Transfer Speculation / Gossip

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Paul Walhurst at Blackburn seems to be more of a Moneyball signing; a forward to a defender.

[tomd2103]

What moneyball needs is a stable environment to bring the players in to. If the senior players Lambert had when he came in were all professional and performing the kids that come in can be given the time and support to ease into the league, that we had to rely on the kids to save us has meant we haven't been able to give them a fair chance to build experience.

That type of system also needs a coaching staff who are able to get the best out of senior players and bring the young players along.  Our coaching staff have not been able to do that.     

[Dave]

Moneyball doesn't mean exclusively young players though and I am not sure you can directly translate such a statistical approach into football.

For all the mocking of it, when Liverpool were being stupid with their transfer fees that was the closest anybody got to implementing the idea of sabremetrics/Moneyball into football.

The logic wasn't completely idiotic either - buy the person who won the most headers (Carroll), the person with with the best percentages of finding a teammate from set-pieces (Adam) and the person with the highest number of successful crosses (Downing) and throw them all into a team together.

As you say though, the statistical analysis doesn't really translate to a sport where the team is more important than the individual.

[PeterWithesShin]

The team is more important than the individual in baseball moneyball. A superstar pitcher can only help a team once every 5 games, a superstar slugger only goes to the plate every 2 or 3 innings.
The reason it doesn't translate to football is there is no draft system (trading players for draft picks is a part of moneyball), batters are guaranteed 4-6 plate appearances every game where OBP (on base percentage) is what a moneyball team is built around. Billy Beane was also an expert at inflating a pitcher's value by racking up his saves and then trading him. You just can't do those things in football.

[Gregorys Boy]

So selling your best players is now being referred to as selling from a position of strength and not a lack of ambition. Just want to make sure I keep up with the spin doctors.

Think you are forgetting about the hash reality of modern football, than the player has far more power than the club, and that money talks.  I am sure Southampton wanted to keep those players, but when a big club comes sniffing with a lot of money it can be hard to turn down.  Up to the point they have always been a selling club, but it is a system which has worked quite well for them.  Difference between us and them in recent years is that they have a structure in place deal with such loses, where as we just tend to sell players to trim the wage bill, or build up credit without any plan on how to replace said players, or balance our money.

In response to the question I would rather be in Southampton shoes right now.

[Damo70]

We can still follow the moneyball route, to an extent. 

Tottiingham's progress over the past 10 years has been founded on picking up bargains like Lennon, Dawson, Huddelstone, Walker et all from the lower leagues and marrying that with a few high profile signings.

We went from one extreme t'other: signing predominantly 28 year old+ players with little resale value under O'Neill to a team full of kids.

It depends how you define a bargain. Undoubtedly all of those Spurs players are now worth a lot more than they were bought for but they weren't bargain basement buys. They were all unproven at the top level and therefore a gamble but I'm pretty sure they all cost a couple of million so Spurs probably gambled about ten million or more on them.

[Clampy]

We can still follow the moneyball route, to an extent. 

Tottiingham's progress over the past 10 years has been founded on picking up bargains like Lennon, Dawson, Huddelstone, Walker et all from the lower leagues and marrying that with a few high profile signings.

We went from one extreme t'other: signing predominantly 28 year old+ players with little resale value under O'Neill to a team full of kids.

It depends how you define a bargain. Undoubtedly all of those Spurs players are now worth a lot more than they were bought for but they weren't bargain basement buys. They were all unproven at the top level and therefore a gamble but I'm pretty sure they all cost a couple of million so Spurs probably gambled about ten million or more on them.

And despite all that, they still felt the need to spend all the money they got for Bale.

[Toronto Villa]

So selling your best players is now being referred to as selling from a position of strength and not a lack of ambition. Just want to make sure I keep up with the spin doctors.

Think you are forgetting about the hash reality of modern football, than the player has far more power than the club, and that money talks.  I am sure Southampton wanted to keep those players, but when a big club comes sniffing with a lot of money it can be hard to turn down.  Up to the point they have always been a selling club, but it is a system which has worked quite well for them.  Difference between us and them in recent years is that they have a structure in place deal with such loses, where as we just tend to sell players to trim the wage bill, or build up credit without any plan on how to replace said players, or balance our money.

In response to the question I would rather be in Southampton shoes right now.

in reference to recent years, they were days from going out of business. We, despite all of our difficulties have never come close to that. As much as their academy has created a number of excellent players they have also been fortunate that the valuations tied to those players has been bordering mental. You wonder why English football is in the position it is when a generally unproven LB goes for close to 40m. They have never been in the situation they are in now; where they have lost their best players and manager at the same time, and the purging isn't yet over with Lovren about to go. My point regarding Vlaar is the same that why would he swap our situation for theirs that is likely to be every bit as volatile or uncertain?

Southampton are selling their players, not just because they wanted to based on the offer but because they also needed to. Compare to Arsenal, where it has also happened to the same extent in recent year. They are in the CL and can restock both at their academy level, but most importantly with top rated first team players.Teams like us or Southampton won't find it so easy to do, and it will be very interesting to see exactly how they fair this season with all of those losses coming at the same time.

On a wider point, maybe I stand alone on an island, but as fragile a situation that we are in I don't subscribe to the theory that one season automatically carries into the next. Maybe that is my optimism or naivety but just because we ended badly doesn't guarantee that it is how we'll start and continue in August. I don't think things are as bad as being made out with our squad as it is. Do we need improvement? Absolutely. We have some key needs, but that said we have some players at the club that are good and keep things together until we are purchased. Time will tell, but for me we are solid mid table as opposed to anything lower than that and especially given the players still will see return to action.

[pauliewalnuts]

Our squad is nothing like good enough - it wasn't last year or the year before, either.

Injured players coming back is nice, yes, but that's still a dreadful line up of midfield options, for example.

At the end of last season, it looked pretty clear we needed significant strengthening, in several positions. I can't see the addition of Cole, Senderos and Richardson as being anything like enough, sadly, so I really hope we've got more business to do.

I also think it is very, very dangerous to fall back on the concept that we just need to keep our heads above water until someone buys us - when is that likely to happen? It might be tomorrow, but then again, it might not be for a season or more. That's very, very risky.

[paul_e]

I agree, I think we've got a mid-table squad, I thought the same last year but for a number of reasons we had a collapse at the end of the season that dragged us into the mix.  I'd still like a wide player and a defensive midfielder, and if we get those right I'd be looking at the top half but I really don't see us being right in the relegation fight, I understand that not many will share my view though.

[bobdylan]

Our squad is nothing like good enough - it wasn't last year or the year before, either.

Injured players coming back is nice, yes, but that's still a dreadful line up of midfield options, for example.

At the end of last season, it looked pretty clear we needed significant strengthening, in several positions. I can't see the addition of Cole, Senderos and Richardson as being anything like enough, sadly, so I really hope we've got more business to do.

I also think it is very, very dangerous to fall back on the concept that we just need to keep our heads above water until someone buys us - when is that likely to happen? It might be tomorrow, but then again, it might not be for a season or more. That's very, very risky.

Our squad is considerably stronger than the end of last season, we've basically an entire new team available that for various reasons were not available at the end of last season.

Given
Hutton Okore Senderos Stevens
N'Zogbia Herd Gardner Richardson
Cole
Bent

Probably half of those at least improve the first 11 nevermind the squad.

[pauliewalnuts]

Our squad is nothing like good enough - it wasn't last year or the year before, either.

Injured players coming back is nice, yes, but that's still a dreadful line up of midfield options, for example.

At the end of last season, it looked pretty clear we needed significant strengthening, in several positions. I can't see the addition of Cole, Senderos and Richardson as being anything like enough, sadly, so I really hope we've got more business to do.

I also think it is very, very dangerous to fall back on the concept that we just need to keep our heads above water until someone buys us - when is that likely to happen? It might be tomorrow, but then again, it might not be for a season or more. That's very, very risky.

Our squad is considerably stronger than the end of last season, we've basically an entire new team available that for various reasons were not available at the end of last season.

Given
Hutton Okore Senderos Stevens
N'Zogbia Herd Gardner Richardson
Cole
Bent

Probably half of those at least improve the first 11 nevermind the squad.

Barring three of them, they were all here last season.

What's more, that midfield looks every bit as poor as the one we used most games last season.

[Damo70]

Clearly the one thing absolutely everybody agrees with is that the midfield 'needs some work'.

[paul_e]

I think Cole and Nzogbia are important because they actually give us some threat from midfield.  I'm not a big fan of nzog and Cole clearly isn't the player he was but both have that bit of guile that was missing last year, that will make a big difference for me.

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New players or not, the side need to keep the ball a hell of a lot better.

I don't want to see us trying to out Stoke Stoke again like we tried in December, when we kick it off again on the 16th August.