McGhee's Championship Record

[clapham_gull]

Allegedly that was thru DK contacts not MM, he deserves no credit for finding him.

I thought it was through Mcghee, the contact being Brian McClair ?

 

[jonny.rainbow]

He has shown massive loyality because he knows this is last chance of a decent job. And he's guaranteed a job for another 2 years.

He has never got the respect from any staff at any job he's ever been at, so he knows if he gets sacked no one (championship or higher level)will take him on.

Didn't Strachan offer him the job as his number two at Celtic in the summer, on considerably higher wages than he gets here?

What did Robbie Keane sign his shirt with before delivering it to McGhee after the Spurs game last season?

"To you Mark, without you this would not have been possible"

Sounds like something a player with no respect for a former manager would write.

Oh and didn't Virgo do something similar on signing for Celtic?

 

[Ernest]

Re: Re: Re: Re: McGhee's Championship Record

I don't have any "information" - I'm not one of the many tossers I have seen frequent this board in recent years pretending that Dick Knight/Mark McGhee/John Prescott/Micky Adams/the Pope have told them things personally. Also, I am not going to come up with the trademark useless link to the club, ie my dad's mate plays football with.........

All I have is contact (in a couple of ways directly, and in a couple of ways indirectly) with 2-3 people who work for the Albion, and they have, shall we say hinted, to me that there are one or two concerns over the manager from those above. That is all, honest

For what it's worth, my 'opinion' is that McGhee will be sacked, IF the money can be scraped together to pay him off

And a meeting was held yesterday by some of those people

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

I thought it was through Mcghee, the contact being Brian McClair ?

Nope at a breakfast meeting earlier in the season DK said I found McShane. Or words to that effect.

 

[mona]

Millwall fans say that McGhee did a good job for a while and then lost his way - strangely he was sacked when they were 8th in the table. With us he stopped the rot, encouraged and improved John Piercy, helped Guy Butters improve his fitness and become player of the season, brought Virgs back into the team, gave Dan Harding a chance, booted out the hopeless Pethick, signed Darren Currie and Paul Reid and got rid of Danny Cullip at just the right time.

So he has got a lot of things right. We've been unlucky with injuries to Roberts, Kuipers and Hinsh. Age might be catching up with some players. Even so, his team selection and management has not been so hot this season and there are so many issues to question.
Was it right to change our more physical, defensive approach away from home and play with both Carole and Frutos?
Did he over-react to the defeat at Shrewsbury?
Why leave out Nicolas, Reid and ElAbd for long spells?
Turienzo? The fall outs with Knight, McCammon and Kuipers?

It's not a clear cut thing and I disagree with both the anti-McGhee mob and his ever loyal apologist who frequents the Madjeski on a Sunday.

 

[London Irish]

It's not a clear cut thing and I disagree with both the anti-McGhee mob and his ever loyal apologist who frequents the Madjeski on a Saturday.

Sunday. Not your only inaccuracy either

 

[mona]

Sunday. Not your only inaccuracy either

I meant Sunday obviously. What other inaccuracies?

 

[Icy Gull]

It's not a clear cut thing

True, but taking into account all the things mentioned in your post, it's probably as good as we can hope for a struggling broke club playing in an athletics track.

 

[London Irish]

Millwall fans say that McGhee did a good job for a while and then lost his way - strangely he was sacked when they were 8th in the table. With us he stopped the rot, encouraged and improved John Piercy, helped Guy Butters improve his fitness and become player of the season, brought Virgs back into the team, gave Dan Harding a chance, booted out the hopeless Pethick, signed Darren Currie and Paul Reid and got rid of Danny Cullip at just the right time.

Agree with all that except the last bit. You do not lose leaders like Danny Cullip without suffering and we certainly did in the second half of last season.

Was it right to change our more physical, defensive approach away from home and play with both Carole and Frutos?
Did he over-react to the defeat at Shrewsbury?

I agree with you this a very interesting discussion and we could all write loads discussing the pros and cons of it. There are so many things to discuss, the right front pairing, the balance of the midfield, the right defensive combination, the right keeper.

What I would urge you not to fall into the trap of, is imagining that the alternatives to what McGhee was trying to acheive with the attractive attacking football were that pretty either - they weren't. Would the alternatives have worked? Probably not with our available personnel.

Contrary to your tired assertion that I agree with everything that McGhee does, if you go back to the Sept and Oct threads, you will find I was a sceptic of the style and advocated that we play a stronger midfield. I guess I should have added Magoo Out, then you might have remembered my disagreement This entire issue of the playing style choices facing McGhee this past season deserves longer discussion on here.

Why leave out Nicolas, Reid and ElAbd for long spells?
Turienzo? The fall outs with Knight, McCammon and Kuipers?

I think it's misleading to say Reid and El Abd were left out for long spells. I'm pretty sure they have played more games this season than they did last. McGhee's loyalty to El Abd was particularly admirable, as this player made defensive errors in imporant games after Christmas. We can argue the toss about Nicolas, I don't think he justfied his selection with his 8-9 appearances and his performances in the reserves.

The so-called fall-outs were just a few necessary management decisions coming to a head. Knight was a long-running sore and I believe history will show that not many managers will ever get more than 16 goals out of Knight in a season that McGhee did in six months of 03-04. McCammon was a gamble that didn't quite work out and he was loaned out mainly to fund the money for a new striker - so he wasn't happy about it, big deal. Kuipers similarly, nose out of joint because of Hendo's arrival and the prima donna refuses to be No2 - too bad, get rid of ASAP if he doesn't want to be part of the team and accept team discipline.

 

[mona]

Interesting post LI. Thanks.
As you say a lot of the contradictions are worthy of further discussion. I got involved with this thread because I'm uncertain of my opinion of the manager and I wanted to move away from the tabloid/sound bite approach.
It's odd about Kuipers as he reacted very well to being dropped by Micky for the vastly inferior Cartwright and also was a team man when Ben Roberts arrived. His performances at Boston have looked uncertain on the tv .
The McCammon saga was disappointing as the big man had a serious role in keeping us up last season. McCammon also upset some fans who see football as being aesthetic rather than physical - thanks for that Mac!
Leon Knight is talented but brainless on and off the pitch - one sympathizes with McGhee and Jackett.

 

[clapham_gull]

Nope at a breakfast meeting earlier in the season DK said I found McShane. Or words to that effect.

Ok, called told the complete opposite at a fans meeting

 

[London Irish]

The McCammon saga was disappointing as the big man had a serious role in keeping us up last season. McCammon also upset some fans who see football as being aesthetic rather than physical - thanks for that Mac!

I agree 100% - Big Mac was never as ineffective as the geeks on here said he was.

My opinion was that McGhee looked very closely at what Big Mac brought to the team in those games around Christmas, the little cameos at the end of the Hull and QPR games where Big Mac closed out the game for the victories, then in fuller appearances against Luton, Millwall, Southampton and Coventry. Those last 4 games were a disappointing run for us and although Big Mac was by no means our poorest player, on the contrary McGhee praised his battling performances - what I thought McGhee saw was a player who was not going to get us the crucial goals to keep us up - McGhee knew he needed a new striker otherwise we were in big trouble.

I'm guessing the conversation with Dick Knight and Big Mac went something along these lines:
McGhee: "Chairman, we need to redouble our efforts to get a goalscorer up front, otherwise we are going down."
Knight: "I'm doing my best to get you the money - but you have five strikers on the books already, help me out by getting some loan wages from at least one or two of them."
McGhee: "Sorry Big Mac, I have to pick you over CKR, Jake, Gatting and El Turi."
Big Mac: "What's the number of Harty's phone-in?"