We Need To Break Our Transfer Record...

[UncleBuck]

Man U done it to a treat years ago, they build a solid starting XI and added one or two marque signings to it every other window. They actually had a plan and knew where they needed to improve, unlike us who have acted like children after being given £50 to go and spend in a sweet shop.

 

[Kendall]

Except in reality the first two players would of cost us less than Bentley did

You cant say that with much confidence. No guarantees on whether Bentley hit all the required triggers for his fee either. We can only go on media quoted/stock market disclosed prices really.

 

[Chris Flynn]

The thing is we really didn't

The first one is Paulinho, now he cost us supposedly £17m.
Now for that price we would of got all his image rights. I have a white paper that is about investment in to Brazilian sports over the period of 2012 and 2016(covering the world cup and olympics). The amount of investment in to Brazilian players was huge at that point. Worth noting when we signed Paulinho he was one of the 3 main poster boys along with Neymar and Silva. Neymar made £50million supposedly in 2012-2013 iirc. We would have made alot of the paulinho money back from his image rights.

The second one is Soldado.
The Valencian chairman announced to break even that they would need £14m to cover the loss of CL revenue and stay afloat. The club was then owned by the banks and Peter Lim was interested but they didn't find a buyer. The chairman then went on to say that he would rather sell one player to make this sum than sell several. This got alot of backlash as Valencia fans didn't want to lose their prize possession soldado.

Then when the fans were calling for the acting chairman's head he said he would only sell soldado if he got the full amount of his clause. Soldado was sold for £14m plus adds on but the announcement was to save face for the banks and the terrible situation the fans faced. HE NEVER COST US £26million however that wont stop fans using it against him.

Finally Lamela
I doubt he cost us £25m as we are led to believe however if true, Levy isn't as good as a negotiator as we once thought. Though his price may of been driven up just for the books, which is something the italians(and probably us imo) like to do with amortisation thus paying less tax.

Agreed the actual outlay on all 3 would have been much lower than the 'tag' price. Every transfer has clauses based on performance of the team and player. I would guess that the £75 million that is stated as the price paid would currently be more like £44 million at the moment ((not including the image rights, shirt sales ect)

 

[Kendall]

Agreed the actual outlay on all 3 would have been much lower than the 'tag' price. Every transfer has clauses based on performance of the team and player. I would guess that the £75 million that is stated as the price paid would currently be more like £44 million at the moment ((not including the image rights, shirt sales ect)

Exactly. We cant know all the complexities of contracts, we can only go on total consideration quoted prices and media speculation prices and apply that across the board for consistency, regardless of final figure paid.

 

[Chris Flynn]

Exactly. We cant know all the complexities of contracts, we can only go on total consideration quoted prices and media speculation prices and apply that across the board for consistency, regardless of final figure paid.

For all Levys faults, well actually one of his traits that could be considered a fault or a good thing depending on how people feel and how we did in the last match, he is risk averse. All transfers that come into the club have arse covering clauses, thats why we miss out sometimes but in the instance of Paulinho say, it looks wise. In other cases when we have missed out on players that could have been great for us it doesn't. I guess theres a payoff

 

[TheGreenLily]

The thing is we really didn't

The first one is Paulinho, now he cost us supposedly £17m.
Now for that price we would of got all his image rights. I have a white paper that is about investment in to Brazilian sports over the period of 2012 and 2016(covering the world cup and olympics). The amount of investment in to Brazilian players was huge at that point. Worth noting when we signed Paulinho he was one of the 3 main poster boys along with Neymar and Silva. Neymar made £50million supposedly in 2012-2013 iirc. We would have made alot of the paulinho money back from his image rights.

The second one is Soldado.
The Valencian chairman announced to break even that they would need £14m to cover the loss of CL revenue and stay afloat. The club was then owned by the banks and Peter Lim was interested but they didn't find a buyer. The chairman then went on to say that he would rather sell one player to make this sum than sell several. This got alot of backlash as Valencia fans didn't want to lose their prize possession soldado.

Then when the fans were calling for the acting chairman's head he said he would only sell soldado if he got the full amount of his clause. Soldado was sold for £14m plus adds on but the announcement was to save face for the banks and the terrible situation the fans faced. HE NEVER COST US £26million however that wont stop fans using it against him.

Finally Lamela
I doubt he cost us £25m as we are led to believe however if true, Levy isn't as good as a negotiator as we once thought. Though his price may of been driven up just for the books, which is something the italians(and probably us imo) like to do with amortisation thus paying less tax.

But going back to smarter... the first thing we did was then play them in a formation that all of them are not suited too.

play a 4-4-2 and Soldado scores... Revert back to 4-2-3-1 and we are sucking shit like crack with a bag of speed...

 

[SlunkSoma]

I think our transfer record is about £16m, so shouldn't be hard.

 

[Blake Griffin]

Agreed the actual outlay on all 3 would have been much lower than the 'tag' price. Every transfer has clauses based on performance of the team and player. I would guess that the £75 million that is stated as the price paid would currently be more like £44 million at the moment ((not including the image rights, shirt sales ect)

we wish. i bet posters on rawk are telling eachother the same thing.

 

[dontcallme]

Man U done it to a treat years ago, they build a solid starting XI and added one or two marque signings to it every other window. They actually had a plan and knew where they needed to improve, unlike us who have acted like children after being given £50 to go and spend in a sweet shop.

This is basically it for me.

When Arnesen took over he bought a mix of young and experienced players. He saw Naybet as important to marshall a new defence and a defensive midfielder so bought Carrick and Davis to fight it out. There seemed to be an idea on how to put a team together.

When Commolli and Ramos were in charge we seemed to have a tactic of "lets buy lots of good young players." No idea whatsoever on putting a team together.

Redknapp then saw gaps in our team and bought the appropriate players for the job.

Since Redknapp it's gone back to "lets buy lots of good players" again.

One thing Ferguson did very well was identify a top target and make sure he got him. He paid a British record fee for Keane and got one of the best players of the Prem era in return. Carrick was said to be over priced. I doubt Ferguson cares, they went onto win consecutive titles after Carrick signed.

Poch clearly saw Schneiderlein as an important player. I believe if we'd put in a £20m bid early wed have got him. Once Saints sold their 4 players they decided not to sell anymore.

Poch seemed to know what he wants and who he needs to make us a team again. Not every player will be reasonably priced. But we gave Poch a 5 year contract. Surely we need to give him what he needs to do the job.

 

[myhartlane]

Not entirely sure how relevant this image is but it's very funny.

 

[mpickard2087]

Net spending will solve all the problems.

Fact.

 

[Kendall]

Man U done it to a treat years ago, they build a solid starting XI and added one or two marque signings to it every other window. They actually had a plan and knew where they needed to improve, unlike us who have acted like children after being given £50 to go and spend in a sweet shop.

Far easier to do when you're already a CL side 10 years running and had the title winning pedigree they already had. Players want to stick around for a bit longer when you're not winning if you have that sort of recent history.

 

[Ribble]

This is basically it for me.

When Arnesen took over he bought a mix of young and experienced players. He saw Naybet as important to marshall a new defence and a defensive midfielder so bought Carrick and Davis to fight it out. There seemed to be an idea on how to put a team together.

When Commolli and Ramos were in charge we seemed to have a tactic of "lets buy lots of good young players." No idea whatsoever on putting a team together.

Redknapp then saw gaps in our team and bought the appropriate players for the job.

Since Redknapp it's gone back to "lets buy lots of good players" again.

One thing Ferguson did very well was identify a top target and make sure he got him. He paid a British record fee for Keane and got one of the best players of the Prem era in return. Carrick was said to be over priced. I doubt Ferguson cares, they went onto win consecutive titles after Carrick signed.

Poch clearly saw Schneiderlein as an important player. I believe if we'd put in a £20m bid early wed have got him. Once Saints sold their 4 players they decided not to sell anymore.

Poch seemed to know what he wants and who he needs to make us a team again. Not every player will be reasonably priced. But we gave Poch a 5 year contract. Surely we need to give him what he needs to do the job.

Good post and very valid point I think. In trying to replace star players in Modric and Bale, who had developed in a more balanced team, we threw money at a wall to try and see what stuck without taking into account whether those players would fit or if the important places were filled.

I've said it before - whilst Moutinho and Hulk may have been unattainable, we didn't even try to get players who were similar to fill the roles and we're still paying for it. We're just lucky Mason has managed to overcome his injuries and Bentaleb has broken through, or we'd be utterly fucked rather than just slightly.

 

[Everlasting Seconds]

...Is, quite frankly, something I hope we don't hear again for a long time. I remember lines to this effect being thrown around a lot in the past few years. Disgruntled fans, fed up with our tight-fisted chairman for not splashing the cash and keeping up with the competitors. Unfortunately, it hasn't quite worked out as we'd have liked.

I think a massive reason behind all this is the weight of expectation that a transfer record breaking fee provides. All 3 of the players we broke our transfer record with (Paulinho, Soldado and Lamela) are desperate to show why they've been bought for those amounts. It's not their faults they were bought for so much, but they have to provide the goods at the same time. It's tough, they have my sympathy, but there becomes a point when you just can't chalk it down to bad luck and pressure.

Now before people get up in arms, what I will say is that breaking a transfer record isn't a bad thing in itself. Of course, it's good to flex your financial muscles every now and again. It shows willing to our fans, players, sponsors, shareholders etc., but it also shows that we're up for a fight to the other clubs.

Being a club in our position is not really an enviable one. Sure, we're not relegation fodder, but at the same time we're not the cream of the crop. We're stuck in an odd limbo where we're too good to be shit but not good enough to be great. As a result we can't tempt players of the calibre of Chelsea or City without them being stolen from under our noses (Willian, anyone?). We have to hope to unearth hidden gems (Bale, Berbatov, Modric) or just strike it lucky with the kind of season that Southampton and West Ham are having (so far! Do think they'll both drop eventually). When you think about it, we really wasted our chance in the transfer window once we got CL football. That was the time for Levy to spend big, not after. Too reactive, not enough pro-active. Also, when we do get those gems they're eventually poched from us because we aren't big enough to keep them, so we have a very small window of opportunity to capitalise on them being here.

In all honesty, I don't want to see us throw shitloads of cash at clubs anymore, I'd rather us try to use the same kind of thinking behind the Eriksen deal. A player that has great potential, but doesn't cost the earth. If it doesn't work out we can recoup most of the money, and more importantly, not look like fools for spending mega-bucks in the first place. At least the media will lay off a bit, and it provides less pressure on us as a team to do so well.

I don't want to see us spend nearly £30m on a player who is realistically worth half of that, but because he's worth that much to the club we're forced to pay it to get him. Nor do I want us to spend that amount on a player who could be the next big thing, because quite frankly this game is full of fine margins and they could easily not make it to that level. It's too much money for that kind of risk, which is why the Eriksen model is smarter. The only time clubs should be spending money like that is on players like Suarez and Sanchez who genuinely show that they've got that world class spark about them, and let's face it, we're not in a position to be able to do that. We'd only get blown out of the water. I hope Levy has finally realised this, hence the ITK about him backing Poch's ideas to invest in youth, and bringing in people like Paul Mitchell. We see other Prem clubs at our level and lower make signings like Bony and Cabaye, players who don't cost a fortune and are bought through smart scouting, and yet we let these opportunities pass us by. Perhaps we think we're too good for players like this and need to rub shoulders with the big boys? Either way, we've done it before with the likes of Modric and Berbatov, so I can't see why we cannot continue to do so. Just makes more sense to me.

OK, OK, OK. Fine. It's fine. I'm not one who generally cries out for big sums to be spent either, but I will ask you this:
Which bargain transfer from the last two summer windows has worked out considerably better than the the three you mentioned?
My point is, maybe it's not only the steeper price tags we keep getting wrong.... Maybe price is not at all the problem...

 

[The Apprentice]

A couple of bargain bins will do nicely. Another Nelson and Saha double swoop will sort us right out.

 

[brasil_spur]

A couple of bargain bins will do nicely. Another Nelson and Saha double swoop will sort us right out.

Morning Harry

 

[lol]

We need to break our wage budget

 

[Ghost Hardware]

I just think we need spend what we need to on brining the right players in. If that means breaking a our transfer or wage budget then so be it. I think our squad has a lot of quality but it is hugely lacking in the key areas. Unfortunately those key players are some of the most expensive, sort after positions In football. I do believe tho that if we got a good deep lying play maker, a fast creative winger and a top quality finisher then the rest of the team would start to shine. It almost like we have put together a Christmas dinner with all the trimmings but somebody forgot to buy the turkey..., we have the stuffing, bread sauce, potatoes, even a few sprouts but without the turkey it's just not a meal. Hopefully Levy will go down to waitrose and buy a nice fat one after researching online ... no more Lidl please Levy.

 

[WestBelfast Spurs]

Whoever sold us Soldado, Lamela Paulinhio etc should be sued under the Sale of Goods Act 1979

Consumer law says the items must be fit for purpose!!!

Ours are fucking duds

 

[yido_number1]

I don't know why people are moaning about this stuff. A problem has been identified in player recruitment nad we've signed someone from a club that have got it right to do the same here. The original post is right too much emphasis is put on how much we pay for a player rather than how right they are for the team.

I'd be interested to see this thread in a year or two and see how much effect Mitchells recruitment has on the team.