Player Valuations in the Current Market

Viggers

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1. £100m is NOT the value of elite level players like Neymar and Bale. Those players would be worth at least double that.
2. £100m is NOT a crazy amount of money for a team with our resources.
3. The Glazers are tight as hell, Woodward is a former investment banker - any money we decide to spend will have been risk assessed thoroughly and we will be close to certain that that expenditure will lead to a profit.


Please leave the Pogba thread alone...
 
4. The caf might be the wrong place to talk logic
5. TBF after his Euro performance people might not be entirely convinced about his quality or his price tag.

Leave Britney alone...

Am I doing this right?
 
Mourinho is supposed to be tight as hell in the transfer market too, so don't just single out the Glazers and Woodward. Tight is good. It's also called prudence.

I'm not convinced Pogba is worth £100m. The problem is there are so few quality midfielders available. Two years ago, Kroos cost between €25 million and €30 million. I prefer prudence and long-term planning to panic measures.
 
Regardless if the value of transfers have changed, for me Pogba is not £100m worth.

A fair price in this market for him is £60-70m in my opinion.

Considering his euro's and that there are no other bidders for him, I think we should put in a £80m bid in tops and convince Pogba to make his move.
 
Raees said:
Regardless if the value of transfers have changed, for me Pogba is not £100m worth.

A fair price in this market for him is £60-70m in my opinion.

Considering his euro's and that there are no other bidders for him, I think we should put in a £80m bid in tops and convince Pogba to make his move.
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What does anyone gain from saving 20 million pounds?? Dish out 150 million. Just get him in!
 
shamans said:
What does anyone gain from saving 20 million pounds?? Dish out 150 million. Just get him in!
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As a fan you do gain because that 20 million could then be put in for another bid for another player.

I.e. if you can get two world class players for 80m each, why would you spend 120m on a player who is not guaranteed to be worth that money and only leaves you with 40 million to buy a Troy Deeney.

We have alot of money granted, but that doesn't mean we should spend it recklessly.. nor should we do a Wenger and hold on to it. Just saying, instead of blowing it on a signing which is not worth that much and not a 100% guaranteed success, spend big moolah on two signings of the same calibre.

PS if Pogba signs for 110m, I'll be ******* with the best of them. Just pretending to be sensible.
 
I agree. It tells a lot that bids for top players are now routinely rejected. Having the best players under contract is worth more than money.

~20% of your income is not that high to spend on a player, it happens all the time but strangely not for the biggest clubs. It must be the mental block of spending 100m on a player not in the best 3 in the world.

Around 2000 players were regularly traded for ~€35m and that was about 50% of a big club's income at the time.
 
BBRBB said:
I agree. It tells a lot that bids for top players are now routinely rejected. Having the best players under contract is worth more than money.

~20% of your income is not that high to spend on a player, it happens all the time but strangely not for the biggest clubs. It must be the mental block of spending 100m on a player not in the best 3 in the world.

Around 2000 players were regularly traded for ~€35m and that was about 50% of a big club's income at the time.
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Pretty much. The overall quality level of footballers at the very highest level is extremely high, probably higher than it has ever been. The very few players who are genuinely a cut above the rest and among the top 5-10 in the world, those who win you matches, and trophies, are so few and far between that no matter the price, selling isn't worth it.
 
First rule: if he's English slap 20m in the fee.
If he can pass 30m
Seriously though, it's hard to evaluate players atm, because it seems like prices have just increased and it's not that easy to make suitable comparisons yet or be sure about certain trends.
 
Clearly the term 'opportunity cost' needs a wiki-ing. As does the concept of Revenue versus EBITDA versus cash.

We'll make c. 500m of revenue in the upcoming season. Wahey, 5 Pogba's get er done 'Ed! But obviously we incur some costs. Actually, we incur lots of costs. So much so that we've only made a profit in 3 of the last 7 seasons (losing money in the others) and in only one of those was our profit > 15m.

For Manchester United to spend 100m on a single player would essentially cull our cash reserves. Which we've spent a very long time building up. And even with the new deal, given what we've already spent and historical precedent, we would be doing absolute miracles to make around 20m profit this upcoming season.

Ie, we'd need around 4/5 seasons of profit to just pay for 1 Paul Pogba.

100m has been made to sound like some small number by people that actually look at the press stories and believe them. It is not. It is an enormous number, and one that almost no team can afford to risk on one player. Especially no team that has to actually make money to survive.

People forget that we have to make money to remain a going concern, unless the Glazers are going to suddenly decide to put money instead of taking it out. 100m is years and years of a sensibly run business' cash reserves. On Paul Pogba? Madness.
 
Beachryan said:
Clearly the term 'opportunity cost' needs a wiki-ing. As does the concept of Revenue versus EBITDA versus cash.

We'll make c. 500m of revenue in the upcoming season. Wahey, 5 Pogba's get er done 'Ed! But obviously we incur some costs. Actually, we incur lots of costs. So much so that we've only made a profit in 3 of the last 7 seasons (losing money in the others) and in only one of those was our profit > 15m.

For Manchester United to spend 100m on a single player would essentially cull our cash reserves. Which we've spent a very long time building up. And even with the new deal, given what we've already spent and historical precedent, we would be doing absolute miracles to make around 20m profit this upcoming season.

Ie, we'd need around 4/5 seasons of profit to just pay for 1 Paul Pogba.

100m has been made to sound like some small number by people that actually look at the press stories and believe them. It is not. It is an enormous number, and one that almost no team can afford to risk on one player. Especially no team that has to actually make money to survive.

People forget that we have to make money to remain a going concern, unless the Glazers are going to suddenly decide to put money instead of taking it out. 100m is years and years of a sensibly run business' cash reserves. On Paul Pogba? Madness.
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All very good points - however those costs that have seen us make very small profit surely include our expenditure on player transfers which has been £100m + for at least the last 3 consecutive seasons (maybe more this is off the top of my head). This suggests that we are going to be spending the money anyway. We could for instance spend nothing on player transfers next season and make £150m profit?

Additionally, as I said in OP - neither Woodward or the Glazers are likely to spend any money on anything that could be described as 'Madness'. There are a fair few sticks with which to beat old Ed, but surely you trust him to not run us into the ground financially?
 
The transfer window has gone to shit.
 
Viggers said:
All very good points - however those costs that have seen us make very small profit surely include our expenditure on player transfers which has been £100m + for at least the last 3 consecutive seasons (maybe more this is off the top of my head). This suggests that we are going to be spending the money anyway. We could for instance spend nothing on player transfers next season and make £150m profit?

Additionally, as I said in OP - neither Woodward or the Glazers are likely to spend any money on anything that could be described as 'Madness'. There are a fair few sticks with which to beat old Ed, but surely you trust him to not run us into the ground financially?
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Point 1: It's key to look at cash again. The way deals are structured makes it kind of hard (e.g. Ronaldo fee was upfront, many other deals go across multiple years) but keeping it simple, the last few years have gone:

10/11: Spent 27m, Sold 14m, Net 13m
11/12: Spent 53m, Sold 15m, Net 38m
12/13: Spent 63m, Sold 12m, Net 51m
13/14: Spent 68m, Sold 1m, Net 67m
14/15: Spent 145m, Sold 41m, Net 104m (Obviously this is the execeptional, post-Fergie panic)
15/16: Spent 103m, Sold 75m, Net 28m
16/17: Spent 60m so far, Sold 0m, Net?

Key being the net values. We average under 50m net a season, with the obvious outlier of the Di Maria summer. That's still a huge net spend on transfers - more than any other non-sugar daddy club in the league. Ie, it's still loads.

This summer we've already spent 60m ish, and a 100m on top...we'd need some enormous sales to do it imo.

To Point 2: Do I trust Ed not to run us into the ground? Absolutely not. His biggest spending summer got us nowhere in the league, and his inability to make a call on LVG is costing us around 30m a season again this upcoming year.
 
I agree. The Premier League TV deal and the emergence of China on top of all the oil money, etc already in the game has made prices go crazy this summer.

We are almost at the point where "money is no object" for a club like ours.
 
Mark Pawelek said:
Mourinho is supposed to be tight as hell in the transfer market too, so don't just single out the Glazers and Woodward. Tight is good. It's also called prudence.

I'm not convinced Pogba is worth £100m. The problem is there are so few quality midfielders available. Two years ago, Kroos cost between €25 million and €30 million. I prefer prudence and long-term planning to panic measures.
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You know what happens 2 years ago? We got rid of a loser who destroyed us. No CL, then got a coach who doesn't rate Kroos as well as Kroos doesn't like that coach neither. When someone who doesn't want to come, fee is not the issue any more. And last but not least, it was 2 years ago.
 
This is the FIFPro 2015 World XI and their current ages in brackets

Neuer (30)
Alves (33), Ramos (30), Thiago Silva (31), Marcelo (28)
Iniesta (32), Modric (30), Pogba (23)
Messi (29), Ronaldo (31), Neymar (24)

With the exception of Neymar, everyone else on that list is at least 5 years older than Pogba and in the attacking six Iniesta is 9 years older than Pogba. He's already been voted as one of the best 11 players in the world by 40,000 other professionals and is the youngest player on that list. Going by an average top player's trajectory, he's probably got another 7 or 8 years as an absolutely world class player and then still three more years of still being one of the best players in whichever league he's in, if not in Europe. For rich teams with Champions League winning ambitions, only the very best players will do and £100m for a projected 8 year period of being world class actually works out at quite an easy £12.5m per year. If you buy Modric at 30, £100m it makes way less sense because you've got way less time to get the value out of him to repay your outlay but for the world's best 23 year old, it's been the going rate since Ronaldo and Bale made their moves.

As for whether or not a club should pay that much money, if you look at the amortised cost, £12.5m + wages is easily affordable for a club who turnover almost half a billion pounds per year. Heck even £100m up front isn't even too much of a stretch for a club making that much money and then you've got Pogba with only wages to pay from then on.
 
Our income is high due to our fame and that is due to our success. Without success both will inevitably drop. The club is desperate to bring back success and is taking some risks (hiring Mourinho after his last season) and buying Pogba is a reflection of that. If it gets us back into the CL (still an important revenue source with big impact on sponsorship deals) and even back to Premiership champions then it will be a risk worth taking.
 
Viggers said:
3. The Glazers are tight as hell, Woodward is a former investment banker - any money we decide to spend will have been risk assessed thoroughly and we will be close to certain that that expenditure will lead to a profit.
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So Fellaini and Rojo for example will be profitable signings in the end? Or Rooney's new contract? Or Moyes signing for 6 years? Or Di Maria, on whom we lost around 16 mil (and I'm not even talking about his wages). And it's not like those are the only examples.

Pogba is different - he is a genuinely top player (only Di Maria fits in that category) and he is very marketable and young. But Woodward was absolutely awful at risk assessment so far
 
harms said:
So Fellaini and Rojo for example will be profitable signings in the end? Or Rooney's new contract? Or Moyes signing for 6 years? Or Di Maria, on whom we lost around 16 mil (and I'm not even talking about his wages). And it's not like those are the only examples.

Pogba is different - he is a genuinely top player (only Di Maria fits in that category) and he is very marketable and young. But Woodward was absolutely awful at risk assessment so far
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Woodward is not the best negotiator out there. So far he has been a bit inept on half of the deals.
 
Beachryan said:
Clearly the term 'opportunity cost' needs a wiki-ing. As does the concept of Revenue versus EBITDA versus cash.

We'll make c. 500m of revenue in the upcoming season. Wahey, 5 Pogba's get er done 'Ed! But obviously we incur some costs. Actually, we incur lots of costs. So much so that we've only made a profit in 3 of the last 7 seasons (losing money in the others) and in only one of those was our profit > 15m.

For Manchester United to spend 100m on a single player would essentially cull our cash reserves. Which we've spent a very long time building up. And even with the new deal, given what we've already spent and historical precedent, we would be doing absolute miracles to make around 20m profit this upcoming season.

Ie, we'd need around 4/5 seasons of profit to just pay for 1 Paul Pogba.

100m has been made to sound like some small number by people that actually look at the press stories and believe them. It is not. It is an enormous number, and one that almost no team can afford to risk on one player. Especially no team that has to actually make money to survive.

People forget that we have to make money to remain a going concern, unless the Glazers are going to suddenly decide to put money instead of taking it out. 100m is years and years of a sensibly run business' cash reserves. On Paul Pogba? Madness.
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Apparently
1) Pogba's brand is so huge, that he will make it all back in shirt sales within a couple months of us signing him :eek:
2) United have deeper pockets than any team who have ever played the sport of football. We are so cash rich we can outspend sugar daddy clubs because Financial Fair Play (which has been relaxed) means that we have the advantage :drool:
3) Ed Woodward is Lord Tywin Lannister :eek:
 
do.ob said:
First rule: if he's English slap 20m in the fee.
If he can pass 30m
Seriously though, it's hard to evaluate players atm, because it seems like prices have just increased and it's not that easy to make suitable comparisons yet or be sure about certain trends.
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One could always entertain himself with a valuation tool such a the one CIES Football Observatory has developed. It's far from perfect but it's better than nothing (or is it?):

http://www.football-observatory.com/-ratings-eng

This is how they've developed the algorithm they are using:

http://www.football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/mr/mr16/en/

Have fun.
 
Stacks said:
Apparently
1) Pogba's brand is so huge, that he will make it all back in shirt sales within a couple months of us signing him :eek:
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I keep hearing this but any actual resource to back it up ? I know French people wearing Griezman's & Pogba's shirts but France # rest of the world.
If the statement was true, Perez would love signing him no matter what his the price tag and skin color is.
 
I still think people are living in the past regarding transfer fees. Looking at Man Utd's revenue over the past ten years it has doubled:

http://www.statista.com/statistics/271665/revenue-of-manchester-united/

Even with a lack of CL football our revenue continues to increase due to new sponsorship deals,increased TV rights etc. You just can't compare transfer values today even to a few years back when Bale moved to Madrid or Ronaldo to Madrid. Times have changed and players values have naturally increased.

The other thing is soon as a player is linked to United the transfer fees are always exagerrated. Martial become 60 million euros because of clauses etc whereas for any other team i'm pretty sure the media just use the basic transfer fee. I've read reports of Pogba being 120 million euros but with 30% to the agent.... well what other transfer fees in the media INCLUDE agents fees? None unless its United and it sells a story
 
At a United supporter, I don't see how we can moan the club showing ambition after years of being tighter then a ducks arse. Clearly, Jose didn't say we'll only sign four players. Hopefully it will work out alright. I think it might be difficult to shift some players but we'll see.
 
Unfortunately Football Manager makes many people believe they know the true valuation of players in real life. It also makes them come out with nonsense like "For £100m I'd rather we bought Kroos and Modric" or other such stupidity. The Pogba thread has become unbearable because of fans believing they are experts at putting a value on a player and knowing who the better alternatives would be, because they've put accurate valuations on those places too.
 
Skywarden said:
One could always entertain himself with a valuation tool such a the one CIES Football Observatory has developed. It's far from perfect but it's better than nothing (or is it?):

http://www.football-observatory.com/-ratings-eng

This is how they've developed the algorithm they are using:

http://www.football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/mr/mr16/en/

Have fun.
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Those numbers appear somewhat accurate, but imho it's still a guessing game, because for example English and Chinese clubs keep paying these utterly ridiculous fees, so the same player fetches a vastly different price depending on whether or not clubs from those two nations are interested and whether or not the players is open to a move there.

Take Dembele and Höjbjerg for example. The former is/was one of the hottest prospects in Europe and moved to Dortmund for supposedly €8m and the latter is someone who didn't make it at either Bayern and Schalke, with little hype on his side, yet he went for €15m, because an English club wanted him. And that's just the first pair that came to my mind, I'm sure there are hundreds of cases where somewhat comparable players went for vastly different prices.


I think to make useful predictions you'd need at least two models, one for the continental clubs and one that models stuff for China, PL, PSG, Arab clubs etc.
 
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It's also worth noting that the value of a good/player is precisely the price that someone is willing to pay for it.

So the value of Dimitri Payet is not David Gold's headline grabbing 100m. It's the 25m that he eventually goes for in January after losing all his momentum having had no break.

The press have to out do each other with bigger and bigger numbers in each headline (and then write more click bait about how the numbers are too big). They're scum. Ignore it where possible. The new TV deal will definitely lead to some eyebrow-raising prices on mediocre talent, but let's see at the end of the summer if we look back on these weeks of mad speculation as what they were: mad speculation.
 
Skywarden said:
One could always entertain himself with a valuation tool such a the one CIES Football Observatory has developed. It's far from perfect but it's better than nothing (or is it?):

http://www.football-observatory.com/-ratings-eng

This is how they've developed the algorithm they are using:

http://www.football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/mr/mr16/en/

Have fun.
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Pogba was more valuable than Bale.....Bale scored 19/23 in the league

EDIT: But Martial is also higher value than Pogba AND Bale so this is what I shall use from now on
 
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Don't think it's changed all that much outside buying and selling to English clubs, Umtiti for 21mill to Barca is an example of a quality young talent for a reasonable fee.
 
I can't believe Chelsea are being out priced by Everton.

The mind boggles.
 
Premier League should have a different market valuation from the rest of the world. Only in this league will you offer 30m for troy deeney.
 
@Raoul

Necessary video because here a lot of people ignore the fact that United is simply the richest club in the world... and run by financiers who know what they do.
 
Downcast said:
@Raoul

Necessary video because here a lot of people ignore the fact that United is simply the richest club in the world... and run by financiers who know what they do.
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Neither of those statements are true. I don't understand how people can separate out blind optimism and the reality of the world.

Manchester United may make the most Revenue next year. True fact.
Manchester United are the 'richest club' doesn't make any sense. What does it mean? City, PSG and Chelsea are owned by benevolent groups that have vastly more available wealth than United ever will. So they're far 'richer'.

Manchester United is run by 'financiers' so they must know what they're doing? Really? Moyes? LVG?
I strongly doubt that Ryan Giggs would be particularly good at derivatives trading. But he's really good at his profession, so wouldn't he be good at another one? Ed Woodward was really good at selling commercial deals, and also performed well during acquisitions. Therefore he's great at managing and running a football club? Erm. K. Under the genius that is Ed Woodward, when I last checked in May United's share price had underperformed the overall market by some 25%.

Dumbing down of society need not extend to football if we don't let it.
 
Inter are signing Joao Mario for 50m. Football gone mad.
 
Rich people did not become rich by spending wantonly.

Their kids do. And they spoil the family heritage and end up broke.
 
fallengt said:
I keep hearing this but any actual resource to back it up ? I know French people wearing Griezman's & Pogba's shirts but France # rest of the world.
If the statement was true, Perez would love signing him no matter what his the price tag and skin color is.
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Lets see....

He is tall, strong, black with a swagger (yellow hair, brightly coloured boots) - Basketball Star appeal "check"
He has a penchant for the spectacular - The kids will emulate him in the playground screaming Pooooogbaaa when they hit screamers "check"
He speaks French - Sexy language "check"
Only thing missing is the sexy missus. Rumour has it Rihanna has liked some if his Instagram pics - Power couple "check"
 
The transfer market has been in a free fall for about 10 years now yet players seem to be moving more than ever - can someone confirm this?

The 30 million price tag that was automatically slapped on players who were playing very well has now gone up to 50 million. The 'world class' attacking players who were valued at 50 million are now valued at 100 million.

It doesn't help when optimistic owners come out and 'slap' £50million price tags on their clubs star striker who banged in as many goals as half a dozen other strikers in the league. Premier league clubs no longer need to sell their best players for a profit due to the current revenue they are generating. Some may say this is good for the competitiveness of the league but it is just inflating the market imo.
 
Raees said:
Regardless if the value of transfers have changed, for me Pogba is not £100m worth.

A fair price in this market for him is £60-70m in my opinion.

Considering his euro's and that there are no other bidders for him, I think we should put in a £80m bid in tops and convince Pogba to make his move.
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There's been no sign that Pogba has his heart set on this move, or is willing to throw a tantrum to make it happen. In those circumstances we're at the mercy of Juve. If they're unwilling to sell for anything short of an astronomical fee, we either pay it or look elsewhere.

Unless the agent is anxious for his cut, and can exert some pressure on our behalf.
 
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