The goal is to assess which position we have been best/worst at recruiting in, only counting players who were bought in the last 10 years - if a player was bought before 2010, they won't appear below even if they were sold during that period. Loan fees are included in the fees received. Of course, NOT buying a player also counts toward poor recruiting, and for players who are still at the club but likely to be sold in the future you'd have to estimate how much money we could bring in for them. Also, I categorized players as goalkeepers, full backs, center backs, midfielders, attacking midfielders, and strikers, you may prefer a different grouping. All the prices are in €million and sourced from www.transfermarket.com so I would take them with any measurement of salt you like.
I also didn't know where to put Ashley Young, who was signed as a winger but ended up playing about 7 years as a full back... I put him as a full back as ultimately his presence as a full-back impacted our recruitment in that area.
By Position, since 2010, we have signed the following players in each position:
(sorry I am rubbish at posting pictures, maybe someone can help?)
Note the typo: we didn’t sell Dalot for 2.5, that was meant to be the loan fee for Darmian that I forgot to remove - I’ll go back and edit this later, I think we recouped roughly 15mil for Darmian including loan fee
Observations
* The signings we have made for the wing positions can be summarized as cases if a) identifying the wrong type of player, tactics wise (Mata, Mkhitaryan), b) punts on young players that were always seen as gambles (James, Zaha, Nick Powell) and in a couple of cases c) questionable mentality/fit for the squad (Di Maria, Sanchez, Depay - who has worked on his attitude but admitted it wasn't the best during his time with us).
* The argument that we should spread our spending over several positions this summer to avoid putting all our eggs in one basket (re. Sancho) is not based on our past experience of doing so, as we have generally recruited from the middle/lower end of the market with mixed results. There doesn't seem to be any more likelihood that players signed on that end will become valued members of the squad than when spending (which is basically like saying we're similarly rubbish at buying from the low and the high end of the market, but at least with a high end purchase you only have to get rid of the one player if it doesn't work out). Also, we have sold on some of the players who cost record fees (Di Maria, Lukaku) and generally recouped our money, whereas the same is not always true of the "smart value signings" - we lost more on Schneiderlin's transfer than we did on Di Maria's, not including wages and agents' fees etc.
* Our CB position is surely the biggest failing. The most money spent, the most players still at the club, and yet very of few of them we can rely on or trust in a big game. Even the first choice pair we have now is a good one but not without its significant flaws.
* Did we really pay more for Fred than Fernandes? I guess transfermarket rounds up/estimates fees with add-on clauses etc?/
I also didn't know where to put Ashley Young, who was signed as a winger but ended up playing about 7 years as a full back... I put him as a full back as ultimately his presence as a full-back impacted our recruitment in that area.
By Position, since 2010, we have signed the following players in each position:
(sorry I am rubbish at posting pictures, maybe someone can help?)
Note the typo: we didn’t sell Dalot for 2.5, that was meant to be the loan fee for Darmian that I forgot to remove - I’ll go back and edit this later, I think we recouped roughly 15mil for Darmian including loan fee
Observations
* The signings we have made for the wing positions can be summarized as cases if a) identifying the wrong type of player, tactics wise (Mata, Mkhitaryan), b) punts on young players that were always seen as gambles (James, Zaha, Nick Powell) and in a couple of cases c) questionable mentality/fit for the squad (Di Maria, Sanchez, Depay - who has worked on his attitude but admitted it wasn't the best during his time with us).
* The argument that we should spread our spending over several positions this summer to avoid putting all our eggs in one basket (re. Sancho) is not based on our past experience of doing so, as we have generally recruited from the middle/lower end of the market with mixed results. There doesn't seem to be any more likelihood that players signed on that end will become valued members of the squad than when spending (which is basically like saying we're similarly rubbish at buying from the low and the high end of the market, but at least with a high end purchase you only have to get rid of the one player if it doesn't work out). Also, we have sold on some of the players who cost record fees (Di Maria, Lukaku) and generally recouped our money, whereas the same is not always true of the "smart value signings" - we lost more on Schneiderlin's transfer than we did on Di Maria's, not including wages and agents' fees etc.
* Our CB position is surely the biggest failing. The most money spent, the most players still at the club, and yet very of few of them we can rely on or trust in a big game. Even the first choice pair we have now is a good one but not without its significant flaws.
* Did we really pay more for Fred than Fernandes? I guess transfermarket rounds up/estimates fees with add-on clauses etc?/
Last edited:
