Heres a weekend debate that could get a bit tetchy, but its one that needs doing I think. Going to be big arguments about this……. Its all about Victor Orta….. hit or miss? Victor Orta is either brilliant at what he does, or in the eyes of some fans useless and stealing a wage. We all saw the scattergun approach Radz asked him to use back in 2017 it didn't work as he brought in a bunch of useless players who had to be got rid of, like LDB, Anita, Grot Sacko etc and Felix. But if you ask a man to go shopping with only a tenner and tell him to buy a dozen players, thats what happens. Kiko cost nothing except a large wage and has finally gone but had a 4 year contract and we had to pay him off, so that was a bad deal. Costa cost £17m and we will only pick up half of that next Summer when he is bought by his present loan club, but he was part of the team that got us promoted so was it value for money? Bamford was expensive at the time but his value rocketed especially after scoring 17 goals in the prem and winning a call up with England. Poveda was signed on a free and if he has another good loan season his value will rocket. Then there are other players who were part of the promotion team like Klich, Roberts, Forshaw, Struijk etc. I have had a count up of Orta’s signings (68) and have counted 42 signings that can be seen as a hit. There are however 26 players who failed. Rodrigo and Firpo are part of this group but both still have chance to redeem themselves. The good are players like Pontus, Klich, Saiz, Alioski, Diaz, Edmondson, Bamford, Meslier etc, also the recent signings all look good too. There are also some players who were/are inside the academy who are seen as the best young talent anywhere. Gelhardt, Drameh, Summerville Greenwood, Bate, Joseph, Perkins, Hjelde, Gyabi, Caprile, McGurk, Miller etc there were some who were also bought for the academy who failed. Machucu, Rey, Siddiki, Mujica, Amor. So on paper Orta has a lot more in the credit column than the debit. There were actually 27 of the signings that were specifically for the academy so circa half of all Orta’s signings were for the future. Orta has been here since 2017, the club are in their 3rd season of Premier League football, we have also won the academy national league, won the cup qualified for Cat A Academy status, won Prem 2 Div2 and promoted to Prem1 Div 1. 68 signings with many for the academy. My own view is that Orta has a pretty good strike rate although even he accepts he had a pretty bad start and many of the kids brought in have failed to make it. Academy players are a different kettle of fish as many brought in as schoolboys and try and make it to their first pro contract, so guess the strike rate with them is not as high. He now needs the likes of Firpo, Rodrigo, Llorente to show the real qualities and he also needs to start making money from the academy players that will not make it into the first team squad, making profits on player sales by increasing values is the way ahead. Man City made a huge net profit on transfers this summer and plenty of kids were sold to the likes of Southampton. Chelsea also make profit on academy graduates. Classic case in point. Gelhardt bought for £1m now worth a minimum of £13m, Meslier bought for £5m now worth £43m Some will ask how I can put Edmondson in the good category, well he was brought in to improve the academy and he did that with his goals that won the league and the National league along with Kun who played as a 10 or as a 9. Both did their jobs but failed as top pros as playing lower league. Halme for example I put in the good category simply because he broke into the first team and did a job in a poorish team and was sold for a profit. I have only looked at players Orta signed but maybe we should also add the loan players brought in too and that would probably drag back his success rate too. Harrison and Costa at one end and Big Kev at the other To do this justice it would take someone with the patience of Aski to look at all the data on individual signings and work out criteria for good, bad average signing. Someone could be seen as bad but actually made a profit? Right now its all subjective and my view will be different from someone elses, but almost 70 signings to get through… Orta was also the man that brought Bielsa to the club and for that alone deserves huge credit, it was the catalyst of change?
Gomez Klich Sacko Felix Anita Ekuban Saiz Alioski Bouy Grot Lonegran Balboa Cibiki Diaz Hosannah Machuca Rey Siddiki Kun Bogusz Edmondson Halme Ideguchi LDB Raphinha Gelhardt Koch Drameh Greenwood Summerville Allen Sarkic Forshaw Dalby Struijk Roberts Stevens Shergill Davies Douglas Bamford Kiko McKinstry McCarron Mujica Amor Caprile Poveda Costa Meslier Rodrigo Firpo Llorente Klaessen Aaronson Adams Sinisttera Kristensen Gyabi Perkins Joseph Miller McGurk Gnonti Robles
A good topic Doc Im at work so to do it justice, Ill give that some thought before giving my thoughts
4-0 HT. Summerville head and shoulders the best player on the pitch. Gnonto looks a player. He's as wide as he is tall already at 18. He's strong enough for senior football. Good feet but my god can he pick a pass. Outstanding touch too. Strong as an ox. Looks very good, too good for this level. Has Bamford broke his wrist? He's got it heavily bandaged. BTW, Southampton have no first teamers playing so it has looked literally like men vs boys.
Remember when Southgate said: “to stand a chance of selection players need to play regular for their clubs” check out the England squad…. Filled with his favs who cant get a game for their clubs. Feel for Harrison because he should have been given a chance but overlooked by an idiot a lying idiot
The problem with anything like this is that it is very subjective in respect as to whether a player is a success or not when it comes to their playing ability, and given the amount of times players join or leave a club where there is no fee disclosed makes it difficult to judge if someone is a financial success. The Aapo Halme situation is a prime example. Like you Doc I thought we had made a profit on him, albeit a small one, but transfermart.com say we made a £250k loss. The Leeds and Barnsley official websites says we sold him for an undisclosed fee. The Yorkshire post confirm the transfer was for an undisclosed 6 figure fee, so that's anything from £100-£999k, or even £250k. One clickbait site reports it at £400k. However I would suggest that when looking at those players who we bought that made less than 10 appearances for the first team, we would have made an overall loss on sales, even if we made small profits on some individuals, but without reliable data, its difficult to prove one way or the other. However if yourself or others want to suggest criteria for judging players success, then I'll happily put something together. I would however say when I did a very quick rough selection, I had less than 10 players that I considered to have been successful of those who have only played since Orta has been at the club, thus the likes of Pontus Jansson and Hadi Sacko (not that he would count as a success )wouldn't be included
It's also hard to judge players signed for our championship team who were a success but then didn't make the cut in the prem. Also it is very easy to be critical of the ones who never made it, all clubs have these, but we don't follow every signing for other clubs so usually only see the successful ones. Stand out signings, Bielsa. Raphinha. Meslier. Bamford.
Maybe easier to look at those players who were bought for the first team. Then look at number of games/minutes played. The league we were in, cost then sell on fee. We may not like a player but if he is picked regular it should follow that hes a success? Klich for example would be right up there as successful, Douglas? Bamford on ghe one hand a success but number of games missed through injury is apalling. He had 2 serios knee injuries and then missed almost another whole season?
Neither was Beckham. And that's who Harrison should base his game on because he can whip a great cross in. Jack needs to receive the ball, get it out of his feet and whip it in. I've given a run down of the youth in the 21's thread if anyone is interested.
My rough calculation required players to have averaged a minimum of 25 games per season (based on per 90 minutes played) and to have played for the club for more than one season. The players who met that criteria were , Harrison, Klich, Alioski and Raphinha. Meslier, Bamford and Saiz were just under that criteria. The next two players after those were Rodrigo and Lloente who managed to average just under 20 games per season. Special mention for Struijk who due to having played 5 championship games was next in line with an average of 16 games per season, however if we just counted his time in the Premier League, then he would join Bamford and Meslier on 24 games per 90 minutes played. Value wise, Klich has cost us about 10k per 90 minutes played in comparison to his transfer fee, the best of the current squad. Raphinha cost 286k per 90 minutes played, but due to his sale, we made approx 600k per 90 minutes. De Bock cost us 242k per 90 minutes played in terms of transfer fee paid. Dan James doesn't qualify for the stats having only completed one full season, however his cost when compared to transfer fee is 900k for every 90 minutes played. By comparison Rodrigo cost is approx 546k per 90 minutes played in relation to transfer fee I think only 5 or 6 of those incomers have managed to play over 100 games (obviously those purchased following promotion to the premier League haven't had the opportunity to do so). One of those with over 100 appearances was Roberts, but his average games per 90 minutes was just 15. Think Bamford had 115 game appearances (going from memory as I'm away from pc at the moment) but averages 24 games per season, which when you consider that he missed virtually all of last season, is what cost him not fulfilling my rough and ready criteria. Think Harrison averages 33 games per season per 90 minutes played, Klich and Alioski were 31 and Raphinha was 29
De Jong the PSV Director who gobbed off about Cody Gakpo not going to Leeds has been sacked. De Jong has been with PSV for 20 years and has been Technical Director for a while. The club have not specifically mentioned the Gakpo business but Brands the CEO has said the whole board need a united front and the recent transfer window showed we were not in line. De Jong was hawking Gakpo around the Premier League, especially to Man Utd as it seemed Ten Haag wanted him. However Antony was bought and that left Gakpo hanging so De Jong spoke to Arsenal and Southampton and Leeds Utd looked to have done the deal and even had a private jet waiting in Endhoven for Gakpo and Orta. It seems De Jong was working alone without boardroom approval……
