But, and this was my point, it can be covered when you have plenty of money to write it off and move on to your next attempt. Spurs can't turn around and say Sanchez is not working out, let's go and buy Andersen instead. We have to stick with the failure.
The one thing I think we can do better on now is concentrating our spending. That only works if you can spend £100m a season though. Average PL players cost about 15m and average top 6 squad members cost about 25m. Our squad median value is currently about 20m so if we buy six players for 20m each we probably won't improve the squad by much at all. Two players at 60m will most likely make us better though.
And what makes you think that it falls into that pattern? Every Premier League team could exclusively make good signings in a transfer window. They could all make bad ones. It's not a closed system and it's not random.
Wasn't he signed to balance out your HG numbers for a season or two before Mount, James, Hudson Odoi et al came through?
It is a closed system because there is a limited supply of players which also makes it a zero sum game. I agree that if you take the PL alone then there could be a general bias that somehow makes the signings above or below average compared to other countries. But people often quote Ajax or Dortmund as successes who are outside that bubble. I think there success is much more likely to be associated with coaching and development rather than scouting though.
A limited supply of players? Barely. How many nationalities have played in the Premier League? A quick search suggests 113. It's also not a zero sum game, as there are more available players than possible squad numbers. Chelsea could have 25 good players at the same time that Burnley does, for example. I don't see anything that makes it a random selection. There are unforeseen factors, sure. People will have unexpected problems. Good scouting, coaching and transfer selection should reduce all of the foreseeable ones, though. I've said this before, but a lot of clubs would benefit from picking an overall style and then selecting managers that suit it. Swansea did very well for a number of years by playing a decent attacking game, progressing players through and reinvesting based on that. They changed managers quite a bit, but stuck with a similar vision when picking them. Then they shat the bed, brought in Brad Bobbly and sank like a stone.
I suppose it depends how you define random but overall transfers are less than 50% successful. Yes you have scouts and look at players before you sign them but the nature of football is that luck plays a part in matches as it does in all aspects of the game and transfers are no different. Of course people want to claim it's all scientific and down to their superior knowledge of the game but not all of us buy that. You look at player who is playing in a different team often nowadays in a different country with a different manager and then you are surprised when it doesn't work. Tell me how many strikers have Spurs signed in the past 20 years and how many have been a success? In fact here is a list just to show you how ridiculous the notion is that it is not random. Rasiak N'je Hamdaoui Booth Janssen Postiga Zamora Campbell Soldado Rebrov Saha Kanoute Llorente Mido Bent Pavlyuchenko Adebayor Crouch Sherringham Berbatov Keane Defoe So how many of that lot worked? 6? out of 22 to call that random success is an insult to random. I'm sure the average fan would do no worse in picking players. EDIT : In fact for me it would only be the last 4 on that list. That's an appalling rate of success.
We may be talking at cross purposes. What I think is mostly random is which club is having the most success at any point. I expect every club's success ratio to be high sometimes and low sometimes and that won't depend very much on the process. There may be short lived edges (eg Arsene Wenger had good knowledge of French football before there was much data) but I really can't see how you can create a sustainable edge.
I actually think at least 6 others were worth the fees and salary paid and I don't think many other clubs would come out much better
By buying the right players for the team. I'm oversimplifying dramatically, of course, but that's basically it. If you want a skilful, intelligent striker who has good close control, then don't sign Lukaku. If you want a centre-half that can play a high line and will bring the ball out from the back, then don't sign Harry Maguire. A £40m player might be a £10m player for one team and a £60m player for another. Horses for courses. It's much the same as how sides line up against different opposition, yet it doesn't seem to get as much traction with transfers, for some reason. Teams still go out and sign good but completely unsuitable players all the time.
4 is a bit harsh I know that Pav, Bent and Adebayor were allquite unpopular but they are all scored goals at a decent rate for us and Pav scored some cracking goals too not many tap ins in his reel. The last 4 are a cut above for sure, but next 4 up are way above those above them on the list.
N'Jie's not a striker and Rasiak and Booth were joke signings, while Campbell was an insult, but virtually everyone else on that list is a good striker. I can't stand Bent and I've often insulted him for his lack of effort, so I'll give you that one. The rest? Either successes or understandable failures. El Hamdaoui was a punt on a youth player who got injured, but went on to have a good career. Won the league in Holland and got POTY. Sheringham, Berbatov, Keane, Defoe and Crouch were all either good or great for us. Saha, Llorente, Pavlyuchenko, Adebayor and Mido were all squad players who had some good and some bad periods. Rebrov was used wrong and paired with Sheringham a lot, when both were better playing behind a predator. Zamora flopped, but reinvented himself to succeed in the top-flight. Went from a goalscorer to a targetman. Postiga won a bunch of stuff in Portugal and a UEFA Cup, as well as scoring 27 in 71 for his country and finishing runner-up in the Euros. It's like I said to PowerSpurs. Not necessarily bad players, just not the right ones for the team. Compare it to West Ham, who haven't had a decent striker ****ing ages: https://www.planetfootball.com/quick-reads/ranking-42-forwards-signed-west-hams-gold-sullivan-era/ https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...s-david-sullivan-gold-simone-zaza-scott-hogan Their best in the Premier League have either been non-strikers or they cheated to sign them and got away with it. No idea what Bowen and Arnautovic are doing on that list, for example. Antonio's their best now and he's not one, either.
Well,after yet another poor display of players just thinking about sitting on the beach.It makes one think. In a normal season (fanwise) I would say to the fans "do the same: think of the beach and stay home!" If the players don't care,why should the fans? SAVE WATER! DRINK BEER!!!! (Nothing to do with football,but what the heck!!!!?)
Many things in the real world do. If you do not believe so, which statistical pdf(s) do you think most accurately model the success of signings by football clubs ?? Uniform ?? Pareto ?? Something else ??
Why would they follow any pattern at all? If there is one, then I'd like to see some evidence for it. The company behind the Football Manager series of games seems to have a lot of success, but they also employ an insane number of scouts. Clubs have noticed this though, so they're now in the position that they're affecting the thing that they're scouting. A bizarrely literal version of the observer effect.
