This isn't an FSG bashing thread nor one on individual player purchases (we all know we should have invested more at the appropriate time(s)) but more concerned with the markets we should be shopping in. Red Bird brought up a point (quoted) I thought worthy of further discussion.
Here is the spine of our CL/PL winning team. You can add maybe 30-40% to these for what they'd cost (same age) if bought today. You can argue the details but none of these would have been cheap in today's market.
VvD (26 yo) £76m world record for a defender (£100m plus based on his eminence)
Mo (25 yo) £38m (£54m)
Fabinho (24 yo) £41m (£60m)
Alisson (26 yo) £56m world record for a GK (£70-75m)
Mane (24 yo) £34m (£50m)
Firmino (24 yo) £29m (maybe £40-45m today)
Keita (22 yo) £54m club record (£70m)
Even Hendo (21 yo) cost £15-20m back in 2011, so again likely a £40-50m player if bought at that age today.
I've just seen, as I researched this, that TIA (or maybe it's from The Athletic) have some equivalents from way back :
Torres : £20.2 million deal to sign Torres from Atletico converts to a sizeable £93.4 million
Stan Collymore’s £8.5 million move from Nottingham Forest to Liverpool – a British record in 1995 – would be worth £132.9 million in today’s money.
Andy Carroll (£78.6m), Emile Heskey (£76.4m) and El Hadji Diouf (£45.2m).
Our recent purchases (below) generally seem to follow the trend above, at today's going rate for good players of £40-60m and hopefully will form the basis (alongside the more experienced or better players with at least another 3-5 years left in the team : Ali, VvD, Mo, Konate & Trent) of another team capable of challenging for the major cups :
Diaz (25 yo) £50m (even one year later I guess this would now be closer to £65-70m going by recent transfers)
Nunez (22 yo) £64m+add ons of £21m (same I guess)
Gakpo (23 yo) £50m (same)
Jota (23 yo) £40m (£55m)
Konate £36m (22 yo) (£40m+)
A not so recent failure to prove that it can still go wrong however when compared to the above it's clear that large fees generally mean a higher chance of success (for us - as I think the transfer committee generally do a very good job):
Benteke £42m (£65-70m)?
So yes there were some great buys, namely Robbo (23 yo) & Gini (25 yo) plus Milner (29 yo) + Matip (24 yo) on frees, and and we got lucky with Trent coming through the youth academy. But these are fortuitous (clever?) transfers that happen rarely, they aren't something you can base your whole transfer policy on.
If you want to compete for the PL/CL then no team is going to do that without significant investment and that's not by bargain basement hunting and hoping / praying they come good (this is what the likes of Spurs & Brighton do).
Bluebell/Binomial etc. love to give lists of young players with potential ... but that's mostly what they are, potential, with a high risk they won't develop into world/top class players at all.
If you want the spine of your team to form the basis of a PL/CL winning team then you need to be as sure as you can be they are going to be top class and that means paying for proven quality at the right age (22-25, VvD and Ali were just outside this but coming into their primes as a CB and GK).
Yeah nice story but not really true is it?
Here is the spine of our CL/PL winning team. You can add maybe 30-40% to these for what they'd cost (same age) if bought today. You can argue the details but none of these would have been cheap in today's market.
VvD (26 yo) £76m world record for a defender (£100m plus based on his eminence)
Mo (25 yo) £38m (£54m)
Fabinho (24 yo) £41m (£60m)
Alisson (26 yo) £56m world record for a GK (£70-75m)
Mane (24 yo) £34m (£50m)
Firmino (24 yo) £29m (maybe £40-45m today)
Keita (22 yo) £54m club record (£70m)
Even Hendo (21 yo) cost £15-20m back in 2011, so again likely a £40-50m player if bought at that age today.
I've just seen, as I researched this, that TIA (or maybe it's from The Athletic) have some equivalents from way back :
Torres : £20.2 million deal to sign Torres from Atletico converts to a sizeable £93.4 million
Stan Collymore’s £8.5 million move from Nottingham Forest to Liverpool – a British record in 1995 – would be worth £132.9 million in today’s money.
Andy Carroll (£78.6m), Emile Heskey (£76.4m) and El Hadji Diouf (£45.2m).
Our recent purchases (below) generally seem to follow the trend above, at today's going rate for good players of £40-60m and hopefully will form the basis (alongside the more experienced or better players with at least another 3-5 years left in the team : Ali, VvD, Mo, Konate & Trent) of another team capable of challenging for the major cups :
Diaz (25 yo) £50m (even one year later I guess this would now be closer to £65-70m going by recent transfers)
Nunez (22 yo) £64m+add ons of £21m (same I guess)
Gakpo (23 yo) £50m (same)
Jota (23 yo) £40m (£55m)
Konate £36m (22 yo) (£40m+)
A not so recent failure to prove that it can still go wrong however when compared to the above it's clear that large fees generally mean a higher chance of success (for us - as I think the transfer committee generally do a very good job):
Benteke £42m (£65-70m)?
So yes there were some great buys, namely Robbo (23 yo) & Gini (25 yo) plus Milner (29 yo) + Matip (24 yo) on frees, and and we got lucky with Trent coming through the youth academy. But these are fortuitous (clever?) transfers that happen rarely, they aren't something you can base your whole transfer policy on.
If you want to compete for the PL/CL then no team is going to do that without significant investment and that's not by bargain basement hunting and hoping / praying they come good (this is what the likes of Spurs & Brighton do).
Bluebell/Binomial etc. love to give lists of young players with potential ... but that's mostly what they are, potential, with a high risk they won't develop into world/top class players at all.
If you want the spine of your team to form the basis of a PL/CL winning team then you need to be as sure as you can be they are going to be top class and that means paying for proven quality at the right age (22-25, VvD and Ali were just outside this but coming into their primes as a CB and GK).
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