[Albion] Our “big spend”

[Brian Munich]

An astonishing £193 million net was spent bringing in nine new players in the summer and yet when you look at profit and loss over the past five years, the Albion are still in profit by nearly £39 million. This is testament to Tony Bloom’s genius!

You talking net transfer spend?

 

[Machiavelli]

I agree with your points as well. These players were largely signed for the seasons to come and as a general point anyone teen or early 20's we should always be thinking they are for the future.

But as often seems to happen, our best laid plans have gone tits up to a degree, because we've lost a raft of senior players and our mid age players to injury, which means we're having now to go in big games against muscular teams with a young side. We're have better players than Palace, but if we're giving away height and weight all over the pitch, we're going to lose a lot of 1 v 1's, as it transpired.

I don't think we should regret the investment in young talent. But I think the club should be realistic and actually the players should be realistic, that if we're getting beaten at home to Palace, the fans are not in that moment going to be happy clappy about always looking years and years ahead. We won't turn toxic like Wolves or Everton, but if the club wants to protect the young players, then I think one or two more mid age players and fewer young players in similar positions would have been wise. Not every signing needs to have the chance to turn a 1000% profit. In writing this I acknowledge the appalling luck we've had with injuries. But then we had it last year as well, so is it even luck?

We did sign Kadioglu and Wieffer both 24 for £25-30m each. O'Riley aged 22 for a similar price.

 

[aftershavedave]

I disagree with most of the above. We spend more than any club in Europe and they are all "maybes". Doesn't make sense, you'd expect those players to be on fire

 

[jcdenton08]

We did sign Kadioglu and Wieffer both 24 for £25-30m each. O'Riley aged 22 for a similar price.

All three of those are at least £20m cheaper combined than one Caicedo… we have to be realistic about the markets we’re shopping in. We can’t buy top, ready made professionals in their prime years. We can’t afford their wages, transfer fees, or attract them here. And even when we do, there’s no guarantee they’ll work (Dahoud).

What we can do is buy players who have good numbers and give them a Premier League platform to raise their profile, develop their game over a few seasons and sell them for profit in order to try and achieve financial stability without our wealthy owner pouring his own money in.

If we have more successes than failures then we’ll benefit not only financially when they are ready for sale, but also benefit from their performances on the pitch which will reflect in our league finish and cup performances.

 

[boik]

I disagree with most of the above. We spend more than any club in Europe and they are all "maybes". Doesn't make sense, you'd expect those players to be on fire

Not at all. Like I said on another thread - we are where Chelsea were some 18 months ago. Big(-ish) spend on a series of potentially world class kids yet to be moulded into a coherent team. Potter and Poch couldn't do it in a few months so why should anyone expect FH to.

I expected us to be 12th-16th for the first half on the season hopefully improving to the 10th-14th sort of area. A better than expected start has put paid to peoples sense of reality.

 

[jcdenton08]

I disagree with most of the above. We spend more than any club in Europe and they are all "maybes". Doesn't make sense, you'd expect those players to be on fire

We spent more than any other club in Europe - once. After making record transfer profits in the last few seasons, selling our best players and needing to try and replace them like for like, for a fraction of the price per player.

“you'd expect those players to be on fire”

Sorry, why would you expect that?

This is the transfer fee spend from 2020/2021 to present. Based on net spend, as you see, we are 10th, one place below our current position and one place ahead of our finish last season.

There would be absolutely no reason for you to expect a new, young squad of players to be on fire.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

This post is copied from an older thread, in response to someone saying they expected us to be dominating games after our £200m “massive” spend.

I thought I’d repost it here because I just keep seeing this come back again and again.

The spend was to bring the squad back up to the current level as well as invest in the future. That was a maintenance spend, not a Chelsea style £1.2bn attempt to buy the league spend.

We had to replace Caicedo, Mac Allister, Mwepu, Undav, Groß and others going back to Trossard who hadn’t really been truly replaced (RDZ’s big peeve) as well as the next development signings.

If we look at the signings we’ve made,

Cozier-Duberry (19) - free, loaned, prospect
Yalcouyé (18) - €7m, loaned, prospect
Osman (19) - €19.5m, loaned, prospect
O’Riley (23) - €29.5m, just returned from injury
Kadioglu (24) - €30m, injured
Gruda (20) - €31.5m
Wieffer (24) - €32m
Minteh (19) - €35m
Georginio (22) - €45.7m

Average age of the players we signed is 20.89 years old. Three signings worth €26.5m went out on loan immediately.

It is extremely clear to me that the (relatively, for a club our size) big spend was about investing in the next batch of young players to develop and improve with time and first team experience with us.

We weren’t buying a European campaign or title challenge (lol), we were signing what was absolutely necessary to a) try and maintain our position in the top half of the league and try for Europe and b) give these young players a platform to shine and hopefully be the next big money sale out of the door in order for the club to be self-sufficient financially.

I think it was an excellent window of superb business, but one which many people won’t recognise until like - as in the past with Mac Allister, Bissouma, Caicedo, Baleba and the rest - the players come good due to first team exposure and hard work on the training ground.

I am very sorry that people got confused about exactly what our £200m was getting us. Chelsea spent over £200m on two central midfielders and finished mid table last season.

A good positive thread

Keep 'em coming

Later I may lower the eyebrow I raised at the numerous projectile urinations around the showroom of Bensons For Beds I keep seeing from certain others.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

but, in context it was spent to get us back into europe / piss off RDZ

it was also the largest spend it the whole of europe by any club in that window

it was more that just "maintence spend"

I doubt you become wealthy on the back of property speculation and gambling by being childish.

 

[Machiavelli]

I disagree with most of the above. We spend more than any club in Europe and they are all "maybes". Doesn't make sense, you'd expect those players to be on fire

You'd expect Cucurella or Caicedo to be 'on fire' when joining Chelsea given the two of them cost about as much as all seven of our £200m summer spend. They weren't, and both took about a year to be 'on fire'.
And yet you 'expect' all of our seven incomings to be 'on fire'. I'd suggest that the issue isn't our seven or even Cucurella or Caicdeo. It's your expectations.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

But I want success NOW!

Think of how it works in your own life. From the minute you leave school you are on an unbroken, linear upwards progression of success, with no bumps in the road, no backward steps, and absolutely no deviation whatsoever on that never-ending upwards trajectory.

Why should football be any different? It’s not like the managers or players are human beings or anything. We’ve paid the money, therefore it should immediately work. And if it doesn’t then we should find scapegoats and sack them, rather than allowing them to learn and develop by making mistakes.

Are you the master of sarcasm and wit?

(One day I may repost that excellent joke).

Top work, by the way

(If someone says 'I wish I'd said that' the correct reply is 'you will, my dear, you will' )

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Yes, the same team that's had 4 dire results in the last 4 games, and has now picked up the habit of conceding twice in quick succession

Let me introduce you to Mr Recency Bias.

Shake hands, now.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

In the latest Barber interview he mentions the top ten ambitions and now that bar is a little higher as we’ve tasted Europe and want more of the same.
Unfortunately we won’t achieve anything playing like we are Southampton was unacceptable a team every other team beats fairly easily
and they looked the most likely to win?
We’ve been on a bad run ever since, excuses galore on here, no wonder Potter said if I wanted an easy life I would have stayed at Brighton.

When everyone was getting over excited about beating City I said it means nothing if we can’t build on it.
Glasner was way too smart for Hurz had him in his pocket, embarrassing.

Now the £200m is another excuse do me a favour.

You're not always 'just having a bit of fun' on here are you.

You're a mitherer like most of the rest of us.

Perhaps worse

 

[Justice]

You're not always 'just having a bit of fun' on here are you.

You're a mitherer like most of the rest of us.

Perhaps worse

I like to call it being realistic

 

[BadFish]

In the latest Barber interview he mentions the top ten ambitions and now that bar is a little higher as we’ve tasted Europe and want more of the same.
Unfortunately we won’t achieve anything playing like we are Southampton was unacceptable a team every other team beats fairly easily
and they looked the most likely to win?
We’ve been on a bad run ever since, excuses galore on here, no wonder Potter said if I wanted an easy life I would have stayed at Brighton.

When everyone was getting over excited about beating City I said it means nothing if we can’t build on it.
Glasner was way too smart for Hurz had him in his pocket, embarrassing.

Now the £200m is another excuse do me a favour.

What excuses was I making in my post?

My intention was to call for patience from our fan base for a young manager and young team. You have obviously read it a different way.

I agree about your point about City though and made the point that we all got a bit over excited and now need to recalibrate our expectations.

 

[sussex_guy2k2]

To be honest, I disagree with a fair bit of sentiment on here, and I’m surprised that so many have reveled in the party line after how badly the past few games have gone.

The reality is, we were the biggest spenders in Europe. You can dress it up however you want, but that’s the case. With that comes much bigger expectations, irrespective of where we came from and irrespective of how much you want to lower those expectations.

We can sit here and make all the excuses in the world for the poor performances of this season (and there’s been many more poor performances than good ones - we’ve been incredibly lucky in every victory I’ve seen), but my expectations rose according to that spend, and I believe rightly so. I can imagine TBs expectations rose also.

However, whatever way we dress it up, we’ve not really bought a player that has improved our first 11. Arguably Georgino, but he’s still a serious work in progress. Weifer looks like a lottery winner at times, O’Riley looks like a Scottish Premier League player, Minteh looks like a kid who’s had no real schooling at this level, Ferdi hasn’t really shown anything close to the required level, and Gruda looks promising but incredibly raw. And yes there’s been injuries, but there’s been injuries for 3 years now and we can’t keep making excuses when our transfer policy involves covering those injuries with 60 year olds or children from pre-school.

The biggest problem for me though, is the manager. I get that he’s young, but he’s at best tactically naive, and at worst tactically inept. He doesn’t seem to learn from his mistakes. He doesn’t seem able to read the flow of games or affect them really. He can’t make tactical changes to see them out either. But worst of all, there’s no real patterns of play - it would be fine if I could see us working towards a style, but I have no faith he knows what that is, or how to implement it, and I’ve certainly not seen a consistent style.

I appreciate we’re probably going to stick with him, and I really hope he turns it around because I want our club to succeed, but I think he’s hugely underperforming compared to where I hoped we’d be, given the resources he’s been given and given how poor the rest of the league is this year.

But maybe 2-3 years down the line this will age appallingly as we’ll have been in Europe and Real Madrid will be giving us £30m to sign him and his staff - let’s hope it goes down that route.

 

[BadFish]

To be honest, I disagree with a fair bit of sentiment on here, and I’m surprised that so many have reveled in the party line after how badly the past few games have gone.

The reality is, we were the biggest spenders in Europe. You can dress it up however you want, but that’s the case. With that comes much bigger expectations, irrespective of where we came from and irrespective of how much you want to lower those expectations.

We can sit here and make all the excuses in the world for the poor performances of this season (and there’s been many more poor performances than good ones - we’ve been incredibly lucky in every victory I’ve seen), but my expectations rose according to that spend, and I believe rightly so. I can imagine TBs expectations rose also.

However, whatever way we dress it up, we’ve not really bought a player that has improved our first 11. Arguably Georgino, but he’s still a serious work in progress. Weifer looks like a lottery winner at times, O’Riley looks like a Scottish Premier League player, Minteh looks like a kid who’s had no real schooling at this level, Ferdi hasn’t really shown anything close to the required level, and Gruda looks promising but incredibly raw. And yes there’s been injuries, but there’s been injuries for 3 years now and we can’t keep making excuses when our transfer policy involves covering those injuries with 60 year olds or children from pre-school.

The biggest problem for me though, is the manager. I get that he’s young, but he’s at best tactically naive, and at worst tactically inept. He doesn’t seem to learn from his mistakes. He doesn’t seem able to read the flow of games or affect them really. He can’t make tactical changes to see them out either. But worst of all, there’s no real patterns of play - it would be fine if I could see us working towards a style, but I have no faith he knows what that is, or how to implement it, and I’ve certainly not seen a consistent style.

I appreciate we’re probably going to stick with him, and I really hope he turns it around because I want our club to succeed, but I think he’s hugely underperforming compared to where I hoped we’d be, given the resources he’s been given and given how poor the rest of the league is this year.

But maybe 2-3 years down the line this will age appallingly as we’ll have been in Europe and Real Madrid will be giving us £30m to sign him and his staff - let’s hope it goes down that route.

We may have spent 200m but we are still shopping in the same market of potential.

After our qualification into Europe we sold 200m worth of talent, most of which was McAllister and Caicedo. Replacing them with 20-30m rated talent is always going to be a risk and take time.

For me our spend doesn't come with 'much bigger expectations' it was overdue to keep us at the same level. Maybe it pushed up from top 10 to having a good crack at Europe. But our overexcitment about champions league came from our great start to the season. Courtesy of our inept manager and shit players.

We are sitting in 10th in the premier league with some of the most exciting young talent in Europe. What is everyone moaning about?

Shit form happens but we haven't become a shit team over night. Hold your nerve, it will be alright.

 

[Terry Butcher Tribute Act]

Let me introduce you to Mr Recency Bias.

View attachment 193840

Shake hands, now.

The warning signs were there long before this. We should have shipped 3 against Crawley ffs. The Ipswich draw, the Wolves capitulation. The Chelsea high line debacle. All the while we were getting results nobody cared so much. Now though...

 

[Bodian]

We spent more than any other club in Europe - once. After making record transfer profits in the last few seasons, selling our best players and needing to try and replace them like for like, for a fraction of the price per player.

“you'd expect those players to be on fire”

Sorry, why would you expect that?

View attachment 193839

This is the transfer fee spend from 2020/2021 to present. Based on net spend, as you see, we are 10th, one place below our current position and one place ahead of our finish last season.

There would be absolutely no reason for you to expect a new, young squad of players to be on fire.

Isn't that 10th place on 'gross' spend? That is - how much we spent overall.

Surely 'net' spend would be total spent minus total received? On those figures, we are 16th.

Or even 17th

Premier League net spend table over the last five years

Forget the league table, it's all about the Premier League net spend table. And Chelsea, Man Utd, Arsenal and Tottenham are ahead of the other 16.

www.football365.com

 

[jcdenton08]

Isn't that 10th place on 'gross' spend? That is - how much we spent overall.

Surely 'net' spend would be total spent minus total received? On those figures, we are 16th.

View attachment 193852
Or even 17th

Premier League net spend table over the last five years

Forget the league table, it's all about the Premier League net spend table. And Chelsea, Man Utd, Arsenal and Tottenham are ahead of the other 16.

www.football365.com

Quite right, well spotted.

 

[Bodian]

Quite right, well spotted.

We're doing even better!!