see no reason to sell McAtee

he's fit, raring to go, and is a decent player

if we really want some money back on him, see what the picture looks like in Jan

before Saturday I would've kept him, regardless of RR being injured or not

now I'd definitely keep him, I think this league and our approach to it, will bring out the best in him

I could accept letting him go if we were to bring in a known quantity like Kenny, but otherwise, no thanks

8 hours ago, Farnywhite said:

When you think it’s such a short career and if you don’t give it everything your going to be left with regrets later in life hopefully there all thinking that way no matter what level you are at .

You can always get pissed and eat shit food once you retire loads of time for all of that

Think getting with that lass settled him down.

McAtee had to be given an opportunity. There’s no way Schumacher could not reward him for the work he’s clearly put in during pre-season. If he does all that and gets tossed to the side immediately it sends out the wrong message.

Footballs like any walk of life. The ones who work the hardest get the opportunities

Same with Gale. Came back looking fitter, stronger and faster than last season. So he’s the starter until he fucks it up.

and we’re not looking from one game to the next here. It has to be judged in chunks of games.

We might get beat on Saturday at QPR and if we do, and Gale and McAtee have quiet away games it’ll be “oh here we go, that didn’t last long”

7 hours ago, Zico said:

see no reason to sell McAtee

he's fit, raring to go, and is a decent player

if we really want some money back on him, see what the picture looks like in Jan

before Saturday I would've kept him, regardless of RR being injured or not

now I'd definitely keep him, I think this league and our approach to it, will bring out the best in him

I could accept letting him go if we were to bring in a known quantity like Kenny, but otherwise, no thanks

Fair enough but we might need the transfer money plus his high wages off the bill before we can sign the likes of Kenny or Dean? January is too late to get decent money for him as his contract runs out and he’ll go for little or nowt in January.

Edited Tuesday at 07:302 days by Whitesince63

17 minutes ago, boltonboris said:

McAtee had to be given an opportunity. There’s no way Schumacher could not reward him for the work he’s clearly put in during pre-season. If he does all that and gets tossed to the side immediately it sends out the wrong message.

Footballs like any walk of life. The ones who work the hardest get the opportunities

Or bring devil’s advocate Maccas agent as made him aware of the interest of other clubs he’s upped his game to get another long term contract because we all agree he’s been at best inconsistent but on Saturday he was excellent even Mick had agreed.

19 minutes ago, Whitesince63 said:

Fair enough but we might need the transfer money plus his high wages off the bill before we can sign the likes of Kenny or Dean?

aye, as said in last paragraph, if it's a case of one in one out, fair enough I guess

but if it's a case of sell for the cash and then Randall replaces him till RR comes back, no thanks

28 minutes ago, boltonboris said:

Same with Gale. Came back looking fitter, stronger and faster than last season. So he’s the starter until he fucks it up.

and we’re not looking from one game to the next here. It has to be judged in chunks of games.

We might get beat on Saturday at QPR and if we do, and Gale and McAtee have quiet away games it’ll be “oh here we go, that didn’t last long”

McAtee has played 89 times for us, Gale 44. That's a pretty good chunk of games for both.

If they're shit on Saturday, that would be far more representative of their time here than Preston was.

Whatever SS/Fergal's transfer/squad plans were before PNE, they should be the same now. Otherwise you are just basing it off one game and that's unlikely to end well.

8 minutes ago, Tombwfc said:

Whatever SS/Fergal's transfer/squad plans were before PNE, they should be the same now. Otherwise you are just basing it off one game and that's unlikely to end well.

to be fair their transfer plans can be changed by an unexpected offer, assuming it was unexpected

25 minutes ago, Rizlar said:

Or bring devil’s advocate Maccas agent as made him aware of the interest of other clubs he’s upped his game to get another long term contract because we all agree he’s been at best inconsistent but on Saturday he was excellent even Mick had agreed.

He and his agent want him a new deal here.. That's what he's knuckling down for. The obvious issue would be question marks over a drop off if he obtains one.. But we'll give him the benefit of the doubt

10 minutes ago, Tombwfc said:

McAtee has played 89 times for us, Gale 44. That's a pretty good chunk of games for both.

If they're shit on Saturday, that would be far more representative of their time here than Preston was.

Whatever SS/Fergal's transfer/squad plans were before PNE, they should be the same now. Otherwise you are just basing it off one game and that's unlikely to end well.

Aye,. I agree.. But new season / clean slate and all that(?)

When did we all decide Gale was shit?

I'd say his performances were mixed last year, some good, some poor, but overall a decent season for a young lad bedding into a new country, culture, and pace of football he'd never experienced.

Think folk have made a judgement based on his perceived attitude in one or two 'sulky' performances, but the lad's clearly got talent and hopefully we see plenty more performances like Saturday's this season.

Just now, wakey said:

When did we all decide Gale was shit?

exactly

he was pissed off when subbed early v luton, so from then on we have people determined to find evidence hes sulking

as for talent, hes no ACD, but if he was, he'd have been sold!

i read on here that last season he was 'poor at best'

which is fucking nonsense

9 hours ago, tomski said:

Weirdly I see a scenario we could double his value if he’s keen to come back. This gives us the slim chance.

I think if they get to £10 though Brighton cash in.

Works both ways too, we (he) could halve his value next season. Not hard to see a scenario where we're bottom 6, so he's not scoring many compared to top end L1, a few quiet performances like last winter, gets injured for 2 or 3 months maybe.

His current value will be partly based on the impact he made in the play offs, especially the goal v Bradford.

If we hadn't got in the play offs, he hardly did anything after November for us and they wouldn't be getting £7mil for him IMO.

Gale and McAtee are 2 very different situations for me.

McAtee had a cracking game on Saturday, he’s clearly knuckled down, looks in great shape and seems to have the right attitude now.

However, he’s 27, he’s played in England his whole career, it shouldn’t take until now (and being sceptical with 1 year left on a contract) to suddenly find the right attitude - what about the past 2 years?

I’d also say that as good as he was on Saturday, overall using a longer term average, he’s just not got the quality required for the Championship - certainly on a consistent basis. Where he gets praise is around attitude, running around, being a nuisance etc. - all important traits but he’s not suddenly become a materially better footballer.

Gale is 24 and just had his first season in England. He had some poor games last season but he also had periods where he was outshining ACD - he showed that actually his ceiling in terms of quality is pretty high, it was the consistency that was the problem.

IMO Gale has the quality to be useful in the Championship, albeit as part of a wider group of wingers as he’s likely to have dips in form. McAtee, for all his improvements and the odd decent performance, is less likely to be effective in this league and there’s no room for romance now that he’s lost some weight and got a good song - if we get a bid that enables us to bridge the valuation of a key target (be it Dean / Kenny etc.) then it’s thanks but bye. If we don’t get a decent bid then of course having him as an option off the bench isn’t the worst thing, I just wouldn’t want to assume he’s going to be a starting forward based on Saturday.

39 minutes ago, Tombwfc said:

McAtee has played 89 times for us, Gale 44. That's a pretty good chunk of games for both.

If they're shit on Saturday, that would be far more representative of their time here than Preston was.

Whatever SS/Fergal's transfer/squad plans were before PNE, they should be the same now. Otherwise you are just basing it off one game and that's unlikely to end well.

It isn't black or white though, with either player. Its not shit or brilliant, its not 1 out of 10 or 9 out of 10.

Its probably ranging from 5 to 8, every time they play, just like Conway, GJ, Tutu, ACD, Burstow, Dalby, Toal, Simons, Sheehan. Not sure why it would be based on 1 game, when they've had a lot of good games/good sub appearances in their time.

I'm bored of myself mentioning McAtee, but I'm genuinely puzzled why folk have dismissed that he was our main creative threat away from home when he was getting starts. And that he hasn't had a performance any worse than a Burstow, Kenny or Dalby poor game in the last year or 2.

19 minutes ago, Johnnyrotten said:

If we hadn't got in the play offs, he hardly did anything after November for us and they wouldn't be getting £7mil for him IMO.

if you didn't spend half your life making a case for mcatee, my jaw may not have landed on my keyboard

he got injured, came back and immediately scored 2 crackers v stevenage

I agree, no more McAtee, trouble is folk keeping bringing him up. Let's all move on.

I love ACD, he's absolute quality.

Just saying if we hadn't got in the play offs, which could have easily happened, I don't think his 2 goals v Stevenage would have been enough to keep his stock as high as it was post-Wembley.

His biggest fans (me) would say he had a few quiet performances after Port Vale 4-0 and when you get injured relatively long term its easy to get forgotten about.

re: Gale

9 hours ago, Zico said:

see no reason to sell McAtee

he's fit, raring to go, and is a decent player

if we really want some money back on him, see what the picture looks like in Jan

before Saturday I would've kept him, regardless of RR being injured or not

now I'd definitely keep him, I think this league and our approach to it, will bring out the best in him

I could accept letting him go if we were to bring in a known quantity like Kenny, but otherwise, no thanks

Problem is in typical Bolton fashion we've spent relatively big money and only given McAtee a 3 year deal, which puts you under pressure to sell early on or risk losing him for nothing.

Ideally he'd be on a 4 year deal and there'd be no question of selling him unless we had already signed someone better. Now we're in a position of gambling either way: sell him and hope we can find someone better, keep him and hope he's good enough but risk losing him for nothing.

IMO we have to go with the latter gamble and keep him as the other option will cost far more to replace him.

32 minutes ago, Stig said:

Problem is in typical Bolton fashion we've spent relatively big money and only given McAtee a 3 year deal,

plenty would still say thats 2 years too long

fuck me 'in typical bolton fashion'

I can’t get over him waddling about for the past two seasons avoiding headers and tackles as much as he can

Aye he was decent on Saturday but if anybody is waving cash in our direction, off he goes.

Why does it seems that McAtee has become a world beater, when let's face it, he's been nothing but dogshit 95% of the time he's been here. He's apparently one of the higher earners as well, so if an offer comes in, and it allows us more flexibility to sign others, then lets ship him out.

O'Rourke has spoken

ACD is valued at £10M, with a number of clubs interested

Let's hope we've already moved on