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hertfordyellow

The £15 million myth

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15 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

Dean Ashton was signed 15 years ago. Grant Holt had many games at Championship level and was one of the best players in the league. How much would one of the best Championship strikers cost us today? 15 million? 20?

Now you're playing Football Manager.

We have a history of signing strikers from a lower level, Drinkell from Grimsby and all that. It's what we are, it's what we have to do.

Have you dismissed Toney as a prospect then?

Nobody's taking about signing a £20m Championship striker, the mind boggles at the thought.

We are in the business of getting those promising from lower leagues. It's what we do. 

I will add that I've only seen Toney once so I''ll need leave his evaluation to our scouts because apart from his statistics and growing reputation that once was when he ripped ITFC apart:

 

 

Edited by BroadstairsR

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Or you can spend 250k and get a half decent coach to train our defence to handle set pieces. 

That could have been done last season too.

That could still be done for next season. 

 

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3 minutes ago, BroadstairsR said:

Now you're playing Football Manager.

We have a history of signing strikers from a lower level, Drinkell from Grimsby and all that. It's what we are, it's what we have to do.

Have you dismissed Toney as a prospect then?

Nobody's taking about signing a £20m Championship striker, the mind boggles at the thought.

We are in the business of getting those promising from lower leagues. It's what we do. 

 

We are mentioning 20 million strikers from the championship because thats how much they cost. This is the point I am making and this is why lazily saying "we could have spent 20 mil and stayed up" is fighting reality. If we wanted Toney we would have bought him. We bid higher than that this season, we bought McCallum for 3.5 million and he has only played 20 times. But these players are no where near ready to be thrown into a Premiership campaign.

The fact you are going all the way back to Drinkell to make your point shows how out of touch you are with the realities of the modern Premiership. The rules have changed since Lambert was in charge, let alone Drinkell's era.

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We could have spent £25m on 3 players, still gone down and it not have been a disaster.

McBurnie was a hot topic on here- costing £18m for 6 goals this season- what a terrible investment! Yet Sheffield United now have a 24 year old striker who, if they had gone back down, would be a proven goalscorer at that level or stayed up as they did and now have player they could probably convince a few teams to part with a similar sum to sign if they don't think he'll improve.

Our fanbase got so burned by the Naismith situation it is like we can't understand that spending £15m on a player doesn't mean you're inevitably stuck with a player on large wages that you can't sell for love nor money. Sensible spending on the right profile of player doesn't have to mean financial meltdown, even if said player doesn't set the world on fire.

 

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1 minute ago, king canary said:

We could have spent £25m on 3 players, still gone down and it not have been a disaster.

McBurnie was a hot topic on here- costing £18m for 6 goals this season- what a terrible investment! Yet Sheffield United now have a 24 year old striker who, if they had gone back down, would be a proven goalscorer at that level or stayed up as they did and now have player they could probably convince a few teams to part with a similar sum to sign if they don't think he'll improve.

Our fanbase got so burned by the Naismith situation it is like we can't understand that spending £15m on a player doesn't mean you're inevitably stuck with a player on large wages that you can't sell for love nor money. Sensible spending on the right profile of player doesn't have to mean financial meltdown, even if said player doesn't set the world on fire.

 

Did we have £25m to spend? Genuine question, I've no idea but I'd be very surprised if we did last summer. 

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"Out of touch?"

Why the need for such an insulting remark?

We all know the situation as well as you appear to do I'm sure. It's as clear as mud (not.)

Hardly my point though.

Nothing to do with time scale, just a re-iteration of the fact that we have in the past consistently brought strikers/players from lower leagues.

I believe that we got Pukki for nothing and he hadn't exactly excelled at his previous club. Grabban from the Cherries before they hit the high spots. Recent enough for you?  Little Ernie? Remember him?

I repeat. Do you think Toney worth a punt, scouts permitting, or not?

Edited by BroadstairsR

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3 minutes ago, Duncan Edwards said:

Did we have £25m to spend? Genuine question, I've no idea but I'd be very surprised if we did last summer. 

No idea but I'd be surprised if it was beyond us.

We apparently spent about £7m on loan fees and bid about £15m for that French winger which isn't far off.

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8 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

Exactly

Duda is worth £25m in  the same way Ben Godfrey is worth £50m.

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24 minutes ago, Number9 said:

Or you can spend 250k and get a half decent coach to train our defence to handle set pieces. 

That could have been done last season too.

That could still be done for next season. 

 

Good comedy post Number9.

The problem is that we've got a high number of very small players - Buendia, Pukki and Aarons in particular.  Hernandez, Byram and Trybull are on the short side - Lewis, for all his other attributes is weak in the air - likewise Cantwell, and players like Vrancic, McLean and Tettey are only average in height. Add to that the fact that our three biggest central defenders have all been in injured for large chunks of the season and you've got an impossible situation unfortunately. 

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15 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

Exactly

Yes exactly why we have to look towards promising players from leagues below us.

Less risky than buying a Duda surely.

If they are young enough but don't fit they will also have a sell on value.

 

What's new?

Edited by BroadstairsR

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2 minutes ago, BroadstairsR said:

"Out of touch?"

Why the need for such an insulting remark?

We all know the situation as well as you appear to do I'm sure. It's as clear as mud.

Hardly my point though.

Nothing to do with time scale, just a re-iteration of the fact that we have in the past consistently brought strikers/players from lower leagues.

I believe that we got Pukki for nothing and he hadn't exactly excelled at his previous club. Grabban from the Cherries before they hit the high spots. Recent enough for you?  Little Ernie? Remember him?

I repeat. Do you think Toney worth a punt, scouts permitting, or not?

I am being aggressive because I've sat a read over the last month this club ripped to shreds by those hell bent on making a difficult situation all about them and their little tantrums. They have near zero collective understanding of the club and the situation but want to tear it apart and belittle anyone who doesn't share their warped dour mindset. Anyone trying to talk at a rational level is a 'happy clapper', sorry are we at primary school?

I'm sorry if you find that harsh but I've had enough.

To answer your points, Grabban has scored one premiership goal ever, Earnshaw was signed in the Championship for 3.5 million in 2006. He is exactly the player i'm saying would be 15-20 million in todays money. I'm not saying top Championship players can't be bought and play in the Premiership. I'm saying they cost 15 million+ and don't guarantee they can step up. Look at the Murphy twins, one full season in the championship and they were 12 million+ each.

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"I am being aggressive because I've sat a read over the last month this club ripped to shreds by those hell bent on making a difficult situation all about them and their little tantrums. They have near zero collective understanding of the club and the situation but want to tear it apart and belittle anyone who doesn't share their warped dour mindset. Anyone trying to talk at a rational level is a 'happy clapper', sorry are we at primary school?"

 

I'm a bit of a happy clapper myself, but cannot think for the life of me what that has to do with my reference to Ivan Toney, a youngster with a growing reputation in the lower leagues who seems to be garnering an impressive reputation.

Grabban was successful at City as a striker, but there were problems apparently, and we sold him at a big profit.

Earnie wanted away from WBA because of limited game time because he was replaced by the big money signings you refer to (Ellington. and another?)

As to his value today. Who would know? The majority of his career was at lowly Cardiff and he was sold by the Baggies because he wasn't ranked quite PL standard. More Championship.

This is where we play next season.

£15-£20 million? Come on!

Edited by BroadstairsR

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17 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

I am being aggressive because I've sat a read over the last month this club ripped to shreds by those hell bent on making a difficult situation all about them and their little tantrums. They have near zero collective understanding of the club and the situation but want to tear it apart and belittle anyone who doesn't share their warped dour mindset. Anyone trying to talk at a rational level is a 'happy clapper', sorry are we at primary school?

I'm sorry if you find that harsh but I've had enough.

To answer your points, Grabban has scored one premiership goal ever, Earnshaw was signed in the Championship for 3.5 million in 2006. He is exactly the player i'm saying would be 15-20 million in todays money. I'm not saying top Championship players can't be bought and play in the Premiership. I'm saying they cost 15 million+ and don't guarantee they can step up. Look at the Murphy twins, one full season in the championship and they were 12 million+ each.

I think we've found LDC's burner account. 

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31 minutes ago, king canary said:

We could have spent £25m on 3 players, still gone down and it not have been a disaster.

McBurnie was a hot topic on here- costing £18m for 6 goals this season- what a terrible investment! Yet Sheffield United now have a 24 year old striker who, if they had gone back down, would be a proven goalscorer at that level or stayed up as they did and now have player they could probably convince a few teams to part with a similar sum to sign if they don't think he'll improve.

Our fanbase got so burned by the Naismith situation it is like we can't understand that spending £15m on a player doesn't mean you're inevitably stuck with a player on large wages that you can't sell for love nor money. Sensible spending on the right profile of player doesn't have to mean financial meltdown, even if said player doesn't set the world on fire.

 

I do get that point but we have to think wages too. As you say our history with bigger money signings has been a disaster, but we have proven that, contrary to what you say, it's has been a disaster if these players hang around on big money with no one willing to buy them.

What if McBurnie gets an injury and isn't the same player, what if he is so poor that his confidence goes (Berahino anyone), what if he falls out with the management and is training with the U23s and he isn't the guaranteed Championship goal machine? We don't have the capacity to write off these contracts.

I still dispute you are going to get 3 Premiership players, fees, signing bonus, agent and wages for 25 million, especially if one is 18 million of fee alone. Also If we were in for McBurnie then the fee wouldn't be 18 million because we would then be in a bidding war with Sheffield. They are capable of going past 20 million to get their man.

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Just now, king canary said:

I think we've found LDC's burner account. 

Go on, call me a Happy Clapper,. It's easier to scupper the debate than to question the validity of your own position.

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The fixation with how little we spent misses the point. If we had bought Fahrmann, Amadou and Roberts it would have cost us, say, £30m-£40m. It wouldn't have made them better for us. The problem was not that we spent so little but those three players we targeted to improve the squad all turned out, for whatever reason, to be duds. It wasn't the lack of money. In very crude terms it was that we went after the wrong players.

The other point is that what limits Norwich City's spending is only partly the transfer fee, when arguing about whether we could have afforded to splash out £15m or¨£25m, for example.

The other factor is the wage budget, which automatically rules out a great number of players who would be almost guaranteed to improve the squad. To an extent we have to gamble on players who are less certain to work out because they are within our wage structure.

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27 minutes ago, Thirsty Lizard said:

Good comedy post Number9.

The problem is that we've got a high number of very small players - Buendia, Pukki and Aarons in particular.  Hernandez, Byram and Trybull are on the short side - Lewis, for all his other attributes is weak in the air - likewise Cantwell, and players like Vrancic, McLean and Tettey are only average in height. Add to that the fact that our three biggest central defenders have all been in injured for large chunks of the season and you've got an impossible situation unfortunately. 

So don't bother coaching them to reach their potential as defenders?

Or should we have just bought in suitable defenders last couple of years instead of all those midfielders?

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Dean Ashton was signed 15 years ago. Grant Holt had many games at Championship level and was one of the best players in the league. How much would one of the best Championship strikers cost us today? 15 million? 20?

Grant Holt played for Forest in the Championship but then dropped down to L1 with Shrewsbury for a meagre £170K.

So there is nothing to say there isn't a reasonably priced striker in the EFL leagues just itching to join a club like us.

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30 minutes ago, Thirsty Lizard said:

Good comedy post Number9.

The problem is that we've got a high number of very small players - Buendia, Pukki and Aarons in particular.  Hernandez, Byram and Trybull are on the short side - Lewis, for all his other attributes is weak in the air - likewise Cantwell, and players like Vrancic, McLean and Tettey are only average in height. Add to that the fact that our three biggest central defenders have all been in injured for large chunks of the season and you've got an impossible situation unfortunately. 

We should have investing in a rack.

OTBC

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13 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

I do get that point but we have to think wages too. As you say our history with bigger money signings has been a disaster, but we have proven that, contrary to what you say, it's has been a disaster if these players hang around on big money with no one willing to buy them.

What if McBurnie gets an injury and isn't the same player, what if he is so poor that his confidence goes (Berahino anyone), what if he falls out with the management and is training with the U23s and he isn't the guaranteed Championship goal machine? We don't have the capacity to write off these contracts.

I still dispute you are going to get 3 Premiership players, fees, signing bonus, agent and wages for 25 million, especially if one is 18 million of fee alone. Also If we were in for McBurnie then the fee wouldn't be 18 million because we would then be in a bidding war with Sheffield. They are capable of going past 20 million to get their man.

I feel this is moving the goal posts of your argument. If we suppose the Norwich transfer spend was the reported £7m on loan fees plus Bryan and the £15m that went unspent on Alexis Claude Maurice then that is separate from wages signing on fee etc (which would have had to be covered in those transfer anyway).

The argument you posit is unknowable - we can’t say either way if things would have been different. If the money was spent on younger players - unless they completely bombed out then you’d still have that player as an asset (although probably worth less than they were signed for). 

I think the club could have quite comfortably spend an extra £15m with minimum negative impact now. But as they didn’t then the club should be in a better position now financially than they were. There are of course examples of players that could have been signed that could have been a success and players that would have been a failure. 

On the flip of Sheffield United’s spending, they got Callum Robinson for £8m (a player Norwich were trying to sign) and he ended up back on loan in the Championship. So had Norwich succeeded in signing him, it’s likely he wouldn’t have been able to save the club from relegation.

I hope Norwich don’t become ideological wed to the idea of not spending money, even it is available. 

Edited by Bethnal Yellow and Green
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1 minute ago, Bethnal Yellow and Green said:

I hope Norwich don’t become ideological wed to the idea of not spending money, even it is available. 

the latter rather negates the numpties bleats

as they would have that the money was available, but we were not prepared to gamble it

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15 minutes ago, BroadstairsR said:

"I am being aggressive because I've sat a read over the last month this club ripped to shreds by those hell bent on making a difficult situation all about them and their little tantrums. They have near zero collective understanding of the club and the situation but want to tear it apart and belittle anyone who doesn't share their warped dour mindset. Anyone trying to talk at a rational level is a 'happy clapper', sorry are we at primary school?"

 

I'm a bit of a happy clapper myself, but cannot think for the life of me what that has to do with my reference to Ivan Toney, a youngster with a growing reputation in the lower leagues who seems to be garnering an impressive reputation.

Grabban was successful at City as a striker, but there were problems apparently, and we sold him at a big profit.

Earnie wanted away from WBA because of limited game time because he was replaced by the big money signings you refer to (Ellington. and another?)

As to his value today. Who would know? The majority of his career was at lowly Cardiff and he was sold by the Baggies because he wasn't ranked quite PL standard. More Championship.

This is where we play next season.

£15-£20 million? Come on!

I suppose my point is that there are plenty of Championship teams that can afford a 5 million punt. Hell, Leeds spent 16 million on one player last week. If he ready for the Premiership then he is certainly ready for the Championship. Why has no one bought him? I think this is his breakthrough season so it would have been great foresight to see him as a Premiership player in 2019.

Grabban cost Bournemouth 7 million and wasn't good enough for the Premiership (at his peak 27yrs).

Earnshaw was a top Championship player and an International, thats 15 million+ in 2020 all day long. McBurnie was 18 million this season. I know it sounds nuts, because it is nuts but it's also reality i'm afraid.

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17 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

I do get that point but we have to think wages too. As you say our history with bigger money signings has been a disaster, but we have proven that, contrary to what you say, it's has been a disaster if these players hang around on big money with no one willing to buy them.

What if McBurnie gets an injury and isn't the same player, what if he is so poor that his confidence goes (Berahino anyone), what if he falls out with the management and is training with the U23s and he isn't the guaranteed Championship goal machine? We don't have the capacity to write off these contracts.

I still dispute you are going to get 3 Premiership players, fees, signing bonus, agent and wages for 25 million, especially if one is 18 million of fee alone. Also If we were in for McBurnie then the fee wouldn't be 18 million because we would then be in a bidding war with Sheffield. They are capable of going past 20 million to get their man.

But our history with big money signings hasn't actually proven to be a disaster financially outside of that one window with Naismith.

The infamous Van Wolfswinkle summer window under Hughton we actually made more in fees selling those players than we did on them and their wages didn't leave us crippled financially because players like Fer and Redmond had sizeable resale value even when we went down.

You're right there is an element of risk to any signings but take that attitude and we'll never sign anyone. 

If we're really so skint that we can't sign a player for £10-15m without gravely endangering the future of the club then we might as well give up now.

 

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8 minutes ago, Bethnal Yellow and Green said:

I feel this is moving the goal posts of your argument. If we suppose the Norwich transfer spend was the reported £7m on loan fees plus Bryan and the £15m that went unspent on Alexis Claude Maurice then that is separate from wages signing on fee etc (which would have had to be covered in those transfer anyway).

The argument you posit is unknowable - we can’t say either way if things would have been different. If the money was spent on younger players - unless they completely bombed out then you’d still have that player as an asset (although probably worth less than they were signed for). 

I think the club could have quite comfortably spend an extra £15m with minimum negative impact now. But as they didn’t then the club should be in a better position now financially than they were. There are of course examples of players that could have been signed that could have been a success and players that would have been a failure. 

On the flip of Sheffield United’s spending, they got Callum Robinson for £8m (a player Norwich were trying to sign) and he ended up back on loan in the Championship. So had Norwich succeeded in signing him, it’s likely he wouldn’t have been able to save the club from relegation.

I hope Norwich don’t become ideological wed to the idea of not spending money, even it is available. 

I'm not sure why you are discounting fees as part of the budget, they are all part and parcel of the transfer. It has to be paid from somewhere. This is not new, signing fees and agent fees are considerable and need to be budgeted. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/transfers/transfer-window-premier-league-revealed-how-a-transfer-deal-really-works-a7837031.html

The agent fee is separate to the transfer fee, so it the signing bonus. So if a player signs for £10 million fee, that doesn't include the other fees and the wage obligations that need to be budgeted for. A 10 million signing in truth is often costs much more. That needs to come out of the transfer budget. 

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16 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

The fixation with how little we spent misses the point. If we had bought Fahrmann, Amadou and Roberts it would have cost us, say, £30m-£40m. It wouldn't have made them better for us. The problem was not that we spent so little but those three players we targeted to improve the squad all turned out, for whatever reason, to be duds. It wasn't the lack of money. In very crude terms it was that we went after the wrong players.

The other point is that what limits Norwich City's spending is only partly the transfer fee, when arguing about whether we could have afforded to splash out £15m or¨£25m, for example.

The other factor is the wage budget, which automatically rules out a great number of players who would be almost guaranteed to improve the squad. To an extent we have to gamble on players who are less certain to work out because they are within our wage structure.

I keep seeing this argument about if we'd signed the loanees permanently instead and it fundamentally misses the point that shopping in the loan market exclusively hugely limits your options and is basically a sunk cost with no possible return on it.

Generally loanees fall into two categories- youngsters who need to gain experience, or experienced pros that the club can't shift permanently for whatever reason. So while Amadou could well have cost us £12m, that £12m also opens up targets whose clubs would never dream of loaning them out.

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12 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

I suppose my point is that there are plenty of Championship teams that can afford a 5 million punt. Hell, Leeds spent 16 million on one player last week. If he ready for the Premiership then he is certainly ready for the Championship. Why has no one bought him? I think this is his breakthrough season so it would have been great foresight to see him as a Premiership player in 2019.

Grabban cost Bournemouth 7 million and wasn't good enough for the Premiership (at his peak 27yrs).

Earnshaw was a top Championship player and an International, thats 15 million+ in 2020 all day long. McBurnie was 18 million this season. I know it sounds nuts, because it is nuts but it's also reality i'm afraid.

Isn't that just the point that I have tried to make, to little avail, from the outset that we have (traditionally) to look to promising lower league players such as Toney who are cheaper? All signings are a risk, no matter what the cost.

I'm not sure that you agree with this point or not because you sidetracked with a soliloquy about tantrums and  happy clappers or whatever.

If you don't rate the idea of a player like Toney as a punt, what exactly do you require?

Neither of us seems to want to spend £15m + on a striker I'm sure.

Edited by BroadstairsR

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Who was the Fulham player we nearly paid today's equivalent of £20m for that went to Villa and sat on his a*se? 

I actually think the point that spending lots of money isn't always wasting lots of money is a fair one, I just don't think we were in the position to do that in this instance. Webber has already come out and said we will spend money,so we are clearly "speculating to accumulate" this season. I have no doubt we will strengthen further if we bounce back up.

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9 minutes ago, king canary said:

But our history with big money signings hasn't actually proven to be a disaster financially outside of that one window with Naismith.

The infamous Van Wolfswinkle summer window under Hughton we actually made more in fees selling those players than we did on them and their wages didn't leave us crippled financially because players like Fer and Redmond had sizeable resale value even when we went down.

You're right there is an element of risk to any signings but take that attitude and we'll never sign anyone. 

If we're really so skint that we can't sign a player for £10-15m without gravely endangering the future of the club then we might as well give up now.

 

We paid Van Wolfswinkle's wages for a long time, we couldn't palm him off to someone who would match them. That said we did sell some players for good money as you say. I do actually think we would have spent 10 million on a player if the fit was right, sadly once they see you are in the Premiership, agents get very silly. I don't think it was a lack of trying but Webber isn't going to over extend us, if they get silly then he'll move on. Looks like this has happened with the Man signing.

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7 minutes ago, BroadstairsR said:

Isn't that just the point that I have tried to make, to little avail, from the outset that we have (traditionally) to look to promising lower league players such as Toney who are cheaper? All signings are a risk, no matter what the cost.

I'm not sure that you agree with this point or not because you sidetracked with a soliloquy about tantrums and  happy clappers or whatever.

If you don't rate the idea of a player like Toney as a punt, what exactly do you require?

Neither of us seems to want to spend £15m + on a striker I'm sure.

No i'm saying he isn't worth the punt because as of 2019 there was no indication he would add anything to the squad that Idah didn't. Idah absolutely smashed Coventry in the cup who are a top league one side. Idah is too good for league one, thats the level Toney is at now. 

My point is that if we were going to spend money to really compete in the Premiership then its 50 million+. There is no point moaning about not spending 15 million because in truth it is pennies in this division. I don't believe if we spent just a bit more, our season would have changed, we would have had to have spent a lot more.

You might have been caught in the cross fire of my frustration with this board, I still stand by what I said even if I wasn't directing at you personally.

 

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