PokerBlade
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I'll go full on poker mode here and say that every decision is a gamble; there are few certainties in life. You can spend big money on a top player and have them crash their car on the way to the training ground.
Spend a million and get another Ebbrell. All the planning in the world won't stop another Dane Whitehouse from happening (not that he was a financial gamble, but an example of how things can go so badly).
Success doesn't come from predicting the future. It comes from the aggregate of all the chance decisions you take, and if you take enough good ones the probability of success increases. Now, I assume we all remember our Bastiat, so there's two costs to consider: the price of Ched, and the opportunity cost.
On the first, papers have speculated wildly, but I'm inclined given circumstance to believe the lower end of it. It's most likely somewhere between 150k and 500k with the higher side probably on add-ons. If you put this in the context of Wednesday's signing of Rhodes, or Wolves' supposed £15m bids, this is approximately fuck all in the Championship. Ignoring wages for a moment, you could effectively sign twenty Evanses and only one needs to bottle a penalty in a semi-final to equal signing one Rhodes. Seems like a fair shot on those odds.
Secondly, we have the opportunity cost i.e. what fantastic players we could have signed for 500k instead of Evans, and whether the wages of Evans will prevent us from securing other players. Again, since the actual cost of Evans is apparently relatively low, and we've signed other players since, and the manager insists we have funds to acquire even more, there doesn't seem to be much of an opportunity cost here. It's unlikely that there are many top Championship strikers available for similar or less money that we now won't be able to acquire.
The point isn't that if Ched fails to recover the talent he once had then he was a bad signing. The point is that for a very low cost we've got the chance at a player we once gladly spent £3m on. In those terms, cost vs. potential reward, I don't see how Evans is a bad deal. It's quite possible that even if Ched is more likely to fail than succeed that he's still a very good choice.
The question to ask should be "Will we be relying on Evans success to keep us in the Championship?". Then we have some valid concerns, because the last thing I want is for us to start the season needing a player who has a significant chance of failure to do well. But we have other strikers. And possibly, according to Wilder, another to come. I won't mind if Evans doesn't recover his form or ever feature much in the side as long as we properly prepare for that outcome. I'd obviously be happier if he netted 15+ next season, but as long as the team as a whole is where we want it to be I'll be repeating my mantra about proper decision making.
Look at last season. Hussey didn't pay off. Lavery didn't feature as much as we hoped. Clarke had a poor start and missed a lot of the season through injury. But the aggregate of Wilder's decisions landed us with the form of Fleck, Lafferty, Moore, Wright, EEL, O'Connell, and Duffy that spent most of the season marching towards a hundred points.
I don't give a shit about Hussey being a waste of money in retrospect. I care about Wilder having made far more good decisions than bad. Ched will be the same.
Spend a million and get another Ebbrell. All the planning in the world won't stop another Dane Whitehouse from happening (not that he was a financial gamble, but an example of how things can go so badly).
Success doesn't come from predicting the future. It comes from the aggregate of all the chance decisions you take, and if you take enough good ones the probability of success increases. Now, I assume we all remember our Bastiat, so there's two costs to consider: the price of Ched, and the opportunity cost.
On the first, papers have speculated wildly, but I'm inclined given circumstance to believe the lower end of it. It's most likely somewhere between 150k and 500k with the higher side probably on add-ons. If you put this in the context of Wednesday's signing of Rhodes, or Wolves' supposed £15m bids, this is approximately fuck all in the Championship. Ignoring wages for a moment, you could effectively sign twenty Evanses and only one needs to bottle a penalty in a semi-final to equal signing one Rhodes. Seems like a fair shot on those odds.
Secondly, we have the opportunity cost i.e. what fantastic players we could have signed for 500k instead of Evans, and whether the wages of Evans will prevent us from securing other players. Again, since the actual cost of Evans is apparently relatively low, and we've signed other players since, and the manager insists we have funds to acquire even more, there doesn't seem to be much of an opportunity cost here. It's unlikely that there are many top Championship strikers available for similar or less money that we now won't be able to acquire.
The point isn't that if Ched fails to recover the talent he once had then he was a bad signing. The point is that for a very low cost we've got the chance at a player we once gladly spent £3m on. In those terms, cost vs. potential reward, I don't see how Evans is a bad deal. It's quite possible that even if Ched is more likely to fail than succeed that he's still a very good choice.
The question to ask should be "Will we be relying on Evans success to keep us in the Championship?". Then we have some valid concerns, because the last thing I want is for us to start the season needing a player who has a significant chance of failure to do well. But we have other strikers. And possibly, according to Wilder, another to come. I won't mind if Evans doesn't recover his form or ever feature much in the side as long as we properly prepare for that outcome. I'd obviously be happier if he netted 15+ next season, but as long as the team as a whole is where we want it to be I'll be repeating my mantra about proper decision making.
Look at last season. Hussey didn't pay off. Lavery didn't feature as much as we hoped. Clarke had a poor start and missed a lot of the season through injury. But the aggregate of Wilder's decisions landed us with the form of Fleck, Lafferty, Moore, Wright, EEL, O'Connell, and Duffy that spent most of the season marching towards a hundred points.
I don't give a shit about Hussey being a waste of money in retrospect. I care about Wilder having made far more good decisions than bad. Ched will be the same.
