NRC Happy In Vancouver

[glasses]

I'm not pretending anything. I don't really know the point you're making, to be honest.

If a transfer is a success, people don't complain about the cost - because it has gone well. If a transfer is iffy, people are more likely to complain about the full costs, especially when it is an expensive player on big money.

What's controversial about that?

Or when it suits your arguement. Like I said, people like to make out that players that are a success* cost pennies, and forego the whole wages thing altogether. But when they want to have a dig at a player/signing, the wages thing is raked up to make a signing look like an abomination. It's not like 'succesful'* signings play for free.

*succesful being very subjective

[pauliewalnuts]

I'm not pretending anything. I don't really know the point you're making, to be honest.

If a transfer is a success, people don't complain about the cost - because it has gone well. If a transfer is iffy, people are more likely to complain about the full costs, especially when it is an expensive player on big money.

What's controversial about that?

Or when it suits your arguement. Like I said, people like to make out that players that are a success* cost pennies, and forego the whole wages thing altogether. But when they want to have a dig at a player/signing, the wages thing is raked up to make a signing look like an abomination. It's not like 'succesful'* signings play for free.

*succesful being very subjective

Once again, it's because people don't really care too much about the global cost when things have gone well. It's when they don't go particularly well that they look at them.

It's one reason why people will say "Alan Hutton 4m, then 40k a week for 5 years = £14m" but not "Ashley Young = £11m, then 60k a week for 4 years = £23m".

Then there's the fact that good players, we sell on, and recoup a lot of money anyway. Like Young, Milner and others. I've never heard anyone suggest they cost pennies.

NRC is one of a number of players we signed, kept for four years, then let walk away for nothing. It's not like nobody ever mentions Heskey or Beye in those circumstances, either, it is far from just NRC, and another reason people mention it is because the club has bled money by players doing precisely that over the last few years. And we still are (Given, Hutton, Ireland to a certain extent).

[glasses]

I'm not going after you on this Paulie, It's just something that fascinates me.

To me wages are a moot point because nothing represents value for money where premier league wages are concerned. I don't see how the mentality around a signing that goes well only seems to cost the transfer fee, and one that goes badly costs the fee, wages, agents fees, bus fare, steak dinner etc!

[Meanwood Villa]

I agree with glasses. The use of wages in cost is selective. The wage bill is what the wage bill is, if we weren't paying it to NRC we'd have been paying it someone else. Of course the key is to pay it to someone who at least goes some way to deserving it but this is never going to be the case 100% of the time.
For what it's worth I think NRC did well for a year and was then perhaps a bit unlucky to be out of the team for a year or two after that.

[Concrete John]

The value of players is so screwed up now, such as the Ozil/Bale comparison, that I've gotten to the point where I almost no longer care what they cost, be it fee or wages.  If you factor in cost, then should Delph not be 4 times (or something like that) the player Westwood is?  Or is it better to just enjoy them playing for us and not worry about it?

NRC was, in my opinion, a useful although limited player.  Good at what he did and not able to improve what he couldn't.  He was worse value than Ashley Young, who cost more, but played better and more often, and better value than Habib Beye, who cost less, but played less and worse.           

[PeterWithesShin]

In my opinion, of course wages should be included when talking what a player cost the club. Or was Jenas a bargain because he was only on loan?

I get your point in a way though, player x is bought for £10m, does well and leaves 4 years later for £20m and a lot of people say we made £10m profit. We didn't, unless he played for free while he was with us.

[dave.woodhall]

He was alright. Not shit, not spectacular. He did okay, earned a fortune in four years then walked away to earn another fortune. It says everything about the insanity of both the Premier League and our transfer policy under O'Neill that 'okay' can cost the best part of £20 million.

Why is it that whenever fans are analysing a players value, if you think he's rubbish, you include the wages in the total cost, but when the transfer is considered a success, it's always, 'he only cost £500k, fantastic business!'

There are lot worse players to have played for Villa in the last few years than him. I always thought as a team we looked better with him in it despite his limitations. Sometimes a team is greater than the sum of its parts.

What Paulie said mostly. If you think Nigel Reo Coker was worth the money he cost us, great. I happen to think we'd have got better value elsewhere.

[old man villa fan]

I remember when we played West Ham in MON's first season and NRC ran the show that day for West Ham, although we won with a Carew goal.  I came away from the match thinking that is the sort of player we needed.  He had been England U21 captain, was captaining West Ham and looked an excellent buy when we got him.

Sometimes players look better when they are playing against us than when they play for us, as was the case with NRC.  It can be that different team styles of play does not suit them and they cannot adapt their game or it can simply be that the more you see them play, the more you see the week points in their game.

I always had time for him and I do believe he gave everything when he played.  He probably gave too much at times and is possibly the reason for the bust up with MON.  In our counter attacking 442 he did not have the room that he needed to make up for his ball control that was not the best to say the least and he always seemed to pick the ball up in positions on the pitch he was not comfortable in.

All in all, the fee we paid for him and the wages could have been money well spent but as it turned out, the wages were too high for what MON got out of him.  Was that down to the player or the manager.  GH seemed to get more out of him playing a different style of football and perhaps putting more confidence in him.

 

[glasses]

In my opinion, of course wages should be included when talking what a player cost the club. Or was Jenas a bargain because he was only on loan?

I get your point in a way though, player x is bought for £10m, does well and leaves 4 years later for £20m and a lot of people say we made £10m profit. We didn't, unless he played for free while he was with us.

Thank you for at least partly understanding what I was getting at!

[glasses]

He was alright. Not shit, not spectacular. He did okay, earned a fortune in four years then walked away to earn another fortune. It says everything about the insanity of both the Premier League and our transfer policy under O'Neill that 'okay' can cost the best part of £20 million.

Why is it that whenever fans are analysing a players value, if you think he's rubbish, you include the wages in the total cost, but when the transfer is considered a success, it's always, 'he only cost £500k, fantastic business!'

There are lot worse players to have played for Villa in the last few years than him. I always thought as a team we looked better with him in it despite his limitations. Sometimes a team is greater than the sum of its parts.

What Paulie said mostly. If you think Nigel Reo Coker was worth the money he cost us, great. I happen to think we'd have got better value elsewhere.

I don't think anybody is worth the money they cost us in wages, whether they are good, bad or ugly. It's all too much. Like Paulie, you missed my point too.

[cdbearsfan]

He was okay, nothing more, nothing less.

He wasn't worth anywhere near what we paid but I feel we could've developed him into a better player had we had a more progressive manager. Roughly the same way I feel about Curtis Davies. See how Delph is now blossoming under Lambert by comparison.

My main memories of Reo-Coker are his brilliant debut against Inter where I thought we'd signed the next Vieira, and his running onto a pass in the dying seconds against Chelsea when, with just the keeper to beat, every Villa fan in the ground knew there was no chance in Hell of him scoring.

[pauliewalnuts]

He was alright. Not shit, not spectacular. He did okay, earned a fortune in four years then walked away to earn another fortune. It says everything about the insanity of both the Premier League and our transfer policy under O'Neill that 'okay' can cost the best part of £20 million.

Why is it that whenever fans are analysing a players value, if you think he's rubbish, you include the wages in the total cost, but when the transfer is considered a success, it's always, 'he only cost £500k, fantastic business!'

There are lot worse players to have played for Villa in the last few years than him. I always thought as a team we looked better with him in it despite his limitations. Sometimes a team is greater than the sum of its parts.

What Paulie said mostly. If you think Nigel Reo Coker was worth the money he cost us, great. I happen to think we'd have got better value elsewhere.

I don't think anybody is worth the money they cost us in wages, whether they are good, bad or ugly. It's all too much. Like Paulie, you missed my point too.

Of course it is, but that's an argument that just leads into a dead end, though. All footballers earn too much money, they cost too much and earn too much, but they get what they get.

It's nice when they contribute something, it's not nice when they don't. Our problem has been the number of players we have walk away for nothing having run down their contract.

I doubt any club has come near us for it in recent years. NRC, Heskey, Beye, Cuellar, Dunne, Ireland, and Hutton, Given, Bent in the process of doing the same.

It's a gigantic spunking away of money.

[LeeB]

He was alright. Not shit, not spectacular. He did okay, earned a fortune in four years then walked away to earn another fortune. It says everything about the insanity of both the Premier League and our transfer policy under O'Neill that 'okay' can cost the best part of £20 million.

Why is it that whenever fans are analysing a players value, if you think he's rubbish, you include the wages in the total cost, but when the transfer is considered a success, it's always, 'he only cost £500k, fantastic business!'

There are lot worse players to have played for Villa in the last few years than him. I always thought as a team we looked better with him in it despite his limitations. Sometimes a team is greater than the sum of its parts.

What Paulie said mostly. If you think Nigel Reo Coker was worth the money he cost us, great. I happen to think we'd have got better value elsewhere.

I don't think anybody is worth the money they cost us in wages, whether they are good, bad or ugly. It's all too much. Like Paulie, you missed my point too.

I get your point, and so did Doug Ellis.

[ktvillan]

I liked him because he twatted O'Neill.

[RussellC]

In terms of his ability, he was excellent when we didn’t have the ball, but about as good as a pub-player when we did. His technical ability in terms of passing, dribbling was bad as you’ll see in a top-flight player.

Having said that, I defy anyone to watch the man-to-man job he did on Christian Ronaldo  at VP whilst playing right-back, and find a more comprehensive job of stifling a world-class player anywhere.

The real shame is that if he’d even been half-decent in possession he would have been a top-drawer player in the same vein of Makalele.  Unfortunately his limitations but him somewhere just below George boating on that chart.