Notts County struck gold with combined £50k expense on Macaulay Langstaff and another current Championship player | OneFootball

The duo were excellent for the Magpies and cost almost nothing.

Notts County struck gold with their signings of Macaulay Langstaff and Ruben Rodrigues for a combined expense of £50k.

The duo, who both enjoyed excellent spells at Meadow Lane, produced numerous important moments for the Magpies, despite costing them next to nothing to bring to the club.

Langstaff, who was purchased from Gateshead for a fee believed to be just £50,000, became one of the lower leagues’ most prolific strikers, while Rodrigues (who arrived on a free from Dutch side Den Bosch), played an equally important role in ensuring Notts regained their Football League status back in 2023.

The pair have moved on to bigger and better things since leaving Nottingham, and are both now Championship footballers, with Langstaff playing for Millwall and Rodrigues for Oxford United.

Macaulay Langstaff

It is no exaggeration at all to say that over the course of his two years at Meadow Lane, Langstaff established himself as one of the club’s best ever signings.

It’s fair to say that no one really knew what to expect when the Teessider first arrived in Nottingham but, by the time he left, there were no doubts that he was one of the most dangerous strikers the club had ever had.

Back in Notts’ promotion season in 2022/23, the then-26-year-old netted an astonishing 42 league goals to break the all-time National League record for the most goals in a single season. Remarkably, all 42 came from open play.

Langstaff’s tally that season also broke a club record that had stood for 92 years. It was always going to take something special to beat the tally of 39 league goals that Tom Keetley set for Notts way back in 1929 – and that’s exactly what Langstaff produced.

His record-breaking campaign also prompted comparisons with the likes of Erling Haaland and Jamie Vardy.

Such was the excitement and publicity surrounding his and the Magpies’ exploits that year, it’s almost easy to forget that Langstaff was equally as effective in League Two last term.

The Nottingham outfit’s season tailed off badly after boss Luke Williams departed the club to join Swansea City in January, but their frontman still ended the season with a hugely impressive 28 league goals.

Winning League Two’s golden boot in his debut season in the EFL was enough to convince second tier side Millwall to splash out on his signature. They ultimately secured his services for a fee believed to be in the region of £750,000, meaning Notts had made an eye-watering profit for League Two level within the space of just two seasons.

Langstaff has since gone on to struggle to adapt to Championship level, but that has done little to tarnish his reputation at Meadow Lane, where he will always be remembered as one of the club’s finest ever purchases.

Ruben Rodrigues

While Langstaff brought a ruthless goalscoring efficiency to Williams’ promotion-winning 2022/23 charges, Rodrigues provided a level of flare and individual quality that made it abundantly clear that he was destined to play far higher in the pyramid than the National League.

Notts were understood to have beaten several other clubs to the Portuguese’s signature back in 2020, handing the Den Bosch man his first experience of English football.

As expected for a young footballer taking his first steps in a foreign country (not least during a global pandemic), Rodrigues took a while to adapt to his surroundings and the English game in general. However, when he began to settle into his role at Meadow Lane, it was clear Notts were always going to face a battle to keep him for a prolonged period of time.

He ended his first campaign in England with 12 goals, before becoming one of the most important parts of the Notts side in 2021/22. He notched 20 goals for the first time in his senior career that season, but the Magpies ultimately fell to Grimsby Town in the fifth tier’s play-off eliminator.

The midfielder then went one better the following season, plundering 19 league goals and 15 assists as Notts were agonisingly beaten to the title by Wrexham in what will surely remain the most incredible title race the National League has seen for quite some time.

A silky playmaker who also had a combative, physical edge to his game, Rodrigues saved his biggest moment for his final act in a black and white shirt. He volleyed home a crucial extra-time equaliser in the play-off final at Wembley, before also converting his penalty in the shootout as Notts finally ended their Football League exile.

With his contract expiring that summer, it was always inevitable that the Magpies would lose their classy technician to a club higher up the pyramid. The Portuguese opted to move to Oxford and, having helped the U’s to promotion last season, he is now a regular feature in their starting XI’s in the Championship.

Given the roles they played in what will always be one of the most important promotions in the club’s history, Notts will be hard-pressed to make two more impactful signings than Langstaff and Rodrigues in future years.