[Albion] Our Premier League Transfers

[Hugo Rune]

No, I don't think he was. If we look at what has been reported (from reliable sources.....)

Locadia was signed in January 2018 for a fee that was fairly widely reported as £14m. However, the day before he signed, the Daily Mail reported the fee as an initial £9m with the remaining £5m "..to be paid as part of a bonus structure."

These add-on/bonus deals might be incredibly influential. Could it be possible that Ali-J had one appearance left (his post lockdown cameo vs Citeh) before another £Xm bonus payment was due. If we’re planning on shipping him to Ajax, you’d think twice about giving him a runout that could trigger a seven figure fee.

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

We are the SIXTH highest net spender over the last five years. That means we have consistently spent and therefore should be seeing much better progression. In fact it’s probably telling how bad the signings are that weve not actually been able to sell anyone for decent money to offset the number.


https://www.transferleague.co.uk/pr...tables/premier-league-table-last-five-seasons

Net spend ignores what you have in the squad already - we're new to the Prem so have little of value to sell, that's if we wanted to sell them. If a team has been in the Prem for a longer period, their overall squad cost (value?) will be way higher because they bought - and sometimes sold - over a far longer period.

To make this clear. An example:

Squad cost £15m on promotion. We sign two £10m players on promotion and sell two for a mill each. Squad cost c £33m, with net spend of £18m

Existing Prem team squad cost £300m. They sign three £30m players and sell a £70m player. Squad cost £320m with net spend of £20m

So we spent the same as the existing side, but they swapped out a decent player and bought three very expensive ones in and have a squad that cost £320m to assemble. We compete with them with our squad that cost about a tenth of theirs, with two relatively cheap marquee signings, but net spend is roughly the same. We can't afford for any of our marquee players to fail because they are disproportionately important in our squad. It matters far less to more expensive squads.

Rinse and repeat for the following few seasons whilst the promotion squad are moved on. And btw, the existing teams get stronger each season too as their squad cost increases more quickly (see above for explanation why).

How dare we not compete!!

PS Net spend is a very unhelpful stat

 

[BNthree]

How much have we brought in from player sales over the same period to offset the spending?

Anyone any idea? - I know we got £14m (reportedly) for Knocky but how much more has there been?

Wasn't the fee for Knockaert £10m and the other £4m was Fulham paying his wages? (Which obviously saved us £4m but not quite the same.)

 

[AZ Gull]

Paul Doyle did an interview with Bissouma in The Guardian and said we paid "around £15m".

That in itself means not very much, though, does it?

Did Doyle just do a google search for what was reported at the time? Did he get the figure directly from Bissouma himself or his agent? Does that figure represent the initial upfront fee, or is it the value of the total deal (if there were add-ons included)?

I think all we can say, based upon what has been reported by identified, reliable sources, is that the upfront fee was at least £10m but less than £14m (well, that would be my take on it, but obviously everyone is entitled to make up their own mind).

 

[elwheelio]

That in itself means not very much, though, does it?

Did Doyle just do a google search for what was reported at the time? Did he get the figure directly from Bissouma himself or his agent? Does that figure represent the initial upfront fee, or is it the value of the total deal (if there were add-ons included)?

I think all we can say, based upon what has been reported by identified, reliable sources, is that the upfront fee was at least £10m but less than £14m (well, that would be my take on it, but obviously everyone is entitled to make up their own mind).

Well obviously I don't know his source but it's a pretty reputable paper so I'm guessing its based on something. It doesn't really matter but whatever the number it was quite a lot of money.

 

[AZ Gull]

Well obviously I don't know his source but it's a pretty reputable paper so I'm guessing its based on something. It doesn't really matter but whatever the number it was quite a lot of money.

The point I'm making is that (for me, at least) the reporter for the buying club's local paper, specifically reporting on the transfer itself, at the time of the transfer, is likely to be a better source for a specific piece of information related to that transfer than an interview with the player some (perhaps many) months later when the interviewer probably included that info simply as part of his background data-gathering.

And yes, it's far more money than anyone will ever pay for my services!

 

[southstandandy]

Wasn't the fee for Knockaert £10m and the other £4m was Fulham paying his wages? (Which obviously saved us £4m but not quite the same.)

May well have been, but I was wondering how much other income has come in during our 3 years from player sales. Can't think of much off the top of my head. I'm sure someone out there will have some idea.

 

[Machiavelli]

It's the wages that matter. The table correlates pretty closely with with wage bills (of course with a few outliers)

Precisely this, and we're I think about 15th in wages spent. Now, where are we in the table?

 

[Pavilionaire]

Then you start to realise how many duffers we bought! There's quite a few I've never even heard of.

Sure, we got mugged off with Locadia and Ali but these are offset by some amazing value - Ryan, Lamptey, Burn, Gross, Mooy.

We had a couple of bad windows under Hughton but last summer was pretty good with Maupay, Webster, Trossard, Mooy all getting regular starts and making big contributions to our season.

Fulham blew £100 million and got relegated, Villa have spent £150 million and may do the same, Bournemouth have bought very poorly over recent seasons too, so I'd say our success rate isn't too bad.

 

[macbeth]

what's nice is that last summer, from the looks of things, was our first summer window since promotion where we haven't signed anyone who's an evident 'flop'.