The do’s and don’ts of buying in the transfer market
As the transfer market continues experiencing continuous inflation in the Premier League, it becomes increasingly difficult for teams from other top leagues to financially compete. And because of this, they have to spend in a smarter manner in the transfer market.
Don’t buy players after World Cups or other championships; they are overvalued
Generally, the worst time to buy a player is after they’ve performed well in a major international tournament. This is mainly because the player would have been extra motivated to perform on the global stage and perform so well. However after purchasing him, the quality that the player produces afterwards is ideally a steady decline from the quality that they produced before. This can be seen with the case of James Rodriguez. After ending the World Cup as one of the standout stars, Real Madrid spent big on him, but eventually with his third season at Los Blancos fell out of favour with the current manager, Zinedine Zidane. Now, he’s been loaned out to Bayern Munich for two years, where he hopes to reach the heights that he reached at the World Cup. However, motivation isn’t the sole reason, as a cognitive bias called the “recency bias” is potentially another reason why managers buy certain players very soon after seeing them perform.
The recency bias is a bias that states that we’re more inclined to use our recent experience as the baseline for decision making and what players to buy. Fiorentino Perez and Carlo Ancelotti fell into the trap of the “recency bias” and bought James Rodriguez after the World Cup, however they’re not the only ones to have made that mistake. Former Arsenal manager, George Graham in July 1992 bought Danish midfielder John Jensen, and bought him because after seeing him score a long-range screamer, he thought and claimed that he was a “goal-scoring midfielder.” However, this wasn’t even the case, as he only ended up scoring once in 99 appearances for the Gunners and had only scored 3 goals in 69 appearances for the Danish national team.
Certain nationalities are overvalued
During the 2016 transfer window, both Manchester clubs spent big on centre halves, with City signing John Stones for £47.5m, and United signing Eric Bailly for £30m. With both players the same age and John Stones having Premier League experience, it would seem that considering Manchester City spent more, that they would be getting a better return on Stones than United were on Bailly. However, instead, Manchester United last season ended up getting a better return on Eric Bailly, having recorded higher interceptions, tackles won, and clearances, despite the fact that he played less Premier League football last season than John Stones.
And are the English the only nationality? No. Brazilians too are overvalued in the transfer market. During the 2014 summer transfer window, French outfit PSG spent big on Brazilian centre halve David Luiz for a staggering £50m. However, two seasons later, they sold him back for just £34m, with Chelsea making a £16m profit from selling him and re-buying him later on. Fast forward to the 2016 summer transfer window when there’s even more inflation in the transfer market, and Barcelona sign French defender Samuel Umtiti for £21.93m. However, on paper, Samuel Umtiti contributed more to the Lyon side than David Luiz to the Chelsea side and commited fewer defensive errors, despite costing less. But why did David Luiz cost more? Well, despite the fact that PSG made the mistake of buying him right after the World Cup, everyone has biases and people tend to associate more positive thoughts about Brazil than a place like Ivory Coast, with Brazil being the spiritual home of football and filled with great, skilful footballers, in comparison to Ivory Coast, which has encountered a civil war in this century.
Older players are overvalued
Purchasing players in their peak or players that are older are ideally very high risk transfers with yearly declining returns. At the time of writing, according to Chilean news source La Cuarta, Manchester United are looking to place a £50m bid for Chilean midfielder, Arturo Vidal. At first, you may think this is a good buy; he’s energetic, he’s strong and can get nasty when he needs to be. However, when you consider he’s currently 30 years old and at his peak, this changes the perception of the rumour completely. Why? Because right now he’s at his peak and will essentially begin his decline by the time he’s 32, meaning that by the time he’s 33 or 34 and if he’s at Manchester United then, the club would probably sell him. Despite the value that he may bring to the team for a season or two, Vidal ideally would be similar to the Robin Van Persie situation, of which he’ll be good for a maximum 2–3 seasons. When scouting or looking to buy a player at his peak, what must be considered is the player will decline soon, and it’s about whether clubs would want to pay the player high wages, but yet the player won’t perform at the same level as he used to.
Centre forwards are overvalued; goalkeepers are undervalued
Out of Manchester City, Bayern Munich, FC Barcelona, PSG, and Juventus, in the past two seasons, 3 out of the 5 sides have purchased goalkeepers for the first team, whereas all of the 5 sides had purchase strikers in the past two seasons. And you know why clubs tend to invest more money on strikers than goalkeepers? Because striker’s careers are shorter than goalkeepers. A complete striker ideally is at the top of his game for 5 years maximum, whereas a goalkeeper can play at the highest level until he’s 40, meaning that a striker at his peak is in much more demand than a goalkeeper in his peak and will therefore cost more. What makes strikers distinctive from other players in their team is their ability to create chances, score goals, and how they beat defenders, however, strikers age, they lose their pace and sharpness, whereas goalkeepers will only experience a very small decline as their careers progress. An example of this is Wayne Rooney and Manuel Neuer. Both players are the same age, however, Rooney during the 2017 summer transfer window was sold to Everton and because he’s lost his pace and sharpness, how valuable he is to a team is not as much as it was 5 years ago. Now look at Manuel Neuer. He’s Bayern Munich’s first choice goalkeeper and still remains a vital part to Bayern Munich’s success. This is why it’s best to buy strikers when they’re young, because they’ve got a significantly shorter career span in comparison to others positions on the pitch.
The best time to buy a player is when he’s in his early 20's
Why is it best to buy a player in his early 20's? Because by then, he would’ve had enough playing experience and have a market fee that doesn’t seem ridiculously high. In the case of AS Monaco, all their strikers (but one) in the first team are under the age of 30. Furthermore, following the sale of young prospects Kylian Mbappe and Guido Carrillo, AS Monaco have replaced them with the likes of 17 year old Pietro Pellegri. This is because AS Monaco know that out of these young strikers they keep developing and buying, they know that at least one of those strikers would stay with them for a extensive time and bring plenty of success.
Eliminate all prejudices possible
On February 2nd, 2018, West Ham United sacked head of recruitment Tony Henry after he stated that African players may “cause mayhem” when they are not the team and can cause problems to the team. Nevertheless, Tony Henry isn’t the only one in football that has prejudices and isn’t the only one to have made it obvious. On ESPN UK, it was revealed that Manchester United turned down the chance to sign Isco because his head is “too big” for his body, yet fast forward few years to present day, and now he’s one of the stars for Real Madrid and the Spanish team. Manchester United scouts’ prejudices are what had cost them signing a fantastic player and even the chance to win more trophies. By having such prejudices influence your judgements, clubs can potentially miss out of fantastic players and the chance to acquire a quality player for a cheap price.
Sell any player when a club offers more than his market value
In the 2000’s, Olympique Lyonnais were by far the best team in France then, and their smart transfer policies and marketing techniques allowed them to stay on top. Lyon’s CEO Jean-Michel Aulas had developed a clever way to still compete. Their method of recruiting players would be to get a group of men to debate who to sign instead of having one specialist speak. By having a group rather than individuals decide, what this means is that there are several different opinions on who to buy and more discussion and thought that goes into scouting and buying players. He recognized that if you buy undervalued players, they will win you more games, and winning more games translates to more titles. The money you receive from such success can be further invested into buying more players and the success from titles will also bring more and more fans. Furthermore, as they would win more and more titles and games, the media would be more aware of the team and its players, and because of that, more clubs would start scouting Lyon players and eventually the demand and market value of the player would rise. However, in that space of time the market value rose exponentially, the quality of the player didn’t necessarily change, and because of that, Aulas knew how Lyon maintained their edge.
Help your players relocate
One of the most important factors of how a player performs and their form is their personal life and how they’ve adapted to a new lifestyle. Because many players struggle at first to adapt to a new place with a new lifestyle, several football clubs have player relocation consultants, otherwise known as player liaison officers. The responsibilities of these officers are to make sure that the player feels at home and has a community to be around with. However, sometimes these consultants are not even required. When Manchester City signed Sergio Agüero in 2011, they made sure all the information was accessible to him was in Spanish and lived in communities similar to his culture. Furthermore, having known Pablo Zabaleta from the national team, Zabaleta also helped him adapt into his new lifestyle and as a result, he hit the ground running. How happy and well adapted a player feel at a certain place can definitely how they perform and one of the biggest factors that decide how well they perform at a club.
The transfer market will still experience continuous inflation, and the game will continue growing, as more and more people are interested in the game. However, what’s most important as more and more money flow into the game is that clubs should spend in a certain manner that maximizes returns and minimises costs.
Sources:
https://www.amazon.com/Soccernomics-England-Germany-Australia-Destined/dp/1568584814
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=W5LzsXYAAAAJ&hl=en
