you need a club to actually come in with an offer. We only got a £6m offer in Summer, the first bid we ever got, we sold for £7m in Jan.

Petrov read my post, I mentioned Lee Cahill, Mavies etc, and sai there is potential for resale value but alot of money spent on ageing players was wasted as there was no re sale value.

I'm also with HH on this and I think me and LH also had this debate some time ago. You do hear many folk stating how bad HWSNBN was, but how he was a fantastic spotter of talent and would be a great club scout.

Again I pose the question to those peeps, if he is such a fantastic spotter of talent, who are the players that he discovered before he arrived at Bolton and who are the players that he discovered while on garden leave and more recently at Sheffield Wednesday?

Are you guys familiar with Ockham's Razor? All things being equal, the simplist solution is often the most probable. So either HWSNBN is a dab hand at spotting and plucking great players from obscurity or he was just in charge of a Premier League football team that had the remnence of a very good scouting network left over from the Big Sam days.

Good post JAH, i agree with what youve posted there 100%. Well theres a few transfers that can be explained who he did sign:

Cahill, already a target before Megson came.
Steinsson, Bergsson sent him over for a trial in 2003, stayed in contact ever since and Gudni told us to sign him in 2008.
M Davies, Chris Evans told Meggo to sign him.
Lee, a scout in Asia would have come across him and recommended him.

Megson didnt scout players, he was shown them by either the staff, scouts, other players etc, and he chose who to sign. But i would argue with anyone who says he was a good scout, because he wasnt, the scouts are good scouts. And in any case, i actually think Megson performed incredibly poor in the transfer market, mainly signed ageing players who have no re-sale value, meaning we couldnt sell them on to create more money for transfers in the future. Poor short-termism from Megson and Gartside in that instance. Under Coyle we have a better approach, signing young players who can improve and make a profit from sales. Whereas Knight, Steinsson, Taylor, Elmander, Robinson, Shittu, Riga etc came and caused a huge loss. £26m in transfer fees and pay-offs....only £2.2m re-couped? Poor.

If Megson is so good, how come he let Dzemaili leave for nothing? He was an a very good player before he joined, and a very good player after. Dzemaili was in Swiss national team, and still is(which is by no means a given, as the Swiss have developed an incredible team), and is currently helping Napoli through Champions League, but wasnt good enough for a team battling relegation?