Transfer Speculation / Gossip

[David_Nab]

Bearing in mind we didn't make any profit on the likes of Warnock, NRC, Davies, Sidwell and Cuellar (who all cost us the best part of £40m) makes some of Lambert's buys a little easier to digest.

Such a depressing waste of money , £8mil on NRC.. now we will be lucky to spend £8mil as our entire budget

[paul_e]

You don't have to sell a player for their value to be higher, the key is what would it take a club to offer for us to consider making the sale, that's where the values of the likes of Vlaar and Benteke become relevant.

Aside from thatyou can't just use our finishing place in the league as the measure of how well Lambert has spent, it's just not that simple.  If Benteke and Kozak hadn't both got long term injuries we'd probably have finished higher in the league, would that make Tonev a better purchase? Man City won the league but you'd still say they didn't buy particularly well last summer (or the summer before really).

Lambert has done OK in the transfer market, not brilliantly but not badly enough to use it as a stick to beat him with.  It's how he used the signings and the signings that he hasn't made (in midfield) that have caused the problems.

[Toronto Villa]

On planet Earth no one will pay £14m quid for Steer, Lowton, Senderos, KEA and Bennett.

Apart from Lambert.

except off course that he didn't, but don't let that startling fact get in the way of your perspective.

[Jockey Randall]

Regardless of fees paid etc. I'd like to see what wages Lambert's signings have been earning compared to similar players in the division.

[RussellC]

Aside from that you can't just use our finishing place in the league as the measure of how well Lambert has spent, it's just not that simple. 

I would agree that our league position is down to more than our transfer dealings and that injuries and coaching (or lack off) are equally as important factors, but I do think that it has to be taken into account and not just by looking at individual purchases.

For instance, if you look at the signing of Kozak in isolation, there's every argument to be made that he'll turn out to be a good signing and value for money. If you consider that he spent £7m on a centre-forward when many thought our need for a 'number 10' was much greater then you could argue that it wasn't a great deal in the bigger scheme of things.

As I said earlier, I would describe Lambert's transfer dealings as 'hit & miss'. I wouldn't necessarily use it as a "stick to beat him with", but I do think it's perfectly understandable that some people are critical of it.

[Toronto Villa]

I'd be willing to bet we didn't spend £7m on Kozak. Just like it has been proven we didn't spend the initial reported fees on the likes of Westwood or Lowton etc.

[Clampy]

Lambert has done OK in the transfer market, not brilliantly but not badly enough to use it as a stick to beat him with.  It's how he used the signings and the signings that he hasn't made (in midfield) that have caused the problems.

That sums it up perfectly for me and besides, it's not as if his signings are going to leave us horribly out of pocket.

[KevinGage]

It really is outlandish, as said earlier, Benteke on his own gets back about 3/4s of the money Lambert has spent (there can be no debate that he'd be worth as much as Lukaku)

I'd say there is plenty of debate, as far as that one is concerned. 

Chelsea signed Lukaku for £18 million.   He hasn't declined in ability since he signed for them, and he's still only 21, so no club was realistically going to bid less than £20 million and be in with a chance of signing him.

Lukaku has had two good seasons in the topflight, Benteke only one. 

We are on our uppers financially, Chelsea are not. Aside from FFP (which seems to go out of the window if Jose wants a player badly enough) Chelsea don't need to sell. That always strengthens the hand of any potential seller.  We have been playing poormouth for the past three/ four years, clubs will bid accordingly.

Benteke is also just completing rehab on a injury that has curtailed careers in the past (I know Lukaku was out for a while last season too, but he did return for the end of the campaign and didn't look like he'd lost a yard of pace).  So if we were selling now -this summer- on the basis of only one good season in the topflight and question marks hanging over his fitness, we'd do well to get £15-18 million. 

If he has a season anywhere near as good as 2012/13 next year, then we might be attracting bids closer to £30 million.

[Villa in Denmark]

Just writing off player "lesser player" values as expendable is, to me, going too far in the opposite direction from buying with an eye on profit.

It's exactly these contracts that must be managed prudently, to give as much cash as possible for re-investment.  You'll always have players that don't work out, or were a bit of a punt, but how much better off would we have been if we'd recovered just 20% of the transfer fees on contracts that were run down over the last 6-7 years?

Your better players, hopefully, are giving you sufficient benefit on the pitch to negate too many worries about losing value on them.  Darren Bent is a classic example.  Regardless of whether he cost £18 or 24M, he's pretty much paid his way, even allowing for his wages, by scoring enough goals in the first 12 months to keep us in the PL two years running.

As much as it grieves me to say anything good about Ferguson and Man Utd, managing the squad has been yet another area where they truly excelled for years.

Squad players and youngsters who weren't quite good enough got just enough exposure to keep them in eyesight to give them a sales value as soon as anyone came knocking

More important players were ruthlessly shipped out as soon as there was any sign of not contributing enough, usually at a vastly inflated price.

Some of this could be [pukes] "the brand" [/pukes] whereby some managers / chairmen will pay over the odds for their cast-offs because, well they Man U players, how shit can they be?

Anyway with regards future signings - ABB - Anyone but Bendtner, who is worryingly still clubless (and clueless).
Morten Olsen has come out this week and basically told him he's got 4 weeks to salvage his career, as the only thing that matters now is game time.

[aj2k77]

Profit on Benteke, Vlaar and Westwood, after that i'm struggling. Richardson as well obviously.

Westwood, Lowton and Bacuna couldn't have been £1m, otherwise how do the accounts show we've spent £42m quid?

guessing that also includes wages, insurance premiums etc? Apologies if someone else has suggested this already

It doesn't, it's fees alone.

[RussellC]

but how much better off would we have been if we'd recovered just 20% of the transfer fees on contracts that were run down over the last 6-7 years?[/qoute]


It's a terrifying thought isn't it? Even as far back as players like Alpay we've 'cut our losses' on so many deals it's untrue.

[aj2k77]

I'd be willing to bet we didn't spend £7m on Kozak. Just like it has been proven we didn't spend the initial reported fees on the likes of Westwood or Lowton etc.

Where has it been proven?

[Nirog72]

No signings on the horizon then chaps?

[kippaxvilla2]

Yes - Jed Steer has gone to Doncaster Rovers for three months.

[pauliewalnuts]

You don't have to sell a player for their value to be higher, the key is what would it take a club to offer for us to consider making the sale, that's where the values of the likes of Vlaar and Benteke become relevant.

Aside from thatyou can't just use our finishing place in the league as the measure of how well Lambert has spent, it's just not that simple.  If Benteke and Kozak hadn't both got long term injuries we'd probably have finished higher in the league, would that make Tonev a better purchase? Man City won the league but you'd still say they didn't buy particularly well last summer (or the summer before really).

Finishing place is a pretty decent measure of squad strength, though, and our squad looks - to me - like a bottom six squad.

Also worth pointing out that every club has injuries, we're never going to have a season when that doesn't happen to us. What happened when we lost our best player wasn't pretty, no, but the flip side of that is that it exposed the deep lack of quality in the squad.

We could have finished higher last season, yes - if he'd bought the midfielders we clearly need, if he'd got in better options at centre half, if he hadn't bought two absolute planks of left backs, if lots of things.

We didn't, though, and that was the third desperately poor season on the bounce. The squad was poor when Lambert came here, that's true, and the first of those three years wasn't down to him as he wasn't here, but although Vlaar and Benteke have been good signings, the rest of them really haven't been good enough.

Not only in terms of signings, but the management of the squad was abysmal - what an absurd situation developed around the bomb squad, for example. Poor, poor management, I'm afraid.

The squad is nothing like good enough, it is a world away from the squads of clubs we were competing with in recent memory (not just the monied clubs, but take a look at Everton), and that is down in large part to the signings Lambert has made.