Our Last Decade of Signings

[brendanb50]

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.

To be fair you're right, could have included them in this year's intakes as 'Jury's Out' as we've not seen anything of them really.

 

[brendanb50]

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

I agree, in one sense, nothing lost financially but if we take Wimmer perhaps as an example (or even Bergwijn/Reggie), we signed for very little, a young player with potential did a really solid shift as a stand-in for Jan (all big positives) but then as a player sort of disappeared for us. Now that's largely down to the fact that our first choice there, JV was excellent, so very hard to suggest Wimmer should start over him overall. Nothing against him there but i balanced the volume of games played, and overall impact during his time with us and felt it was a bit more miss than anything but being a touch harsh probably.

I've noted in another reply i was looking at it more from a footballing POV which impacted a few and as noted, i opted to be harsh in a couple of uncertain instances. But if i balanced the financial gain on Wimmer for example, he'd move up to OK.

FWIW i'm usually much more of an optimist with our players so being harsh isn't my usual mode.

 

[Thenewcat]

Really interesting piece - well done. Overall agree with the majority of comments, would move Sanchez and Vorm from hit to OK, and Gazzaniga, Foyth, Stevie, Wimmer, Vinicius, Reggie and Rodon from miss to Ok. Then I’d move Ndombele to a new category if his own called epic miss due to being talented waste of space and I think I’m good

 

[SonicSarr]

Very harsh on Pape Mate Sarr.

Utterly ridiculous to say anything bad about the lad. He was loaned back, then did OK in pre-season and is one for the future. All reports on him seem positive. Conte even mentioned him at the weekend. One of the most sought after young talents and Milan want to buy him. Not a shabby cv for the last 12 months.

 

[Sophos151]

Our best signings of the last ten years are, IMO, Lloris, Vertonghen, Eriksen, Dele, Alderweireld, and Son - signed across three years from 2012 to 2015. Dembele, Dier, Davies and Dembele also joined during that time. I think that’s probably a large part of why we were so successful under Pochettino, because he reaped the benefits of our hot streak in the transfer market. Of course he brought through players like Rose and Kane, and made Dele and Dier who they are - but he definitely benefitted from having those quality players early in their careers at the club.

We could be onto a similar run now - Hojbjerg, Romero, Bentancur and Kulusevski all have the potential to make that top tier of signing IMO. Not to mention our new signings this window, most of whom I rate highly, and young players (Bryan, Sarr, Udogie) who could blossom in the coming years.

 

[brendanb50]

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

Interestingly, Sanchez has played in 181 games for us compared to Wimmer's 31. So as much as Wimmer deputised well in his time with us and we made some money on him - There's no way he's played more good games for us than Sanchez overall.

Agree on the latter point though. Decided to update for those 2 specifically (Gil & Sarr).

 

[C1w8]

Great work, enjoyed looking through this.

As others have said I think transfer fee in (and in general, the expectation for their role in the team), then output whilst here, and exit fee should definitely impact the list more.

Bale's got to be a hit for what he produced and the profit made.....and i think the red list is a bit inflated by the 2nd/3rd string keepers or similar loans that we signed for next to nothing, had a handful of appearances (that may very well have been bad) and then left....when we bring in a backup keeper for no money/on loan to make 5 appearances in games the team are evidently not motivated for, i feel like they performed not too far off par with what i would expect....vinicius also would be fair to put on the OK list.

Other than that, I know he has his fans but I would have Gil on the red list, obviously still with the opportunity to move up. The outlay we spent on him (probably c35-40mil depending on what price you put on lamela), and the fact that we didnt do the signing with an instant loan back to his club at the time e.g. Sarr or Udogie, suggests we were expecting to get more of a return than we have to date on the field.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

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 115826

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 115827

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.

Good effort with this mate.

Although Bale only ‘ok’ ??

 

[Rout-Ledge]

Good effort with this mate.

Although Bale only ‘ok’ ??

Bale was superb in 20/21 after he got his fitness up and we started playing him regularly. It took him/us a while to get there though, and it was only a year long loan so I think the transfer deal itself can be accurately described as merely ‘ok’. If we’d secured a second year it would’ve been seen as a hit signing. It was a real shame he didn’t stick around.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

Bale was superb in 20/21 after he got his fitness up and we started playing him regularly. It took him/us a while to get there though, and it was only a year long loan so I think the transfer deal itself can be accurately described as merely ‘ok’. If we’d secured a second year it would’ve been seen as a hit signing. It was a real shame he didn’t stick around.

Thought you meant first time round, fair

 

[ERO]

Why is Vorm green and the other keepers red?

 

[Rout-Ledge]

Thought you meant first time round, fair

That was a fair while longer than 10 years ago!

 

[spids]

Sanchez and Moura only Amber at best.