I don't want to sound like the boring old fart in the room,(at least, I'm not that old!),but just where is the value in todays modern transfer?.

 

At the moment,we are linked to Wayne Rooney who after a large transfer fee,will expect a weekly wage around a mere £250,000 a week for the large part of what's left of his career.

 

Now,(BORING OLD FART ALERT) for what amounts to just about a week's wages for Rooney,we signed players such as Kerry Dixon (£150,000 plus 25,000 add on's) & Pat Nevin (£95,000) back in the eighties.

 

Top value I think you'll agree,(although if you're not old enough you may not know) & even allowing for the 3 decades that have passed since,surely the right way to do things.

 

Even allowing for todays spendthrift attitude,dosen't it make more sense to spend big if you have to,but only on a player with his best years BEFORE him (such as Bale) rather than one who's 'peaked' or being more to the point.............f**ked?.

 

Someone with a semblance of re-sale value.Which Rooney dosen't have.

 

At least if it dosen't work out, he'll still be young enough to cash in unlike a certain Spanish striker who we are well and truly shafted with.

 

We were linked with Cavanni for a fee of about £54 mill & with a contract worth around £30-35 million,this investment for a 26 year old who's a real talent but has never played here & may not fancy a 'midweek match at Stoke'! sounded way to risky to me.

 

A combined total of around £90 million quid.

 

So, even if we earned £80 million from winning 2 Champions leagues back to back,we're still short on what we owe just the one player!.

 

That just sounds crazy to me & as the transfer never happend,a bit dodgy to Roman to.

 

But, just where is the value to be found in today's transfer?.

 

 

You are not a boring old fart.  You are a wise and articulate young man with an astute understanding of today's dilemma! 

There's not a club owner or chairman out there that wouldn't want to only buy players with a re-sale value ahead of them, they all want the 23 year old that gets plucked from obscurity, costs penuts and turns into Messi.  Unfortunately there's not many of them about, specially when you consider that they have to give instant success.

 

I've just finished reading a bit about Dixon, he was one of my favourite players when my dad first started taking me to the Bridge and you're right it was an incredible bit of business but in highlighting Dixon and Nevin you've shown how few and far between those sort of deals are.  We may have landed a couple though in the last couple of years in KDB and Lukaku.  Unfortunately in this day and age of needing success and having a very very strong starting position there's an inevitable need to add some experience every now and then.

Sorry Barn if I missed it,but if it was your choice,would you be keen to sign Rooney?.

chelsea raked in £30million for the champions league last season, and we didnt even get out of the group. the cost of buying players hasnt increased in some isolated pocket -- everything has inflated.

Edited July 23, 201312 yr by onebelo

I think Rooney would be a good signing yes.  But I do prefer the smaller signings that go on to do well, or the youth players that come through the ranks (I remember when that happened).  For me one of the plus things with the Rooney signing is his age, we don't have to wait for him to mature into the role or learn the ropes (okay it's a new club but he's an experienced player so I don't see that as an issue) and he's of an age where he can work with Lukaku for a few years and gradually be moved aside for the young striker to take over.

 

I like your original post and the points you raise, I just wanted to point out why it's not as easy as you made it sound.

Thanks barn for your reply and yes your right, it is much,much harder to find a future 'star' these days than it was back then.

 

But,with spuds paying  just £7 million for a young Gareth Bale,there still seam's to be great value players around,even by today's standard.

 

Even so,an older Rooney still can bring a lot to Chelsea and as you say, he will help Lukaku develop his game.

Seems a bit naive of me to say this but I guess it's a total gamble. We paid the same for Marin as Tottenham did for Bale. At the end of the day maybe 1 in 10 transfers will appear to be a total bargain but the Torres/Shevechenko transfers may not appear so. What some people don't see is that it's all relevant because I guarantee those 2 made their money back in shirt sales alone which a young Bale or Marin would never do . ( I hope I made sense!!!!)

The ultimate value will always come from raining players through your own academy. Basically.

Thanks barn for your reply and yes your right, it is much,much harder to find a future 'star' these days than it was back then.

 

 

no it's not.put 'football' sunglasses on and not be blinded by tabloid fancy,or fantasy.sure don't we have the 'special one' to cure all ills.wenger can spot a good player(or his scouts can)from a bad one.

 

however,under his tenure the defense has been pitiful.a mix of George graham and wenger's philosophy would be more than a potent force in the premiership imo.

 

looks like they are going to throw big money into the equation.inevitdable as things stand in today's market.

another thought on 'value'.i know it's early days-but van ginkle looks as bad as mikel and marin.hope he proves me wrong of course,if not,i will say it again.who identifies who would be a good signing for us?.

Kevin how did u come to the conclusion Mikel is bad?

your underestimating rooneys non footballing value, if we signed him the club would get alot of the transfer fee back on shirt sales alone...we may not be able to re sell him but the merchandise money he'll bring in is just as good

Kevin, it is more difficult these days because the bigger clubs reach so far at youth and academy level, Chelsea have youth set-ups all over the world meaning most of the young talent is already attached to a big club. Of course there are exceptions but not like there used to be.

But,with spuds paying  just £7 million for a young Gareth Bale,there still seam's to be great value players around,even by today's standard.

Yes but that was 6 years ago, when he was nowhere near as good and hadn't properly showed his potential (remember the 20+ run of games where Spurs didn't win every time he played?). If we'd bought him for that much we certainly would have wasted him - repeated loans and he probably would have gotten fed up and left by the time he really stepped up in the 10/11 season.

 

 

What some people don't see is that it's all relevant because I guarantee those 2 made their money back in shirt sales alone which a young Bale or Marin would never do . ( I hope I made sense!!!!)

I think this is something that people often overstate.

 

Yes, sales of shirts with Torres on the back may have accounted for a lot of money, but how many of those shirts would have been bought anyway but with a different name? I'd wager that it's relatively few.

 

 

 

About value in the market: it is influenced by the huge financial resources of some clubs (like us, City, PSG, Monaco, Madrid, Barca etc.), especially when you consider that even the "poorer" clubs are now getting a lot more money due to the ridiculous TV deals. Inevitably fees like £150k for Dixon or £95k for Nevin are going to mean nothing nowadays because of all the money in football.

 

Anyway, the top players are so desirable that some teams are happy to overpay (Monaco and PSG for Falcao/Cavani are prime examples, as is Hulk --> Zenit). People see this as "skewing" the market, but because the market is relatively small and players of this calibre are in such short supply, the market can't correct itself - what they went for is now market value, because the next time someone of their calibre becomes available they will go for a similar amount.

 

15 years ago it wasn't quite as bad - relatively few clubs could afford to overpay so much for the top talent - it was generally Madrid with the Zidane/Figo type transfers, whilst some of the other rich clubs could make one or two similar transfers - eg. Crespo to Lazio, Buffon to Juve etc. Once these guys had spent their budgets/had the players they wanted, there were no other clubs with lots of cash to overspend on players, which calmed the market a little. That's not happening anymore because there are plenty of clubs with the financial muscle to step in and pay over-the-odds for players that they want - and they do it because otherwise they'd just end up with nothing. Case in point: many of us wanted Falcao. He went to Monaco and most thought he was overpriced and turned our attention to Cavani. He went for a similar figure and we have neither because we didn't pay up. Now, I wasn't certain that we needed them, but lets say we had a HUGE hole at CF (ie. no Lukaku, Ba or Schurrle) - if we'd refused to overpay (and it is overpaying, imo), we would have missed out on the top talent. Which is why you have to overpay and skew the market more, imo.

 

Just look at the Higuain situation - Arsenal were faffing about for ages and refused to meet Real's 30m euro valuation. Napoli likely know that he's not worth the 37m euros they've paid for him but they know that they need to pay something similar to get him so they swooped in and got him*. Where does that leave Arsenal? They don't have a gaping hole at CF but they looked like they were actually going to invest and try to challenge for some sort of trophy again. Unless they get Suarez that looks very unlikely now.

 

 

Anyway, back to Rooney - a couple of seasons ago he was worth £40m+. Now he's not. I wouldn't pay a penny over £30m for him, tbh, even though I like him as a player and think he would do well in our system. I'd take him over Higuain (£32m), but our bargaining position is a strong one as we're his only suitors and he wants to go, so we shouldn't pay that much. It's a fair price I suppose as he could go one of two ways: regain his fantastic form which would make the buy a bargain, keep going sh*t which would make him overpriced. Always tricky without the benefit of hindsight. My main concern is wages, £250k is a lot to be paying a new signing who hasn't been very good recently and is clearly inferior to Mata and Hazard who I think are both on below £100k?

 

*isn't this similar to what happened when they tried to sign Mata too? Thought they'd have learnt by now.

I think about how nice it would be to see Chelsea sign a really expensive footballer, and I tend to wind up thinking about what a waste of money it is. Can't help but think what that amount of money in the hands of the right people, could do for the world. I love football as much as anyone, but that the market has been damaged so badly that a man...who plays sport....can be moved between owners for 80,000,000 pounds is frankly disgusting.

 

My love of football means I will never give it up as a lost cause, nor do I want to...and more often than not, this finances of football can be put into the back of my mind, but occasionally it pops out again, and I just end up thinking Holy sh*t Batman. And then something like How did we lose to QPR?

Although the price for top players is obscene these days, you cant underestimate the money generated from superstar shirt sales

http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/transfer_talk/64117/chelsea-may-recoup-fernando-torres-transfer-fee-in-shirt-sales-alone.html

http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/blog/dirty-tackle/post/Chelsea-find-that-selling-Torres-shirts-is-like-?urn=sow-316727

Edited July 24, 201312 yr by Zola

your underestimating rooneys non footballing value, if we signed him the club would get alot of the transfer fee back on shirt sales alone...we may not be able to re sell him but the merchandise money he'll bring in is just as good

Whenever people say this i really struggle with the concept especially with English/British players. I dont think there is a world wide Rooney fan club that would follow him blindly no matter who he plays for. Fans from this country are club affiliated not player. Obviously there will be an initial peak of interest in any high profile new signing which may result in a small bubble of interest and shirt sales but that would happen with any player at any club and does'nt mean there a good signing.

I understand when people talk about foreign players from countries that dont have high profile leagues and club teams. They tend to get a national following. Kagawa for example or any player from the far east would have allot of shirt sales because fans are following him and his progress as a player from a national point of view and thats understandable.

Rooney on the other hand wouldn't hold that appeal to say a South Korean, but if the South Korean captain was playing in the EPL for say Hull the interest in them in that part of the world would obviously go through the roof. If however a South Korean supported Man U he may well have a Rooney shirt but it would be a Man U shirt with Rooney on and when he left it would be a Man U shirt with someone else on it.

If there is a Chelsea supporting South Korean who had Torres on his shirt last year he may well have Rooney on this year but does that mean Rooney is responsible for helping sell that shirt?? Or has total shirt sales increased?? the answer is of course no. Its a Chelsea shirt that would have been sold regardless not because Rooney now plays for us. The name on the back is irrelevant 99% of the time and does'nt necessarily increase revenue.

Edited July 24, 201312 yr by c3blu2

another thought on 'value'.i know it's early days-but van ginkle looks as bad as mikel and marin.hope he proves me wrong of course,if not,i will say it again.who identifies who would be a good signing for us?.

 

Bit harsh

and ludicrously premature!

Edited July 24, 201312 yr by Zola

and ludicrously premature!

 

 

...nothing worse than premature speculation...

...nothing worse than premature speculation...

 

Very good Moi, very good! 

...nothing worse than premature speculation...

Things can get very messy when that happens.....so i hear.

...nothing worse than premature speculation...

Bravo! :D

...nothing worse than premature speculation...