Leeds are notorious for doing well and falling back when it matters....Boro will do the same imo, There is a long way to go yet and any team that is foolish thinking they will go up this early in the season is lining themselves up for a fall.....
No one on here thinks going up is nailed on, all we know is we’ve started better. This is much better than last season for a number of reasons. On Boro, actually I think they will go up, though given their style of play I hope I’m wrong. You need about 2 points a game over a season for auto promotion and over 1.6 points a game for playoffs. Right now there are 4 clubs with ‘auto’ stats, and another 7 (including Swansea) who have started with ‘playoff’ form. There’s also clubs like Forest, Villa, Blackburn and Stoke who may have just started badly, usually you get one team who start badly then come up the table later in the season. So it’s obvious that anything could happen. As our manager had said, we’ve only done a bit over 10% of the season.
Last season as it turned out,our early games were all against teams who finished bottom half,this season we've played Boro,Derby,Stoke and Swansea who may turn out to be relegation threatened teams again.We will just have to wait and see.
As an antidote to current euphoria, by the time we got to end of last season I pointed out the close (but not total) correlation between a squads market value and league position. Wolves and Fulham had squads worth c £100m at the time. Cardiff were lower than the rest up at the top and had Over performed. A few other clubs like Millwall and Brentford had tiny market valuations and has done very well considering but - crucially - hadn’t got into the playoffs. So - not many teams buck the market, but it is just about possible to invest moderately and go up if you are exceptionally good at what you do. But odds are against it. This season our market value of squad has risen but it’s still only mid 50’s and there are a good many clubs with far more valuable squads. Only positive is we have similar MV to Cardiff last season. Oh, and we’ve got Marcelo
Good post 2020 but think there are some anomalies included, which need a further look. Derby are still carrying a huge headcount of expensive players which dont seem to have been included. Forest have spent a fortune as they brought in 16 new players and many are big fees and loans with prem wages. QPR still carrying more expensive headcount and may have cooked the books due to FFFP rules fine. On the whole though I would agree with you and you can clearly see the clubs who have just come down and the clubs like Villa who wasted a golden chance last season and who on paper should be there abouts. Before the season kicked off I said there were around 9 teams in the mix and I included Boro who spent heavily last season and now had a promotion manager. The 3 relegated teams, Leeds Utd, Derby who I suspected would only do it if more expensive players were dumped. I discounted Wendies as they had shot their bolt in a one season gamble that didnt pay off and also discounted Hull even though they have parachute money, Villa still have parachute money too. For me the top 6 in this spend league are the 6 who will battle it out and I believe Bielsa gives us an edge and seems to be worth 2 big money prem quality players
The transfermkt website is not perfect, it does give an overall impression that’s all. I haven’t checked Forest in detail, the website has the breakdown of all the players. But I did notice last season that some team perceived to be big spenders still had average market values, however I haven’t had to check any of the teams, the numbers were posted raw
We have to take into account the Bielsa effect value of a player For example player ‘x’ valued at £2m on the open market could be worth £10m in the Bielsaball system, whereas player ‘y’ valued at £10m for another team could be virtually worthless to Bielsa’s Leeds because maybe his attributes wouldn’t fit into Plan A - bearing in mind there is no Plan B An example being Chris Wood is probably double the value of Kemar Roofe on the open market but the Bielsaball effect would reverse those valuations as Roofe fits seamlessly into the Bielsa system whereas there’s no place for a Wood-style target man
Good post & hope you keep track for us on a regular basis as the season progresses. I do wonder how this table would look if it was only based on the top 11 (team), 18 (team & subs), or 25 (squad) - especially the 25. Reason I say this is that if a club has 40+ players, how many are realistically going to feature? Surely the squad is a better comparative measurement (which I'm sure your source will find is almost incalculable, given that the 25 will vary ). I do have a question, though - does this valuation include players that have been loaned in or out?
Guaranteed not to include loan players or loanee wages, hence the reason Forest is so low as we all know that they have brought in 16 players on big fees which does include prem loanees too. The loanees are not on their books as assets
On the same subject WJ we have a high number because we have 20 odd players shipped out on loan with a few of them sold but not huge fees. So in reality our squad valuation is OTT as they are not part of the squad or Plan A
I think it is the club with the highest wage bill that tend to do well as squad valuation is subject to change for reasons you all mention.
WJ, yes it includes players in the squad. So it excludes O’kane as he’s loaned out to Luton but it includes Izzy Brown. For the reason you give it would be hard to do for the 11 first teamers or team plus subs. However the valuation is always based on first team squad, the sizes do vary but not that much (Leeds have 23, the average is 27). I would not get tooooooo excited, as doc has pointed out there are sometimes errors in the data, and of course the valuations are opinions, but it does give an indication
Trouble is it works Eric. It’s not bullshit in principle, the problem is it’s near impossible to get the data completely correct.
Eric its never that far out for predicting top 6 and it usually misses teams like Cardiff last season but for every one of those you see a Sunderland or Hull or Birmingham that should do well with the £100m they got for the previous season in the prem plus £20m parachute payments. Blackburn, wigan, Wolves have all fallen theough the net replaced by teams like Cardiff, Reading had a couple of decent seasons without massive cash.
Worth running this by Mike Thornton, Doc? Wonder what his take might be. Might be a good subject for an article for him.
