How do Chelsea do it?

charlenefan said:
Loyalty? Chelsea and Mourinho are a lot more cut-throat with their approach to their players. I'm not sure I'd want United to become a club like Chelsea and the turn around in players they have.
Click to expand...

Please elaborate on that. If that means forcing players to perform to precise standards, I'm not quite sure where and what is wrong.

Two things spring to mind about United's approach with players: 1) we may be playing on the loyalty card, but we become too sentimental with certain players with the disastrous results we have seen at times; 2) by focusing too much on British talent at a time Britain reaches an all-time low in terms of quantity and quality, we seriously handicapped ourselves while other clubs found ways to get going with foreign and cheap talents to compensate the lack of it in Britain. The moral of the story is that we have to change with times.
 
They've signed plenty of quality players they don't need anymore, we're trying to get rid of the dead wood.
 
I was going to make a thread along similar lines. we always seem to be shite at offloading our unwanted players whilst other clubs manage to make tidy profits a lot of the time.
 
Apart from Torres, Chelsea don't grossly overpay for the players that they buy. They buy them at a decent price and move them along quickly when they don't work out.
 
iamfalcao said:
They buy young hot prospects in and around europe and once they have reached a certain age if their not quite good enough, they can still sell them for very good returns.

We, on the other hand, usually buy young english talent, powell zaha recent examples. When they turn out to not be very good we have a limited market to sell them to, europe arent interested in them for example - so its lower prem teams who don't have £20-25 mill to spend perhaps.

We also hold on to them for too long, the likes of anderson and nani could have gone 2-3 seasons after we bought them for at least the money we paid id have thought, while their reptuations were still quite high?

Chelsea rejects also are still good players, Fabio for us had so many failed loan attempts that he became worthless almost where as if we had sold him straight away instead of loaning him out a few times we maybe could have got £10mill plus?? Given his twin brothers succesful career etc
Click to expand...
Good post.

Re: the bolded bit, that might not be the case for much longer. With the ridiculous TV deals the prem keeps getting, lower level English teams can afford much more than most teams in Europe. You have to wonder whether that would make our approach of focusing on English players more effective... or if it just means that there will be a lot more high quality imports instead. Probably the latter.
 
How do they do it :lol:
Football fans can be so naive sometimes. People forget that football is primarily business these days and everything revolves around money. With that understanding why is it hard to understand that a well run business, like chelsea, sell their stocks while they're on the rise?

Of course they're not going to be 100% hits with every bit of business they make, because at the end of the day, the assets that they are buying and selling are human. Humans are very unpredictable, especially in such a high demanding business.
 
They sell the players while they still have value, United keep theirs on the bench and continue to renew their contracts, whilst not playing them until their stock hit the lowest. WR10 is spot on.
 
They have the ability to buy players 'just in case', which is why they often have stars sitting on the bench/not in the squad and multiple top players in certain positions. The ones that are surplus to requirements are not under any pressure to be sold so they can drive a hard bargain. They also like harvesting up all the good youngsters for future sale.

When you come knocking on our door you know a) that player is on the decline and b) we want them off our books.
 
WR10 said:
How do they do it :lol:
Football fans can be so naive sometimes. People forget that football is primarily business these days and everything revolves around money. With that understanding why is it hard to understand that a well run business, like chelsea, sell their stocks while they're on the rise?

Of course they're not going to be 100% hits with every bit of business they make, because at the end of the day, the assets that they are buying and selling are human. Humans are very unpredictable, especially in such a high demanding business.
Click to expand...

When you ain't wanted....you ain't "on the rise".

They've done great in the market recently, their health team is amazing. Roman may not pay his players the same wages as others do anymore, but he's paying his backroom staff what they deserve I hope.
 
We are a lot more naive when it comes to selling players. I remember the season after berba was the top scorer, we let him rot on the bench for the whole season before selling him for peanuts.
 
Zen said:
When you ain't wanted....you ain't "on the rise".
Click to expand...
But that's not necessarily the case. For example, I've never read that Chelsea wanted Schürrle gone, just that Schürrle was unhappy with his role as an impact sub and wanted to leave for a club where he can play a key role. I'd argue that despite his lack of playing time in the past 18months at Chelsea, he improved individually. So they sold him with a small profit during the winter transfer window when clubs have to overpay most of the time anyway. It's the perfect selling point from Chelsea's point of view, get rid of a player, who failed to establish himself as a regular starter, before he starts to cause problems in the dressing room. Obviously there's the risk that he would have made the next step soon and when you sell players relatively early, you'll regret it from time to time, like they should in the case of de Bruyne. But so far it looks like Mourinho got most of the decisions right. If you wait until there's no risk anymore, then everyone knows that the player isn't good enough and you won't get a decent price anymore. That's what United has been doing in the past years.

I really think it's a great way of running a club. I don't believe being a sub for too long at a top club is the best way to develop into a top player. It's why I thought Bayern should have sold Shaqiri last year already. We waited too long and had an unhappy player on the books who didn't perform well anymore and whose development stalled because of it. Stupid decision.
 
Last edited:
Zen said:
When you ain't wanted....you ain't "on the rise".

They've done great in the market recently, their health team is amazing. Roman may not pay his players the same wages as others do anymore, but he's paying his backroom staff what they deserve I hope.
Click to expand...
One man's trash can always be another man's treasure
 
ghagua said:
Apart from Torres, Chelsea don't grossly overpay for the players that they buy. They buy them at a decent price and move them along quickly when they don't work out.
Click to expand...

Ramires? David Luiz? Willian?
 
Yeah, Chelsea are really good at transfers, if you highlight the good ones and completely ignore the shit ones. They're just the same as us in relation to success rates with players, its just because we are looking from the outside and the David Luiz transfer has us all baffled. But lok at these ones;

Matic sold for £6.5m, bought back for £21m (£15m loss)
Jose Bosingwa, signed for £16.5m released for free(£16.5m loss)
Marko Van Ginkel £8m
Mohammed Salah signed for £11m
Shevchenko signed for £30m, released for free (£30m loss)
Fernando Torres singed for £50m, released for free (£50m loss)
Meireles signed for £12m sold for £8m year after (4m loss)
 
I guess this plan kinda backfired on Marin and Moses actually.....
 
mckenzie79 said:
Yeah, Chelsea are really good at transfers, if you highlight the good ones and completely ignore the shit ones. They're just the same as us in relation to success rates with players, its just because we are looking from the outside and the David Luiz transfer has us all baffled. But lok at these ones;

Matic sold for £6.5m, bought back for £21m (£15m loss)
Jose Bosingwa, signed for £16.5m released for free(£16.5m loss)
Marko Van Ginkel £8m
Mohammed Salah signed for £11m
Shevchenko signed for £30m, released for free (£30m loss)
Fernando Torres singed for £50m, released for free (£50m loss)
Meireles signed for £12m sold for £8m year after (4m loss)
Click to expand...

Signing Matic back for £21m was still a good deal, he wouldn't have developed to the same extent at Chelsea and he was used as a leverage in Luiz deal which brought Luiz price down to £20m - they received £40m for Luiz from PSG so that covered Matic fee.

Van Ginkel was brought as a prospect and lost a whole season out injured. He's still only 22 and could develop, if not they'll probably close to recoup the fee. Likewise with Salah, brought as a prospect and would probably cost around £11m if they were to sell him now as well.

Bosingwa gave them 3 and a half season and was reasonably good in his position. Still, he was signed in 2009, Shevchenko in 2006 and Torres in 2011, I think people mainly talk about current Chelsea and their transfer policy, not the one that signed them (and Meireles). They're a lot better in the market now than before.

I think it's partly due to them going for quality over quantity. Players like Schurrle and Mata were not likely to fail there and came from recognized leagues, with a good reputation. Even if they failed they'd still get plenty of money for them based on their past reputation - in Mata's case he was a success at Chelsea so they managed to turn in a profit. With Luiz again it was based on speculation and reputation, he was highly rated at Benfica and was destined to be Brazil defender which inflates the price. Lukaku was one of the top prospects in Europe marked as new Drogba.
 
Sarni said:
Signing Matic back for £21m was still a good deal, he wouldn't have developed to the same extent at Chelsea and he was used as a leverage in Luiz deal which brought Luiz price down to £20m - they received £40m for Luiz from PSG so that covered Matic fee.

Van Ginkel was brought as a prospect and lost a whole season out injured. He's still only 22 and could develop, if not they'll probably close to recoup the fee. Likewise with Salah, brought as a prospect and would probably cost around £11m if they were to sell him now as well.

Bosingwa gave them 3 and a half season and was reasonably good in his position. Still, he was signed in 2009, Shevchenko in 2006 and Torres in 2011, I think people mainly talk about current Chelsea and their transfer policy, not the one that signed them (and Meireles). They're a lot better in the market now than before.

I think it's partly due to them going for quality over quantity. Players like Schurrle and Mata were not likely to fail there and came from recognized leagues, with a good reputation. Even if they failed they'd still get plenty of money for them based on their past reputation - in Mata's case he was a success at Chelsea so they managed to turn in a profit. With Luiz again it was based on speculation and reputation, he was highly rated at Benfica and was destined to be Brazil defender which inflates the price. Lukaku was one of the top prospects in Europe marked as new Drogba.
Click to expand...
Good Post! I would add that we might deal now in this way because we have to. Without FFP Torres, Shevchenko etc. probably didn't hurt that much, but with FFP signings like that would be a disaster for Chelsea.
 
Bob Loblaw said:
Ramires? David Luiz? Willian?
Click to expand...

Ramires cost £16.5m. If we were to sell him now he'd go for Schurrle/Cuadrado kind of a fee. Ancelotti wanted him in the summer, but Mourinho wasn't having it.

David Luiz cost £21m plus Matic. Matic was a young player with potential, snatched from the Polish league for peanuts year-and-a-half earlier and would never develop into a top quality midfielder had he stayed at CFC, competing for playing time with the likes of Ballack, Essien, Lampard, etc. We sold Luiz for a fortune.

Willian is an odd one. £30m is certainly a lot of money for someone, who is not a difference maker. I think Mourinho rated him quite a bit and was willing to overpay to get that particular kind of a player.
 
UweBein said:
Good Post! I would add that we might deal now in this way because we have to. Without FFP Torres, Shevchenko etc. probably didn't hurt that much, but with FFP signings like that would be a disaster for Chelsea.
Click to expand...
Yeah, getting highly rated young players (18-24) is much safer, particularly when they come with strong reputation. You probably wouldn't be able to spend £40m on a 29-year old at the moment as he'd have close to no resale value and would charge your books heavily with a need for replacement in 2-3 years anyway. The way you've constructed your deals Fabregas will be fully amortized by the time he's 31 (still plenty left in the tank), Costa will be 30 (should stick around for 2-3 extra years) and the likes of Courtois, Hazard, Zouma, Azpilicueta, Oscar and Willian will be in their mid-20s. It's a dream scenario from FFP perspective, having a full core of players who are still at their best and no cost from the fees in the books. You've balanced it out by providing a significant income over the last couple of years which tightens the loss/stretches the profit immediately (entire fee is included in period income).
 
antihenry said:
Ramires cost £16.5m. If we were to sell him now he'd go for Schurrle/Cuadrado kind of a fee. Ancelotti wanted him in the summer, but Mourinho wasn't having it.

David Luiz cost £21m plus Matic. Matic was a young player with potential, snatched from the Polish league for peanuts year-and-a-half earlier and would never develop into a top quality midfielder had he stayed at CFC, competing for playing time with the likes of Ballack, Essien, Lampard, etc. We sold Luiz for a fortune.

Willian is an odd one. £30m is certainly a lot of money for someone, who is not a difference maker. I think Mourinho rated him quite a bit and was willing to overpay to get that particular kind of a player.
Click to expand...

Slovakian actually.

You paid too much for Willian but he'll have proven to be worth the fee. Hard-working and an attacking threat, still only 26 at the moment. He will probably stick around for the next 4-5 years playing different roles which will add up to around £4.5m a season for his services or leave for £20m+ anyway.
 
Willian has been trashed by Mourinho, who has turned a classy inventive AM into a donkey.
 
Sarni said:
Slovakian actually.

You paid too much for Willian but he'll have proven to be worth the fee. Hard-working and an attacking threat, still only 26 at the moment. He will probably stick around for the next 4-5 years playing different roles which will add up to around £4.5m a season for his services or leave for £20m+ anyway.
Click to expand...

Sorry, you're right, for some reason I thought Košice was in Poland.
 
antihenry said:
Sorry, you're right, for some reason I thought Košice was in Poland.
Click to expand...

It's near the border. I think it's less than 150 km away from Kraków actually, much closer than Warsaw.
 
Willian is quality. I'd of took him at United.

I think Chelsea will be a weaker side if they take him out and put Cuadrado in his place.
 
I'd imagine FFP has made them squeeze as much as they can out of every deal. FFP doesn't affect us as keenly so moving the wages off the books and getting in some form of transfer fee probably feels like a win. We dont buy players as financial investments, our money is made elsewhere so while that situation exists we dont need to play hardball.

As others have noted we're comparing our deadwood to Chelsea's top players in their prime so its perhaps not fair comparison. Its not like we sold Ronaldo for 7 million. We do the right deal and it may be below market price generally but probably makes more sense to free up wages and squad positions overall.
 
antihenry said:
Ramires cost £16.5m. If we were to sell him now he'd go for Schurrle/Cuadrado kind of a fee. Ancelotti wanted him in the summer, but Mourinho wasn't having it.

David Luiz cost £21m plus Matic. Matic was a young player with potential, snatched from the Polish league for peanuts year-and-a-half earlier and would never develop into a top quality midfielder had he stayed at CFC, competing for playing time with the likes of Ballack, Essien, Lampard, etc. We sold Luiz for a fortune.

Willian is an odd one. £30m is certainly a lot of money for someone, who is not a difference maker. I think Mourinho rated him quite a bit and was willing to overpay to get that particular kind of a player.
Click to expand...

Ramires is touch and go I'd say. Can see the argument for him being bought at a fair price, but I don't think he was worth it. There's not a chance Ancelotti wanted him, he has a slightly better hard working, athletic but ultimately not very talented midfielder in Khedira...

On David Luiz. I don't think it's right to rate a transfer as a fair price because some club was stupid enough to pay £50m for him years later. Does that mean paying £40m for him back then would have been ok because you'd have got a £10m profit? My view is you made a poor purchase but corrected it with an outstanding sale.

peterstorey said:
Willian has been trashed by Mourinho, who has turned a classy inventive AM into a donkey.
Click to expand...

Aye. The way Chelsea fans gush over him is funny. They essentially describe his performance the same way as someone like Dirk Kuyt.
 
Bob Loblaw said:
Ramires is touch and go I'd say. Can see the argument for him being bought at a fair price, but I don't think he was worth it. There's not a chance Ancelotti wanted him, he has a slightly better hard working, athletic but ultimately not very talented midfielder in Khedira...
Click to expand...

http://www.marca.com/2014/06/07/futbol/equipos/real_madrid/1402093501.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/chelseas-ramires-transfer-target-real-4305591
http://talksport.com/football/reports-real-madrid-make-january-move-ramires-141007117672

Now all those links may be nothing but a transfer gossip, but it's not like you know better about what's going behind the scenes at Madrid. In any case, it doesn't matter. You questioned his transfer value, well, Ramires is certainly worth more money now than when he was bought.

Bob Loblaw said:
On David Luiz. I don't think it's right to rate a transfer as a fair price because some club was stupid enough to pay £50m for him years later. Does that mean paying £40m for him back then would have been ok because you'd have got a £10m profit? My view is you made a poor purchase but corrected it with an outstanding sale.
Click to expand...

We paid 21m for him. How's that a poor purchase? Even without PSG and their big pockets we were always going to at least get our money back for Luiz.
 
ricky-romeo said:
they got 10 million for Bertrand. they are obviously very good at this.
Click to expand...
If we would sell a like Bertrand for 10m Woodward and LVG would be so criticised by selling good youngsters (ok 25y old but still a prospect). When Chelsea do it it is a good deal.
Remember what this forum was like when we sold Welbeck, player who will never be good enough to be United leading striker and we got 18m for him.

Yes Chelsea did some good sales but it is not hard to sell Mata (2 times player of the year at Chelsea before sale), De Bruyne (showing class at Wolfsburg), Schurrle (important player in WC winning team), Lukaku (one of the best strikers in the league last year at the age of 20).

It is a little harder to sell Anderson (not played 90min in 6-7 years), Cleverley (not good enough for Aston Villa), Kagawa (is shit at BVB),...
 
antihenry said:
http://www.marca.com/2014/06/07/futbol/equipos/real_madrid/1402093501.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/chelseas-ramires-transfer-target-real-4305591
http://talksport.com/football/reports-real-madrid-make-january-move-ramires-141007117672

Now all those links may be nothing but a transfer gossip, but it's not like you know better about what's going behind the scenes at Madrid. In any case, it doesn't matter. You questioned his transfer value, well, Ramires is certainly worth more money now than when he was bought.
Click to expand...

Like I said, I can see the argument for him being worth what you paid. My problem is that I think you could have spent the money elsewhere and ended up much better off. Ramires is just an okay back-up with good versatility. He spent far too long as a first team regular for you.

We paid 21m for him. How's that a poor purchase? Even without PSG and their big pockets we were always going to at least get our money back for Luiz.
Click to expand...

Poor was me taking it too far. £21m plus Matic isn't very good though, even if Matic was only worth a couple of million. You need to consider what other defenders moved for back then. Without checking I know Mascherano only cost £18m back then, I don't really see how David Luiz justified that price other than being from a tough to buy from Portuguese side.
 
UweBein said:
That's just insane, but shows that Wolfsburg are up to something. I even guess they haven't given up on the title yet.
Click to expand...
Wolfsburg's overall spending this season (summer + winter transfer = €43.75m) is still only 3rd in the league though, behind Dortmund (€66.1m) and Bayern (€52.1m). Dortmund's netspend is almost twice as much as Wolfsburg's (61.3m vs 38m). Basically, Wolfsburg didn't spend a lot in the summer like Bayern, Dortmund and Leverkusen. Sebastian Jung for 2.5m was their biggest purchase then along with a 5m loan fee for Guilavogui. None of the big clubs did anything big in the winter besides Dortmund's deal for Kampl, so it's no surprise that the Schürrle transfer stands out.
 
Balu said:
Wolfsburg's overall spending this season (summer + winter transfer = €43.75m) is still only 3rd in the league though, behind Dortmund (€66.1m) and Bayern (€52.1m). Dortmund's netspend is almost twice as much as Wolfsburg's (61.3m vs 38m). Basically, Wolfsburg didn't spend a lot in the summer like Bayern, Dortmund and Leverkusen. Sebastian Jung for 2.5m was their biggest purchase then along with a 5m loan fee for Guilavogui.
Click to expand...

5m loan fee for Guilavogui (what a bastard name to spell)? Wow, he must be a lot better than he looked at Atlético in his rare appearances. I thought he was just bought to please an agent.
 
Bob Loblaw said:
5m loan fee for Guilavogui (what a bastard name to spell)? Wow, he must be a lot better than he looked at Atlético.
Click to expand...
I copied it :lol:. It's for two years as far as I know, still not cheap.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.