Whilst previously it was mostly strikers and exciting attacking players that commanded extortionate fees, each position has undergone a silly-money transformation. Full-backs now regularly go for £50 million, following Man City’s 2017 summer spending spree. Goalkeepers were relatively underappreciated - until Liverpool spent an unprecedented £65 million on Alisson. Less than a month later, Chelsea splashed out £71 million on Spanish stopper Kepa Arrizabalaga. And now center-backs; Van Dijk for £75 million, Emeric Laporte for £57 million, and now Manchester United have made a huge £70 million bid for Leicester’s Harry Maguire…but this still falls short of Leicester’s valuation.
Basically, the world has gone a bit mad. An endless pit of TV money has been pumped into the game, and the market has not been able to cope. There’s no shortage of money, but for many clubs, there is definitely a shortage of required quality. Everyone wants to improve their squad and climb up the football ladder. So, how best to do this?
I propose, that even with the prospect of receiving hugely inflated fees, clubs should avoid selling their top players. Whilst the logic of ‘sell high, buy for less’ may seem watertight, the strategy is doomed to fail. An endless cycle of treading water, one step back and one step forward at best, or a destabilising disaster at worst. In times gone past, it was extremely difficult for clubs to say no if a bigger club with substantial financial weight came in for one of their stars. And often, it could be a great opportunity to reinvest the fee in their squad at large and improve overall. Now, the margins to do this successfully are dangerously thin.
Simply, in football you are trying to assemble the best possible team, and best possible squad possible, in order to achieve success. Using Brighton as an example, our mid/long term goal is to become an established Premier League side, to finish in the top ten semi-regularly. To achieve this, our starting XI requires improvement.
Quite extensive surgery. Maybe if we were to sell one of our stars for a big fee, that could allow us to start building works on assembling the rest of our team…
There is a definite allure to letting key players go, with the promise of a beautiful philosophy: bringing together an equally-distributed quality TEAM where you’ve reinvested intelligently, and grown as a football club. No one likes seeing players go, but in the constant clamour for progress, often fans see great benefit with selling your cash cow, and using the received magic beans to transform the team with wholesale improvements.
The risk with this is astronomical. For example, take our most highly prized asset, Lewis Dunk. There was a bit of a stir caused on Twitter when it was suggested that Albion could demand as much as £40 million. Surely he’s worth at least half as much as Harry Maguire?
Let’s imagine our fears are realised and a top-six titan comes in for Lewis for an astounding £50 million. And we’ll even ignore the fact much of his importance is found within his excellent partnership with Shane Duffy, and assume Duffy’s performances won’t drop after Dunk departs. We’d then need to replace Dunk with a defender of similar quality, and then use the remaining funds to improve other positions of need. A priority perhaps, being a striker of PL top-ten quality. Wolves have spent £30 million on Raúl Jiménez, Leicester the same on Ayoze Pérez. So £25-30 million on a forward.
However, the risk is there all the time. Everton spent £27 million on Cenk Tosun, who’s time at Goodison appears to be up already. Palace paid a massive £32.5 million for Benteke (snigger). In this market, it is extremely easy to waste. And the key factor is, in this scenario, we are sacrificing, or at best risking, an area of the pitch where we are happy with our options. Even if the forward we brought in was a success, what is to say the defender we bring in to replace Dunk wouldn’t struggle? One step forward, one step back.
Additionally, if we took £50 million for Lewis, and he flopped at his new club, that doesn’t necessarily reflect the deal as a positive outcome for us - as presuming your primary goal is to win football matches and be as successful as possible, it is only his contribution to our achievement that is relevant.
There are a few more intricate factors to consider when considering transfer strategy - namely the knock-on effects of a player either staying or going, and the circumstances surrounding the player’s attitude towards a transfer. Refusing to sell your top stars runs into complications when said player demands a move, and becomes problematic for the squad. Equally, part of a coherent transfer strategy must include being aware and proactive regarding player’s contracts. It is unsustainable to allow high-value assets to leave for nothing, and so if a financially viable contract cannot be agreed (where a player is asking for too much money) then it is likely more prudent to sell with a year or two remaining on their contract.
In addition, changes made to the club’s financial structure in order to keep a player must be taken into account. If a player demands a significant pay rise in order to keep them at the club, and other prominent players ask to be paid the same, then this can prompt a dangerous culture at the club in which an overbearing desire for stability, and indeed a fear of transfer failure, means that wages can escalate and the financial setup of the club can become unsustainable. With this in mind, clubs have to ensure they provide a good environment for players, demonstrate ambition to keep them happy, and most importantly, know when to say ‘no’ with regard to excessive wage demands.
So what should clubs like ours do? Preserving PL status is paramount to the strategy, as without the broadcast income ( Albion received £102.7 million last season) then you are no longer in a position to spend any significant money, and are therefore priced out of the obscenely inflated market. But while you are a member of the coveted Premier League cash-club, every team is handsomely compensated for the last minute scheduling and inconvenience felt by fans, and as such are able to splash the cash with relative freedom. Many club's borrow the money (In Albion's case, from Barclays) and then pay it back as and when it is received over the season. This therefore allows this freedom to spend and improve the squad at the club's discretion.
I mean, it hasn’t quite sunk in yet. Last summer, Brighton and Hove Albion spent SEVENTEEN MILLION POUNDS on one player. And then £15 million on another the same transfer window. Unreal scenes.
Premier League clubs are rich beyond their fan’s wildest dreams. Thus excluding precarious contract situations, or instances where the player is demanding a move, it is surely best to hold on to players who are good enough, and continually look to improve by spending the vast broadcasting income and looking to your academy. Unless you have an established academy culture at your club however, it is impossible to rely heavily on academy production to ‘replace’ transfer dealings. But get it right and you’ll hold the cards in a hugely competitive and cut-throat asset market.
Inevitably, there will always be times when selling your top player(s) is the best course of action. But given clubs are dealing with a market near impossible to negotiate, where getting value for money is a hard task, selling players that are safe bets with the vague promise of overall improvement should not be jumped upon so readily.
When looking to achieve what we want as a club, maybe the Albion are 6/11 with our starting eleven, and who knows where looking at the squad as a whole. But I’d much rather bet on the steady equation of ‘XI + 1’ year on year, rather than an uncertain ‘XI -1 + ?’
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