Our record signings since Gazza, are : Gazza 2.0m Gordon Durie 2.2m Chris Armstrong 4.5m Les Ferdinand 6.0m Dean Richards 8.1m Berba 10.9m Darren Bent 16.5m Modric 16.505m Paulinho 17.0m Soldado 25.9m Lamela 29.9m
How Baldini has kept his job is beyond me. Biggest financial disaster in the history of the club I should think.
Once I heard David Pleat was talking up the impact Baldini could make, that caused major doubt. Breaking the transfer record once and having a flop, happens, that can happen at any club, but for us to break it three times (in one window) and all three turning out to be flops, means you just have to laugh. The "Magnificent" 7! please log in to view this image But as football is a funny game, we now have Kane, Mason, Bentaleb, Townsend, Carroll, Pritchard and Rose. Some are more magnificent then others but thats 7 youth players who have either made an impact or predicted to make an impact and I hope the plan is to sell some of the flops and bring in astute signings with Redknapps former head scout back at the club.
The success rate of everyone’s signings made in the wake of big sales is not spectacular. It’s not just us. Liverpool alone have got Carroll, Balotelli and Adam on their record. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
I know HBIC likes to talk about that game he plays (Football Manager), if you handed HBIC the DOF role and asked him to sign 7 players based around that game predicting players potential, I would expect he would have signed Eriksen (the only actual success). But yes, its not just us, yet I view Arnesen (until he ****ed off) as the only proper DOF we have had. Comolli did sign talented players, but again, signing players that are highly rated because you're in a position to sign them, doesn't mean he should be given credit for his ability to spot players as Utd wanted Bale, Modric was highly sought after, Berba was highly regarded, list goes on but none of these players where rare finds. The DOF has to work with the manager but the only time we had a DOF/Manager where you could say "great partnership" was Arnesen/Jol, while all I remember from Comolli/Jol was Jol appearing to not sign the type of player he wanted, rather work with the type of player handed to him.
I think you’d have to throw Chadli into the success category as well, especially considering we didn’t pay much for him. I’d put Chiriches as a wash. While I appreciate how good Walker has been for us, I think we would have been better off with Chiriches at right back. I’d start him right away for any but a really top team, not only because he’s a good player, but he’s very entertaining---a bit reminiscient of Beni, really. Stambouli is a wash as well, I think. Another point--and perhaps the most damning--is that seven signings are too many. You need players to slot into the team as quickly as possible to make them successes. But what team is there to slot into when you have seven potential new starters? You’re making it up as you go along. I think it’s a crucial point, and one which resulted in Man U’s struggling this year as well. I suspect no one ever should sign more than 3-4 players in one window. Put another way, Baldini’s big problem was Soldado, Lamela and Paulinho. In retrospect I blame him for Paulinho (not actually good at any one position, even if he has good qualities at a couple) and possibly Lamela (too one footed, and with a suspect footballing brain). Soldado’s actually been decent for us despite having one of the worst cases of goal fright I’ve ever seen. I think that was just bad luck and/or AVB’s non scoring system. I haven’t given up on Lamela, to tell you the truth. He clearly can be brilliant, if we could ever figure out how to get the brilliance out of him.
Using the FM alalogy, in the two games prior to our signing them Eriksen and Lamela have the potential to be 4.5/5 star players players while Capoue has the potential to be a 3.5/4 star player, the rest are around 2.5/3 - and it has to be said on those games Eriksen can be signed for around £12m, but Lamela costs twice that. What gets me is Baldini made the same mistake as Comolli, namely thinking solely about players who could be top class in two or three seasons, but not signing players for the season or inbetween.
Darren Bent 16.5m Modric 16.505m Paulinho 17.0m Soldado 25.9m Lamela 29.9m If I was Luka Modric I would be embarrassed to be in with that shower of s***
Though surely most of the malignant 7 were deemed "ready-to-go". Soldado was definitely bought as a starter, I would have thought. And players like Capoue, Paulinho, Chiriches were internationals for big teams or captains of their old teams etc. Senior players bought for the here and now rather than a promising youngster you take a 1-5m punt on. You would imagine that 30m wasn't spent on Lamela without a very firm idea that he would be a starter that season. Unless our club has suddenly become one which can splash 30m on someone for 2-3 years down the line with perhaps no impact at all til then. (And I can't really think of any premier league club in that position - even Man City and Chelsea don't pay that for promising youngsters who won't get a game for 2-3 years do they?*). And before anyone poo-poos the idea of using computer games to give an idea of a player's ability/hype/promise the research that goes into those games is far more extensive than any premier league club's scouting system. Which is why it was a big deal when Everton (I think) did a deal with one of the software houses to share their data. I don't play them myself at the moment or know much about them right now but recognise that there's a lot of decent information in them (I knew many years ago, for example, that Mats Hummells was going to be a monster thanks to ISS (is that what it's called? The one that's not FIFA. Now I write it it looks like a terrorist organisation). Mind you Jenas got pretty amazing too). I think you get a lot of false positives from those games but still they're interesting and relevant information. * Or do they? Cant think of any off the top of my head.
Pretty sure Lamela was potentially 30m euros if all considerations are added, so probably no more than a potential total of £22m-£23m, and around half Soldado`s fee was made up of adds ons etc, so we will probably end up not paying anything like the £25.9m. If we indeed did spend £56m on those two, it is looking like money wasted at the minute.
FM ranks Soldado at around the same level as Defoe, at around the 3 to 3.5 star level - remarkably effective in front of goal, but that's pretty much all he has. Some clubs have paid fees for players that won't be in the first team for a couple of seasons that most clubs would spend on their main signings that summer - Chelsea (obviously...) spent £10m on Lukaku and £12m for Zouma, while Arsenal paid £12m for Walcott and £15m for Oxlade-Chamberlain.
There's a couple of reasons why. First of all, Baldini identified Benteke as the striker we needed for last season, but AVB wanted Soldado. As a result, Baldini can't be blamed for Soldado failing to deliver as he was not involved in the transfer - but blame can be aimed at Levy, who sided with AVB over Baldini to sanction the move. The second reason is AVB wanted Willian as our number ten, but when that move went south with him being gazumped by the Chavs we needed to sign a player in that position (just as we did the previous summer, when the Moutinho transfer hit a brick wall of third party ownership) so we quickly moved for Eriksen instead, so bought a player who is far better suited to the way we play for £20m less than we would have paid for Willian. I do wonder how much influence Baldini had with this season's transfer dealings, though.
Hbic, I don't really agree that Baldini can be excused for the Soldado signing as when Baldini was at Real Madrid he released Soldado on loan so would have been aware of the player, and likely he followed his Impressive form for Valencia. I would say he played some part (at least) and while I'm no Avb fan, I don't believe he had much say in the initial choice of players (when we had a DOF) but if Avb wasn't strong enough to speak up then he can't have many complaints.
Although as for Moutinho we failed to sign him in 2012, AVB's first season (before we had a DOF), to replace Modric and that would have been the correct signing to make and AVB will feel that the one player he really wanted, we failed to sign for him. Although I agree re Willian, glad we avoided him but I'm sure we tried to sign him as-well as Eriksen?
I think it came down to Willian or Lamela in the end, that was my understanding of it. Chelsea certainly got the better of it there if that was the case.
