I appreciate that signings can be hit and miss regardless of what level a club is at, so on that basis the term random can be fairly used but the reason why Spurs done so well under Levy for the first 14/15 years was that there was a real plan and philosophy in place. We targetted primarily young, high potential players with the view of them improving immensely to then either sell at a massive profit or eventually improve the quality of the first team. It's how we gained so much ground on our rivals with bigger budgets. The last 4 or 5 years though it's been a scattered approach, there hasn't really seemingly been much logic. Naturally we as fans get excited at just about any signing but in hindsight so many of our signings haven't made much sense in comparison to the signings we made in the previous 14/15 years. Leicester right now are doing exactly what we done in our first 14/15 years under Levy. They're targetting younger players they believe have high potential and high resale value and are massively benefiting from it. They've reinvested the money from the likes of Kante, Mahrez and Maguire brilliantly and they don't look like they'll be stopping that approach any time soon.
It's PowerSpurs' opinion and he's been consistent with it for a long time. I don't agree with it and it's not a commonly held opinion on here, nor is it one that's shifted based upon success or failure. What's random about it? It's not like you have £30m to spend and the signing is drawn at random from a group of players worth that amount. The success of signings is often down to intelligent scouting and understanding what a squad needs. It's not going to be 100% accurate, but random suggests that it's down to chance and chance alone.
You haven't understood my point then. You can obviously influence the answer by good scouting and good analysis and most of all by spending more but you should not expect to win by much in the long run. If it is mostly random though, then over any period you choose some clubs will do well and some do badly. So you can't disprove the conjecture by pointing out a few successes. If it isn't random then there must be a sustainable edge....what is it?
Theres definitely not a 100% full proof way of saying whether a transfer will work out or not but you could probably say that about getting into a car accident. You can't 100% say you won't get crashed into but there are definitely ways to avoid accidents. Else you might as well just buy every cheap player going if its a random chance of hitting a success. So were you guys just ultra lucky when you bought eriksen, toby, dembele and alli at the time?
Agreed but just on the last page only Spurf and now Vimhawk have also agreed with this opinion when it was just PS. It seems to be catching on
Well it's funny that there are some clubs who are doing it better than others on a consistent basis. Dortmund is one. Leicester are coming into there own. Klopp has also done fantastically well (minus this year). When something happens over a good number of years (i think 5 is a pretty long time) then it suggests theres more to it than "luck".
It's easy when you can pay a world record fee of 80 million Euros on a goalkeeper and then decide he's not good enough and buy another but keep the first as a sub. Is Werner a success. Rumours are you are after a new striker, because you haven't enough?
I think it's just a difference of opinion about the word "chance", to be honest. It's that thing about unknowable unknowns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns You can scout a player all you like, but there are things that you just can't find out until he's playing for you. He might do a Jamie O'Hara and get his head turned by an, er... lady who's known to the dressing room, for example. He might take a liking to the local cuisine and go all Eden Hazard. These are factors that you don't just not know, you can't know and you can't do anything about it. That's the chance factor, in my opinion. The overall scouting job can work out how good a player is, how well he'll fit your strategy and how professional he is. It can't predict that his future missus is going to shag a teammate and you'll have to sell him to Wolfsburg.
Not sure what chelseas transfer policy (and citys) has to do with transfers being random or not. To humour you Werners been hit and miss, he's still a wait and see. Kepas been diabolical. So do you think when a club buys a player, it's up to the gods whether they will come good or not or do you think a club has analysed a players strengths, potential, how they fit in, their character before they decide to buy them as they would improve the team/have the talent to be better than they were?
Dortmund are in a very privileged position. They're in a big league where they're almost guaranteed to do well, but can still take chances. Everyone expects Bayern to win everything, so they don't have that pressure and can afford to take risks on younger players, who know they'll get game time. The other sides who should be challenging them (based on revenue and support) are a ****ing shambles.
I am sure when Chelsea laid out that money on Kepa , they were confident of him being a success. Why has he not been?
I agree, as i said, no transfer is guaranteed to be a success but with due diligence you expect your club (provided they have better analysts) to be able to find those gems. When flop after flop is being bought, there needs to come a point where someone is getting something wrong, it can't all be down to luck (unlike the stadium decision and covid). I disagree with you saying they are guaranteed to do well. People probably thought the same with the leverkusens and the schalkes who could also take a chance. Dortmund are expected to finish in the top 4 and they do that consistently whilst playing these youngsters. This has helped their transfer policy as they now have a reputation of helping young players achieve their potential so are able to convince some of these youngsters to them. Every year they pretty much integrate new youth players (sancho a few years back, Haaland last year, Bellingham this year off the top of my head) and they pretty much stick them directly into the first team. Would that work in the EPL? I don't know but 2 of the 3 would have been attainable by any of the big 6 in england if they wanted them before dortmund.
**** scouting. Clubs do make stupid decisions. Before Danny Drinkwater was even bought i could have told you that transfer was doomed. Guess what, he sucked.
Agreed. City wouldn't have sold Sancho to another English side and Haaland wanted Dortmund for the regular football and the release clause, plus his agent's a dick. Everyone went after Bellingham. If he wanted to join one of the Super Special Six, then he would've done so.
Just had a quick read up on Bellingham, you're right, i hadn't realised everyone was after him. Haaland agreed, he was only going to go dortmund. Sancho maybe. Shows how much of a reputation Dortmund have built up
They have a sensible, sustainable vision for the club and how to progress in the future. Their style of play and recruitment aren't dependent on the manager, who is brought in with those things in mind. **** being a stepping stone for Bayern, though. It's embarrassing and limiting.
It really doesn't. Each club signs about 5 players a year. There must be about 25 clubs in your sample. So we are trying to measure an edge on 25 signings over each of 25 clubs. There will be at least two very good looking clubs and two very poor looking ones just at random.
