Harsh judgement of our transfers

[hertfordyellow 460]

I've seen a number of transfer rumours involving Championship players recently and I increasingly feel the criticism of this season's signings very harsh.

Antoine Semenyo from Bristol City is being chased by some Premiership clubs for 15-16 million.

Brennan Johnson has been linked with a 18 million+ deal. 

These are Championship players with one or two seasons of football to their name. This is the market we are dealing with.

I've seen much criticism of Webber and our 9 million pound signings are struggling in the Premiership.

I have two points really.

1) 9 million is a lot of money when you haven't had any for decades but it really isn't in todays market, especially if you are trying to get Premiership quality. To some people, 9 million should buy you an almost guaranteed performer. People point to cheaper signings of other teams who have made it but just because some work out, doesn't mean they weren't a hopeful signing or always likely to succeed. Tzolis is a good example of one seen as a 'waste' of money. I get it, he has hardly played, but if he goes on to rip the championship up next season (it looks highly possible) then he is cheap for a top Championship performer with plenty of football ahead of him. You could say the same for Sargent and he has had a better contribution than Tzolis.

2) People point to Rashica, his ability to operate at Premiership level and benchmark him as what a 9 million signing should look like. If you look at the market actually we should be praising the recruitment team for getting such a player for way under the market level. Sargent for me is the bench mark of a 9 million player not Rashica.

The loans have obviously been mixed, I'm not saying we've played a blinder in the market overall, I just think people need to be more rational about the market, see we are having to take risks, even when breaking our transfer record. 

 

[Don’t be Krul 398]

If Sargent is the benchmark of £9m then there are a lot of Sunday league pub teams worth a small fortune

[Robert N. LiM 4,239]

I think there's a lot of sense in that. The usual argument I see is that, instead of buying multiple £9m players, we should have bought fewer £20m players. But those arguments usually ignore the concomitant wages and the fact that even £20m doesn't guarantee a PL-ready player.

 

Edited March 3, 2022 by Robert N. LiM

[Badger 2,405]

4 minutes ago, Robert N. LiM said:

I think there's a lot of sense in that. The usual argument I see is that, instead of buying £9m players, we should have bought fewer £20m players. But those arguments usually ignore the concomitant wages and the fact that even £20m doesn't guarantee a PL-ready player.

 

It also ignores the fact that "established" premier league players or players of definite premier league quality are likely to have better options than joining a newly promoted club. All promoted clubs shop in a very limited market and it is why they are often linked with the same players.

[Robert N. LiM 4,239]

2 minutes ago, Badger said:

It also ignores the fact that "established" premier league players or players of definite premier league quality are likely to have better options than joining a newly promoted club. All promoted clubs shop in a very limited market and it is why they are often linked with the same players.

Yes, exactly

[Robert N. LiM 4,239]

The trick, therefore, is to buy the £20m players a couple of years before they're £20m players. We did that with Maddison and Emi, I suspect we've probably done it Milot and hopefully we'll also have done it with Tzolis. But the latter's lack of progress has certainly been disappointing. I guess the strategy is to buy a few and hope that the majority of them come off.

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

49 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

I've seen a number of transfer rumours involving Championship players recently and I increasingly feel the criticism of this season's signings very harsh.

Antoine Semenyo from Bristol City is being chased by some Premiership clubs for 15-16 million.

Brennan Johnson has been linked with a 18 million+ deal. 

These are Championship players with one or two seasons of football to their name. This is the market we are dealing with.

I've seen much criticism of Webber and our 9 million pound signings are struggling in the Premiership.

I have two points really.

1) 9 million is a lot of money when you haven't had any for decades but it really isn't in todays market, especially if you are trying to get Premiership quality. To some people, 9 million should buy you an almost guaranteed performer. People point to cheaper signings of other teams who have made it but just because some work out, doesn't mean they weren't a hopeful signing or always likely to succeed. Tzolis is a good example of one seen as a 'waste' of money. I get it, he has hardly played, but if he goes on to rip the championship up next season (it looks highly possible) then he is cheap for a top Championship performer with plenty of football ahead of him. You could say the same for Sargent and he has had a better contribution than Tzolis.

2) People point to Rashica, his ability to operate at Premiership level and benchmark him as what a 9 million signing should look like. If you look at the market actually we should be praising the recruitment team for getting such a player for way under the market level. Sargent for me is the bench mark of a 9 million player not Rashica.

The loans have obviously been mixed, I'm not saying we've played a blinder in the market overall, I just think people need to be more rational about the market, see we are having to take risks, even when breaking our transfer record. 

 

I think the criticism is more about how the funds were attributed.

£9m transfer fee for a 19 year that Webber claims wasn't intended to make an impact this season? Seriously?

And sorry but Angus Gunn was a 'feel good' signing, a nostalgia trip.... he's no better than Joe Lewis or Declan Rudd. I wonder how much Preston would have accepted for Rudd.

It is a valid criticism to point out that the only DM we delivered was a player with a career history of being injury prone, and between the Tsoliz and Gunn signings we could have sourced and signed one, everybody could see we were crying out for a serious DM.

Also a valid criticism that there was no better chance than this summer to deal with the situation we have where we've got a rapidly deteriorating striker up front who is 32 this month. We've seen what Webber can deliver up front on a Championship budget, its Jordan Hugill, huge opportunity missed to sign the Pukki successor and secure our top 26 status for the medium term.

People aren't criticising the individual players but the strategy and the summer transfer business overall, for me it is more about the priorities and the clear gaps left in the squad. With the obvious gaps there was no room for the hugely expensive backup keeper or room to take a wild punt on a 19 year old that you claim knew wasn't ready for this level.

 

Edited March 3, 2022 by TeemuVanBasten

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

15 minutes ago, Badger said:

It also ignores the fact that "established" premier league players or players of definite premier league quality are likely to have better options than joining a newly promoted club. All promoted clubs shop in a very limited market and it is why they are often linked with the same players.

The frequent complaint is that we should have bought a physically combative EPL-standard defensive central midfielder. Fine in theory, but even if we could have attracted such a player and been able to afford their wages - both highly questionable - that would have been at least the entire non-Buendia transfer budget (which was at most £25m) gone on one player.

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

48 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

Sargent for me is the bench mark of a 9 million player not Rashica.

As ever it is far too simplistic to be throwing around fees like you are, saying that "this is the benchmark" for that fee, and that is the benchmark for that fee, when often the value of the player contract is the largest cost element.

Will Hughes was a £5.5m player this summer.

But he's on £3m a year for 3 years, which is £9m.

Your entire argument is far too simplistic to pay any real attention to. There are elite level players every summer available for £0, but they want wages of £100k+ a week.

We aren't privvy to how much Rashica is on per week. He could be on £20k a week, or he could be on £80k a week, and without knowing that it is impossible for either me or you to determine whether we should all have a circle jerk in celebration of how much of a genius Stuart Webber is for the perceived / your made up perception of good value. 

 

Edited March 3, 2022 by TeemuVanBasten

[king canary 7,578]

9 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

The frequent complaint is that we should have bought a physically combative EPL-standard defensive central midfielder. Fine in theory, but even if we could have attracted such a player and been able to afford their wages - both highly questionable - that would have been at least the entire non-Buendia transfer budget (which was at most £25m) gone on one player.

So it all comes back to budgets in the end.

Even the much vaunted huge spending summer actually translates to about £25m of 'new' money to improve the squad without sales which still isn't much.

Webber opted to sell our best player to give him that larger budget. Then promptly spent most of the £30m + we received for Buendia on three players who ideally play in Emi's position but offer about 20% of his impact.

The strategy was all over the place.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

We were told, not just by the club but pundits also, that we had bought wise and were better prepared this time around.

I don't think that is correct. Buendia, Todd and Ollie were a step up on the current midfield even at Championship level.

We brought in a striker who has scored twice in the league and we have 15 league goals.

And I would argue we have seen a poor season from Aarons as well.

So of the new signings, only Rashica has shown he could be an improvement (over Onel and Placheta).

Personally, I think Normann is overrated by many supporters. And even if we buy him, and allowing he has a great season next year (assuming we go down), would he be good enough for the EPL?

We now nothing of Tzolis. I don't think he is even getting games for the U23s. Surely he has to be given games somewhere at that age. If he isn't good enough to start, then why have sitting on the bench all the time?

[hertfordyellow 460]

14 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

As ever it is far too simplistic to be throwing around fees like you are, saying that "this is the benchmark" for that fee, and that is the benchmark for that fee, when often the value of the player contract is the largest cost element.

Will Hughes was a £5.5m player this summer.

But he's on £3m a year for 3 years, which is £9m.

Your entire argument is far too simplistic to pay any real attention to. There are elite level players every summer available for £0, but they want wages of £100k+ a week.

We aren't privvy to how much Rashica is on per week. He could be on £20k a week, or he could be on £80k a week, and without knowing that it is impossible for either me or you to determine whether we should all have a circle jerk in celebration of how much of a genius Stuart Webber is for the perceived / your made up perception of good value. 

 

If my argument is far too simplistic to pay any attention to, why have you commented on it twice?

I didn’t mention whether Rashica was on 80k or not because we know we have a wage structure that doesn’t allow for massive pay outliers in  the squad.

I didn’t say Webber was a genius or we should have circle jerk in celebration. I mention specifically it has been of mixed success. As ever, you try to twist an open and honest thread into distorted extremes to shut down debate. Why do you bother?

[hertfordyellow 460]

13 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

We were told, not just by the club but pundits also, that we had bought wise and were better prepared this time around.

I don't think that is correct. Buendia, Todd and Ollie were a step up on the current midfield even at Championship level.

We brought in a striker who has scored twice in the league and we have 15 league goals.

And I would argue we have seen a poor season from Aarons as well.

So of the new signings, only Rashica has shown he could be an improvement (over Onel and Placheta).

Personally, I think Normann is overrated by many supporters. And even if we buy him, and allowing he has a great season next year (assuming we go down), would he be good enough for the EPL?

We now nothing of Tzolis. I don't think he is even getting games for the U23s. Surely he has to be given games somewhere at that age. If he isn't good enough to start, then why have sitting on the bench all the time?

I’m confused why you are arguing that Skipp, Buendia and Cantwell is a better midfield. Not sure I’ve seen anyone argue otherwise. We didn’t own Skipp and he plays regularly for Spurs. Buendia is a 33 million signing and demanding a move. Cantwell is Cantwell, he is only as good as he wants to be.

what has this got to do with the original post?

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

1 hour ago, hertfordyellow said:

Antoine Semenyo from Bristol City is being chased by some Premiership clubs for 15-16 million.

Brennan Johnson has been linked with a 18 million+ deal.

Could have signed them both in the summer then,  with £23m left in the kitty for other transfer fees.

Edited March 3, 2022 by TeemuVanBasten

[hertfordyellow 460]

32 minutes ago, king canary said:

So it all comes back to budgets in the end.

Even the much vaunted huge spending summer actually translates to about £25m of 'new' money to improve the squad without sales which still isn't much.

Webber opted to sell our best player to give him that larger budget. Then promptly spent most of the £30m + we received for Buendia on three players who ideally play in Emi's position but offer about 20% of his impact.

The strategy was all over the place.

I don’t disagree but we can’t afford a Buendia replacement, no one of Buendia’s quality would come here at a price / wage we can afford. He’s irreplaceable so again a little harsh to blame the recruitment team. It wasn’t that Webber wanted him to leave either, reasons for the sale are now well known.

[hertfordyellow 460]

7 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Could have signed them both in the summer then,  with £23m left in the kitty for other transfer fees.

Johnson hadn’t had his breakthrough season, Semenyo had had one decentish season at that point. This is a wayward criticism imo.

[hogesar 9,616]

36 minutes ago, king canary said:

So it all comes back to budgets in the end.

Even the much vaunted huge spending summer actually translates to about £25m of 'new' money to improve the squad without sales which still isn't much.

Webber opted to sell our best player to give him that larger budget. Then promptly spent most of the £30m + we received for Buendia on three players who ideally play in Emi's position but offer about 20% of his impact.

The strategy was all over the place.

Disagree with this bit. Once we'd signed Kabak and Normann there was very, very little complaint about the strategy of the transfer window to the point that serial board-basher-nowhere-to-be-seen-after-a-win @Dean Coneys boots christened it the best transfer window in the history of the club.

What I would say is the transfer window was of course built around a Daniel Farke style side and of course it will look disjointed when a manager with a different style is trying to implement his playing methods. 

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

2 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

Johnson hadn’t had his breakthrough season, Semenyo had had one decentish season at that point. This is a wayward criticism imo.

My point was simply that what the OP is claiming is unaffordable doesn't appear to be.

There are many who argue that 3 or 4 players of real quality were needed rather than 11 new signings. 

Was the money spread too thin? That's a worthwhile debate.

 

Edited March 3, 2022 by TeemuVanBasten

[king canary 7,578]

Just now, hogesar said:

Disagree with this bit. Once we'd signed Kabak and Normann there was very, very little complaint about the strategy of the transfer window to the point that serial board-basher-nowhere-to-be-seen-after-a-win @Dean Coneys boots christened it the best transfer window in the history of the club.

What I would say is the transfer window was of course built around a Daniel Farke style side and of course it will look disjointed when a manager with a different style is trying to implement his playing methods. 

Whether fans were happy with the strategy is completely irrelevant. As I say whenever this point is paid, we're not paid 6/7 figure sums to get this right. Our knowledge of players like PLM, Normann, Rashica and others was always going to be minimal.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

The club stated its own ambition internally during the summer of 21 to become a top-17 team, not a top-26, so clearly the recruitment opportunities were seen as sufficient to keep us in the league - even in spite of our budget limitations. 

So no the recruitment is not harshly criticised, we are miles off where we aiming to be.

[king canary 7,578]

5 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

I don’t disagree but we can’t afford a Buendia replacement, no one of Buendia’s quality would come here at a price / wage we can afford. He’s irreplaceable so again a little harsh to blame the recruitment team. It wasn’t that Webber wanted him to leave either, reasons for the sale are now well known.

My point wasn't that we should have spent loads on an Emi replacement.

My point is more that the argument for selling your best player can make some sense if the money can be use to upgrade two or three areas of the team. Instead we sold one extremely talented attacking midfielder for a reported £32m before add ons and then spent almost the entire amount on three other attacking midfielders in an attempt to replace what we'd lost. 

[hogesar 9,616]

5 minutes ago, king canary said:

Whether fans were happy with the strategy is completely irrelevant. As I say whenever this point is paid, we're not paid 6/7 figure sums to get this right. Our knowledge of players like PLM, Normann, Rashica and others was always going to be minimal.

No but I don't see what was wrong with the 'strategy'. The only thing I can see we got 'wrong' was not getting a genuine, proper, disciplined, all-out defensive midfielder. The general strategy I don't see what we've done wrong.

[king canary 7,578]

Just now, hogesar said:

No but I don't see what was wrong with the 'strategy'. The only thing I can see we got 'wrong' was not getting a genuine, proper, disciplined, all-out defensive midfielder. The general strategy I don't see what we've done wrong.

Well its all about opinion but I'd go with....

• A mess in central midfield- we clearly targeted Gilmour early. A cursory glance at his career suggests he needs destroyer type next to him to do the dirty work and let him dictate. We instead added PLM (a good passer but generally not someone who protects) and Normann (a talented player who is at his best getting up and down the pitch). In isolation you can make arguments for signing them as individuals. As a group though it shows a lack of strategy. 
• £5m on a backup keeper- with a limited budget and a need to address a few positions it is an obvious waste of resources. People talk about Gunn being our keeper when Krul leaves but he's contracted until 2024 and hardly in decline. Plenty of keepers moved this season for smaller fees.
• Adding three attacking midfielders for a combined £25m+ - even with Emi leaving we had Cantwell, Dowell, Placheta and Onel on the books. Rashica was a no brainer, Sargent gives us something different so fair play but Tzolis? Just poor strategy again.
• Kabak- on paper has a great CV but seems much more suited in his style of play to being in a team that plays on the front foot and wants its central defenders to carry the ball out of defence, totally unsuited to a relegation battle. 

 

 

[hertfordyellow 460]

14 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

My point was simply that what the OP is claiming is unaffordable doesn't appear to be.

There are many who argue that 3 or 4 players of real quality were needed rather than 11 new signings. 

Was the money spread too thin? That's a worthwhile debate.

 

Your point was indeed simple. We don’t own a time machine although if we did it would be labelled an expensive vanity project.

Why would we sign players for the Premiership season, who hadn’t even made it for their clubs yet.

[Fuzzar 1,702]

20 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Disagree with this bit. Once we'd signed Kabak and Normann there was very, very little complaint about the strategy of the transfer window to the point that serial board-basher-nowhere-to-be-seen-after-a-win @Dean Coneys boots christened it the best transfer window in the history of the club.

What I would say is the transfer window was of course built around a Daniel Farke style side and of course it will look disjointed when a manager with a different style is trying to implement his playing methods. 

This is the interesting bit for me. I thought the whole point of a sporting director/coach model and an ingrained philosophy of playing style was that an underperforming coach could be replaced by another to easily pick up the baton. 

Appointing Smith doesn't really make sense on that basis, regardless of how well he's done. 

[sgncfc 1,221]

1 hour ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

As ever it is far too simplistic to be throwing around fees like you are, saying that "this is the benchmark" for that fee, and that is the benchmark for that fee, when often the value of the player contract is the largest cost element.

Will Hughes was a £5.5m player this summer.

But he's on £3m a year for 3 years, which is £9m.

Your entire argument is far too simplistic to pay any real attention to. There are elite level players every summer available for £0, but they want wages of £100k+ a week.

We aren't privvy to how much Rashica is on per week. He could be on £20k a week, or he could be on £80k a week, and without knowing that it is impossible for either me or you to determine whether we should all have a circle jerk in celebration of how much of a genius Stuart Webber is for the perceived / your made up perception of good value. 

 

Joshua King is on £60k a week at Watford. They wouldn' t pay Will Hughes that so he left and got it at Palace. Sissoko was £3m but also £80k a week. Dennis was £3.6m but also £40k a week and completely unproven. A reminder that Watford will probably come down with us, so even this isn't enough.

If we have a wage ceiling in order to stay solvent, then there are only certain players who will be interested. The Ajer deal didn't stack up for that reason. We couldn't even persuade Gary Cahill to stay in the PL for an extra season. If we pay £20m for an incoming 23 year old and £60k a week on a 4 year deal that's a £32m committment. He might turn into a £50m player but If he turns out to RVW or Naismith we are screwed again. If you look at our history on big signings we're not very good at it.

The fact that we can't compete over a full season with teams paying players 2, 3 or 4 times what we pay is not really a surprise. It's disappointing, but completely understandable. Players will have good and bad games. We need everyone to produce 9 out of 10 every week to win games but that isn't possible. When they produce 5s and 6s we look out of our depth.

That doesn't make them bad players, just not up to the standard which is now the EPL mean.

 

[sgncfc 1,221]

13 minutes ago, Fuzzar said:

This is the interesting bit for me. I thought the whole point of a sporting director/coach model and an ingrained philosophy of playing style was that an underperforming coach could be replaced by another to easily pick up the baton. 

Appointing Smith doesn't really make sense on that basis, regardless of how well he's done. 

Smith was a pragmatic appointment to try to keep us up but get us promoted on a budget again if he fails. There won't be a fire sale in the summer - he will keep what he wants and get rid of what he doesn't. If we are not top 6 at Christmas he'll be gone.

Nothing has changed apart from a couple of golden years under Farke. Not a lot different to the golden years under Lambert. We don't have the resources to make those years permanent. We never have had. But many, many clubs don't get these golden years even once, let alone twice

[hertfordyellow 460]

4 minutes ago, sgncfc said:

Smith was a pragmatic appointment to try to keep us up but get us promoted on a budget again if he fails. There won't be a fire sale in the summer - he will keep what he wants and get rid of what he doesn't. If we are not top 6 at Christmas he'll be gone.

Nothing has changed apart from a couple of golden years under Farke. Not a lot different to the golden years under Lambert. We don't have the resources to make those years permanent. We never have had. But many, many clubs don't get these golden years even once, let alone twice

I think there are more similarities with Farke than we’ve seen so far. He’s come in half way through the season and is putting out fires. I think next season we will see a youthful passing game much more akin to last season

[NorthCarolinaYellow 197]

As always, recruitment is a mixed bag. Webber has a number of great signings on his CV: Krul, Pukki, Buendia, etc. There are also clear duds—as you would expect. We should be somewhat lenient and realize that no club gets it 100% or even close. It could well be too early to judge on some players. We should be patient and keep our focus on the main problem being that MONEY has almost ruined the game.

 

That said ... there are some clear mistakes which now we should be able to point out. I'd list the following as obvious f*ck ups in no particular order:

 

1. Wasting money and a loan spot on a small, technical luxury player in Gilmour who was not what we needed in CM.

2. Wasting money on Tzolis under the guise of thinking towards the future when the real need is no. Keeping Hernandez would have gotten us the same output and saved ~£9m.

3. Wasting money and a loan spot on Kabak when for the same money we could likely have signed a young, promising CB to play in case of emergency who we could have developed over time into Omobamidele 2.0.

4. Not loaning out Placheta to the Championship to get him more match time at his level.

5. Whatever the f*ck happened with Cantwell.

 

Selling a fairly clearly malcontent Cantwell + avoiding the Tzolis buy + using our loans better and we could have brought in 3-4 players that would have really made a difference.

 

Also ... Once again, Webber has very much overlooked the importance of physicality in the PL: size, pace, strength. We are too small, too slow, and too weak across the pitch. We cannot physically compete and that, to me, is at the root of most of our problems.

[NorthCarolinaYellow 197]

55 minutes ago, sgncfc said:

Joshua King is on £60k a week at Watford. They wouldn' t pay Will Hughes that so he left and got it at Palace. Sissoko was £3m but also £80k a week. Dennis was £3.6m but also £40k a week and completely unproven. A reminder that Watford will probably come down with us, so even this isn't enough.

If we have a wage ceiling in order to stay solvent, then there are only certain players who will be interested. The Ajer deal didn't stack up for that reason. We couldn't even persuade Gary Cahill to stay in the PL for an extra season. If we pay £20m for an incoming 23 year old and £60k a week on a 4 year deal that's a £32m committment. He might turn into a £50m player but If he turns out to RVW or Naismith we are screwed again. If you look at our history on big signings we're not very good at it.

The fact that we can't compete over a full season with teams paying players 2, 3 or 4 times what we pay is not really a surprise. It's disappointing, but completely understandable. Players will have good and bad games. We need everyone to produce 9 out of 10 every week to win games but that isn't possible. When they produce 5s and 6s we look out of our depth.

That doesn't make them bad players, just not up to the standard which is now the EPL mean.

 

 

All well said and all very true. It comes to down to money in the PL: it rules everything and we don't have much of it. That said ... with (a) bit better recruitment in prioritizing physicality and (b) trimming a too-large squad ... we might have had enough to avoid relegation.