[Albion] Are we destined to become a 'selling club'?

[Muhammad - I’m hard - Bruce Lee]

Decent business model.
The only major downside, is if we sell more than one player per window in my opinion.
We have been aware of the interest in Biss for a couple of seasons, we have brought through suitable and able replacements.
LWB is a position we have struggled with for AGES.
To finally get a decent one and lose him the next season is pretty shit, unless there's a replacement being lined up...we sure ain't got one here at the moment

 

[The Fits]

We're attracting amazing talent because can offer a pathway to the very top.

We give young starlets game time and excellent coaching - and put them in the shop window to further their careers.

Would be naive to think that Brighton & Hove Albion is the summit of ambition for players like Cucurella, Caicedo, Mac Allister, Trossard and Lamptey.

Though if anyone dares come in for Mac I’m rioting!

 

[amexer]

Apart from very top all clubs are selling. Players dictate. If you dont accept offer from big club they will just let contract run down and go for nothing.

 

[GT49er]

We sold Lawrenson, Stevens . . . . Robinson . . .it's the way of the world for little clubs like Brighton.

Yes, but to be fair, that didn't work out too well back then!


N.B. That's not a criticism of our current buy cheap(ish), develop and sell-on policy, which I'm fully on board with.

 

[Baldseagull]

We are not destined to be a selling club, we are a selling club, but also a buying club.
There is a hierarchy, and we are higher up in that than we have ever been, there are probably less clubs that can spend more than us than there ever has been in UK football. There is though the rest of Europe to contend with too, and maybe there are 20 or so clubs in the world outside England that can compete financially at a level we can't yet, but if we are successful in player trading and maintain top half finishes in the PL for a couple of seasons, and maybe get some European Competition, we will put more clubs below us in the hierarchy.
Alternatively, we could hope for a dodgy Gulf state to invest, or Far East investment, Russian Oligarchs have had their day.

 

[dejavuatbtn]

All clubs are selling clubs. The difference is about who we are able to retain. Currently we live on the edge whereby our really good players who pine for trophies and CL appearances won’t renew their contracts, forcing us to sell them for, hopefully, a profit. We also have a group who we develop for profit. If we hit top six then we have a better chance of retaining real talent. For us to get top six will be a long haul. It’s not something that’s achievable in the short term.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Great recruitment and development, but as soon as we have an outstanding player the 'big six' vultures start to circle. It's pretty depressing really. If Bloom really wants to establish us in the top ten we need to hold on to our best players, but it seems impossible.

I certainly hope so. Until fairly recently we were a 'pick up a bargain and eventually let them go for a pittance' club. We won't be in a position to buy the sort of players we are currently selling until we improve our cachet, which will take either a surpring and repeated assault into top six territory, or Tony flogging the club to a sports-washer.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

The current model will work, as long as we can keep on unearthing gems like Yves and Marc.

I look at a club like Southampton as a club who were doing something similar to us until recently, but have lost their magic touch and now seem to be going backwards.

That loss of recruitment form is always the danger, especially when our recruitment people are being tapped up

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

Great recruitment and development, but as soon as we have an outstanding player the 'big six' vultures start to circle. It's pretty depressing really. If Bloom really wants to establish us in the top ten we need to hold on to our best players, but it seems impossible.

The whole "selling club" trope is a bit of a weird one for me. If we sold Bissouma and White to Villa and Palace for 10m each I could understand it.

Doing what's right for the club whilst making progress is what we all want and it's what we've all got isn't it? Not depressing at all.

 

[Wozza]

We're a "player-improving, asset value-increasing" club.

 

[Justice]

Isn’t Leicester the better model to follow once you start selling at high prices you can go into the market and replace with better players to keep the first team squad competitive. Without Cucurella and Biss that’s £100m worth of talent out the door that needs replacing with some like for like talent, as much as he tries March isn’t the replacement to keep us pushing up the table and I’m not sure Alzate is either.

 

[Simster]

The current model will work, as long as we can keep on unearthing gems like Yves and Marc.

I look at a club like Southampton as a club who were doing something similar to us until recently, but have lost their magic touch and now seem to be going backwards.

That loss of recruitment form is always the danger, especially when our recruitment people are being tapped up

Southampton are - rightly - the model we appear to be using. Or more accurately, we've taken that model, and made some tweaks to hopefully improve it (improved scouting abroad, arguably a better training facility?). You say they are going backwards - I'm not entirely sure about that. They're not as good as they have been for sure, but they could well come good again because clubs like us and Southampton are always going to have times when they haven't got quite enough cover for the players they sell.

I'll just reiterate my view: We will always be a selling club like nearly all clubs, but there is nowhere near enough nuance in that statement. It's all about attracting the good players in the first place, managing expectations of the very best players who want to move on, and getting fair compensation and/or driving hard bargains where appropriate.

 

[Johnny RoastBeef]

Decent business model.
The only major downside, is if we sell more than one player per window in my opinion.
We have been aware of the interest in Biss for a couple of seasons, we have brought through suitable and able replacements.
LWB is a position we have struggled with for AGES.
To finally get a decent one and lose him the next season is pretty shit, unless there's a replacement being lined up...we sure ain't got one here at the moment

Its still early and the window has only just opened.

Worst case, Solly can move to lwb if needed, Lamptey then makes rwb his own.

With regards to the business model and selling just one player per summer. This summer yes, but next season we can use 5 subs, which give us the opportunity to use more and accelerate the development of more.

If things pan out next summer we may be moving on 2 or 3. As long as the conveyor keeps producing.

 

[sydney]

in answer to the original qwetshun ...yes , but then i'm not stood in the north west next to the bogs with by eyes burning from the smell off piss and the steam off my bovril ....the game has gone to the dogs ......but always UTA regardless of what will happen....

 

[KZNSeagull]

We will continue to be a selling club until we win do the League/Champions League double. So 2027 then.

 

[southstandandy]

For the first few seasons bumbling around the bottom 6 it was never likely too many players would be pinched by bigger clubs, but now we've hit what I called the other day the 'Southampton Syndrome' where we are finally starting to impress a few people and players catching the eye, it's inevitable that a few of the gems like White, Biss, Cucu, Tross, may well be sold on (hopefully for substantial profit).

I'd love to have seen Biss stay but as others have said this is our model. We go out and find (hopefully) the next gem whether it be Caicedo, Sarmiento, Encisco or whoever it may be and bring them on to follow Biss's example. We will never be a Man City so we have to accept that some players who are real financial assets will have to be sold from time to time.

We have to balance the books and at the moment the model the club is running is operating pretty well which is why Ashworth and Potter have been so well thought of.

Nice problem to have but that is also the price of relative success.

 

[Marshy]

Its anything but depressing to me.

we can go back to having shit players who nobody wants if you like ?

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

Its still early and the window has only just opened.

Worst case, Solly can move to lwb if needed, Lamptey then makes rwb his own.

With regards to the business model and selling just one player per summer. This summer yes, but next season we can use 5 subs, which give us the opportunity to use more and accelerate the development of more.

If things pan out next summer we may be moving on 2 or 3. As long as the conveyor keeps producing.

We spent more of last season with two at the back and full backs than we did playing 3-5-2. Graham will certainly still want the option to go to a back 4, which without Cucu, we won't realistically have

 

[The Fits]

We are also a buying club. Probably the most aggressive in terms of young players in the league currently.

 

[crodonilson]

Almost every club is a selling club, if they've got players that a bigger club wants. In the Premier league I can only think of the current Man City as a team which hasn't sold a star player to a bigger club. Every other team has.

So I think the list of non-selling clubs globally has only 3 or 4 names on it.

Anyway you're only a selling club if you've got assets worth buying.

Bang on as usual. Essentially every club outside of the top 6 are a selling club. Look at Villa for example, an absolutely huge club but when Man City came calling they were forced to sell their homegrown starlet even though he was a fan of the club.