Skippy MacDonald

[gordy100]

I'm not a MacDonald fan - my personal opinion is he's too much of a light weight and just too small to be a top championship footballer. When I watched him last season, Emnes had to go out into the channel to get the long balls, whilst skippy stayed on the edge of the penalty area, waiting for scraps to come his way. That would be OK with a big centre forward to play off, but it didn't suit Boro's style of play and contributed overall to boro's lack of 'firepower'. In the right team, playing the right style he'd be a good player..

Now it looks like he is going through what Boyd went through - basically being frozen out by mogga and not even picked for the match at bury - despite being reasonable during the other pre season matches.. Such a situation could also affect his chances of getting to play in for his beloved Australian. It cant be a nice situation for him to be in..

It is not his fault he is on such a high wage - but he is suffering the knock on effect of not being able to justify it - and being at a club that would love to utilise his contracted money elsewhere..

I'm just wondering whether the situation at boro would improved if he took a substantial wage cut to bring him in line with other players or, whether the club want him out at all costs.. I suppose the same could be said about McManus..

As a slight aside, I read boro paid ot a lot in agents fees last season - I wonder how much of those were for services provided to offload boyd to Turkey?

[neverbefore]

There were a couple of others left out from the Bury side, including Parnaby and Smallwood, so I wouldn't look too much into that. He featured in every game in preseason and if he doesnt go I expect to see him feature just as heavily in our campaign.

I agree that he's not woth the money he's on, and I also agree that it's not his fault. However, I don't agree with your initial paragraph. He's got a 1 in 3 goal scoring record, and if you factor in his assists he's been involved in a goal on average every other game since he's been here. That's a fantastic return.

In addition to these impressive statistics, i feel he does his best work for the team off the ball. He works hard at closing down and covers most of the pitch, but his best feature is his off the ball movement. So many of Emnes's goals early last season were due McDonald dragging defenders out of position and creating space for others around him. The same has been evident in preseason. I feel he'll be even more effective doing this this season as we seem to have more midfielders willing to get into the box to fill in these spaces. Additionally, McDonald has a great knack of being in the right place at the right time when the ball comes into the box. He does miss a fair few chances, but to be fair to him, he manages to get on the end of chances more often than anyone else on the team.

Yes, his quality on the ball is questionable at times, but I feel his other attributes more than make up for it. How often do you get a striker in the championship that excels at everything? Your best bet is to find someone who really excels at parts of their game, and play to these strengths.

I'd be delighted to see him stay, but would understand if he went.

[Alves car salesman]

Thats why he is so frustrating as he gets on the end of chances and doesn't score enough of them. Think he needs to be moved on aslong as his replacement is ready to come and hit the ground running. I think in Marvin this season we have 20 goals in him, really think we are going to see him scoring lots this season.

[2plus2]

I was about to write a long response about this. But Neverbefore did it for me! Spot on.

[#UTB]

I may be completely wrong but does it almost seem as though Mogga is trying to force him out the door, as he'd rather have the reported £25k+ a week to spend elsewhere? I suppose Saturdays lineup, bench and ommissions will give us a clearer indication.

[thepassenger]

It is very hard to justify the size of the wage for the amount of goals return. The amount of work. energy, commitment... etc doesn't justify it
I like Skippy, but if we can move him on then we definitely should... another piece of financial wizardry from Lamb and Strachan

[neverbefore]

His goal return is more or less the same as Viduka and Yakubus. And better than the likes of Tuncay and Emnes. Plus he has more assists than all of those players. Don't get me wrong, almost no one in this league deserves to be on those wages, but I just don't get people criticising his goal return.

[thepassenger]

Skippy's goal return is worse than Yak and Vids. I don't really think the comparison is fair, those guys did it against quality opposition in the Premier League and their wages were slightly more relative to the rest of the team.
If he had tucked away half the sitters he has missed in a Boro shirt, then I might be coming from a different angel, however, for me, decent player but wages too high to sustain.

I do believe the potential is there, I voted for him to be top scorer this season

[neverbefore]

Yakubu- 35 goals in 103 appearances - 1 in 2.94
Viduka - 42 in 101 appearances - 1 in 2.4
McDonald - 27 in 74 appearances - 1 in 2.74

So better than Yakubu, worse than Viduka, but all around the same level.

It's not a direct comparison, obviously Yak and VId are much better players, but for the level we're at, Scott McDonald's goal return is as good as theirs for the level we were at then.

They were probably at much higher wage levels than most of the squad at the time as well, similiar to McDonald for us now. Yet McDonald gets all the stick in the world, and doesnt deserve it. IMO.

[gordy100]

(14-08-2012 01:56 PM)neverbefore Wrote:  Yakubu- 35 goals in 103 appearances - 1 in 2.94
Viduka - 42 in 101 appearances - 1 in 2.4
McDonald - 27 in 74 appearances - 1 in 2.74

So better than Yakubu, worse than Viduka, but all around the same level.

It's not a direct comparison, obviously Yak and VId are much better players, but for the level we're at, Scott McDonald's goal return is as good as theirs for the level we were at then.

They were probably at much higher wage levels than most of the squad at the time as well, similiar to McDonald for us now. Yet McDonald gets all the stick in the world, and doesnt deserve it. IMO.

Getting accurate stats is quite hard, according to ESPNSoccernet his stats are as follows:

Games 76
Goals 24
Assists 9

So the assertion of 1:3 goals is correct, but the assist figure is not good, for someone playing in his position..

Last season 4 assists, 1 less that hoyte! So I stand by my first paragraph in the opening post.