Our Awful Profit and Loss On Players

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hardytm2004 said:
Seeing how much money Leeds United are set to make this Summer with the imminent sales of Raphinha and Kalvin Phillips, it clearly demonstrates just how bad we got it wrong with recruitment. With the exception of a small profit on Ramsdale and making money on Brooks, every big money signing we've made has more or less gone wrong;

  • Berge (be lucky to recoup what we paid)
  • Mousset (gone for free)
  • McBurnie (probably go for free next summer)
  • Brewster (may come good but unlikely to recoup full value)
  • Luke Freeman (gone for free)
  • Callum Robinson/Oli Burke Swap (basically gone for free to Werder Bremen)

Although we went in with the right intentions of buying youth that will go on to grow in value, this clearly didn't happen and we overpaid for players that didn't have or fulfil their potential.

The profits that Leeds United will make will be reinvested into their squad and help them have a fighting chance at sustaining a premier league place, similar to clubs like Southampton before them.

Has any club that has yoyo'd between Championship and Premier League had anywhere near as bad a net spend as us over last few years?!?
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Back door Wilder to blame
 
Not sure I agree with all of this.

Freeman i genuinely think we just got unlucky with. He was v.good for QPR for a few seasons. Think he got unlucky here that fleck hit from and he got some injuries.

Moussett looked the part initially in fact very much the part but his fitness eventually took its toll.

Berge it's unclear his value but it's not like he's looking duff. He's looking decent.

Mcburnie bit like moussett looked ok initially. For the dakee
 
Not sure I agree with all of this.

Freeman i genuinely think we just got unlucky with. He was v.good for QPR for a few seasons. Think he got unlucky here that fleck hit from and he got some injuries.

Moussett looked the part initially in fact very much the part but his fitness eventually took its toll.

Berge it's unclear his value but it's not like he's looking duff. He's looking decent.

Mcburnie bit like moussett looked ok initially. For the sake of his career next season is crucial.
This lad is capable of being v.good at this level. We've played him much in a target man role but he's more akin to mcgodlrick. But whatever he had to do something next season or no one will want him.

Callum Robinson similar boat to Freeman. However did ok at West brom. But even now many of their fans don't mind seeing him go. Shame as I liked him.

Brewster jury's still out but he was starting to show a bit of his quality. Remains to be seen if he actually has it fully. But he may still do
 
It is our buying British mentality that screwed us over.
You over pay for Brits in this country. We should have found a few more foreign players who would be cheaper and better.

Be interesting to see if Hecky has a set up where our scouting system clears these shores. If he doesn’t we will never be able to mount the challenge of becoming a stable prem club.
 
Wilder did try to sign players to better us but had to settle for second best or worse due to the wages we could offer. That is not a criticism of the club / ownership, it is economic facts. He wanted amongst others Neal Maupay, Ollie Watkins, Matty Cash, Antonee Robinson.

Aston Villa and Fulham have billionaire owners are are far, far wealthier clubs that we are. Even Brighton are far wealthier than us. That is why they could blow us out of the water with wages for the above players.

As a result, he turned to the likes of McBurnie, Luke Freeman, Callum Robinson, Moussett and later on Brewster. We could afford relatively large fees but not high wages.

Unfortunately it all went tits up and McBurnie must be the worst signing in our history considering what he cost plus the wages he has received plus goals scored. Let’s hope he absolutely busts a gut with effort this coming season as he will know he is in his last year of his contract. He isn’t so daft to know that he will never receive the wages we are paying him at another club.
 
hardytm2004 said:
Seeing how much money Leeds United are set to make this Summer with the imminent sales of Raphinha and Kalvin Phillips, it clearly demonstrates just how bad we got it wrong with recruitment. With the exception of a small profit on Ramsdale and making money on Brooks, every big money signing we've made has more or less gone wrong;

  • Berge (be lucky to recoup what we paid)
  • Mousset (gone for free)
  • McBurnie (probably go for free next summer)
  • Brewster (may come good but unlikely to recoup full value)
  • Luke Freeman (gone for free)
  • Callum Robinson/Oli Burke Swap (basically gone for free to Werder Bremen)

Although we went in with the right intentions of buying youth that will go on to grow in value, this clearly didn't happen and we overpaid for players that didn't have or fulfil their potential.

The profits that Leeds United will make will be reinvested into their squad and help them have a fighting chance at sustaining a premier league place, similar to clubs like Southampton before them.

Has any club that has yoyo'd between Championship and Premier League had anywhere near as bad a net spend as us over last few years?!?
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The problem isn't so much as getting it wrong, it's the fact we continuously pay over the odds for players.

No one else would have paid that much for Brewster, for instance, it was that myopic obsession with signing a very short list of players which keeps costing us.

Look at now, eggs in one basket again by the look of it.
 
robbiez666 said:
The problem isn't so much as getting it wrong, it's the fact we continuously pay over the odds for players.

No one else would have paid that much for Brewster, for instance, it was that myopic obsession with signing a very short list of players which keeps costing us.

Look at now, eggs in one basket again by the look of it.
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The problem is also that if another club was prepared to pay that much for Brewster, he’d have probably gone there because they’d have paid him better wages. That’s why the list was very short, because there’s little point chasing after players who’ll end up going to another club who pays them more. We keep pretending there was a solution to not having enough money to compete on both transfer fees and wages. There rarely is. Three clubs always get relegated and what we do is only part of it, if our rivals can afford to spend more, then we’re at a disadvantage before we start. Then you’re hoping other clubs fuck up, like Burnley this season. If they’d stayed up, Leeds would have gone down. Our main problem is that we didn’t have enough players who could compete at that level without playing out of their skins and no player can play above themselves indefinitely. We needed to recruit more than we could afford.

I think we got a bit carried away with the first season, thinking we’d got there. We’d have probably been better spending on the infrastructure, accepting we’d probably go down and planning the best way to make sure we went back up. The truth is, we could have spent more (if we had it) and still gone down, like Norwich. We’ve had five seasons in 30 where we’ve had Pl money, many of our rivals have had many more years than that and we’ve fallen behind. Once Wilder ran out of quick fixes we were exposed and in a situation where anything that went wrong could fuck us. Things went wrong and fucked us.
 
Mag-83 said:
Wilder did try to sign players to better us but had to settle for second best or worse due to the wages we could offer. That is not a criticism of the club / ownership, it is economic facts. He wanted amongst others Neal Maupay, Ollie Watkins,...
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No, that's the wrong approach, and it always has been, but there's nothing we can do about it now.

We didn't get the likes of Maupay or Watkins because Brentford got them (and several others including O'Connell and Egan) when they were affordable - because we were old-school and didn't believe in a recruitment team.

To go back to the OP, Leeds have someone who learned at the knee of the very best (Monchi at Sevilla) and had a little experience of being a DoF in Spain before he turned up at Leeds.

All signings are punts. Our punts are in the dark, though. There isn't a single player in Europe and beyond that Leeds (just as an example) don't know about. I wonder if you could say the same for us?
 
what about the profit we made on Lundstram ?...........Oh hang on a minute !
 
Tom Bott said:
I'm not a gambling man but I would happily wager £ 100 that will never happen with the Blades, nice dream though.
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What a negative thing to say that we will never again establish ourselves in the Premier League when most of our history has been spent in the top flight.

I'm not a gambling man but facts, logic and history say you can almost guarantee sooner or later we will be an established PL club.
Might take 10 years, 20 years, 30 years.....but it will happen at some point.

So I'll bet £10,000 that we will become an establish PL club at some point in the future.
Mine is a stupid bet really because until the league ends, this bet always stays open and I'll have long gone.

Here's the logic and facts that I'm using.

Here's a list of similar or smaller clubs that us who have had consecutive season spells of at least 5 years in the PL.

Fulham 13 years
Southampton 11 years and counting
Middlesborough 11 years
Bolton Wanderers 11 years
Leicester 10 years and counting
Crystal Palace 10 years and counting
Blackburn 10 years
Stoke City 10 years
Sheff Wed 9 years
Wigan Athletic 8 years
West Brom 8 years
Swansea 7 years
Charlton 7 years
Portsmouth 7 years
Brighton 6 years and counting
AFC Bournmouth 6 years
Burnley 6 years
Derby 6 years
Watford 5 years
QPR 5 years

Our longest spell in the PL is 3 years, so what makes us so special that a club our size can't manage what any of the clubs above have achieved.
Who would have ever believed one of the smallest clubs in England Bournmouth could have lasted 6 years in the top flight.
Then you have traditional rugby town Wigan who only entered the football league in 1978-79, managing 8 consecutive seasons in the top flight.

The only biggish clubs who have an equal or worse PL consecutive season record than us are
Hull City 2 seasons
Bradford City 2 seasons
Cardiff City 1 season
Bristol City 0 season
Plymouth Argyle 0 season
 
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Sheffsteel said:
What a negative thing to say that we will never again establish ourselves in the Premier League when most of our history has been spent in the top flight.

I'm not a gambling man but facts, logic and history say you can almost guarantee sooner or later we will be an established PL club.
Might take 10 years, 20 years, 30 years.....but it will happen at some point.

So I'll bet £10,000 that we will become an establish PL club at some point in the future.
Mine is a stupid bet really because until the league ends, this bet always stays open and I'll have long gone.

Here's the logic and facts that I'm using.

Here's a list of similar or smaller clubs that us who have had consecutive season spells of at least 5 years in the PL.

Fulham 13 years
Southampton 11 years and counting
Middlesborough 11 years
Bolton Wanderers 11 years
Leicester 10 years and counting
Crystal Palace 10 years and counting
Blackburn 10 years
Stoke City 10 years
Sheff Wed 9 years
Wigan Athletic 8 years
West Brom 8 years
Swansea 7 years
Charlton 7 years
Portsmouth 7 years
Brighton 6 years and counting
AFC Bournmouth 6 years
Burnley 6 years
Derby 6 years
Watford 5 years
QPR 5 years

Our longest spell in the PL is 3 years, so what makes us so special that a club our size can't manage what any of the clubs above have achieved.
Who would have ever believed one of the smallest clubs in England Bournmouth could have lasted 6 years in the top flight.
Then you have traditional rugby town Wigan who only entered the football league in 1978-79, managing 8 consecutive seasons in the top flight.

The only biggish clubs who have an equal or worse PL consecutive season record than us are
Hull City 2 seasons
Bradford City 2 seasons
Cardiff City 1 season
Bristol City 0 season
Plymouth Argyle 0 season
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13 out of the 20 aren’t in the PL though so they’re not “established”. If they were established, they’d still be in the PL, like Arsenal, Man U, Man City, Spurs etc. The gap between PL and championship finances has grown bigger and it’s become harder for promoted clubs to even stay in the PL, never mind get to a situation where they spend the majority of seasons in the top flight. Almost impossible if you don’t have a rich benefactor for an owner.
 
BushBlade said:
13 out of the 20 aren’t in the PL though so they’re not “established”. If they were established, they’d still be in the PL, like Arsenal, Man U, Man City, Spurs etc. The gap between PL and championship finances has grown bigger and it’s become harder for promoted clubs to even stay in the PL, never mind get to a situation where they spend the majority of seasons in the top flight. Almost impossible if you don’t have a rich benefactor for an owner.
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Agree, it's more difficult now, the gap does appear to be getting bigger.

Brighton, Brentford and Crystal Palace are all smaller clubs than us and looking good to become established.
Leicester City are similar sized to us and have recently won the league and reached the group stages of the Champions League.

So relative success is very difficult but possible.
Whilst ever there's hope I'm thinking one day we can do a Leicester ha ha.
 
There’s also a different stance on this, when we went up we knew that we had a £100 million extra income so buying players wasn’t a big problem but enticing them to come to a club that was odds on favourite to go down as well as not being the highest payers in the league was going to be a struggle hence why we bought who we bought. Financially we could buy these players and once they’re paid for then we don’t need a resell transfer fee the only problem would be their wages which was partially negated by a relegation clause seemingly halving their income, things aren’t rosey but we’re not in too bad a shape and again financially its about the long term maths imo.
 
Sheffsteel said:
Agree, it's more difficult now, the gap does appear to be getting bigger.

Brighton, Brentford and Crystal Palace are all smaller clubs than us and looking good to become established.
Leicester City are similar sized to us and have recently won the league and reached the group stages of the Champions League.

So relative success is very difficult but possible.
Whilst ever there's hope I'm thinking one day we can do a Leicester ha ha.
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Palace have done very well over the last few seasons and I don’t think their current owners have invested much of their own money. They played dull football under Hodgson but sometimes you have to accept what you are as a club and realise that shit football that keeps you in the top flight can be a long term benefit, if you’re able to invest the PL income wisely.

Brighton, as I’ve posted on many occasions, have benefitted from Tony Bloom’s money. They also played dross football under Hughton and only improved when they brought in Dan Ashworth as DoF. He’s a Newcastle now so it will be interesting to see how they deal with the inevitable loss of Potter. Another good season and he’ll be getting good offers.

Brentford have done very well under Benham, who I don’t think has invested massive amounts of his own money into the playing side (I could be wrong on that but, according to the wisdom of the Bees, they have a business plan). It’s too early to consider them established. Unless all three of the promoted sides go straight back down, they’ll be in the mix.

I think we could go up and stay up for more than a couple of seasons but I’m pretty convinced that even if I live for another 30 years, I won’t see us in the PL for more than five consecutive seasons and I’m absolutely sure I’ll never see us in a position whereby no one even mentions us as relegation candidates and we rarely finish outside the top ten.
 
Sheffsteel said:
What a negative thing to say that we will never again establish ourselves in the Premier League when most of our history has been spent in the top flight.

I'm not a gambling man but facts, logic and history say you can almost guarantee sooner or later we will be an established PL club.
Might take 10 years, 20 years, 30 years.....but it will happen at some point.

So I'll bet £10,000 that we will become an establish PL club at some point in the future.
Mine is a stupid bet really because until the league ends, this bet always stays open and I'll have long gone.

Here's the logic and facts that I'm using.

Here's a list of similar or smaller clubs that us who have had consecutive season spells of at least 5 years in the PL.

Fulham 13 years
Southampton 11 years and counting
Middlesborough 11 years
Bolton Wanderers 11 years
Leicester 10 years and counting
Crystal Palace 10 years and counting
Blackburn 10 years
Stoke City 10 years
Sheff Wed 9 years
Wigan Athletic 8 years
West Brom 8 years
Swansea 7 years
Charlton 7 years
Portsmouth 7 years
Brighton 6 years and counting
AFC Bournmouth 6 years
Burnley 6 years
Derby 6 years
Watford 5 years
QPR 5 years

Our longest spell in the PL is 3 years, so what makes us so special that a club our size can't manage what any of the clubs above have achieved.
Who would have ever believed one of the smallest clubs in England Bournmouth could have lasted 6 years in the top flight.
Then you have traditional rugby town Wigan who only entered the football league in 1978-79, managing 8 consecutive seasons in the top flight.

The only biggish clubs who have an equal or worse PL consecutive season record than us are
Hull City 2 seasons
Bradford City 2 seasons
Cardiff City 1 season
Bristol City 0 season
Plymouth Argyle 0 season
Click to expand...

Being pedantic, 2 years is the longest spell in the PL
 
Davalon said:
Being pedantic, 2 years is the longest spell in the PL
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I initially thought the same but I think the PL started in 92.

So 92, 93 and then relegated at the end of the 94 season is 3 years.

EDIT: Just googled it out and the PL started Aug 92.
So you are correct, we've had 2 spells of just 2 seasons in the Premier League, which is appalling really.
No wonder when articles are done about the biggest clubs in England occasionally we don't even appear in the top 20.
 
BushBlade said:
I’m absolutely sure I’ll never see us in a position whereby no one even mentions us as relegation candidates and we rarely finish outside the top ten.
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It was coming thought under Wilder.

In our first season in the PL we were relegation favourites but what made me angry was the lazy cliches copied across from the Bassett and Warnock era.
Comments like we are a big physical side who will be dangerous at set pieces.
When the truth was we were small side. Actually when we went into the PL that was my biggest observation.
Most of the PL players are massive, muscular and exceptionally athletic.
We also used to see the comments from lazy pundits about how we'll try harder and out work every other team ha ha, as though Man City don't work hard.
and of course you'd constantly hear the cliche about Bramall Lane having a fantastic atmosphere and being one of the toughest places for any away team.

However after the first season when we finished 9th we actually won over a lot of pundits who were made to eat humble pie.
Wilder actually changed our national image into something really positive and I don' think he's had the credit he deserves on this.
Let's not forget the 3-3 draw at home to Man Utd when in the 1st half we were sublime playing them off the park with skill and quick passing.
Even Graham Souness, the commentator on Sky commented how entertaining we were and he would buy a season ticket at Bramall Lane.

We had reasonable success with Bassett and Warnock but it was down to playing direct high tempo percentage football.
However Wilders team went away to Spurs and Arsenal making them look poor, for long spells we outplayed Spurs in their own back yard.
We even went away to Man City and narrowly lost giving one of the best sides in the world football a close game.

In out 2nd season most of the pundits I heard we predicting us to easily stay up and finish lower part of mid table.
 
Sheffsteel said:
It was coming thought under Wilder.

In our first season in the PL we were relegation favourites but what made me angry was the lazy cliches copied across from the Bassett and Warnock era.
Comments like we are a big physical side who will be dangerous at set pieces.
When the truth was we were small side. Actually when we went into the PL that was my biggest observation.
Most of the PL players are massive, muscular and exceptionally athletic.
We also used to see the comments from lazy pundits about how we'll try harder and out work every other team ha ha, as though Man City don't work hard.
and of course you'd constantly hear the cliche about Bramall Lane having a fantastic atmosphere and being one of the toughest places for any away team.

However after the first season when we finished 9th we actually won over a lot of pundits who were made to eat humble pie.
Wilder actually changed our national image into something really positive and I don' think he's had the credit he deserves on this.
Let's not forget the 3-3 draw at home to Man Utd when in the 1st half we were sublime playing them off the park with skill and quick passing.
Even Graham Souness, the commentator on Sky commented how entertaining we were and he would buy a season ticket at Bramall Lane.

We had reasonable success with Bassett and Warnock but it was down to playing direct high tempo percentage football.
However Wilders team went away to Spurs and Arsenal making them look poor, for long spells we outplayed Spurs in their own back yard.
We even went away to Man City and narrowly lost giving one of the best sides in the world football a close game.

In out 2nd season most of the pundits I heard we predicting us to easily stay up and finish lower part of mid table.
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It would have been interesting to see how things would have turned out if it wasn’t for Covid. I’m still not convinced we could have sustained it over the long term, without external investment but it’s possible that a richer owner might have bought us from PA, who may have been tempted to cash in.

If we go up again, I’d like to see us invest in the team again in the first season to try to stay up for a season and ensure the extra year’s parachute payments and then, if we stayed up, start looking at properly upgrading the training facilities, tart the stadium up a bit and expand our recruitment network.

We could really do with a bit of good fortune this season, with Wilder we had three or four seasons where almost everything fell into place for us. Since then, we seem to have had nothing but bad luck. Even so, we’re still better off than we were pre-Wilder. I just feel that, if things go right for us now, we’re in a reasonable place to take advantage and benefit from it. And that’s not a cry for PA to invest money he hasn’t got, just a plea to the football gods to give us a break.
 
It’s an interesting thread, but feel it doesn’t tell the whole story re our recruitment in modern times.
The value of a transfer, and a player to the club, should not been seen in terms of can we sell them on at a profit.
Man United signed Casemiro from Real Madrid, for 70 million, and I don’t think they’ve done it so they can sell him on at a profit.
His value will be how much he contributes to the success of the team/club.
What value should be placed on the likes of
Jack O’Connell
Jake Wright
Leon Clarke
John Fleck
George Baldock
Ende Stevens
Richard Stearman
Lee Evans
Clayton Donaldson
Dean Henderson
John Egan
Martin Cranie
Ollie Norwood
David Mcgoldrick
Jack Robinson
Phil Jagielka again
Ben Osborn
Wes Foderingham
Jayden Boyle.

Not forgetting pre- Wilder
Billy Sharp
Paul Coutts
Chris Basham
Mark Duffy

And post Wilder
MGW
Anel Ahmedhodvic
Tommy Doyle
James MacAtee

Most of these signings took us from a club, going nowhere, disconnected from its fan/customer base, with dwindling attendances averaging,19,800, to the Premier league, and latterly a top Championship side, with crowds averaging 27,928 The additional revenue from gate receipts, Sky money, amounting to well over a hundred mill, should also be acknowledged, and factored into the balance sheet.
Not forgetting, for me, the most important value of all, which was/is the sheer joy and time of our lives they gave us, as supporters for most of the period on the journey to and in the Prem.And no I’m not forgetting the one bad seaso we had competing in the top flight of Europe.
Yes, some of our signings have been mistakes, but there isn’t a club, especially the successful ones that haven’t made errors in the transfer market.But, the whole,picture needs to be looked at in assessing the value of the recruitment strategy in recent years.
Our present side has good value within it, based on previous and recent acquisitions and performance, and we have a lot to be optimistic about, thanks to previous and existing management and recruitment teams.
 
I would argue Mousset more than paid back his transfer fee with his goals and assists first season.

Freeman? What did we pay for him, £3.5m? Hardly a disaster in the grand scheme of things - we spent more than £100m whilst we were in the Prem.

Berge; I think we could easily recoup what we paid for him if we wanted to sell.

Time will tell with Brewster - also worth bearing in mind that we will be nowhere near paying the full £20m for him considering it was largely add-ons.

Only McBurnie can be said to be a total disaster. We will let him go for nothing at the end of the season most likely.
 
Frank the tank said:
If you offset what we spent on players against what we earned in.TV money then we are pretty much even.
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I think it all depends on the profile of player you get.

If you spend money you expect to improve your team.

If you sell at a loss or release them for free then this is either due to one of two reasons - the player performed poorly and his market value dropped or the player spent enough time with you that he’s at an advanced age where the fee naturally drops.

In the case of Casimero, Man U see him being there in his peak or just after peak years and if he’s there for 3 years or more they’ll not be expecting much return on the fee and that’s because he’s oven ready now and will be winding down by the time he’s leaving.

It wasn’t the case with us. Most were bought at a young age, showed glimpses and left because they’d done poorly.

Mousset scored 6 goals in a purple patch. 10m wasn’t outlandish but the fact he’d not played 90 minutes for Bournemouth in about 3 years was a red flag. You shouldn’t be ending up losing a guy at 26 for nothing who you spent 10m on. Folk had so many reservations on him and his legendary fitness nobody offered a fee for him. Grateful for the 6 goals but a poor investment.

McBurnie, Freeman, Robinson, Burke in the same bucket. Bought at good young ages perhaps Freeman slightly less so, but just very poor buys for the money and poor investments.

I will add that I’m really rooting for McBurnie’s last 3 matches to signal some Lazarus type recovery which sees him get us up and stay.

But until 3 games ago you’d say all those were money wasted.

We’ll end up profiting on Ramsdale by a decent amount and he was far from convincing over the entire length of his spell. Berge is still a question mark. We may lose him at the most inopportune moment and make profit if we come across a desperate buyer, not that we welcome that now. Brewster also has a hell of a long way to go to get anywhere near what was paid for him in what seemed another ego “I’m in charge, you back me” signing.

I struggle to see anyone we recruited being cast as a success. Most didn’t make that much impact in the Championship given Billy was still top scorer by a mile.

We’d have been better spunking 100m on training facilities and not bothering!
 
Proper Blade said:
Only McBurnie can be said to be a total disaster
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Even if he scores 10/15 goals for us this season ?

His tenacity in digging the ball back off the goal line against Blackurn leading to Ndiaye's 1st goal was as good as an assist in my book.
Though you seem to have already fixed your opinion on him.
 

Old Programme seller said:
not being the highest payers in the league was going to be a struggle hence why we bought who we bought.
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As in second lowest as I recall, though your point is absolutely correct.
Though most people totally ignore the wages preferring to only see the 10/20 million transfer fees.

After all £ 2 million a year wages ( £ 38 K/week ) on a 4 year contract is only a paltry £ 8 million :oops:
 
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