Saw this transfer comparison and now I need therapy (prepare for pain)

[altodevil]

I saw this comparison while mindlessly scrolling Facebook. Yes I am aware how basic and pathetic that makes me sound.

Our top 10 most expensive signings:

A monument to how you can spend obscene amounts of money and still end up discussing whether we need another 5 or 6 signings every summer.

Exhibit B - Newcastle's top 10:

Apparently some clubs actually think about things like value, fit, and not panic buying from the current manager's previous club/league.

Of course the amazing cherry on top is that more than half of those Newcastle signings came under Ashworth. No comment necessary there.

Let's hope our top ten remains relatively stable over the next few years due to shrewd summer dealings for unearthed gems. Given Isak would be 10th on our list it should be within the realms of possibility? Am I being too positive?

 

[Oranges038]

A case study in how not to run a football club.

 

[tomaldinho1]

It also misses the one that really destroyed the wage structure as well.

 

[Frank White]

Was having a convo recently about listing are top 3 transfers post Fergie and I actually struggled to find 3 that where a complete success. Bruno was clearly number 1 but struggled 2 and 3.

The fee paid for some of that is disgusting Maguire, Antony and Hojlund particularly a joke.
Could argue some where "fair" market value with the potential they had or history but yeah there's no wonder we are where we are looking at that.

 

[Arlo]

I get what you're saying but Newcastle's transfers are all fairly recent while ours are spread out over a 10 year or so time period. Maybe a fairer comparison might be to compare what other clubs did over a similar length of time.

Side note: I've also been known to mindlessly scroll through Facebook

 

[RedDevil@84]

Now let's do Chelsea

#	Player	Age	Nat.	Season	Left	Fee
1​	Enzo Fernández	22​	Argentina	22/23	SL Benfica	€121.00m
2​	Moisés Caicedo	21​	Ecuador	23/24	Brighton & Hove Albion	€116.00m
3​	Romelu Lukaku	28​	Belgium	21/22	Inter Milan	€113.00m
4​	Wesley Fofana	21​	France	22/23	Leicester City	€80.40m
5​	Kai Havertz	21​	Germany	20/21	Bayer 04 Leverkusen	€80.00m
6​	Kepa Arrizabalaga	23​	Spain	18/19	Athletic Bilbao	€80.00m
7​	Mykhaylo Mudryk	22​	Ukraine	22/23	Shakhtar Donetsk	€70.00m
8​	Álvaro Morata	24​	Spain	17/18	Real Madrid	€66.00m
9​	Marc Cucurella	24​	Spain	22/23	Brighton & Hove Albion	€65.30m
10​	Christian Pulisic	20​	United States	18/19	Borussia Dortmund	€64.00m

 

[Revan]

I saw this comparison while mindlessly scrolling Facebook. Yes I am aware how basic and pathetic that makes me sound.

Our top 10 most expensive signings:

A monument to how you can spend obscene amounts of money and still end up discussing whether we need another 5 or 6 signings every summer.

Exhibit B - Newcastle's top 10:

Apparently some clubs actually think about things like value, fit, and not panic buying from the current manager's previous club/league.

Of course the amazing cherry on top is that more than half of those Newcastle signings came under Ashworth. No comment necessary there.

Let's hope our top ten remains relatively stable over the next few years due to shrewd summer dealings for unearthed gems. Given Isak would be 10th on our list it should be within the realms of possibility? Am I being too positive?

Absolute madness that there isn't a single good deal done there (not counting Cuenha who has not played yet). So out of our top 9 most expensive signings, we have 9 fails, with Maguire probably the best of those signings.

Pretty sure a random generator would have done better.

 

[AndySmith1990]

Yeah it's grim reading for sure. It's so bad it's difficult to believe it wasn't sabotage by a scouser

 

[FootyGirl88]

Absolute madness that there isn't a single good deal done there (not counting Cuenha who has not played yet). So out of our top 9 most expensive signings, we have 9 fails, with Maguire probably the best of those signings.

Pretty sure a random generator would have done better.

Nonsense, Pogba is by far the best of that bunch he gets so much unnecessary hate.

 

[Lentwood]

I saw this comparison while mindlessly scrolling Facebook. Yes I am aware how basic and pathetic that makes me sound.

Our top 10 most expensive signings:

A monument to how you can spend obscene amounts of money and still end up discussing whether we need another 5 or 6 signings every summer.

Exhibit B - Newcastle's top 10:

Apparently some clubs actually think about things like value, fit, and not panic buying from the current manager's previous club/league.

Of course the amazing cherry on top is that more than half of those Newcastle signings came under Ashworth. No comment necessary there.

Let's hope our top ten remains relatively stable over the next few years due to shrewd summer dealings for unearthed gems. Given Isak would be 10th on our list it should be within the realms of possibility? Am I being too positive?

Newcastle have definitely been far smarter but I will say the job is easier for them in a sense.

They're not targeting elite level players, they're probably happy enough in that category below.

All ten of those players are good players, but apart from Isak I am not convinced any of them are battering down the door to start for Arsenal, City or Liverpool.

There's also no "Newcastle tax". If you added 20% to all those Newcastle transfers, some start to look dodgy.

 

[Apokalips]

Nonsense, Pogba is by far the best of that bunch he gets so much unnecessary hate.

Exactly this, no planet that Pogba isn't by far the best signing there.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

Nonsense, Pogba is by far the best of that bunch he gets so much unnecessary hate.

Will forever be strange to me how hated he is considering he was... you know, actually a good player. No he wasn't Roy Keane + Zidane for us, but he was objectively good with moments of brilliance for the majority of his time here.

 

[OmarUnited4ever]

What a sad list, even Pogba who had good seasons and later was just injured can't be considered a success, Maguire was never good enough to be an 80m singing, and the rest are just disastrous, excluding Cunha, Lukaku and Di Maria who we recouped most of what was paid for them, Mount still has a chance to turn things around.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

Hey, at least we managed to hire the DOF responsible for most of those Newcastle signings

 

[King Azaz the Unabridged]

That table does a good job showing how we've gone from bad to downright laughable in the transfer market in the last few years.

Not a single "good" transfer in that top ten overall, but at least the older ones have a little bit in their favor: Pogba never hit the heights he should have for that fee but was generally quite good and scored in a European final. Lukaku was shocking in his second season but did a job in his first and we got most of the money back, as we did with Di Maria. Maguire is harder to spin positively, but even he looks good relatively speaking, because, coming to more recent seasons...

.... Sancho, Antony, Hojlund and Mount in consecutive years is really the kind of thing you should win an award for.

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

Pogba definitely isn't the worst performer on that list, but he showcases how we've been throwing money away without a care in the world rather than spending it with a plan. A physical specimen of a footballer with great vision but, even in Turin, he was a riddle to solve cause of his poor concentration and lack of a defensive nous (for an #8). Allegri squeezed his brain until he came up with that diamond (the one with Pirlo at the base and Vidal at its tip) to make the most of his abilities without unsettling the side. We sign him for 100 odd million, make him the centre of everything in our build-up, and then complain about him not excelling at the things he's never excelled at. Go figure... The weird/sad part is that Solskajer briefly stumbled upon a similar formula for a few games when Matic found a vein of form with Herrera/Fred beside him and Pogba playing on the left and Bruno central. What comes next? We make Bruno the centre of everything (at United, we must have one player like that), play three attackers and downgrade the midfield to McFred. Thumbs up for great squad building.

 

[Josep Dowling]

The fact Cunha has cost that much is crazy as well. City have managed to buy 2 very good players for the price we paid for Cunha. And we wonder why we keep being left behind.

 

[Garnacho Libre]

United's come down to simply bad business. The Pogba value at the time I understand - everyone else on that list was overpaid for. It's like United enter all these negotiations just desperate.

 

[Dirty Schwein]

I guess you have to also look at sales, with a final net number. Lukaku, for example, isn't as frustrating due to this.

 

[Hammondo]

Now let's do Chelsea

#	Player	Age	Nat.	Season	Left	Fee
1​	Enzo Fernández	22​	Argentina	22/23	SL Benfica	€121.00m
2​	Moisés Caicedo	21​	Ecuador	23/24	Brighton & Hove Albion	€116.00m
3​	Romelu Lukaku	28​	Belgium	21/22	Inter Milan	€113.00m
4​	Wesley Fofana	21​	France	22/23	Leicester City	€80.40m
5​	Kai Havertz	21​	Germany	20/21	Bayer 04 Leverkusen	€80.00m
6​	Kepa Arrizabalaga	23​	Spain	18/19	Athletic Bilbao	€80.00m
7​	Mykhaylo Mudryk	22​	Ukraine	22/23	Shakhtar Donetsk	€70.00m
8​	Álvaro Morata	24​	Spain	17/18	Real Madrid	€66.00m
9​	Marc Cucurella	24​	Spain	22/23	Brighton & Hove Albion	€65.30m
10​	Christian Pulisic	20​	United States	18/19	Borussia Dortmund	€64.00m

I would take theirs.

 

[Ted Lasso]

Exactly this, no planet that Pogba isn't by far the best signing there.

Di Maria, despite how his time panned out, is another top top signing that Newcastle could never had made.

We haven't been shrewd with the millions and millions spent, that's for sure. But a side by side with Newcastle isn't it. I'd rather see us against clubs with draw and stature more similar to ours. So Chelsea, Liverpool, City and Arsenal.

 

[ti vu]

I saw this comparison while mindlessly scrolling Facebook. Yes I am aware how basic and pathetic that makes me sound.

Our top 10 most expensive signings:

A monument to how you can spend obscene amounts of money and still end up discussing whether we need another 5 or 6 signings every summer.

Exhibit B - Newcastle's top 10:

Apparently some clubs actually think about things like value, fit, and not panic buying from the current manager's previous club/league.

Of course the amazing cherry on top is that more than half of those Newcastle signings came under Ashworth. No comment necessary there.

Let's hope our top ten remains relatively stable over the next few years due to shrewd summer dealings for unearthed gems. Given Isak would be 10th on our list it should be within the realms of possibility? Am I being too positive?

This severely lacks context. The Lukaku and Pogba signings were the type that with aim to challenge for PL. They did reach that level for a short while. If we’re not so much a mess all around, we can still make use of them better for CL qualification level. We however judge them with title challenging expectation thus rushing into the market for solution. Our cheaper signings are also big concern. No visions even immediate succession.

ETH era big signings were especially concerning.

Newcastle signings did propel them to CL qualifying level, but would their potential and ambition reach higher with just these signings? Or they would eventually have to fork out extra rich club tax? Liverpool had to spend dip into their pocket for Nunez. Now Wirtz would be PL record fee territory. Can’t always repeat the Salah Mane, Robertson forever without selling clubs catching on.

 

[BeforeKeanetherewasRobson]

The fact Cunha has cost that much is crazy as well. City have managed to buy 2 very good players for the price we paid for Cunha. And we wonder why we keep being left behind.

Recently signed a contract with a release clause. Doesn’t leave a lot of room for negotiation

 

[FootyGirl88]

Pogba definitely isn't the worst performer on that list, but he showcases how we've been throwing money away without a care in the world rather than spending it with a plan. A physical specimen of a footballer with great vision but, even in Turin, he was a riddle to solve cause of his poor concentration and lack of a defensive nous (for an #8). Allegri squeezed his brain until he came up with that diamond (the one with Pirlo at the base and Vidal at its tip) to make the most of his abilities without unsettling the side. We sign him for 100 odd million, make him the centre of everything in our build-up, and then complain about him not excelling at the things he's never excelled at. Go figure... The weird/sad part is that Solskajer briefly stumbled upon a similar formula for a few games when Matic found a vein of form with Herrera/Fred beside him and Pogba playing on the left and Bruno central. What comes next? We make Bruno the centre of everything (at United, we must have one player like that), play three attackers and downgrade the midfield to McFred. Thumbs up for great squad building.

And now we’re asking the same questions that we did of Pogba, who do we pair him with in a midfield two? Fascinating stuff

 

[Bertie Wooster]

Will forever be strange to me how hated he is considering he was... you know, actually a good player. No he wasn't Roy Keane + Zidane for us, but he was objectively good with moments of brilliance for the majority of his time here.

Probably a combination of having left us on a free twice, while costing £100m to buy back, and then only producing 'moments of brilliance' amidst a lot of OK stuff that felt like real underachievement for his ability and price tag.

So three transfers, all of which we've been on the wrong side of the fee, with a mix of good / OK / underachieving / poor on the pitch contribution when with us - almost all of which fell way shorter than what we'd seen at Juventus and for France.

 

[Mick1]

The fact Cunha has cost that much is crazy as well. City have managed to buy 2 very good players for the price we paid for Cunha. And we wonder why we keep being left behind.

But it really isn't. Cunha is a top class, experienced player who, without taking a "step up", would comfortably be one our best 2 players. He s also been one of the best players in the league this season, and came in with a massive reputation. He can still turn out to be a horrible buy for one reason or another, much like Mount, but the proven experience is there. We paid a fair price for a league proven top class player.
If anything, we should be glad players of that ilk/level would still come here given other better placed options.

We also bought Mazraoui, Diallo, Bruno and Dalot for the small price of 1 Jack Grealish. Selective stats mean little in this context. Especially with a new recruitment team and far less manager input in transfers, past recruitment errors should mean little.

 

[Josep Dowling]

But it really isn't. Cunha is a top class, experienced player who, without taking a "step up", would comfortably be one our best 2 players. He s also been one of the best players in the league this season, and came in with a massive reputation. He can still turn out to be a horrible buy for one reason or another, much like Mount, but the proven experience is there. We paid a fair price for a league proven top class player.
If anything, we should be glad players of that ilk/level would still come here given other better placed options.

We also bought Mazraoui, Diallo, Bruno and Dalot for the small price of 1 Jack Grealish. Selective stats mean little in this context. Especially with a new recruitment team and far less manager input in transfers, past recruitment errors should mean little.

I’ll reserve my judgment on Cunha until he plays in a United shirt. It means nothing if he did well at Wolves. There is no pressure to perform compared to United. That is why so many players fail.

 

[Bertie Wooster]

The fact Cunha has cost that much is crazy as well. City have managed to buy 2 very good players for the price we paid for Cunha. And we wonder why we keep being left behind.

Recently signed a contract with a release clause. Doesn’t leave a lot of room for negotiation

I guess the point is though that we don't have to keep making the decisions of going for the very players who'll cost a lot at that time because of circumstances like that.

If you shop smart, you get the players when they're available cheaper than others of comparative ability. And City have targeted two such players and signed them at the right time. We've signed Cunha, and are going for Mbeumo, when their price has never been higher. Same with Gyokeres if we go down that route as well.

That's something we'll need to get better at. And obviously we'll be in a better position of attracting those players when we're finishing higher up the league and have CL football. So can understand the issue this season. But even when we've been finishing 2nd and 3rd we've been paying huge fees for players rather than snapping up comparative bargains for similar standard.

 

[Ollie Derbyshire]

Will forever be strange to me how hated he is considering he was... you know, actually a good player. No he wasn't Roy Keane + Zidane for us, but he was objectively good with moments of brilliance for the majority of his time here.

Plus as usual we played him in the wrong position for the majority of his time here. Imagine him in one of the 10 spots, he’d be great I think.

We have had a bad habit of shoe horning players into positions that they don’t really fit.

 

[FootyGirl88]

Probably a combination of having left us on a free twice, while costing £100m to buy back, and then only producing 'moments of brilliance' amidst a lot of OK stuff that felt like real underachievement for his ability and price tag.

So three transfers, all of which we've been on the wrong side of the fee, with a mix of good / OK / underachieving / poor on the pitch contribution when with us - almost all of which fell way shorter than what we'd seen at Juventus and for France.

It was £89m we have never bought a player for £100m

 

[BeforeKeanetherewasRobson]

I guess the point is though that we don't have to keep making the decisions of going for the very players who'll cost a lot at that time because of circumstances like that.

If you shop smart, you get the players when they're available cheaper than others of comparative ability. And City have targeted two such players and signed them at the right time. We've signed Cunha, and are going for Mbeumo, when their price has never been higher. Same with Gyokeres if we go down that route as well.

That's something we'll need to get better at. And obviously we'll be in a better position of attracting those players when we're finishing higher up the league and have CL football. So can understand the issue this season. But even when we've been finishing 2nd and 3rd we've been paying huge fees for players rather than snapping up comparative bargains for similar standard.

I think we’ve bought a few younger players in the last year and lost some experience with players released (Eriksen, Lindelof, Evans). Maybe we want some experience to bridge the gap.. and that and ability might be worth it.

 

[Teja]

But it really isn't. Cunha is a top class, experienced player who, without taking a "step up", would comfortably be one our best 2 players. He s also been one of the best players in the league this season, and came in with a massive reputation. He can still turn out to be a horrible buy for one reason or another, much like Mount, but the proven experience is there. We paid a fair price for a league proven top class player.
If anything, we should be glad players of that ilk/level would still come here given other better placed options.

We also bought Mazraoui, Diallo, Bruno and Dalot for the small price of 1 Jack Grealish. Selective stats mean little in this context. Especially with a new recruitment team and far less manager input in transfers, past recruitment errors should mean little.

All that said, 75M EUR is superstar money and Cunha is not a superstar. If you make a mistake with that sort of money you're fecked. Many many good players move clubs in the ~40-50M EUR market. The only reason we went for Cunha is because INEOS wants a quick improvement in the club's fortunes - otherwise things could get messy with the fans, glazers etc.

The optimal way to do it (financially speaking) is to spread out bets on good players from Europe, Championship etc. in the 40-50M range with low wages, good age profile (22-23 or so). In this price range, things mostly just work (e.g., Gakpo, Diaz, Jota, Olise, Odegaard etc.) and leave enough to take more punts on some promising players in the 25-35M bracket. If things don't work, you can always move them on if they're on low wages and young enough.

Cunha and Mbeumo are borderline Sancho / Rashford levels of unshiftable if things don't work out. On top of this, their valuation is at its peak because of their goals this season. And cue the argument about xG overperformance and not being able to sustain it. Whether they sustain their goal production or not, to me it's clear that goals + assists = increased valuation and we're buying them basically at peak value.

 

[Bertie Wooster]

I think we’ve bought a few younger players in the last year and lost some experience with players released (Eriksen, Lindelof, Evans). Maybe we want some experience to bridge the gap.. and that and ability might be worth it.

Yeah, true.

As I said, I can understand it more this year. And you make a good extra point about us needing some more experienced, PL proven players at this point rather than more younger project players.

But as a general rule, it's something we definitely need to get better at - scouting well and signing players when we can get them cheaper rather than when their market value is really high. We've done that well with some recent academy age additions - Heaven, Obi, Kone, Leon. But we need to get better at doing it with first team signings as well.

 

[Leftback99]

Maguire, Lukaku and Di Maria top 3 for value for money says it all. (we sold 2 of them for decent money)

 

[TsuWave]

United has made bad transfers. Shocker.

In all seriousness this isn’t new information/conversation.

The club’s trying to move in a different direction - so we should probably try to stay off the misery porn

 

[0le]

It is worth pointing out that the Newcastle players deal with considerably less media pressure and expectations. That mental challenge of playing for a club of our size, exposure and history is often forgotten.

 

[Mick1]

Probably a combination of having left us on a free twice, while costing £100m to buy back, and then only producing 'moments of brilliance' amidst a lot of OK stuff that felt like real underachievement for his ability and price tag.

So three transfers, all of which we've been on the wrong side of the fee, with a mix of good / OK / underachieving / poor on the pitch contribution when with us - almost all of which fell way shorter than what we'd seen at Juventus and for France.

De Gea aside, ( and maybe Bruno last season when he was injured) Pogba was so much better than everyone else on the team it was tragic. I remember that one season where he was top goalscorer, top assists, top chances created, top shots....
There was a time on here where a 150 million valuation of Pogba was seen as insulting.
Post world cup Pogba was in the discussion for best midfielder on the planet. Injuries eventually cut short his stint with us, but let's not move the goalposts. Our team was soo bad. Antonio Valencia (on his last legs) and Young/ brainless Shaw, Smalling ×Jones×Rojo×Lindelof at center back, past it Matic, past it Carrick, Schneiderlin?, Fellaini, young Mctominay and in attack a past it Sanchez, kid Rashford, sulking kid Martial, Mkhtaryan?, struggling Lukaku and that was pretty much it. ( half past it Ibra for 6 months too)
It took peak Mourinho, peak Dave Saves, peak Solskjaer power of friendship, and a genuinely world class couple of seasons from Pogba to take this team from the bottom half to 2nd

The thing with us fans is we really lack common sense. We d look at Pogbas running stats and compare them to Herrera, criticising Pogba's "commitment and professionalism". Pogba had 20 kgs and about 28 cms on Herrera and was a lot less mobile.

He s also a bit of bellend and kept locking horns with Mourinho and I think we should have sold to Real like originally planned/ like Mourinho wanted but he was still an absolute baller and saying otherwise is just plain wrong.



The fact we didn't sell 2nd time was on us, since he wanted to leave for a while with offers on the table and our inability to sell players should not really come into play with respect to the objective quality of signing Pogba for 90 mil.

Anyway sorry for the rant, I'm overcompensating as one of Pogba's biggest haters when he was here. He's so much better than everyone else we have/ had for the past 12 years it's not even close.

 

[UpWithRivers]

It's worse in hindsight. At the time we bought them, everyone was wetting their pants. Its just somehow every player turns to absolute dogshit. If they actually fulfilled their potential then no one would complain so much.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

Probably a combination of having left us on a free twice, while costing £100m to buy back, and then only producing 'moments of brilliance' amidst a lot of OK stuff that felt like real underachievement for his ability and price tag.

So three transfers, all of which we've been on the wrong side of the fee, with a mix of good / OK / underachieving / poor on the pitch contribution when with us - almost all of which fell way shorter than what we'd seen at Juventus and for France.

Meh the bolded is sort of what I'm talking about though. He was genuinely good for much of his time, but because he wasn't this superhero that people expected him to be (mainly those who didn't actually watch the guy and how he played at Juventus), people just downplay his average performance and act like he was as poor as the rest of the names on that list.

I remember a time where Pogba was fecking brilliant for a stretch like 10 games straight and you still had people saying "well he's not consistent enough". It was a stigma the entire time he was hire that wasn't rooted in much truth, I assume because the haircuts/dances/agent rubbed some old school United fans the wrong way and then the media piled on top of it.

 

[Bertie Wooster]

De Gea aside, ( and maybe Bruno last season when he was injured) Pogba was so much better than everyone else on the team it was tragic. I remember that one season where he was top goalscorer, top assists, top chances created, top shots....
There was a time on here where a 150 million valuation of Pogba was seen as insulting.
Post world cup Pogba was in the discussion for best midfielder on the planet. Injuries eventually cut short his stint with us, but let's not move the goalposts. Our team was soo bad. Antonio Valencia (on his last legs) and Young/ brainless Shaw, Smalling ×Jones×Rojo×Lindelof at center back, past it Matic, past it Carrick, Schneiderlin?, Fellaini, young Mctominay and in attack a past it Sanchez, kid Rashford, sulking kid Martial, Mkhtaryan?, struggling Lukaku and that was pretty much it. ( half past it Ibra for 6 months too)
It took peak Mourinho, peak Dave Saves, peak Solskjaer power of friendship, and a genuinely world class couple of seasons from Pogba to take this team from the bottom half to 2nd

The thing with us fans is we really lack common sense. We d look at Pogbas running stats and compare them to Herrera, criticising Pogba's "commitment and professionalism". Pogba had 20 kgs and about 28 cms on Herrera and was a lot less mobile.

He s also a bit of bellend and kept locking horns with Mourinho and I think we should have sold to Real like originally planned/ like Mourinho wanted but he was still an absolute baller and saying otherwise is just plain wrong.



The fact we didn't sell 2nd time was on us, since he wanted to leave for a while with offers on the table and our inability to sell players should not really come into play with respect to the objective quality of signing Pogba for 90 mil.

Anyway sorry for the rant, I'm overcompensating as one of Pogba's biggest haters when he was here. He's so much better than everyone else we have/ had for the past 12 years it's not even close.

I'm probably overcompensating for the opposite reason!

I was a big fan of Pogba when watching him coming through the academy and was gutted when he opted to leave for free. So when we signed him back I was delighted and really hoped it went well - but by the end I felt pretty deflated by it in general, culminating in him once again leaving on a free.

I guess it was just a combination of instances like that post-Fergie. I watched a lot of international youth tournaments for years (on TV not in person), and was raving about players like Sanchez and Di Maria (plus others like Hazard) long before they signed for the likes of Arsenal and Real Madrid and achieved what they did there. So I was also delighted when we ended up signing those - and completely gutted by how it all ended up!

I guess Pogba just gets linked in with all those disappointments, even though there were spells when he delivered some very good performances and I at least got to see us win some trophies with him in the team, even if it was just for one season.