dandeclaret wrote: ↑Sat Jun 25, 2022 8:34 pm
I feel that the new model is incredibly high risk. What percentage of "Sign Potential" signings pay off? How many yield significant growth in the money invested, either through sales, or being key players in promotion sides? How many are average, and just run at the value that they cost, and how many are below average, and don't succeed at the level they step up to? My gut feel is that the distribution is skewed to the lower end of that scale - maybe as much as 50% to be less than average, 35% average and 15% above average. That can obviously be worked in your favour, if your talent identification capabilities are very strong - there's a few clubs that are successful at this. However, even those quoted, like Brentford, probably run at a loss on this. Their financial numbers haven't looked great for a good few years.
We have just had the most successful period that any of us can remember, with results delivered far outstripping resources available, yet the club, and many fans, want to see a complete departure from that. I believe, that a strong spine, with youngsters interspersed is probably the right way forward. You don't win anything with kids, was laughed at. If Alan Hansen had said you don't win anything with kids unless they are truly exceptional, he would have been right. I don't believe that the club has the necessary contacts, scouting network, or pull to attract truly exceptional youthful players, and this mantra of picking up players for £2-5m worries me. The chances of success in that space seem very slim.
Whilst I don't disagree that it's exciting to think of the potential upside of this strategy, the realist in me says that this is high risk, and likely to end in the club wasting the platform built up over the last 7 or 8 years. losing strong players, and investing in talent that eventually looks expensive, and putting us back close to square one of the Cotterill days.
It's not like we're discarding all of our players and filling the team up with youngsters.
Hennessey with a couple of hundred premier league appearances, Lowton and Taylor with about 400 between them, Cork and Westwood with about 600, Rodriguez and Barnes with another 400 or so and then those less experienced like JBG, McNeil, Brownhill, Vydra, etc probably average out at about 100 each.
Chances are that half the team will have about 1,000 premier league appearances between them, that's a pretty experienced base to add some other promising players in.
And what's the alternative? We didn't have the option to retain the rest of that experienced spine and signing fully fledged replacements wouldn't be cheap and we wouldn't be able to sign them and the younger, Tarkowski style, players to fill the gaps in another season or two. There's no guarantee on experienced signings either, Dale Stephens, Jon Walters, Danny Drinkwater, Joe Hart, etc.
It's a risk but, unless we can find an exceptional manager that will virtually guarantee promotion to the Premier League, this is probably the time to do it.