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Transfers The Summer Transfer Edging Thread 2025

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PointToPatrik said:
This is of course a completely different discussion but one worth having.

The market is so fucked now that players are going for transfer fees (and wages) that they are never going to be able to live up to. Semenyo in this case is a perfectly good Premier League player. But if he is sold for 70 mil he is never going to live up to those types of expectations. Those types of players are still very much rare.

Or Solanke for a more close to home example. There are people that have labelled him a flop because he cost a lot of money. And this is in spite of him scoring 16 goals in all competitions and providing 8 assists. He's a good forward but people turn their nose up because they expect numbers that he is probably never going to provide. Not to mention that he lives in the shadow of one Harry Kane.

The point I am rambingly trying to make is that the prices paid in the current market are screwing players, clubs and fans over in some way. Shave 10-20 mil off of the Solanke fee and he would not be listed as a flop at all. But the inflation in the market has shattered what is considered reasonable.
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In Soccernomics years back, they had some fairly convincing evidence that players' performance after a move rarely justified the fee (i.e. It declined). There is no substitute for a bigger wage bill.

To your wider point, there's so much money now that we simply can't expect to buy players at good prices, other than punting on Bergvall/Vuskovic types (and Veliz is a bust for similar money). Our turnover is too big and other clubs can afford to wait us out.
 
Rebrov_Likes said:
Yeah, City had Wirtz, Cheki and him as their three favoured options for AM in that order when they could pick anyone in the world because he’s average.
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You say that like City don't randomly sign someone who isn't good enough for the 11 out of nowhere every few seasons for no reason at all, then barely play them.

Kalvin Phillips, Nathan Ake, Fabian Delph, Jack Rodwell, Scott Sinclair etc.
 
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FightingIllini said:
He chips in a fair few goals and orchestrates their counterattacks brilliantly.

The kind of player an opponent dreads seeing on the ball in a transition situation.

Those are harder to find than Elanga's and Hudson-Odoi's (and Brennan Johnson's, frankly)
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Not a complete liability defensively either. Could play deeper in a pinch or a team content sitting back. Always seems to put in a real shift.
 
TottsAmazeballs said:
This is how the bad guys win.

Just watch something else.

I agree it's not working, but we have to have something and now we know what doesn't work.
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Needs to be a bit more like F1, where there's just a flat-out cap on what you can spend on transfers and wages, and then additional revenue goes to lower ticket prices, better stadia, not gambling the financial security of the clubs etc.
 
Macch said:
Not a complete liability defensively either. Could play deeper in a pinch or a team content sitting back. Always seems to put in a real shift.
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It's a good point. Providing creativity and goal contributions in a Steve Cooper/Nuno team speaks to a more well-rounded player than doing so in a Brendan Rodgers team, with all due respect to James Maddison.

TottsAmazeballs said:
I agree it's not working
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I mean, it kind of is working. Not without its problems and maybe the imperfections of a cost cap are better than these imperfections at the end of the day, but you can't ignore that PSR has changed the way that top clubs do business and entirely averted the Saudi's doing Chelsea and City on steroids at Newcastle.

I certainly thought FFP/PSR was going to make less of an impact than it has made.
 
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