Eduardo Macia

[fuchsntf]

On Sunday, February 26, 2017 at 12:11, foxes21 said:

if we cant get walsh back which is obviously an unrealistic dream, we should go for Paul Mitchell at Spurs. Wasn't he here before, under Pearson?

 

edt: Apparently he's not free to leave until December 2017. Maybe it could be negotiated in the summer though.

So Walsh is going to be the saviour, if he ever cameback...broken dreams, silly dreams..

[Fox 4 Life]

He is clearly still around!

 

Eduardo Macia joined Leicester City in September 2016 as the club’s Head of Senior Player Recruitment and his first window didn’t go too badly. With the Premier League champions having turned a corner since the controversial dismissal of Claudio Ranieri, things are looking up for Leicester and Macia and that’s been evident from comments he’s given to Italy’s TMW.

 

Fresh from seeing Leicester knock Sevilla out of the Champions League, Macia was asked the secret to the Foxes success: “Humility, no doubt. Humility has never been lacking and will never be lacking, this is crucial. We know that. And we also know that we are in a tournament where there are the best teams in the world, but we will try to go through.”

 

Macia also made it clear how big the feel good factor is at Leicester City right now, something which can only help the club over the rest of the season: “To say that we are happy is an understatement. We have taken another big step, achieved another great result. This is the reality. After the Premier League last season we find ourselves today in the quarterfinals of the Champions League. The dream continues.”

 

Leicester’s Premier League triumph was unlikely enough but to top that with a Champions League trophy would be taking the dream to whole new heights, but Macia knows there’s no harm in thinking about it: “Dreaming does not cost anything.”

[FireFox]

50 minutes ago, Fox 4 Life said:

Leicester’s Premier League triumph was unlikely enough but to top that with a Champions League trophy would be taking the dream to whole new heights, but Macia knows there’s no harm in thinking about it: “Dreaming does not cost anything.”

Afraid to spend money. #MaciaOut

[The whole world smiles]

1 minute ago, FireFox said:

Afraid to spend money. #MaciaOut

Wilfred Ndidi. #MaciaIn

[urban.spaceman]

9 minutes ago, The whole world smiles said:

Wilfred Ndidi. #MaciaIn

The only permanent signing in the winter window because he was starved of options #eMaciated

 

[Thracian]

On 26/02/2017 at 12:11, Bob Hazels shorts said:

Inquired about nearly 40 players during the Jan transfer window.

 

Not sure if that makes us look good or bad

 

It certainly doesn't impress me. I'd want to focus a few, know exactly what I was buying, why and how/when they'd fit in. It's laughable to read all the names we're supposedly after, every transfer window. And all the other names thrown into the mix on here and with no tangible evidence that we're after them or even might want them at all.

 

Even when we sign someone, people on here want them included in the team without even seeing them sometimes and far too often they turn out a disappointment or just expensive ornamentation at the training ground. Hernandez was an example. I'd love to know who's idea it was to recruit him and why? You wouldn't need to be the world's greatest scout to realise his limitations in terms of Premiership football. Inler too.

 

I don't say these players have nothing to offer anyone. They simply weren't suited to The Premiership. And for clearly visible reasons. There's other signings I'd question too but the important question is the thinking behind such signings and what makes our recruiters seriously believe they were, or are, what we need.     .        

[Buce]

43 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

The only permanent signing in the winter window because he was starved of options #eMaciated

 

 

 

[HoustonFox]

1 hour ago, Thracian said:

 

It certainly doesn't impress me. I'd want to focus a few, know exactly what I was buying, why and how/when they'd fit in. It's laughable to read all the names we're supposedly after, every transfer window. And all the other names thrown into the mix on here and with no tangible evidence that we're after them or even might want them at all.

 

Even when we sign someone, people on here want them included in the team without even seeing them sometimes and far too often they turn out a disappointment or just expensive ornamentation at the training ground. Hernandez was an example. I'd love to know who's idea it was to recruit him and why? You wouldn't need to be the world's greatest scout to realise his limitations in terms of Premiership football. Inler too.

 

I don't say these players have nothing to offer anyone. They simply weren't suited to The Premiership. And for clearly visible reasons. There's other signings I'd question too but the important question is the thinking behind such signings and what makes our recruiters seriously believe they were, or are, what we need.     .        

Bit harsh, how many is a few?  What if they aren't available? The comment was that he enquired about 40, surely you enquire after some minimal scouting to see if it is worth your time to continue or not?  We've all heard stories that Allardyce enquired about >100 players in Jan.  That seems more scattergun to me. 40 is pretty reasonable, 3-4 per position, with first and second choices and back ups plus probably youngsters in the mix.  

 

Anyway, the one we did sign, Ndidi, seems to be doing pretty well! 

[Lovejoy]

Seems only fair to drag this up. Given all the talk of our poor recruitment, the finger pointing at Rudkin and clear lack of communication between those identifying/signing players and the coaching team, where is the accountability for this guy?

 

On a side note though, he is best mates with Rafa Benitez having worked with him at Valencia and Liverpool .

[les-tah]

1 minute ago, Lovejoy said:

Seems only fair to drag this up. Given all the talk of our poor recruitment, the finger pointing at Rudkin and clear lack of communication between those identifying/signing players and the coaching team, where is the accountability for this guy?

 

On a side note though, he is best mates with Rafa Benitez having worked with him at Valencia and Liverpool .

Rafa will play 442 with King and wes morgan apparently 

[STUHILL]

1 minute ago, Lovejoy said:

Seems only fair to drag this up. Given all the talk of our poor recruitment, the finger pointing at Rudkin and clear lack of communication between those identifying/signing players and the coaching team, where is the accountability for this guy?

 

On a side note though, he is best mates with Rafa Benitez having worked with him at Valencia and Liverpool .

I honestly think we have signed some decent players recently, but there seems to be a complete mis-match in the types of players we have signed, and the system and identity our management/coaches want us to play or be. 

 

A lack of communication maybe? A disagreement on the style we want to play? Who knows, but there seems to be a big failure in bringing in the right players or at least the players that would suit the system the manager clearly favoured. 

 

I hope now, that these players we have signed can really flourish under a new manager and a change in approach/system. It's what is needed to get the best out of them.

[STUHILL]

6 minutes ago, Lovejoy said:

Seems only fair to drag this up. Given all the talk of our poor recruitment, the finger pointing at Rudkin and clear lack of communication between those identifying/signing players and the coaching team, where is the accountability for this guy?

 

On a side note though, he is best mates with Rafa Benitez having worked with him at Valencia and Liverpool .

Rafa would be my first choice if there was any possibility of him coming here but he is at a bigger club and it's worth him holding on to see if a mega rich owner comes in and throws him a dosh load of cash. 

[Lovejoy]

14 minutes ago, STUHILL said:

I honestly think we have signed some decent players recently, but there seems to be a complete mis-match in the types of players we have signed, and the system and identity our management/coaches want us to play or be. 

 

A lack of communication maybe? A disagreement on the style we want to play? Who knows, but there seems to be a big failure in bringing in the right players or at least the players that would suit the system the manager clearly favoured. 

 

I hope now, that these players we have signed can really flourish under a new manager and a change in approach/system. It's what is needed to get the best out of them.

I honestly think there's mileage in taking the continental approach. You have a Director of Football with some clout, and a long term plan is made. The coach (not manager) is drafted in to oversee that side of things and is hired on the basis they work to the style set out, meaning there is evolution and not revolution. Players are signed to perform a role as opposed to the system being geared to suit the players. There is proper succession planning meaning if the coach leaves for whatever reason or players, a shortlist of suitable replacements is already in place. Southampton do it over here. Imo it would mean we wouldn't see this situation where we have good players signed for often big money, but they're not necessarily the right players.

[volpeazzurro]

On 27/02/2017 at 14:32, fuchsntf said:

So Walsh is going to be the saviour, if he ever cameback...broken dreams, silly dreams..

He's been a roaring success at Everton. 

[KingsX]

This squad is like a grab bag of mismatched engine parts, albeit expensive performance parts.  None fits the classic Olds 442 block we seem to be unwilling to replace.  Plus the tranny behind it is mostly used and abused budget parts.  

 

This predates Macia and in any case, the ALIGNMENT of developing, recruiting and coaching is at DoF level or above.

[Kitchandro]

1 hour ago, pmcla26 said:

Well if we look since he's been here we've recruited... 

 

Ndidi 

Maguire 

Iheanacho 

Thomas 

Silva (I know not very well) 

Iborra 

Jakupovic 

And.... 

Wagué 

 

Overall some promising names and clear quality in there, a couple which are definitely starters and a couple lads with great potential, and Sevilla's former captain. 

 

However, whoever brings them in clearly isn't very good at that, hence the Silva saga, which I imagine is Jon Rudkin, not blaming him and jumping on the bandwagon but that's his position and role as DoF. 

 

Looks more like to me that Walsh shat on us with his parting gifts and Macia is doing alright so far with some of his recruits we have yet to see how they turn out, just need to clear up the mess that is the rest of the club and some of the squad.

 

I think this is fair enough to an extent. I don't think many of those players are bad, some of them have some real potential.

 

The problem is that the majority don't fit the philosophy we had under Ranieri. Ndidi, for example, I think is a real talent, but it's become more and more obvious to me that he doesn't fulfill a role. A club like ours needs players who do specific jobs, that's how you get success.

 

When we won the league we had Kante in charge of winning the ball back, either directly or by harrying them into crowds of our other players. When in possession, Drinkwater and Albrighton's remit would be to get their head up first and find a pass into space at the earliest opporunity - and they were both exceptional at picking out accurate passes quickly. Of course, because we were pressing high Mahrez, Okazaki (who was central to the pressing game) and Vardy were already in promising positions. We couldn't pass through the best sides, or even the worst ones at times, but we broke quicker than any other team in the league.

 

Sticking Ndidi and Iborra in the middle together will achieve nothing because neither are particularly adept at one of those jobs. We should have been buying players to fit into that system but we haven't. We now can't do the first part; winning the ball back, so everything else is a moot point.

But then again, we've not even been trying to, and that's the biggest issue. Since we lost Kante, more often than not it appears we've overcompensated by just playing deep at a slow tempo, waiting for the ball to come back to us. This will not work regardless of what players we have. That idea has cost 2 men their jobs. People underestimate our way of playing 2 seasons ago. It was that specifically which made us compete with the better sides, and it's going away from that which has caused us to drop like a stone.

 

People have suggested another way of overcompensating - by playing 3 in the middle. Whilst this is sensible in the short term because we're all over the place, this is a route that we should never have had to consider because we should have signed the right sort of players, i.e. replacements for players who did certain jobs.

 

We've also signed some distinctly average and truly terrible players but it seems most of them were scouted by Walsh.

 

We should have had scouting criteria over the last couple of years like:

 

Deep lying, hardworking striker who can finish better than Okazaki
Ball winner who gets around the pitch quickly

Midfielder with vision and range of passing

Goalscorer

Right back with more quality than Simpson

 

None of these should have been impossible to find. But we haven't even been after those sorts of players. Silva could arguably be someone with vision and passing ability (I don't know much about him) but why were we only interested after Drinkwater had gone when he'd been out of form for ages?

[fox_favourite]

I blame the kit man. 

[volpeazzurro]

5 hours ago, KingsX said:

This squad is like a grab bag of mismatched engine parts, albeit expensive performance parts.  None fits the classic Olds 442 block we seem to be unwilling to replace.  Plus the tranny behind it is mostly used and abused budget parts.  

 

This predates Macia and in any case, the ALIGNMENT of developing, recruiting and coaching is at DoF level or above.

Enjoyed that. Clever and true post.

[Mr Mister]

Directors of Football are absolutely  useless and are nothing but glorified desk monkeys that undermine the manager.

[Clever Fox]

6 hours ago, volpeazzurro said:

He's been a roaring success at Everton. 

He hasn't been picking the players at Everton, Koeman has. He said as much a while ago. Vowing to let Walsh get on with signing players in the future. There's little love between them.

[Clever Fox]

1 hour ago, Mr Mister said:

Directors of Football are absolutely  useless and are nothing but glorified desk monkeys that undermine the manager.

In some cases yes in others no, It depends. The same can be said of Owners, some want to pick the team or signings, others are happy to let others get on with it.

[volpeazzurro]

18 hours ago, Clever Fox said:

He hasn't been picking the players at Everton, Koeman has. He said as much a while ago. Vowing to let Walsh get on with signing players in the future. There's little love between them.

Didn't know that, they seemed to sell their top striker and forgot to buy a replacement and preferring to buy a plethora of midfielders! Perhaps he should come back then though it perhaps wouldn't be the same now somehow without the rest or some of his team.

[Clever Fox]

1 hour ago, volpeazzurro said:

Didn't know that, they seemed to sell their top striker and forgot to buy a replacement and preferring to buy a plethora of midfielders! Perhaps he should come back then though it perhaps wouldn't be the same now somehow without the rest or some of his team.

Yes, I think the only thing that kept him there was his family and probably pride. After signing the Dutch Midfielder he said he will leave signings to Walsh and concentrate on the Team. He certainly needs to do that.

I guess it wouldn't be the same if he came back which is understandable. So I don't think it will happen. Not in the short term anyway.

[reynard]

Not really sure what this guy does on a day to day basis but it seems to me our best successes have come from teams built largely on squads where the actual manager has had a real imput into acquiring players.

I seem to recall MON being heavily involved in recruiting players. I know for a fact that he personally identified Lennon as the player he wanted to build his team around and went out of his way to get him. he also watched many games which is how we ended up with Izzet.I also seem to recall Pearson saying he went to games himself to look at players and liked to 'look them in the eye' before he would go ahead with signing them.

From what we hear, newspaper talk only I admit, Maguire was the only player Shakespeare himself identified as one he wanted.

 

Surely we need to get back to the time where the actual team manager ensures he gets the players he actually wants rather than just being given those signed by others.

As others have said correctly in this thread we are now left with an unbalanced squad with several players perhaps not really wanted by either of the last two managers and some simply not good enough.