Posted January 10, 201114 yr Point one. I don't know if we sign anyone in this transfer window, let alone a "starting 11" player, but the club must have employed the most incompetent people when it comes to transfer business. You just knew it'd take forever for any deal to be done, and day after day, week after week other clubs make things happen while we sit on our hands and wait for God knows what. Don't get me wrong, I'm not demanding Agueros and Patos of this world, but you see other teams uncovering gems all the time and not paying much at all. For example, Hernandez, who's currently scoring goals for fun, cost MU about £7m. Wenger built the whole team on this kind of budget. While it's great to have a billionaire shelling out a 25-30m on a star, it doesn't exactly require a lot of work, if you splash enough money, you can get almost anybody. For all the money invested in our scouting network, the return is embarrassing. Point two. The Premier League release details of payments to agents by all BPL clubs, annually. This is the latest. http://www.premierleague.com/page/Headlines/0,,12306~2234236,00.html "The Premier League agreed, in June 2008, that from season 2009/10 onwards each club would publish, on 30th November each season, the total amount it paid to authorised agents during the period 1st October of the previous year to 30th September of that year (encompassing the two transfer windows). Arsenal £3,660,199.00 Aston Villa £2,279.536.50 Birmingham City £1,518,529.09 Blackburn Rovers £1,623,232.92 Blackpool £45,000.00 Bolton Wanderers £3,549,316.72 Chelsea £9,293,751.48 Everton £3,599,040.51 Fulham £2,087,373.55 Liverpool £9,032,528.49 Manchester City £5,952,261.33 Manchester United £2,312,726.00 Newcastle United £2,417,776.00 Stoke City £2,196,968.50 Sunderland £4,421,990.72 Tottenham Hotspur £5,361,229.87 West Bromwich Albion £614,195.73 West Ham United £3,419,089.99 Wigan Athletic £2,461,500.00 Wolverhampton Wanderers £1,291,794.00 Total: £67,138,040.40" No wonder we can't balance the budget. We barely sign any players anymore, yet we continue to pay the most when it comes to agents, it's mind boggling. Can anyone explain to me how can Man City end up paying over £3m less to agents for the same period when they splash a fortune on new players? Can we hire whoever's doing business on their behalf? Gourlay must have had the best job interview presentation when he got Kenyon's chair because so far, apart from supposedly costing our assistant manager's job due to his extramarital activities and the mess it turned into, I'm yet to figure out what his accomplishments are.
January 10, 201114 yr Maybe look into why we paid so much to agents, them payments cover re-negotiating contracts for quite a few of our to players, the sale of some other players and not just buying players. I hate that agents get involved in sh*t like that but the facts are they do.
January 10, 201114 yr Our transfers since 07 when we signed Pizarro sidwell and ben haim have been poor overall. We've missed out on bargains and spent money on areas we didn't need to like zhirkov.
January 10, 201114 yr Point 1 - can't argue Point 2 - I think those figures are a little misleading - we discussed it when they were released and the general feeling is that they are distorted because of the Ramires transfer which as you will recall was very messy and involved some large payments to 'third parties' rather than the selling club, Benfica.
January 10, 201114 yr Point 1 - can't argue Point 2 - I think those figures are a little misleading - we discussed it when they were released and the general feeling is that they are distorted because of the Ramires transfer which as you will recall was very messy and involved some large payments to 'third parties' rather than the selling club, Benfica. As I said, it also includes agents fee`s for re-negotiating players contracts at the club. Its ridiculous that it actually happens, but we did have quite a few players sign contracts. I expect it also includes agents fees for the players we sold.
January 10, 201114 yr Noone can disagree with point one. I think you will see a complete overhaul of the Arnesen scouting network after he leaves at the end of the year, hopefully the new scouting team can give us some better results.
January 11, 201114 yr I have a few things to say regarding point 1. For every Hernandez at United there are plenty of Tosics, Obertans etc. The only problem with our recruitment policy is that we rarely go for young talents ready to step into the first team. Kalou was the last one I remember but he never realized the promise he showed but thats ok because you're never going to get hundred percent success with these young prodigies and that is why SAF buys them in bulk and every now and then we get one Ronaldo or one Nani or one Hernandez. When Ribery was at Marseilles, we should have gone for him but we didnt. He became a 50m pound player and then we try to sign him. Ditto with Torres. Point 2 is pretty well explained by dkw and others. I'd just add that since we had the biggest stars in our squad, their agents are also going to charge more, I guess.
January 11, 201114 yr I think it's wrong to suggest that we've always signed duds. I mean Drogba, Essien, Robben and Cech were all magnificent signings it's just that in recent seasons we've probably not done ourselves any favours with some of our signings. Yuri as much as he is an excellent player was 18m spent on an area we were already very strong in. I think Rahul makes an excellent point about Ferguson buying in lots. But he is in a different situation, he knows under no circumstances will anything be held against him. He also knows that he'll be given time to mould them, here we've had signings come in under one manager who then leaves, and the cycle begins again.
January 11, 201114 yr I think our signings were good under roman until jose's last summer. since then four teams in the league have made better signings to catch us up. if we'd have bought a drogba essien or robben in the the last 4 years we'd prob be top of the table, but we don't bring in players with match winning quality enough. You may argue beneyoun or even malouda but he was bought to replace robben.
January 11, 201114 yr Point one. I don't know if we sign anyone in this transfer window, let alone a "starting 11" player, but the club must have employed the most incompetent people when it comes to transfer business. You just knew it'd take forever for any deal to be done, and day after day, week after week other clubs make things happen while we sit on our hands and wait for God knows what. Don't get me wrong, I'm not demanding Agueros and Patos of this world, but you see other teams uncovering gems all the time and not paying much at all. For example, Hernandez, who's currently scoring goals for fun, cost MU about £7m. Wenger built the whole team on this kind of budget. While it's great to have a billionaire shelling out a 25-30m on a star, it doesn't exactly require a lot of work, if you splash enough money, you can get almost anybody. For all the money invested in our scouting network, the return is embarrassing. I am not sure whether its a policy at Chelsea but the general trend in our signings (for the last 3 to 4 seasons) has been that we seem to be looking at only established players in the last few seasons. Therefore the scope of unearthing a gem reduces when you go about signing established players and its likely to cost a bomb. Our focus has been very youth oriented and we do seem to have some gems of our own that are currently knocking on the doors of first team (Sturridge, Kakuta, Van Aanholt etc). So I dont agree to your point entirely and not to forget there seems to be a general reluctance from our management in spending money on transfers.
January 11, 201114 yr Author I think it's wrong to suggest that we've always signed duds. I mean Drogba, Essien, Robben and Cech were all magnificent signings it's just that in recent seasons we've probably not done ourselves any favours with some of our signings. Yuri as much as he is an excellent player was 18m spent on an area we were already very strong in. I think Rahul makes an excellent point about Ferguson buying in lots. But he is in a different situation, he knows under no circumstances will anything be held against him. He also knows that he'll be given time to mould them, here we've had signings come in under one manager who then leaves, and the cycle begins again. Drogba cost 24m, Essien about 26m. These are not "gems", those were big names that were already well known and they cost plenty. Cech and Robben were great signings, and had relatively reasonable fees attached to them, but Robben was approached by MU even before we showed interest and overbid them. Still, they're probably close to what I meant by scouting doing their job properly.
January 11, 201114 yr Drogba and essien were well over priced considering what they had achieved when bought them, if they had signed for any other club at the time they'd have gone for around 10-15m. It's like sayin wright Phillips was big name buy, he's never been a big name, in his whole career, and prob hasn't started 3 consecutive internationals!
January 11, 201114 yr Drogba cost 24m, Essien about 26m. These are not "gems", those were big names that were already well known and they cost plenty. Cech and Robben were great signings, and had relatively reasonable fees attached to them, but Robben was approached by MU even before we showed interest and overbid them. Still, they're probably close to what I meant by scouting doing their job properly. Dorgba really wasnt a big name, He had only had 1 season at Marseilles where he made his name so he wasnt really established as a world star, and it should go down as a good spot by whoever it was that first brought him to our attention. Thats not to say others werent looking at him, just we were pretty much the only ones to make a move for him. Essien was simliar though maybe a bit more well known and sought after. The point is they both werent major world football stars, or at least werent established world football stars.
January 11, 201114 yr Author Dorgba really wasnt a big name, He had only had 1 season at Marseilles where he made his name so he wasnt really established as a world star, and it should go down as a good spot by whoever it was that first brought him to our attention. Thats not to say others werent looking at him, just we were pretty much the only ones to make a move for him. Essien was simliar though maybe a bit more well known and sought after. The point is they both werent major world football stars, or at least werent established world football stars. Both Drogba and Essien were "hot properties" when we bought them, that's why we had to pay so much. One singlehandedly carried Marceille to UEFA Cup final, and the other was the best midfielder in Lyon side that was amongst Europe's best at the time.My original post was about uncovering little known gems who were relatively unknown(Hernandez @ MU being one example), who wouldn't cost us an arm and a leg and would have a good resale value. That's good business. Saying someone did a great job by identifying Drogba as a transfer target is like saying Man City scouting network did well to discover Dzeko. Dzeko of 2011 is like Drogba of 2004, you don't need to scout him, everybody knows who he is, it's just a question of who's prepared to pay the price. Seven years ago it was us, now it's City. Nothing to do with great scouting, just a financial issue. Getting Steven Pienaars of the world on the cheap when they're in their late 20s may appear like a decent move, but even if he helps the team now, it's not a good piece of business for the future, especially considering the current state of our squad.
January 11, 201114 yr its been good and bad hasn't it - alex, ivan were good buys, and petr - but we have rotated quite a few fringe players last 4 seasons and that hasn't worked kalou is frustrating but actually a decent squad player if you look at his whole game anelka was priced about right too when he came in biggest challenge going forwards is to replace lamps/drogs/anelka over next couple seasons (or maybe end this season) - remmebr 76 goals between em last year - and whoever we get in has to fit in quickish - i would prefer not to pay £30m+ on an establshed player..................and thats where our scouting network has to kickin cos I don't see much in PL currently lots been said about sturrdge - he needs a run of 4-5 starts to show what he can do - but his game is similar to darren bent as he likes to run the channels and off the shoulder, thats not generally how we play clear that roman won't splash out much so fingers crossed we can spend wisely
January 11, 201114 yr Alex and Ivan were good buys to be fair but I don't think we identify attacking players or we don't take enough gambles on attacking players that are somewhat lesser known. I'm sure the club could sign an Argentinian or brazil that still aren't on the radar. The u20 cops America starts next week, and I hope we can identify the next pastore/neymar and not get quoted 30m for the new stars already making a name for themselves.
January 13, 201114 yr I agree with Big Blue in that we seem clueless when it comes to identifying attacking players. A couple of many examples that immediately spring to mind.. 1- i'm sure loads of us knew Modric was a good player BEFORE he join Spurs 2- we only went after Neymar AFTER West Ham tried to sign him. It seems to me that we only take players seriously AFTER one of our rivals goes for them, by which time they have a good head start with them. We need real football scouts not Roman's buddys to identify talent. Also, i know everyone deserves a holiday but, Roman is on holiday DURING the transfer window, surely January should be the month all the management are working hardest, especially as we supposed to be possilbly looking at players this window. It's no wonder we are so slow in the market, we have very poor tactics. We seem to look at either very cheap (normally free) or very expensive players but seems clueless about players in the middle. Edited January 13, 201114 yr by 2211
January 13, 201114 yr I agree with Big Blue in that we seem clueless when it comes to identifying attacking players. A couple of many examples that immediately spring to mind.. 1- i'm sure loads of us knew Modric was a good player BEFORE he join Spurs 2- we only went after Neymar AFTER West Ham tried to sign him. It seems to me that we only take players seriously AFTER one of our rivals goes for them, by which time they have a good head start with them. We need real football scouts not Roman's buddys to identify talent. Also, i know everyone deserves a holiday but, Roman is on holiday DURING the transfer window, surely January should be the month all the management are working hardest, especially as we supposed to be possilbly looking at players this window. It's no wonder we are so slow in the market, we have very poor tactics. We seem to look at either very cheap (normally free) or very expensive players but seems clueless about players in the middle. Where did you get that from?
January 14, 201114 yr I want to bump this thread because I had somehow missed this topic and find the OP right on the money. And to ignite this debate. RE: transfers at the club there doesnt seem to be any foresight what so ever. We knew a few years ago a day would come when just about all of our "pillars" at this club would be in their 30s. What was going on? I know we lost several older players last summer, and that was probably a good thing, but its swung completely the opposite way and we have deprived ourselves of depth and experience off the bench. With all the people at the club tasked with scouting and player selection, I feel as if they have either not been allowed to do their jobs, ignored, or are just not getting it done. RE: wages and agents fees. Its a big problem, and its something I have suspected about RA and some of the people at the club. When you see and hear about guys like Emenalo, Pini Zhavi, Avram, you start to suspect that Roman has alot of hangers on who he employs for the wrong reasons. When these people start to get in the way of what the actual on pitch staff are doing, that is a big problem. And when agents and money men are lining their pockets to make their clients rich, its time we started looking for new clients. I saw a figure the other day that said, before last season, we had brought the wage bill down to 149m a year. With Ballack, Deco, Joe, Belletti, and Riccy Carvalho off the books, that is probably a good deal lower. Now, if wages and agents fees are the millstone that keep this club from flexing any financial muscle (which, I have to reason with our sponsorship deals and on pitch success has got to be there by this point, unless, again, someone has screwed up bigtime) then we need to offload some of these contracts and put in place a wage cap, the only exception being stars like JT, Frank, DD, or Essien who probably are already over said figures. As these guys approach their mid 30s (Essien excepted) it stands to reason they are probably going to be happy to stay here and not threaten to take their act to another club, so we wont have to worry about giving them a sweetner to smooth things over.
January 14, 201114 yr RE: wages and agents fees. Its a big problem, and its something I have suspected about RA and some of the people at the club. When you see and hear about guys like Emenalo, Pini Zhavi, Avram, you start to suspect that Roman has alot of hangers on who he employs for the wrong reasons. When these people start to get in the way of what the actual on pitch staff are doing, that is a big problem. Alan Sugar once said that the way to make a small fortune out of football was to start with a large fortune. I seem to remember reading that Roman's investment in CFC represented 5% of his total wealth which, if true, puts things in perspective. We're a small cog in a very big wheel and only RA sees the big picture.
June 9, 201113 yr Author Still so slow with our transfer activity. I realize it's not an easy job but once again, it looks like we drag our feet.
June 9, 201113 yr Still so slow with our transfer activity. I realize it's not an easy job but once again, it looks like we drag our feet. Come on, the season has only just bloody finished, there are some major lower age tournaments, and no-one really knows just how far along we are with any of our targets.
