Some interesting comments about Macdonald

I've found a thread on the Torquay forum about Angus & some of their comments from a year ago are quite interesting, these are some my faves:

"I can't imagine that Cheltenham would want to pay more than £10k for a "stop gap" signing to cover injury. If they did sign him and got promoted I would expect them to offload him pretty quickly because I don't think he would be a regular in League 2."

"Having seen the suggestions that Angus might be on his way to Blackpool I was particularly interested to see if he was that good and the second half provided the opportunity to see him in action.
He looks like a steady Conference defender who has to concentrate on his own game - unlike Nathan Smith who looks like a really good prospect for the future."

"I was beginning to think that I was missing something but watching Angus on Saturday I thought that he was quite slow thinking and didn't anticipate what was going to happen unlike Smith and Nico who display really good anticipation. Angus gets away with it to some extent in Conference football but he would be run ragged at a higher level where the game is faster."

"McDonald is far from one of our best young players."

"He's never been worth £50k and in my opinion never will be. Let's not kid ourselves we're talking about anything other than an average conference player"

Just goes to show what a difference 12 months can make!

 

Surprised at those comments. Makes you wonder how the hell our scouts managed to spot his potential when their supporters who watched him week in week out didn't think he was up to much.

 

The ability of our scouts to put together reports of the players we have that have come from nowhere is absolutely unreal. They must be working near on everyday looking at players for the next transfer window. Absolutely class.

 

Yes our scouts must be great ,long may it continue

 

Wonder how much Port Vale want for Nathan Smith if he's better than MacDonald.

 

Do all clubs put full match replays on their Player HD or just BFC ?.

 

Don't have a clue but the Player matches are just like watching games on tele. You can only see what's happening where the camera is. You could watch the best players in the world on tv and half the time, not know if they've had a good game.
Plus I can't imagine both Halifax and Torquay having Player (I may be wrong) and I can't just imagine us signing somebody who hasn't been watched properly.

 

Obviously they'll go and watch them in the ground too, just like when scouting our next opponents they watch them live as well as on DVD. I just wondered if Player HD had made it easier to scout players due to the accessibility of all their games.

 

When he played his first game this season he scared me to death. So I'd have given similar feedback to that above. I didn't like because I like to give players a chance to see if they can grow into the team and as individuals.

McDonald has, and hats off to him. More importantly though not only from a scouting perspective but from hours on the training pitch. So Hecky et al need proper big ups to making this team of misfits into a top half Championship team, challenging the play offs.

We can't though, think that we can continue to follow this path and think we can have the same success rate. We need to be looking for players like Mowatt etc and making them better, thats how we move forward. We need to look for young players that either aren't quite getting game time or are nearing the end of their contracts.

The situation that Winnall was in, picking them up cheaply and helping them fulfil even more potential.

It is how we can continue to move forward. When this Window is out of the way, we aren't out of the woods, far from it. The summer could be even more taxing on the management team at Oakwell.

 

Agree. The Championship is totally different to League 1 and need to move with the divisions with the players we sign. Mowatt and Matty James are a great start to that.

 

I think our squad and how they've adjusted since promotion shows that there are enough good young players lower down the pyramid capable of stepping up. Given the correct raw ingredients and the right environment you could change numbers 1-11 every 3-4 years.

We need contingency for when our scouts and coaching team leave.