Coyle's top 3 signings

[BWFC_Insane]

In my opinion there's only really been Ngog, Mears and Alonso that are truly shit and can't possibly be any better because of how shit they are. We've seen glimpses from Mark Davies, Petrov, Sordell and others to say these players at the top of their game are easily Premier League class. I'd even go as far as to say a decent manager could make a half decent player out of Pratley.

Again, the problem is not fully down to the recruitment but the ability of the manager to get the best of the players he's recruited. He's clearly not doing that at the moment.

Megson signed Mark Davies....

But anyway, I think Tom is right. Either Megson paid the correct price for good players and Coyle cannot match that on his budget.

OR Megson paid too much for poor players and Coyle should therefore be able to match it on his reduced budget (If he was any good).

[Hoboh]

Whichever way you wish to twist this, he's spent less net than his predecessor, he's been consistently cutting the wage bill since his arrival. The non-replacement of keepers, the non-like-for-like replacement of strikers, it goes on and on. I know I'll never get you to admit it, but thats the cold hard facts of this case. And it'll get worse, not better, whether Coyle goes or doesn't unless something happens to our funding or something drastic like wage capping (or something equally unlikely) happens sometime soon. I'm sorry to have to break it to you so bluntly.

Hate to break it to you my money minded friend but with the number of players at the end of their contracts last season and the so-called (incidently not that cheap an investment) "yoof project", it should with a couple of astute signings have reduced the clubs out goings suitably.
It has not worked, relegation hit and one of the key componants of the plan is not delivering, chain, dodgy link, replace.

[SmokinFrazier]

This is slightly veering off at a tangent, but I don't understand how people seem to want to have it both ways where A) Megson bought a load of overpriced shit and B) Coyle can't possibly compete with the players Megson bought because he doesn't have the same funds. If they are that shit and that overpriced (and don't get me wrong, nearly all of them were overpriced), how hard could it be to get better players for cheaper?

Simultaneously Elmander manages to be an utter joke of a signing, but also a player the like of which we can't possibly afford to replace, despite having chucked £7mil at strikers.

It's the same with Zat Knight. For years he's been held up as one of the worst defenders on planet earth. Surely you could get a much better player for half of what we paid for him? Apparently Coyle can't.

There has been money to spend, both on wages and players. Enough to keep us competitive in the Premier League, and be serious promotion contenders now we're in the Championship. Coyle's spent it on shit and they've been managed even worse.

I think one of the problems we have is limited scouting. The best thing Gartside could do for the club would be to bring in scouts from all over Europe, especially Spain, Germany, Portugal and Italy. There is so much quality in these countries that we could be aiming for. £8m bought us Sordell and N'Gog but I'd much rather see that sort of money being offered to foreign clubs instead because you'd get a much better return, especially as a lot of these clubs in Italy, Spain and Portugal have financial difficulties right now. Swansea got Michu for £2m and yet he's clearly a good player - is he half as good as N'Gog? No. Valencia signed Argentinian international Fernando Gago for about £3m because he doesn't fit in at Real Madrid under Mourinho. Is he worth £1m less than Sordell? No, but those are the sorts of valuations being thrown around for quality players. I'm not saying we should have gone in for him, by the way, because it'd be impossible no doubt, but my point is that you can get far more for your money abroad. Man United spent £6m on a player who had only ever done anything at Crewe! Twice the valuation of Gago! This is crazy.

The biggest reason for Newcastle's success in the past couple of years is Graham Carr. He has been terrific for them and that's what we need at Bolton. Forget spending (too much) money on home grown players, bring in foreign youngsters who will turn out to be the next Gudjohnsen, Okocha or Jussi. There are players out there but we aren't finding them whereas our rivals are.

We need to sign some top scouts and send them across Europe to pick out some quality prospects. We don't have the money to buy top level players right now, and we have too much competition to sign the best young English players so the best way for us to spend little on high quality is to bring them in from abroad.

There is very little 'bang for your buck' in England. Unless we broaden our horizons, we will just carry on wasting good money on average players.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

To be fair to Coyle, he was trying the Spanish market over the last two summers, even before their economy tanked. But mainly to loan flashy inside-forwards.

Scouting does appear to have become somewhat less than worldly. You do sometimes wonder if Cliff Roberts has ever left Lancashire.

[BWFC_Insane]

This is slightly veering off at a tangent, but I don't understand how people seem to want to have it both ways where A) Megson bought a load of overpriced shit and B) Coyle can't possibly compete with the players Megson bought because he doesn't have the same funds. If they are that shit and that overpriced (and don't get me wrong, nearly all of them were overpriced), how hard could it be to get better players for cheaper?

Simultaneously Elmander manages to be an utter joke of a signing, but also a player the like of which we can't possibly afford to replace, despite having chucked £7mil at strikers.

It's the same with Zat Knight. For years he's been held up as one of the worst defenders on planet earth. Surely you could get a much better player for half of what we paid for him? Apparently Coyle can't.

There has been money to spend, both on wages and players. Enough to keep us competitive in the Premier League, and be serious promotion contenders now we're in the Championship. Coyle's spent it on shit and they've been managed even worse.

I think one of the problems we have is limited scouting. The best thing Gartside could do for the club would be to bring in scouts from all over Europe, especially Spain, Germany, Portugal and Italy. There is so much quality in these countries that we could be aiming for. £8m bought us Sordell and N'Gog but I'd much rather see that sort of money being offered to foreign clubs instead because you'd get a much better return, especially as a lot of these clubs in Italy, Spain and Portugal have financial difficulties right now. Swansea got Michu for £2m and yet he's clearly a good player - is he half as good as N'Gog? No. Valencia signed Argentinian international Fernando Gago for about £3m because he doesn't fit in at Real Madrid under Mourinho. Is he worth £1m less than Sordell? No, but those are the sorts of valuations being thrown around for quality players. I'm not saying we should have gone in for him, by the way, because it'd be impossible no doubt, but my point is that you can get far more for your money abroad. Man United spent £6m on a player who had only ever done anything at Crewe! Twice the valuation of Gago! This is crazy.

The biggest reason for Newcastle's success in the past couple of years is Graham Carr. He has been terrific for them and that's what we need at Bolton. Forget spending (too much) money on home grown players, bring in foreign youngsters who will turn out to be the next Gudjohnsen, Okocha or Jussi. There are players out there but we aren't finding them whereas our rivals are.

We need to sign some top scouts and send them across Europe to pick out some quality prospects. We don't have the money to buy top level players right now, and we have too much competition to sign the best young English players so the best way for us to spend little on high quality is to bring them in from abroad.

There is very little 'bang for your buck' in England. Unless we broaden our horizons, we will just carry on wasting good money on average players.

Coyle brought his own chief scout in, and I presume the scouting network.

Managers job to pick that not the chairman's.

Didn't Megson have Colin Harvey? Who turned up LCY?

I don't have the impression that our current scouting methods since Coyle brought his Burnley lot in are very good.

Not a surprise like! Burnley fans told us that when he came!

[Gail Platz]

In my opinion there's only really been Ngog, Mears and Alonso that are truly shit and can't possibly be any better because of how shit they are. We've seen glimpses from Mark Davies, Petrov, Sordell and others to say these players at the top of their game are easily Premier League class. I'd even go as far as to say a decent manager could make a half decent player out of Pratley.

Again, the problem is not fully down to the recruitment but the ability of the manager to get the best of the players he's recruited. He's clearly not doing that at the moment.

Megson signed Mark Davies....

That wasn't my point, I know Megson signed him.

My point was that Mark Davies has previously played very well for us, and isn't doing now. Who is that down to? The manager.

[BWFC_Insane]

In my opinion there's only really been Ngog, Mears and Alonso that are truly shit and can't possibly be any better because of how shit they are. We've seen glimpses from Mark Davies, Petrov, Sordell and others to say these players at the top of their game are easily Premier League class. I'd even go as far as to say a decent manager could make a half decent player out of Pratley.

Again, the problem is not fully down to the recruitment but the ability of the manager to get the best of the players he's recruited. He's clearly not doing that at the moment.

Megson signed Mark Davies....

That wasn't my point, I know Megson signed him.

My point was that Mark Davies has previously played very well for us, and isn't doing now. Who is that down to? The manager.

In that case.....good point well made Sir!

[Tombwfc]

The list of non-English/Scottish club players Coyle has signed in his managerial career runs as follows...

Diego Penny - Coronel (Peru)
Fernando Guerrero - Loaned from Independiente del Valle (Ecuador) - Scouted while playing for Real Madrid
Stuart Holden - Houston (USA)
Marcos Alonso - Real Madrid (Spain)
Ivan Klasnic - Nantes (France) - Had spent the previous season on loan here
Rodrigo Moreno - Loaned from Real Madrid (Spain)
Tuncay - Loaned from Wolfsburg (Germany) - Over 100 Premier League appearances with Stoke/Boro
Tim Ream - New York (USA)

Doesn't show a great deal of imagination for nearly a decade of management.

[SmokinFrazier]

To be fair to Coyle, he was trying the Spanish market over the last two summers, even before their economy tanked. But mainly to loan flashy inside-forwards.

Scouting does appear to have become somewhat less than worldly. You do sometimes wonder if Cliff Roberts has ever left Lancashire.

Yeah, that's true. Rodrigo has turned out to be a very good player and he'll probably make a big move to Spain soon. I believe we wanted Jese too but he's started getting glimpses of first team football with Real Madrid.

Looking at the guy you mentioned, it doesn't fill me with hope that things will change for the better either. Working with Bury and Burnley is hardly an indication that he knows which teams across Europe are producing the best quality. I think our transfer policy, sadly, confirms that.

[malcd1]

This is slightly veering off at a tangent, but I don't understand how people seem to want to have it both ways where A) Megson bought a load of overpriced shit and B) Coyle can't possibly compete with the players Megson bought because he doesn't have the same funds. If they are that shit and that overpriced (and don't get me wrong, nearly all of them were overpriced), how hard could it be to get better players for cheaper?

Simultaneously Elmander manages to be an utter joke of a signing, but also a player the like of which we can't possibly afford to replace, despite having chucked £7mil at strikers.

It's the same with Zat Knight. For years he's been held up as one of the worst defenders on planet earth. Surely you could get a much better player for half of what we paid for him? Apparently Coyle can't.

There has been money to spend, both on wages and players. Enough to keep us competitive in the Premier League, and be serious promotion contenders now we're in the Championship. Coyle's spent it on shit and they've been managed even worse.

I think one of the problems we have is limited scouting. The best thing Gartside could do for the club would be to bring in scouts from all over Europe, especially Spain, Germany, Portugal and Italy. There is so much quality in these countries that we could be aiming for. £8m bought us Sordell and N'Gog but I'd much rather see that sort of money being offered to foreign clubs instead because you'd get a much better return, especially as a lot of these clubs in Italy, Spain and Portugal have financial difficulties right now. Swansea got Michu for £2m and yet he's clearly a good player - is he half as good as N'Gog? No. Valencia signed Argentinian international Fernando Gago for about £3m because he doesn't fit in at Real Madrid under Mourinho. Is he worth £1m less than Sordell? No, but those are the sorts of valuations being thrown around for quality players. I'm not saying we should have gone in for him, by the way, because it'd be impossible no doubt, but my point is that you can get far more for your money abroad. Man United spent £6m on a player who had only ever done anything at Crewe! Twice the valuation of Gago! This is crazy.

The biggest reason for Newcastle's success in the past couple of years is Graham Carr. He has been terrific for them and that's what we need at Bolton. Forget spending (too much) money on home grown players, bring in foreign youngsters who will turn out to be the next Gudjohnsen, Okocha or Jussi. There are players out there but we aren't finding them whereas our rivals are.

We need to sign some top scouts and send them across Europe to pick out some quality prospects. We don't have the money to buy top level players right now, and we have too much competition to sign the best young English players so the best way for us to spend little on high quality is to bring them in from abroad.

There is very little 'bang for your buck' in England. Unless we broaden our horizons, we will just carry on wasting good money on average players.

Coyle brought his own chief scout in, and I presume the scouting network.

Managers job to pick that not the chairman's.

Didn't Megson have Colin Harvey? Who turned up LCY?

I don't have the impression that our current scouting methods since Coyle brought his Burnley lot in are very good.

Not a surprise like! Burnley fans told us that when he came!

Colin Harvey only left Bolton in July 2012 after 4 years at the club. If he was good under Megson what has he recommended recently for Coyle? I don't have the answer but I suspect the talent spotting is not too dissimilar now than when the Ginger Tosspot was here.

Megson did sign better players than Coyle with the extra money available. But he paid top end for most of them - Elmander, Steinsson, Taylor, Muamba, Ricketts, Knight.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

It's not just scouting, which is an information 'pull'. As became (in)famous, Allardyce was on speed-dial with a phalanx of agents. That has its drawbacks but you certainly get to know about available players - it's then your decision whether to scout, trial or talk.

I've no doubt that Coyle gets incoming calls - I believe he's mentioned it this very summer – but I get the suspicion that he's a bit too clean-cut for that murky world.

I'm not saying anything about illegal activities elsewhere (or indeed here elsewhen) but in conjunction with his stated footballing ideals, I can imagine a very high-minded attitude to incoming transfers: preferring to deal with a small circle of trusted clubs (Arsenal, Real Madrid) to see what they have on offer, or else identify longterm targets and scout them forever (Mills and Lonergan, perhaps).

Not all Coyle's deals fit this pattern - Petrov, for example, although he didn't really need scouting - and maybe it's mere hypothesising, but you get what I mean. Unlike Allardyce's try-it-and-see-what-sticks policy (Oscar Perez!), Lee's Championship Manager splurge on anyone alleged to be good at passing, or Megson's decent eye for potential (with occasional muscle like outbidding Brum for Cahill and pinching Mavies off Wolves), you get the feeling Coyle needs to really 'know' players before he signs them. True, this might be pushed on him by fiscal circumstance, but at the moment it feels - ironically for Coyle - overly cautious.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Coyle brought his own chief scout in, and I presume the scouting network. Managers job to pick that not the chairman's. Didn't Megson have Colin Harvey? Who turned up LCY? I don't have the impression that our current scouting methods since Coyle brought his Burnley lot in are very good. Not a surprise like! Burnley fans told us that when he came!

Colin Harvey only left Bolton in July 2012 after 4 years at the club. If he was good under Megson what has he recommended recently for Coyle? I don't have the answer but I suspect the talent spotting is not too dissimilar now than when the Ginger Tosspot was here. Megson did sign better players than Coyle with the extra money available. But he paid top end for most of them - Elmander, Steinsson, Taylor, Muamba, Ricketts, Knight.

Harvey was presumably working out his notice, with Coyle having brought his Burnley chief scout Cliff Roberts with him.

Having read Les Padfield's Scouting for Moyes it hardly seems like our network was brilliantly run under Megson and Harvey, but then Padfield had an axe to grind.

Can't deny Megson had more money to spend more often. Elmander in particular we overpaid for - this not in hindsight, but from something I heard from a rival club.

[Lord Kangana]

I'm not quite sure why both Coyle's and Megson's signings can't both be shit?

Theres also a spectacular piece of disconnect being employed when trying to undertsand that the squad we had was seriously overpaid for (evidenced by in spending the majority of its time in and around the relegation zone during managerial change. I'm sure that was all down to the christmas fairy too).

It also stands to reason that, due to inflationary pressures, spending £7m and less wages on 2 players is not an equivalence to spending £8.2m (if we really must) and more on wages 3 years previously. It just isn't. Thats fairly simple stuff.

[H. Pedersen]

Elmander in particular we overpaid for - this not in hindsight, but from something I heard from a rival club.

DSB can you elaborate on that without running afoul of your country's infamous libel laws? I've always thought that Megson's purchases were too overpriced, too frequently to simply be bad bargaining.

[H. Pedersen]

The biggest reason for Newcastle's success in the past couple of years is Graham Carr. He has been terrific for them and that's what we need at Bolton. Forget spending (too much) money on home grown players, bring in foreign youngsters who will turn out to be the next Gudjohnsen, Okocha or Jussi. There are players out there but we aren't finding them whereas our rivals are.

See I don't even think we need to be aiming for another Okocha. I'd settle for another Faye. An unknown who comes in for a sub-£500,000 fee, plays well, and leaves for a profit. Ben Haim was certainly no worse than Knight or Mills or Wheater but he was a hell of a lot cheaper, both in terms of wages and transfer fee.

DSB is charitable in saying Coyle may not pursue these deals due to a fear of being immersed in the murky world of questionable agents. I think he's just lazy.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

DSB is charitable in saying Coyle may not pursue these deals due to a fear of being immersed in the murky world of questionable agents. I think he's just lazy.

Although dealing with agents and watching endless tapes can suck up your time, I honestly don't think he's lazy. (That in itself is an easily-fired, arguably 'lazy' allegation.) He's just misguided.

I'm not quite sure why both Coyle's and Megson's signings can't both be shit?

They can. The evidence is mounting by the game...

Elmander in particular we overpaid for - this not in hindsight, but from something I heard from a rival club.

DSB can you elaborate on that without running afoul of your country's infamous libel laws? I've always thought that Megson's purchases were too overpriced, too frequently to simply be bad bargaining.

Dunno about other signings but I (and another TW regular) heard from a well-placed source at a club also chasing Elmander that BWFC's bid suddenly rocketed up, beyond all convention bidding norms and far outweighing the competition. Reminds me of that bit in The Life Of Brian with the gourd-selling goading Brian into haggling: "Nooooo, you don't go straight to 19..."

edit: there is, I should admit, a chance that the source thought we'd paid £11m, a widely-circulated (and weirdly-denied) early number...

[a1]

you do bid 19 if youve not got twenty though, you dont wanna be stuck on the "even" bidding in that scenario.

going all in , in that way, puts "teh fear" into cheapskates , and that tactic can save you money.

auctioneer "i'll take 5 "

me with ten pounds "eight"

*breathing in, no one else bids*

sold to me

i save two pounds.

i'd be more "snarky" over our payment to burnley, which legal* tells me that because coyle got pushed out on gardening leave (by burnley through their own free will) meant that we couldve picked him up for nowt.

we mightve ended up being fined. but if we didnt talk to him beforehand we wouldve got away with it.

theres overbidding on summat you think is worth too much, and theres giving money to folk just coz you think you owe them a favour.


*the newspaper

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Hmm.

I misquoted it anyway.

The Haggle scene

[Athers]

I think I remember Gartside saying Lee was an incoming call, "We've got the best player in Asia for you." or something along those lines.

FC Seoul did end up being practically delighted at selling someone to the Premier League!

[CAPSLOCK]

Indeed. Although I have to say he's not a ten-a-penny player.

No but it's surprising how few players there are who are just good athletes who do the simple things well and actually apply themselves as if they want to win.You'd think there'd be loads around.

Odd then that he didn't appreciate Muamba