Now we know what league we'll be in next season (), let's see how good we'd all be as scouts and executives. Welcome to... The Summer Transfers Game! The Challenge: Given our current squad and a healthy transfer budget, how strong can you make our squad? The aim of the game is to buy and sell players (full rules below) in order to produce the strongest 25-man squad you can. Once you've blown your budget and got your squad, you have to name a starting XI + Bench and formation, and if we have enough entries we'll have a vote on who's built the strongest squad. Rules: -You have a transfer budget of £20m (If people think that isn't a fair figure we can adjust it) -All player values are to be initially taken from transfermarkt, with the following corrections applied: --All signings will cost 1.5x their list price. If they are home grown (UK & Ire) they'll cost an extra x0.5. The same for players coming from the "Big 5" leagues (Prem, La Liga, Ligue 1, Bundesliga A and Serie A) --All players sold from our club will go for their face value. -You can't have more than 25 in the squad, unless they are under 21. You can't have any less than 22 players. -You can't sell our youth players for extra revenue. -Wages: Try and be realistic, but as finding exact figures is difficult, it's going to be hard to give an exact limit. Generally aim is less than £35,000 per week. -When posting a transfer, please include a link to the player's transfermarkt page so it can be verified. If transfermarkt don't list the player, you can take a value from a newspaper article. -Try and keep all your transfers to a single post, just edit it as many times as you need. -If you think I've missed something, let me know. So as an example, if you wanted to sign David Beckham: IN: David Beckham Cost: £875,000 times 2.5 = £2,187,500 (The 2.5 is the standard 1.5, +0.5 for being home grown, +0.5 for being in a top league.) Good luck! Our current squad for reference: please log in to view this image (RvW is on the bottom and classed as already signed, Garrido is set to join so he won't cost you anything from your budget) Currently out on loan: please log in to view this image Steer is currently still classed as a youth player, so not for sale. Chris Martin, Ward and Adeyemi can't be sold either as they're out of contract.
That's an in-depth game! I'll be having a look in the morning. Are we considering Ayala, Ward, Smith, Adeyemi and Vaughan sold? youth players?
Sell: Grant Holt (3.5m) Leon Barnett (1.8m) Simeon Jackson (1.3m) Lee Camp (contract expires) Chris Martin (contract expires) Tom Adeyemi (contract expires) Elliott Ward (contract expires) Marc Tierney (875k) David Fox (875k) Declan Rudd (450k) Dani Ayala (450k) Money in: 9.25km, giving a spending kitty of 29.25m Buy: Anthony Annan (3.9m) Adryan (1.95m) (assuming I could get him a permit) Luka Djordjevic (1.31m) Erik Pieters (5.25m) Tom De Sutter (2.7m) Alexander Merkel (7m) Marcelo (6m) Spent: 28.11m Squad: GK: Ruddy Bunn Steer (loan out) DF: Bassong Turner Marcelo R. Bennett R. Martin Whittaker Garrido Pieters MF: Tettey Johnson Annan Smith (loan out) Howson Hoolahan Butterfield (loan out) Pilkington Adryan (u21) Snodgrass E. Bennett Merkel ST: Becchio Vaughan Djordjevic (u21) Van Wolfswinkel De Sutter thats a squad of 28, with 2 under 21s and Butterfield/Steer/Smith go out on loan (2 spaces, 1.14m left) Starting XI: Ruddy Whittaker Marcelo Bassong Pieters Annan Johnson Snodgrass Merkel De Sutter RvW Subs: Bunn, Bassong, Martin, Tettey, Howson, Adryan, Djordjevic Which leaves the matchday team open to massive tinkering via subs, were I the manager of our team.
Hadn't noticed the players loaned out were missing, I'll have to correct that, they're still on our books so are still assets to me. I'll add them in. I figured it was the sort of game you'd like. Youth players I think you can promote to the senior squad if you like (won't count towards the 25) but you can't sell them.
definitely up my street. got me thinking hard at the minute, reckon I can reshape the squad without touching the 20...
This looks good. Still far too excited to get involved but there are going to be plenty of quiet Saturday afternoons to get stuck into this
You seriously need to adjust the transfer budget: Last summer's funds = £10m (spent on Hughton's 8) Last january's funds = £8.5 min. (RvW's fee was confirmed by McNally to be from 12/13's budget) Last year's debt repayment, now freed up for transfer funds = £12m Increase in TV Money from New Deal = £20m Budget = £50m. Quite clearly, I wouldn't expect us to spend all of it, but perhaps £35m?
OK, I've splashed the cash! SELL/RELEASE Lee Camp (contact expires) Marc Tierney (contract expires) Simeon Jackson (contract expires) Declan Rudd (£0.45m) Daniel Ayala (£0.45m) David Fox (£0.875m) Jacob Butterfield (£0.875m) Korey Smith (£0.875m) James Vaughan (£1.3m) Leon Barnett (£1.8m) Andrew Surman (£1.8m) Grant Holt (£3.5m) Money in: £11.925m, making total kitty £31.925m BUY Fabien Frei (£2.25m) Lex Immers (£2.7m) Oscar Hiljemark (£2.85m) Jan-Arie van der Heijden (£3.3m) Georgi Schennikov (£4.65m) Derk Boerrigter (£4.85m) Kolbeinn Sigthórsson (£5.25m) Raul Rusescu (£5.7m) Bish, bash, bosh (with £0.375m left over). 26 in the squad (Steer is youth): GKs J Ruddy M Bunn J Steer Defence S Bassong JA van der Heijden M Turner R Bennett R Martin S Whittaker G Schennikov J Garrido Midfield F Frei A Tettey J Howson B Johnson O Hiljemark L Immers W Hoolahan D Boerrigter R Snodgrass A Pilkington E Bennett Forwards R van Wolfswinkel K Sigthórsson L Becchio R Rusescu Line-up (4-2-3-1): Ruddy Whittaker / van der Heijden / Bassong / Schennikov Frei / Johnson Snodgrass / Immers / Boerrigter van Wolfswinkel SUBS: Bunn R Martin Tettey Hiljemark Pilkington Rusescu Sigthórsson Plenty of options in the squad for switching things around though, with the likes of Hoolahan, Howson, Becchio, and Turner not even on the bench.
What do others think of the transfer budget? I was toying between £20m and £25m to begin with, but went with the lower end for two reasons. Firstly it's more difficult, and secondly I think the way I'm multiplying player costs is probably on the cheap side. At most a player is costing 2.5x their list price, whilst I think Supers has said in the past that a player a club doesn't want to sell can cost comfortably 3x what they are worth. I think the two should balance out and give a reasonable budget.
In my blitz-type attempt I found the budget fine. Coupled with selling players you can easily create a much stronger squad than we already have.
I'm working on it, got a decent squad of 23 with 20.5m left to spend... marquee signings time! So yeah, the budget is fine. I think you should probably put a limit on transfers because were I to sell everyone, I could assemble a brilliant squad.
I thought about it, but to be honest I'm more curious just how far someone would take it. Would anyone sell the entire squad? I think the limit is that you can't sell players for how much you pay for them, so you'll reach a limit at some point.
it's your game! I won't sell the squad to be honest, with that budget I really really really don't need to!
I think you should also give bonus points for realistic attempts at squad creation. Like BHW said, if you sold everyone you could make a ridiculous squad!
I think ridiculous squads are all part of it, if someone wants to put the effort in to replace our entire squad with Spanish youth players (*cough*, Carrabuh, *cough*) then fair play to them. It was never going to be that accurate a reflection on real life really, things like work permits, whether players want to come, etc, aren't being considered. If you want to try and augment our current squad with 5 quality signings, then that's up to you. If we're voting on who has the strongest squad, you're more likely to win that way as people will have actually heard of half your team. So we'll have 2 winners, the strongest squad and the most creative one.
I don't mean to be picky BHW, but aren't Simeon Jackson and Marc Tierney out of contract this year and thus would probably be released without us receiving a fee? Correct me if I'm wrong though and I'll give myself a bit more money to spend!
