Our Last Decade of Signings

[brendanb50]

So when i saw Neville talking about this on Sky recently it made me think of our own business over this timeframe. Coincidentally it chimes with when we spent the Bale money and covers about 10 years of transfers. Thought it could make for an interesting discussion on our recruitment.

Here's what he said about United's business, for context, there are 33 players here vs. our 26.

Now here's looking out ours - This is my very subjective take on things so far and here's a couple of allowances:

New signings - Jury is out - Felt it too early to break those down amongst 10 years of context
Loan to Transfers - Tried to capture when we first brought them in rather than when we spent
Other loany business - Didn't include returning loan players or anything like that, just signings from elsewhere

So here it is:

I've tried to be overly critical on a couple and as such i expect a few pelters but will roll with those.

Another way i wanted to look at this (as i'm procrastinating in my lunch break) is what period did we sign more hits or misses.

Starting with the hits:

Seemed to have a good run of signings once Poch joined in 2014 - in these numbers i counted: Dier, Vorm (mostly for his service/deputising), Alli, Davies. Then the following year we signed: Trippier, Alderweirald & Sonny.

Interesting perhaps a similar phase of good recruitment is kicking off the Conte reign with Bentancur, Kulu & Romero from the last year.

The Misses:

It's worth noting these are much more numerous year on year but context is important. Before Poch came we had the Bale money being spent which was mixed to say the least, here i've included Chiriches, Capoue, Paulinho & Soldado.

The following years under Poch we were a bit less scattergun for a while but still some notable gambles/misses on Yedlin, Stambouli, Fazio in 14/15. Wimmer & N'Jie in 15/16. Lopez, N'Koudou, Janssen in 16/17. I feel like after this we were trying to hone some of what we had which made it a bit mixed (possibly the dawn of not signing 'squad players' and only buying if we felt they would improve the starting line-up, a bit of a miss in itself).

The standout part of the misses in my view is 19/20, the year after we didn't sign anyone. I think the wheels came off here somewhat and signalled the end of an era. Here we brought in Ndombele, Bergwijn, Lo Celso, Clarke and Fernandes on loan. My OK player for that window was Sessegnon due to the fact he's still wanted and here but arguably to date a miss as well (especially if i've called Bergwijn one). Spent a lot of money here for very, very little long-term return.

Anyway, wasted a lot of time and got a lot of pointless thoughts off my chest - so debate away if you see fit. For what it's worth, we deserve a fair bit of criticism for our misses in the above breakdowns (even if you don't think they're misses) but at least we're not United, who i'd agree with Neville have misfired and misspent far far too often.

 

[RuskyM]

Issue is we kept going for cheaper options rather than better options, which ironically kept stacking up - we'd buy Njie, Nkoudou or Janssen, whereas this summer we just bought Richarlison. Think Bergwijn definitely isn't a miss - did some important things and we sold him for a profit. Unsurprising that most of the players we bought from 2019 to the start of last year were flops given the complete mess the club was in.

Think the reality has to be that most transfers, for whatever reason, don't work out. There's just so many variables at play; even teams people think of as smart spenders (Liverpool, Leicester, Brighton) have a few duds.

 

[hughy]

I like this.

I personally think you're being a bit too generous with the hits. I'd have Sanchez, Trippier and Lucas (I think there's a bit of Ajax bias there) in the OK category, but the rest makes sense.

I think every club will have to admit that unless you get really lucky with recruitment more than half the players that you sign wont live up to expectation in one way or another. The only club who has been an exception to this in recent years has been Liverpool, who's business over the last 5 years up until the most recent transfer window has been very good (aside from the odd one like Minamino and Davies).

 

[keithtighe93]

Davinson Sanchez a hit? Come on ?

 

[Dzejkob]

I think Wimmer played more good games for us then Sanchez. Also I wouldn't put Pape Sarr and Gil on red column yet, they were bought for the future so they time may still come. Also Vinicius came here as a second striker, bench option, no one expected him to be starter, scored load in cups competition so orange column for him at least. IMHO of course

 

[Ribble]

Don't think it's particularly fair to include 2nd & 3rd choice 'keepers in the "bad" column unless they really embarrass themselves, not their fault they're stuck behind Lloris! I'd say they were all fine except probably Gollini who was a poor pick. Am I being charitable? Perhaps, but I still have flashbacks to seeing Ben Alnwick in goal against Burnley and comparatively anyone is going to be better.

I'd have Reg and Vinicius in OK, Reg started well but struggled with the system change and I doubt we'll lose money when he's sold, Vinicius did a good job scoring goals in Cup games when given the chance. Also Sarr shouldn't be on there at all IMO, he's only just arrived at the club really.

 

[EastUpperDK82]

So when i saw Neville talking about this on Sky recently it made me think of our own business over this timeframe. Coincidentally it chimes with when we spent the Bale money and covers about 10 years of transfers. Thought it could make for an interesting discussion on our recruitment.

Here's what he said about United's business, for context, there are 33 players here vs. our 26.

View attachment 115783

Now here's looking out ours - This is my very subjective take on things so far and here's a couple of allowances:

New signings - Jury is out - Felt it too early to break those down amongst 10 years of context
Loan to Transfers - Tried to capture when we first brought them in rather than when we spent
Other loany business - Didn't include returning loan players or anything like that, just signings from elsewhere

So here it is:
View attachment 115788

I've tried to be overly critical on a couple and as such i expect a few pelters but will roll with those.

Another way i wanted to look at this (as i'm procrastinating in my lunch break) is what period did we sign more hits or misses.

Starting with the hits:
View attachment 115786

Seemed to have a good run of signings once Poch joined in 2014 - in these numbers i counted: Dier, Vorm (mostly for his service/deputising), Alli, Davies. Then the following year we signed: Trippier, Alderweirald & Sonny.

Interesting perhaps a similar phase of good recruitment is kicking off the Conte reign with Bentancur, Kulu & Romero from the last year.

The Misses:
View attachment 115787

It's worth noting these are much more numerous year on year but context is important. Before Poch came we had the Bale money being spent which was mixed to say the least, here i've included Chiriches, Capoue, Paulinho & Soldado.

The following years under Poch we were a bit less scattergun for a while but still some notable gambles/misses on Yedlin, Stambouli, Fazio in 14/15. Wimmer & N'Jie in 15/16. Lopez, N'Koudou, Janssen in 16/17. I feel like after this we were trying to hone some of what we had which made it a bit mixed (possibly the dawn of not signing 'squad players' and only buying if we felt they would improve the starting line-up, a bit of a miss in itself).

The standout part of the misses in my view is 19/20, the year after we didn't sign anyone. I think the wheels came off here somewhat and signalled the end of an era. Here we brought in Ndombele, Bergwijn, Lo Celso, Clarke and Fernandes on loan. My OK player for that window was Sessegnon due to the fact he's still wanted and here but arguably to date a miss as well (especially if i've called Bergwijn one). Spent a lot of money here for very, very little long-term return.

Anyway, wasted a lot of time and got a lot of pointless thoughts off my chest - so debate away if you see fit. For what it's worth, we deserve a fair bit of criticism for our misses in the above breakdowns (even if you don't think they're misses) but at least we're not United, who i'd agree with Neville have misfired and misspent far far too often.

Nice work ? ... impressive setup to a new thread... don't agree with everything. But doesn't matter ?

 

[0v3rl0r9]

As for the signings themselves, they all need context.

If Man U signed Soldado at the same time and he turned out the way he did they could replace him at the drop of a hat. We was our most expensive signing at the time (I think?) and back then we were never in a position to just say fuck it we'll get someone else in because we were never in a position to do so. Luckily HK came through when he did and we managed to get out of that one purely by luck. Both teams would class him as terrible but Man U would not have been affected by this at all where as we were pinning all our hopes and dreams on Bobbie.

Where as Big Vinnie was only signed as a backup to HK, which he did when he was played but JM never bothered with him half the time. How can we expect to say he is a dud when he did what we asked him to even if it was less than 10 games.

Appreciate the work you've put into this

 

[brendanb50]

I like this.

I personally think you're being a bit too generous with the hits. I'd have Sanchez, Trippier and Lucas (I think there's a bit of Ajax bias there) in the OK category, but the rest makes sense.

I think every club will have to admit that unless you get really lucky with recruitment more than half the players that you sign wont live up to expectation in one way or another. The only club who has been an exception to this in recent years has been Liverpool, who's business over the last 5 years up until the most recent transfer window has been very good (aside from the odd one like Minamino and Davies).

Yeah i tried to factor a bit of their game volumes into one or two of them, all three of those likely form part of that contingent where they've played a lot of games, often as starters. Partly factored into the Aurier ranking as well (played over 100 games for us).

 

[brendanb50]

Vinicius is an interesting one. He's cropped up in a few replies already and i don't disagree with the take but my view was a little coloured by the fact that a) his goals came generally against small oppo (can't help who he's selected against to be fair) and b) while his option was quite sizeable, he didn't necessarily pull up enough trees for us even to go to the table to negotiate further as far as i'm aware. So fair points that he was signed as cover and generally did his job but i guess my take-away was that it didn't really go anywhere.

 

[brendanb50]

Reggie and Bergwijn are another two i struggled with, so opted to be harsher. We hopefully won't lose on either of them which is a massive positive but i don't think either pushed on to where we wanted them to sadly, which was behind the harsh ranking in this case but fair to say we've had worse over the years.

 

[mpickard2087]

Pretty fair effort on the whole, a few I'd change though going through the lists:

Vorm - No way he could be called a hit. Came in as backup keeper, standard mixed bag performances from a backup over the years, can be at best in the OK column.

Sanchez - I'm not as harsh on him as most (even though I was one of the few at the time who sounded caution about signing him.....), but he was bought for mega money and hasn't ever looked totally convincing and become a mainstay of the defence. He belongs in the OK list.

My most contentious I'd imagine would be bumping Sessegnon and Doherty into the MISS column as things stand. Sessegnon cost a lot and has still had less than 10 games for us where he looks like he belongs and not playing like a scared little boy. Doherty as things stand had a decent 5 games, other than that he was rubbish and/or couldn't get in the team. These two have obviously trended upwards in recent times and later down the line compiling this list would look different, but at this point I'd argue they're still very underwhelming all things considered.

As for those I'd bump from MISS to OK, Wimmer I didn't really rate and found it hilarious a lot of fans demanded he keep his place in front of Vertonghen, but he cost about 4m, had a solid enough first season when called upon, and we sold him for a very decent profit. Gazzaniga was signed as a 3rd keeper, did well enough to become the 2nd, and deputised ok even if he didn't have the class to be first choice. Hart was past it obviously, but wasn't that bad really.

Some marginals on top of that, but yeah it's about right.

 

[onthetwo]

not sure i understand whether he means the financial or footballing return (or both) on the players?
Take Reggie as an example, hed be in the 'amber' table for me if we get back roughly what we paid for him as hes been ok on the pitch and far from a disaster as an investment off it.

 

[0v3rl0r9]

not sure i understand whether he means the financial or footballing return (or both) on the players?
Take Reggie as an example, hed be in the 'amber' table for me if we get back roughly what we paid for him as hes been ok on the pitch and far from a disaster as an investment off it.

Was typing this as you posted it, what do we judge signings on. Monetary value or Footballing value?

Wimmer - bought for 4m - sold for a substantial amount more 2 seasons later.

Was he a good buy? In Footballing terms not really because he wasn't exactly great lets be honest. But he was certainly a good business buy because of the profit we made from him.

 

[Timberwolf]

Feel like you also need a 'TBC' column for players like Gil and Sarr - seems very harsh to have them down as bad signings after only a year when they are clearly long term prospects. All of this year's signings would also come under that bracket.

Also not sure a signing can be considered a dud if they barely play but are sold for a decent profit (e.g. Wimmer, Foyth), or Vinicius and Gazzanigga who basically cost nothing and did exactly what was expected of them (not much).

Regulion and Bergwijn both strike me as 'OK' signings. Neither were big successes but each had great moments and we got our money back on Stevie. Will hopefully get close to our money back on Reg too given his talent.

As others have said, Sanchez is defo more of an 'OK' signing. Same for Vorm who had some absolute howlers and maybe cost us an FA cup final place.

 

[Tucker]

Very harsh on Pape Mate Sarr.

 

[Fitchspur]

I think Wimmer played more good games for us then Sanchez. Also I wouldn't put Pape Sarr and Gil on red column yet, they were bought for the future so they time may still come. Also Vinicius came here as a second striker, bench option, no one expected him to be starter, scored load in cups competition so orange column for him at least. IMHO of course

Agree on Vinicius. He was pretty decent I thought, he did the job he was bought in to do.

 

[Trix]

Not sure you can call a player a failure signing wise when we made profit on them or even got our money back.

 

[For the love of Spurs]

Overall very good. Think harsh on a few players

Vinicius: was a loan and did well in cups for us as a backup, maybe Amber?

Bryan Gil: hard to tell yet as it appears the club may want to keep and use him.

can’t see that much I disagree with the rest.

Foyth: unluckily with Jose coming in, talented player who we got a decent fee for, think that was the clubs screw up rather than the players.

Sarr: like Bryan Gil hard to tell. Amber for me is the neutral so would leave in there.

 

[brendanb50]

not sure i understand whether he means the financial or footballing return (or both) on the players?
Take Reggie as an example, hed be in the 'amber' table for me if we get back roughly what we paid for him as hes been ok on the pitch and far from a disaster as an investment off it.

Little bit of both to be fair. For me i probably leant a bit more heavily on the footballing side:

Did they make an impact?
Did they push on for us? Establish themselves as starters?
Did they deliver on the promise they may have joined with?
Did they improve us as a team? Do a good job when called upon?
Did they actually play much?