Transfer Effectiveness

[jimcohen]

I wanted to assess the effectiveness of our recent transfer policy as it is so often criticised here. If we catagorise the players into the 3 types for argument sakes to start with it would help determine this. Hogan, Bree and Hourihane could be seen as regular starters, I am going on pre-season and listing them as squad players instead. This isn't what we want, its what we have. 

1. Regular starters (Johnstone, Hutton, Chester, Terry, Taylor, Adomah, Lansbury, Jedinak, Whelen, Green, Jack, Kodjia, Gabby, Elmo)

2. Squad (Steer, Bree, De Laet, Samba, Elphick, Richards, Amavi, Cissokho, Hourihane, Gardner, Bacuna, Bjarnason, Hogan, McCormack)

3. Youth/Loan (Lyden, Tishbola, Gil, RHM, Toner, Davis, O'Hare)

So from this summer, Terry, Whelen, Johnstone (who appears more than once) and Emo make the starting 11. Not bad. Only Samba was bought this period and is currently not a starter. 80% success rate but it's early days of course in terms of what our starting 11 will be and how these players will settle. Early signs are good. 

Last winter we have Johnstone, Taylor and Lansbury starting with Bjarnason, Hourihane, Hogan and Bree all very close to the starting 11 and very much part of the squad. So 57% success rate for starters, 100% success for squad. 

Overall, not bad from Bruce IMHO. 

We have Hutton as the only PL signing as a current starter alongside Jack, Gabby and Green as youth products. Thats a big clear out. 

The previous summer under RDM we signed 9 main players, out of whom Chester, Jedi, Adomah, and Kodjia were regulars and great additions, McCormack, Tish, Gollini and Elphick not so successful and RDL unlucky with injuries so excluded from this. 50% success rate. not terrible, but a fair bit of wasted money here.  

Since we got relegated we have signed 10 of our current 14 regulars. We have also signed 9 others not currently seen as a regular starters. So 52% success rate in our transfer dealings from RDM and Bruce under Championship conditions. 

In the last season in the PL, we signed 11 players, 8 of whom we have since sold, Amavi, Bunn and Richards remain. Richards has not worked out at all. Bunn is very much on the fringes now and Amavi is decent back up, maybe to be sold soon. So 1 from 11. Not great, but you do have a clear out when relegated. However from these 11, only 2 have had a decent few season since, the one for us and one after (Gueye and Sinclair) so even if we hadn't of sold them, I would argue most were failures. 

According to Transfer market the ones we sold netted us a combined loss of £12.1, so big failure there. 

Gestede signed for £7.2 sold for £6. Loss of £1.2

Ayew signed for £10.2 sold for £5. Loss of £5.2 (hard to value Taylor in this)

Veretout signed for £8.5 sold for £6. Loss of £2.5

Traore signed for £8.5 sold for £7. Loss of £1.5

Gueye signed for £7.6 sold for £7.2. Loss of £0.4

Sinclair signed for £3m sold for £3.5. Profit of £0.5

Lescott sign for £1.2. Sold for free. Loss of £1.2

Crespo signed for £0.6 sold for free. Loss of £0.6

So that is a success rate of 0%. 

I summery, since Bruce arrived, it has got a LOT better. He has had to completely charge our squad and starting 11 and done so well as I see it. He has had tight financial restrictions due to RDM's wasted transfers and the net losses we suffered from the previous summer, but brought in experience and good value. And bought in regular starters, not just squad fillers or failures. 

Time to show him some faith and backing in his transfers? I am not touching on tactics or playing style yet!  That is more for the Bruce discussion thread. This is purely on our ability to be effective in the transfer market as a club. And the stats suggest under Bruce we have got better.