Selling players for decent money

[Fez of Mahrez]

It occurred to me a while ago that we haven't sold anyone for decent money for a long time. If you look at the teams in the top six who have been around this division for a fair bit over the last few years, a lot of them have sold players for fairly big sums during that time.

Reading (Mills, Long, Sigurdsson)

Southampton (Walcott, Bale, Oxlade-Chamberlain)

Blackpool (Adam)

Cardiff (Ramsey, Jerome, Johnson)

There are probably other good examples I've overlooked. It strikes me that this comes down to transfer policy as well as the strength of a club's youth academy. If you don't develop young players of the quality that Southampton clearly do, then you need to buy young first team players cheaply and develop them within the first team. It's difficult to do, particularly in an environment like ours where the expectations are now sky high because of the money invested and the division is a real grind.

Cardiff are a good example of a club that have kept themselves ticking over despite selling key players without always spending huge amounts on replacing them and Swansea are an example of a club that have largely kept their first team together and benefited from a group of players who know each other's game extremely well.

Whatever your opinion of players like Hobbs and Fryatt, I strongly believe that we messed up by selling them for below their worth. We also could have got more for Mattock had we sold at the right time. It will be interesting to see whether, as and when we sell him, King goes for the right price, but I'm pleased we've got more promising young players who are getting plenty of experience (Schmeichel [in goalkeeper terms], Peltier, Drinkwater, Marshall) and you could imagine going for decent money in the future.

Mandaric seemed to be insistent that he would never sell players when they were doing well (e.g. Fryatt before he signed his contract in League One) and we never got decent money for a player during his time.

I know the current thought from a lot of people is that all our players are crap and worthless, so maybe there aren't many who can envisage selling anyone for decent money at the moment.

But do you think the Thais would sell key players for decent money or will they try to cling on to anyone and everyone too, and risk selling at a lower price later on?

More importantly, I think it's vital that we have a strong and sensible transfer policy this summer - particularly that we continue to sign players like Drinkwater and Marshall who have potential sell-on value rather than shelling out £3m/£4m on the likes of Mills/Beckford. Whether it's worked this season or not (and clearly it hasn't, hence it's all very well me saying it now), this is a more sensible approach for the long-term, because there is no way you can guarantee promotion from this division even by spending huge amounts of money.

Drinkwater and Marshall seemed like the kind of players Pearson would have signed on loan before and now he's got the money to sign them permanently. When you look at Tom Cleverley's progress and Mark Davies impressing occasionally at Premier League level, then it gives a glimpse of what that type of player can achieve - with or without us.

It's all very well talking about "clearing out deadwood" (a common phrase at this time of year) but maybe it's time to start thinking about being open to selling our better players at their top-end values rather than clinging onto them, declaring them worthless and flogging them for peanuts only to see them thrive elsewhere.

Edit - worth clarifying it doesn't particularly matter what you think each player's value is at the moment or who our most saleable players are - this is about a policy over a number of years rather than something we just do this summer because it seems to have worked for Reading.

[LCFC BEAST]

Didn't Villa/Everton want King in the summer for £4 - £6 million?

[FrankieADZ]

Didn't Villa/Everton want King in the summer for £4 - £6 million?

that was paper talk i think..

[fleckneymike]

You have to have good players in order to sell them for a big fee.

[Guest Bilo]

Good post as always Fezzler, welcome back.

[foxesfan1989]

Didn't Villa/Everton want King in the summer for £4 - £6 million?

Wonder if that offer is still on the table...

[Fez of Mahrez]

You have to have good players in order to sell them for a big fee.

Don't you think we have any good players, nor any players who have been good over the past few years, nor any who could turn out to be good?

[fleckneymike]

This was the list you provided and i

n all honesty since Muzzy left we've not owned one Premier League quality player nor a player as 'good' as Cameron Jerome or Matt Mills (the only two without international honours) were for their respective clubs. The 'best' player we've lost is Stearman and he wasn't very good (and isn't a Premier League quality player).

Reading (Mills, Long, Sigurdsson)

Southampton (Walcott, Bale, Oxlade-Chamberlain)

Blackpool (Adam)

Cardiff (Ramsey, Jerome, Johnson)

[Fez of Mahrez]

This was the list you provided and i

n all honesty since Muzzy left we've not owned one Premier League quality player nor a player as 'good' as Cameron Jerome or Matt Mills (the only two without international honours) were for their respective clubs. The 'best' player we've lost is Stearman and he wasn't very good (and isn't a Premier League quality player).

Reading (Mills, Long, Sigurdsson)

Southampton (Walcott, Bale, Oxlade-Chamberlain)

Blackpool (Adam)

Cardiff (Ramsey, Jerome, Johnson)

I'd mostly agree with that and I'm not necessarily saying we've made mistakes. Maybe our recruitment needs to be better because I don't think any of those players were originally signed by those clubs for fees we couldn't afford at the time (could be wrong). And in that time we have finished 5th - perhaps that's just because it was more of a team effort rather than based around one individual more than others.

But I also don't think we've encouraged buyers at any stage (quite the opposite), so there's no telling what our best players would fetch or could have fetched in the past.

Regardless of what's happened in the past, do you agree that Drinkwater and Marshall are the kind of signings that are more likely to bring in big fees in the future than the players we signed last summer?

[Guest MattP]

Very nice post.

All I want to see is a transfer policy that is sensible whether you are buying or selling, a player is no different to any other commodity, you shouldn't sell below what you believe they are worth and you shouldn't buy for over what you believe they are worth.

We seem recently to have consistenly got this wrong and under Sven (who appeared to have an open chequebook and no remote consideration for any sensible fiscal policy) this was so out of control it would have shamed Gordon Brown's sales of the countries gold reserves.

Was the Mills in-Hobbs out trade worth £4.6million?, we all know the answer.

Fortunately we have a manager and backroom staff now who have consistently shown they are clever and shrewd in the market and won't blow money on players they don't them deem worth it, lets hope we can continue on a sensible path, getting the clubs off field running costs and expenditure down is just as important as getting it right on the field.

[hairy]

To add a twist, when was the last time a youth team product turned out to be worth much or has Premiership clubs showing an interest?

[fleckneymike]

Marshall possibly (but 6 good games don't make you a good player), Drinkwater no.

[ramadaone]

To add a twist, when was the last time a youth team product turned out to be worth much or has Premiership clubs showing an interest?

Perhaps if Pearson played people like Jeff and Hopper instead of tossers like Gallagher they might prove their worth ?

[Leicester_Numan]

Very nice post.

All I want to see is a transfer policy that is sensible whether you are buying or selling, a player is no different to any other commodity, you shouldn't sell below what you believe they are worth and you shouldn't buy for over what you believe they are worth.

We seem recently to have consistenly got this wrong and under Sven (who appeared to have an open chequebook and no remote consideration for any sensible fiscal policy) this was so out of control it would have shamed Gordon Brown's sales of the countries gold reserves.

Was the Mills in-Hobbs out trade worth £4.6million?, we all know the answer.

Fortunately we have a manager and backroom staff now who have consistently shown they are clever and shrewd in the market and won't blow money on players they don't them deem worth it, lets hope we can continue on a sensible path, getting the clubs off field running costs and expenditure down is just as important as getting it right on the field.

Well, I don't need to add anything to this thread, it's all been said.