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hertfordyellow

The £15 million myth

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1 minute ago, hertfordyellow said:

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. 

I’m not ignoring signing on fees etc. But what I’m saying is if the club could afford to sign a player for £15m - which they tried to do - then they could have afforded the fees associated with it. 

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@ Hertford:

 

"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."

Now being the operative word. Who knows? 

 

Also,  you have moved your stance and I'm not sure that was the basis of our disagreement..

We need a.n.other striker, no matter how Idah progresses. Fingers crossed.

We, us both,  don't want a £15m+ expenditure?

So that striker need be a punt from the lower leagues and the only way that such can be identified is by form, potential (and the appraisal of the scouts.)

We don't now, at this precise moment in time, need a striker who can "Compete in the PL"  because we need to get back there first.

As has been pointed out, sign a promising youngster from below and even if he is not the requisite for our club moving forward then there is still some residual value and certainly not a player on high wages that we are stuck to like glue. We've had our share of those.

Edited by BroadstairsR

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1 hour ago, king canary said:

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.

Not sure I quite get the argument. If it is that we could, for example, have bought someone for £12m that raises the question of what we would have got for that £12m, bearing in mind the highly inflated transfer fees in England and whether our wage limit would have been acceptable to the player. I don't think that in practice the potential pool of talent would have expanded as much as you suggest.

I am sure Webber and Farke thought Fahrmann and Amadou were upgrades on what we had and would end the season as first-choice keeper and CDM respectively. You don't sign a keeper with Fahrmann's record and put them on te bench, and Tettey apparently said he expected Amadou to take his place.

It is because of the limits we have on transfer fees and wages that sometimes - in the Premier League - the best options to get the quality we need are loan deals. I agree there are drawbacks with loan deals, and I don't expect us to do many this season, but the financial circumstances are different this season and in the EFL than they were last and in the EPL.

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1 hour ago, BroadstairsR said:

@ Hertford:

 

"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."

Now being the operative word. Who knows? 

 

Also,  you have moved your stance and I'm not sure that was the basis of our disagreement..

We need a.n.other striker, no matter how Idah progresses. Fingers crossed.

We, us both,  don't want a £15m+ expenditure?

So that striker need be a punt from the lower leagues and the only way that such can be identified is by form, potential (and the appraisal of the scouts.)

We don't now, at this precise moment in time, need a striker who can "Compete in the PL"  because we need to get back there first.

As has been pointed out, sign a promising youngster from below and even if he is not the requisite for our club moving forward then there is still some residual value and certainly not a player on high wages that we are stuck to like glue. We've had our share of those.

I don't think the argument has changed. I'm saying 15m gets you one decent Prem player and wouldn't impact our season. You ascertained that you could get Toney for 5m. It actually links with my point nicely. One third of that budget would go towards a player with no Championship credentials. Idah looks like he is a bit better than league 1 level so 5 million doesn't even dislodge your 3rd choice striker so would make no impact on the season in my eyes. If anything it nicely proves that these raft of changes could not have been made with 15 million and we would be fishing in league one on a hope and a prayer with that budget. 

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2 hours ago, hertfordyellow said:

 

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.

 

I'm lost.

 

You change with the wind , more than it does from the sea  where I live. Suddenly your argument against taking a punt on Tomey necessitates bringing up Idah   ...which was  not your original  stance against that player.

 

Neither of us want a big money signing for Championship football. BUT , we need another striker. on our books? It's a long hard season in the Chumps.

 

Have you a better suggestion than mine then?

We have a history of buying small and ending up big, no matter how far back  we need to go.

It's NCFC. It's what we do. The likes of a Tomey is what we do.

(Notwithstanding the big money signings in which we have been severely burnt more than once.)

 

If not Toney, or similar, what is your answer? It is clear we need another force up front to cope with a season's demands of Championship existence.

You seem disgruntled, but proffer no answer, despite my consistent questioning.

Edited by BroadstairsR

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13 hours ago, BroadstairsR said:

I'm lost.

 

You change with the wind , more than it does from the sea  where I live. Suddenly your argument against taking a punt on Tomey necessitates bringing up Idah   ...which was  not your original  stance against that player.

 

Neither of us want a big money signing for Championship football. BUT , we need another striker. on our books? It's a long hard season in the Chumps.

 

Have you a better suggestion than mine then?

We have a history of buying small and ending up big, no matter how far back  we need to go.

It's NCFC. It's what we do. The likes of a Tomey is what we do.

(Notwithstanding the big money signings in which we have been severely burnt more than once.)

 

If not Toney, or similar, what is your answer? It is clear we need another force up front to cope with a season's demands of Championship existence.

You seem disgruntled, but proffer no answer, despite my consistent questioning.

Looking at your summary of what I said I think there is a lot of confusion. I'm not changing my position at all, they all link to original point consistently.

I've never professed to being unhappy with the current approach which is the Maddison approach. Buy young, create a top training facility, get them experience, give them playing time. If they combine to create a good team then we go up, if they excel individually then we sell for 5 times the fee we paid. This approach takes 3-4 years a player though. If you want a ready made Premiership player (to go straight into the team and make a difference) or even top Championship player who has the potential to do so it will cost you £10 million + each. This is why I think it is a myth that if we pushed the boat out a little it would have been the difference. Pushing the boat out a little = one player and we were well short leading me to state that one player wouldn't transform this team.

About Toney, you countered my point by saying that Toney would be available for 5 million, well under the 15 million budget. My point is the reason he is 5 million (which is a huge amount for league 1 btw) is he has no pedigree at even championship level, he wasn't going to go straight into the squad and make a difference in the Premiership. This is where I mention Idah. My point here is related to the idea Toney could have been brought in to make a difference to a Premiership team. Idah, based on his game against Coventry (the top League 1 team where he scored a hat trick) is already above the level Toney is playing at. We would be spending 5 million (a third of the 15 million budget) on a player who probably is not even be better than our academy prospects.

They all link to same point which is, 15 million wouldn't make a difference because in todays Premiership, that gets you one established player thats all. This idea that you could rebuild a midfield or straighten out a defence on that budget is fantasy. You could with 50 million but that is well beyond us.

I'm happy to keep with the strategy of mining for rough diamonds and creating our own Premiership players i.e. Maddison. I never said there was a problem to fix in the first place.

 

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Precisely. Most of that cannot be disputed by the rational supporter.

Btw. I never said that Toney would be £5m.

Looking back to my  posting I put :

"-£5m Ivan Toney from Peterborough." ie.Less than £5m.

Probably quite a bit less with add-ons. I have heard and seen (limited) such good things about him that he is just the type of player that our history suggests we take a risk with. There may be others around, of course.

Edited by BroadstairsR
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Spending money is no guarantee see Fulham and Villa.  Just a pity we couldn't find another gem in the mould of Byram as for a CB we could have picked up Semi Ajayi who was playing very effectively for Rotherham for £1.5m until West Brom swooped and played him for most of the season.  Still need to look for lower league gems who are still out there particularly experienced CB's, maybe not young and thrusting but knowledgable concerning their role. 

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18 hours ago, Mason 47 said:

Ondrezj Duda is valued at £25 million pounds.

That's it. That's the post.

Excellent point. Linking your post to @Bethnal Yellow and Green's, we had a clause to buy Amadou for £10 million at the end of his loan.

My question would be, if we had bought him outright last summer, would people still be saying we should have spent £15 million more, or would they accept that we showed sufficient ambition?

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26 minutes ago, pete said:

we could have picked up Semi Ajayi who was playing very effectively for Rotherham

I think that we were linked with him last season - ironically, we may have pursued other targets because of the extra money we attained through promotion.

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9 minutes ago, Yellow and Green said:

Excellent point. Linking your post to @Bethnal Yellow and Green's, we had a clause to buy Amadou for £10 million at the end of his loan.

My question would be, if we had bought him outright last summer, would people still be saying we should have spent £15 million more, or would they accept that we showed sufficient ambition?

If we had spent £35 million on Duda and Amadou at the start of the season and we were likely relegated all the same (based on the impact both players had) everybody would be grumbling that our recruitment is crap.

As it happens, we've been relegated and everybody is grumbling that our recruitment is crap- but we're £35 million better off.

Football is a sport of passion and excitement. The majority will never be comfortable with a self-aware, sensibly cautious approach because it goes against the emotion of the game.

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13 minutes ago, Mason 47 said:

If we had spent £35 million on Duda and Amadou at the start of the season and we were likely relegated all the same (based on the impact both players had) everybody would be grumbling that our recruitment is crap.

As it happens, we've been relegated and everybody is grumbling that our recruitment is crap- but we're £35 million better off.

Football is a sport of passion and excitement. The majority will never be comfortable with a self-aware, sensibly cautious approach because it goes against the emotion of the game.

Exactly - if we had bought these players instead of loaning them, we would still have been relegated but with a big hole in our finances and probably a far larger wage bill. We would be back in the Naismith/ RVW situation of paying the majority of the wages whilst other clubs have our players.

Not spending money on players that we identified (wrongly as it turned out) as the ones to improve us, has proven to be a very wise choice. Hopefully next time we are promoted, we will maintain our responsible approach  approach but learn the lessons from the faulty player identification process. 

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Its obvious that some haven't noticed we are in the EFL next season. It needs a different approach and mind set. 

It is clear that if if you wish to remain in the EPL, you need to spend pretty large or be extremely lucky like Burnley.

I do not ever envisage us spending the amounts that some supporters want us to. Not with the current set up. 

I'm afraid you will have to wait for a stinkin' rich owner to come along. And many do not want that either for obvious reasons.

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Just now, keelansgrandad said:

Its obvious that some haven't noticed we are in the EFL next season. It needs a different approach and mind set. 

It is clear that if if you wish to remain in the EPL, you need to spend pretty large or be extremely lucky like Burnley.

I do not ever envisage us spending the amounts that some supporters want us to. Not with the current set up. 

I'm afraid you will have to wait for a stinkin' rich owner to come along. And many do not want that either for obvious reasons.

We seem to have been preparing for the next season quite well with what amounts to an un precedent number of signings, both young and some  with a degree of pedigree.

It seems to be business as usual with due regard  to the budget.

Our transfer activity of late has been a glow amidst the darkness of the last few weeks.

 

It has encouraged me, but I still think that we need to invest big to solve the defensive weaknesses that seem to have dodged us for so long.

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27 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

Its obvious that some haven't noticed we are in the EFL next season. It needs a different approach and mind set. 

It is clear that if if you wish to remain in the EPL, you need to spend pretty large or be extremely lucky like Burnley.

I do not ever envisage us spending the amounts that some supporters want us to. Not with the current set up. 

I'm afraid you will have to wait for a stinkin' rich owner to come along. And many do not want that either for obvious reasons.

The truth is that very few promoted teams stay there more that a few years. There is a semi-permanent c10 clubs + a fairly large number of temporary visitors, who stay for a few years before going down again.

I don't think that Burnley have been lucky btw - they have managed their resource and have developed a physical style of play that allows them to survive quite well (similar to Sheff Utd this year, and other clubs in the past - e.g. Stoke). It won't stop them from being relegated in s few years though - it's a case of when not if. If they manage their finances sensibly though, there is a greater chance of them being re-promoted in a shorter period of time.

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1 hour ago, Badger said:

Exactly - if we had bought these players instead of loaning them, we would still have been relegated but with a big hole in our finances and probably a far larger wage bill. We would be back in the Naismith/ RVW situation of paying the majority of the wages whilst other clubs have our players.

Not spending money on players that we identified (wrongly as it turned out) as the ones to improve us, has proven to be a very wise choice. Hopefully next time we are promoted, we will maintain our responsible approach  approach but learn the lessons from the faulty player identification process. 

God this makes me want to scream.

If we had had the budget to sign the players we loaned in permanently, we very likely wouldn't have spent it on those 4 players as we would have had a significantly larger pool of players to fish in. We idenified these players precisely because we could only afford loans.

Edited by king canary
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15 minutes ago, king canary said:

God this makes me want to scream.

If we had had the budget to sign the players we loaned in permanently, we very likely wouldn't have spent it on those 4 players as we would have had a significantly larger pool of players to fish in. We idenified these players precisely because we could only afford loans.

Scream away, but Badger is right. We identified Naismith from your bigger pool as a good buy for the money (and most of us thought he would be good to be fair), but he failed so the risks are just the same - only we are not stuck with failures like we were with Naismith.   Duda might well have been identified as one in the bigger pool anyway and we may have bought him outright under other circumstances!  Sooo glad we didn't! 

 

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50 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

Scream away, but Badger is right. We identified Naismith from your bigger pool as a good buy for the money (and most of us thought he would be good to be fair), but he failed so the risks are just the same - only we are not stuck with failures like we were with Naismith.   Duda might well have been identified as one in the bigger pool anyway and we may have bought him outright under other circumstances!  Sooo glad we didn't! 

 

Do you think Stuart Webber is bad at his job at should be sacked?

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2 hours ago, king canary said:

God this makes me want to scream.

If we had had the budget to sign the players we loaned in permanently, we very likely wouldn't have spent it on those 4 players as we would have had a significantly larger pool of players to fish in. We idenified these players precisely because we could only afford loans.

I doubt that we would have been able to buy Duda and Fahrmann, nor indeed Roberts, at that stage, I suspect: they were only available to loan. e.g. Sheff Utd could have bought a keeper but preferred to loan Henderson

I agree that you are fishing in a different and bigger pond, but I think that there is quality available in the loan market that isn't easily available to buy. Clubs don't want to sell their best talent even if they are temporarily not playing, so you are back to the £15 to £20 million "punt" territory (or more), with contracts to pay for years if they don't work out - hoping that they make the "jump up."

e.g. Joelinton £40 million + Wesley £22.5 million 

Edited by Badger
Corrected mistake

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6 minutes ago, Badger said:

I doubt that we would have been able to buy Duda and Fahrmann, nor indeed Roberts, at that stage, I suspect: they were only available on to loan. e.g. Sheff Utd could have bought a keeper but preferred to loan Henderson

I agree that you are fishing in a different and bigger pond, but I think that there is quality available in the loan market that isn't easily available to buy. Clubs don't want to sell their best talent even if they are temporarily not playing, so you are back to the £15 to £20 million "punt" territory (or more), with contracts to pay for years if they don't work out - hoping that they make the "jump up."

e.g. Joelinton £40 million + Wesley £22.5 million 

I'm not suggesting there is no value in the loan market but it is significantly harder to find. 

You suggest the strategy was fine we just got the wrong players- I'm saying the strategy is a large part of why we ended up with these players in the first place.

Wages included we probably spent £10m on Fahrmann, Roberts, Amadou and Duda. We may as well have spent that money on a 20 foot statue of Glen Roeder to go outside the Barclay and the difference to our season would have been negligible. 

I honestly don't see how anyone can look at that and think 'good strategy.'

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2 minutes ago, king canary said:

I'm not suggesting there is no value in the loan market but it is significantly harder to find. 

You suggest the strategy was fine we just got the wrong players- I'm saying the strategy is a large part of why we ended up with these players in the first place.

Wages included we probably spent £10m on Fahrmann, Roberts, Amadou and Duda. We may as well have spent that money on a 20 foot statue of Glen Roeder to go outside the Barclay and the difference to our season would have been negligible. 

I honestly don't see how anyone can look at that and think 'good strategy.'

The strategy was fine but the implementation was flawed - we chose the wrong players, but because the strategy was to loan, we could get rid of them. 

Spending £10 million and getting the wrong players is a lot better than spending 30 or 40 million and getting the wrong players - and then having to pay their inflated wages for 3 or 4 extra years! As you said our loans were essentially useless - imagine if they had been purchases - we'd be paying the price for years.

Buying players does not give you any guarantee of better quality - indeed, the reverse is probably more likely. The only guarantee of purchase is that if they do not work out, you are paying for years.

 

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1 minute ago, Badger said:

The strategy was fine but the implementation was flawed - we chose the wrong players, but because the strategy was to loan, we could get rid of them. 

Spending £10 million and getting the wrong players is a lot better than spending 30 or 40 million and getting the wrong players - and then having to pay their inflated wages for 3 or 4 extra years! As you said our loans were essentially useless - imagine if they had been purchases - we'd be paying the price for years.

Buying players does not give you any guarantee of better quality - indeed, the reverse is probably more likely. The only guarantee of purchase is that if they do not work out, you are paying for years.

 

So I assume you want Webber sacked?  Clearly you believe if he was given money to spend he'd land us with a bunch of duds we couldn't shift for love nor money.

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25 minutes ago, Badger said:

I doubt that we would have been able to buy Duda and Fahrmann, nor indeed Roberts, at that stage, I suspect: they were only available to loan. e.g. Sheff Utd could have bought a keeper but preferred to loan Henderson

I agree that you are fishing in a different and bigger pond, but I think that there is quality available in the loan market that isn't easily available to buy. Clubs don't want to sell their best talent even if they are temporarily not playing, so you are back to the £15 to £20 million "punt" territory (or more), with contracts to pay for years if they don't work out - hoping that they make the "jump up."

e.g. Joelinton £40 million + Wesley £22.5 million 

Oh, I forgot Haller £45 million for West Ham! 

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4 minutes ago, king canary said:

So I assume you want Webber sacked?  Clearly you believe if he was given money to spend he'd land us with a bunch of duds we couldn't shift for love nor money.

If he continued to make mistakes, yes. However, he has a lot of credit in the bank for some of those he has bought in prior to this season but if we continue to have transfer windows like the last two, we would need to dismiss him.

My belief (hope) is that he won't repeat the same mistakes and he says that he has learned from the process. We will only know if/ when we go up and the recruitment strategy then (if he is still with us).

Edited by Badger
Clarified statement but adding extra words

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23 minutes ago, king canary said:

I'm not suggesting there is no value in the loan market but it is significantly harder to find. 

You suggest the strategy was fine we just got the wrong players- I'm saying the strategy is a large part of why we ended up with these players in the first place.

Wages included we probably spent £10m on Fahrmann, Roberts, Amadou and Duda. We may as well have spent that money on a 20 foot statue of Glen Roeder to go outside the Barclay and the difference to our season would have been negligible. 

I honestly don't see how anyone can look at that and think 'good strategy.'

I personally was pleased when we signed Fahrmann, Roberts and Amadou at the time. On paper they looked like good signings. Also we seemed to have a fee ready for Amadou if the loan was a success which gives us flexibility. If the injuries to the defence hadn't happened and he was played at midfield, it might have worked out better. I think it is in hindsight that you judge this strategy. There were very few people saying this at the time.

Edited by hertfordyellow

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5 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

I personally was pleased when we signed Fahrmann, Roberts and Amadou at the time. On paper they looked like good signings. Also we seemed to have a fee ready for Amadou if the loan was a success which gives us flexibility. If the injuries to the defence hadn't happened and he was played at midfield, it might have worked out better. I think it is in hindsight that you judge this strategy. There were very few people saying this at the time.

You're right there is an element of hindsight- but what I thought at the time is immaterial because I'm not paid large sums of money to identify the right players.

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10 minutes ago, Badger said:

If he continued to make mistakes, yes. However, he has a lot of credit in the bank for some of those he has bought in prior to this season but if we continue to have transfer windows like the last two, we would need to dismiss him.

My belief (hope) is that he won't repeat the same mistakes and he says that he has learned from the process. We will only know if/ when we go up and the recruitment strategy then (if he is still with us).

He has credit because he was given a reasonable budget to work with and made good signings.

I think it is hugely harsh to judge him based on working with the lowest budget of any newly promoted team in the last decade or so.

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