The post I was replying to claimed that Brighton had turned a £10m youngster into a 70m superstar 'time and time again'. They've not even done that once as far as I can see. We've done it several times under ENIC.
The main problem would have to be if he had a breakout season and Brighton offered him a bumper contract in the spring, which takes us out the running before the window even opens That being said, it is probably wise to see how he can handle a full season of first team football before breaking out the chequebook, considering we signed Jack Clarke off the back of a season where he started three games Obviously Ferguson has better pedigree than that, as he started all of Brighton's cup games last season and had a few PL starts, but given the potential importance he'd have in our squad and the likely fee involved it's better to pay for somebody who can deliver than pay and cross our fingers on potential, as that approach has not been particularly kind to us of late
I think it's a case of take what we can get for him (especially as he's on a good wedge) plus about 8 eithers too. Hojbjerg aside, every player we're looking or open to selling probably has a market value of £10m or less right now I'd say, so it's a small win just getting them out the door, if overall a total loss due to the amount of money we've wasted.
Bloody typical the Saudis are only interested in signing deadwood from clubs who don't need to cash injection With one obvious exception, namely that tinpot club near Sunderland
£70m superstars may be a bit of a stretch but they're constantly producing and developing very, very good players with high market value. They got £60m for Cucurella and £50m for White and they would've got a fair amount more for MacAllister if he didn't have a release clause. Plus they'll be getting over £80m for Caicedo if he eventually leaves which seems likely. And I don't even want to predict how much they'll ask for Mitoma and Ferguson whenever anyone comes calling. The most impressive thing for me about them though is their ability to replace all of these key players seamlessly. We've spent around £120m on multiple RBs to try and replace Walker (or Trippier) and in about 6-12 months time we may be in a predicament where RB is again of concern depending on how any of Emerson, Porro or Spence turn out, as two haven't impressed and one hasn't been given a chance.
That wasn't at all the claim I was making as it conflates two different paragraphs of my post. The two points I was making is that there is a lot of wisdom in seeking out £10m youngsters and aiming to develop them into top drawer players who either contribute to future success or at least through their early departure - help fund it. The totally separate point I was making about Brighton is that in the past 4-5 years they have shown a consistent knack of unearthing unknown young gems and developing them enormously. Those gems have helped propel them from a lower division into a side that qualified for Europe. Even with bigger funds available to them, they are still largely pursuing the model if buying young talent and developing it - their signings so far this summer being 17,20 and 21. They know that they still cannot compete financially with the top clubs, so they fish in different waters. We would do well to do the same. I would sign an Orban or a Veliz every day of the week before looking at Richarlison.
Romain Molina has claimed that we signed Manor Solomon because of the close relationship between Joe Lewis and Pini Zahavi By complete coincidence, every dog in my neighbourhood started barking as I started typing this...
The thing with fishing in other waters is there comes a point where those clubs are keenly aware of how the pipeline works and starts to crank up the fees they expect upfront Moreover, the issue facing Brighton is that if last season wasn't a one-off there would be pressure to ease up on the spending cap and wage structure to take that extra step, and time and again that's been the downfall of clubs be it when we started spending big fees for players who weren't big fee level at the time (and still aren't several years after the fact...) or Leicester's wage bill spiralling out of control, or a few years before Arsenal spending way beyond their usual levels in a desperate bid to not lose the CL football they had taken for granted for over a decade by that point
LWOS suggest that Ryan Sessegnon could be left out of our 25-man squad...albeit as he isn't expected to be available until late in the year anyway, so we may as well give that spot to somebody who could be on the pitch in the next 3-4 months
We signed Rose, Walker, Dembele, Dier, Dele, Eriksen, Vertonghen, Alderwiereld and Kane for about 65m combined and built them into a team good enough to get to 2nd in the League and the CL final. Trippier, Son, Lloris and Davies were also bargains. Brighton are having a similar run of good fortune now. These are just normal fluctuations of luck in recruitment....it doesn't imply any change in edge. Actually Walker would be close to the top of any list of bargain acquisitions across the PL so it is hardly surprising we've struggled to replace him
Apologies but you used the same word, youngster, to describe players in both paragraphs so I assumed they were referring to the same point
These aren't normal fluctuations of luck though. A fluctuation in luck would be having a mix of good and bad windows over a set period. We've consistently had bad windows for going on 6 years now with the exception of the January 2022 one with Bentancur and Kulusevski, whereas Brighton have consistently had good windows for about 3-4 years and it's seen them go from relegation candidates to a team in Europe with a reputation of playing some of the most eye-catching football in the league. It can no longer be down to luck when you're good or bad over multiple years. Planning or lack of will absolutely play a part and it's no secret Spurs haven't had a clue what they've been doing for quite some time now, Levy himself said a couple years ago that the club lost its way.
If it's random and a fifty fifty chance then one in every two windows would be good. So having five bad ones in a row will have a probability of 1 in 32. But as I've argued before I think the probability of success is less than half. If it was one third then the probability of having say seven bad ones in a row is about one in twenty. There are twenty clubs in the PL so one will likely do that just by luck. Random numbers are more random than people think....some very large sequences can occur by chance.
Brighton's current success is down to a variation of moneyball based on the owner's stats. The Lizard uses his betting company's analysis on their transfers. Brentford do something similar. Now that it's had some proven success, I expect the other clubs to up their game on it. I'd be very surprised if the likes of City haven't already got something similar, for a start.
A basic ratio is X:Y. So if type(X) = EBITDA, what is : - type(Y) - your reasoned guess on what the "covenant" defines the value of X:Y to be
van de Ven Watch (with a little hint of Tapsoba Watch) Veliz Watch Player We Didn't Know About Watch Torino CB Perr Schuurs, come on down! ...unless this is a 4D Chess move for Guehi or something
I would have thought the bond holders would want EBITDA to more than cover interest with a bit of margin so I think 2 to 2.5 times the interest so £50m. A Google search thinks 1.5 is when things look bad for the bondholders. We're currently at about 3 so spending £50m more a year would probably trigger the covenant.
