Agreed. But is it possible - looking at previous transfers, and perhaps those made by other clubs - to make an educated guess as to the amount of risk. Are certain transfers more risky than others? Answer = yes. Spending 15 million on Osvaldo was more of a risk than spending 7 million on J-Rod. And as I said in another post, to what extent is a club like ours able to take the bigger risks?
Can't argue with that. Scottish football is crap, but at least it's British crap! (Unless they vote for independence of course).
Black, this is my point though. If you look at any industry and football is often top of this, people spend a lot of money and time in trying to recruit the right people by looking at all sorts of things. Previous success, personality, regions of country/world, previous behavior (!) and other topics are taken into consideration. What I think I am trying to say is probably the words of another man ... you can only control the controllables. No matter where you go to recruit, you can't control the success of that recruitment until the person is in and working.
Well, thats just it, you would potentially get two for the price of one. Clyne cost just a tenth of Osvaldo!! Surely you would take that into consideration for future transfers
This is sort of where we disagree. I'm suggesting that it perhaps is possible to control the success, by (among other things) being more cautious as to where you recruit from in the first place. Anyway, I'll shut up now. Basically I just didn't think that the OP was such an irrelevant point as some suggested.
We did make some shrewd signings; Davis, Clyne, Rodriguez, for example. But one cannot miss the fact we spent bucketloads on players who are yet to prove themselves, like Osvaldo and Ramirez.
I'd pay 8 for him. (By the way, I haven't ever previously suggested Ings as a potential signing, in case anyone thought I had).
Although Osvaldo and Gaston havent set the world alight yet in their time with us, if we sold them we would almost certainly get at least 90% of our money back on them. Lovren, JRod, Boruc and Clyne are now worth considerably more than what we paid,Wanyama would also make a profit and Davis and Yoshida wouldnt give us a loss. The only real duds so far look to be Forren (panic buy in January window last season when we had injury scares), Mayuka (a cheap speculative gamble) and Gazzaniga (may come good yet in time). So all things considered we have been pretty successful so far.
Mayuka (a cheap speculative gamble) --------------------------------------- 81st best player in the world I'll have you know!
A better example would have been the 20 million Utd paid for Zaha. Madness. A lot of people said J-Rod was overpriced at 7 million. What you also have to remember is that the wages for Championship players will be a lot less than players coming from Serie-A. Over three years, a player on 50k a week will have cost an extra 5 million than a player on 20k. Look at me with all my maths shenanigans!
On another note will this be the first transfer window we haven't signed anyone since Markus bought the club?
Interesting discussion guys......I also think you should look at the ones we tried to buy and for what ever reason we didn't get.....Courtino (Liverpool) is a good example. When you buy players from certain overseas leagues, I too think it is no better than 50-50 that they can turn it on in the English leagues. Having said that some have taken a couple of seasons to show what they are made of as someone else mentioned, Suarez is a prime example. The English premier league is the most difficult league to adjust to it would seem especially when you compare them to the top Italian, German and possibly the French or the Spanish leagues. Most of the other top league players seem to adjust fairly rapidly without too many problems from around the continental areas anyway. Whether it is because our defenders take no prisoners I wouldn't hazard guess. I have to say for me at least, although I haven't given up hope, Ramirez and Osvaldo have greatly disappointed.....it is no coincidence perhaps that both have been in and out of injury and I have to admit to wondering whether we have bought a couple of Fairies although I do accept of course that Ramirez's last injury is a bad 'un. We sure as hell have had more than our fair share of injuries that's for sure!!
