Spending big on talented teenage players

LawCharltonBest

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Where do you land on it?

I get the risk. You don’t want to pay £50m on an 18 year old who is dominating the Portuguese league but who ends up having a career like Bebe

But when a World Class 23-28 year old player becomes available, you’ll have around 10 big clubs who can afford to offer huge money. Everyone knows their quality. So perhaps going that extra mile for the “next” world class talents and showing some patience before they’ve fully established is a way to get ahead of the rest.

With Yoro being the obvious example - if he has a career trajectory like Varane/Ferdinand then that 50-60m is going to look incredible business in a couple of years.

I'd always invest in potential personally. It’s how Dortmund ended up with Bellingham and Haaland at the same time. If we’d have done that at the time like we have with Yoro now, we’d likely be title challengers now
 
Personally I’d rather invest our money this way, even if he doesn’t pan out he will still have some value later on, in Yoros case he has genuine world class potential.
 
They are the signings that I like the most to be honest. Would love it if Obi-Martin joins us.
 
Definitely all for it if the talent is evident. Ideally sprinkled in with players in the 23 - 28 year range for the experience and ability to instantly improve the squad and decent longevity.

There is obviously the risk the transfer will be a dud, but it’s these risks we need to be taking that we haven’t seen in years. Once these teenagers turn into elite players they’re so hard to obtain in their early prime/prime years without paying £80m+
 
Yeah, I think it's almost a guaranteed win. Signing a young, very talented but as yet unproven French teenager is a win-win for us really.



If he goes on to have a stellar career and win many trophies then we either keep a world class player and pay some extra add-on fees to his old club, or he ends up going to Madrid or something for a huge fee!



If the teenage french lad disappoints then I'm sure we wouldn't keep giving him new contracts until eventually he's been here years and leaves for nothing after costing millions over that time! Either way, we're winning with young Antony Martial!



Just kidding! I would much rather see us taking potentially world class young talents like this. It's worked great for Madrid and Barcelona over the years, and yeah they've had some flops but they've had some incredible successes too! Very exciting for the fans.
 
Definitely prefer this route and developing the potential into world class players. There’s something way more satisfying in that, than just going out and buying established players.

Truth is of course, there needs to be a balanced strategy mixing youth with experience. I know we haven’t been there post SAF, but ultimately we’re a club who should be competing for the biggest trophies - which is also how you end up attracting and retaining the talent.

Youth alone won’t provide that (“you won’t win anything with kids” :lol:). Or else your business model just becomes that of a feeder club as the best players ultimately want to win trophies (vast majority anyway).

I think Madrid’s had this strategy on lock since their 3-peat (if not even during/before). Mixing elite potential with world class experience.
 
I feel that once we have a first team we are happy with we should start buying world class potential as back up and seeing if any of the wonderkids can push established players out of the team.
Foster a truly competitive environment, where players can't put in mediocre performances all season.
 
Von Mistelroum said:
Yeah, I think it's almost a guaranteed win. Signing a young, very talented but as yet unproven French teenager is a win-win for us really.



If he goes on to have a stellar career and win many trophies then we either keep a world class player and pay some extra add-on fees to his old club, or he ends up going to Madrid or something for a huge fee!



If the teenage french lad disappoints then I'm sure we wouldn't keep giving him new contracts until eventually he's been here years and leaves for nothing after costing millions over that time! Either way, we're winning with young Antony Martial!



Just kidding! I would much rather see us taking potentially world class young talents like this. It's worked great for Madrid and Barcelona over the years, and yeah they've had some flops but they've had some incredible successes too! Very exciting for the fans.
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sorry but Amad was an unproven signing when we invested in him, Leny Yoro has 60 first team appearances so while all signings are a risk, he's not an obscure throw of the dice.
 
Yes but they should compliment an already stable experienced team. If we throw Yoro in and expect him to be first choice leading us to glory then its a stupid move. If we get De ligt and transition him slowly and support him then it's a brilliant move.
 
Look-a-Hill said:
Talented youngsters, out of contract experienced players, and the odd unhappy transfer listed prime talent is the ultimate [Football] manager strategy imo.
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I had the same thinking. If done correctly that strategy should lead to less expensive "top" transfers in the sense that a very young talented teenager is generally less expensive than an older(25 and up) player, both in terms of wages and transfer fee. Though the key is to find a sweet spot that allows more signings, for example I think that within a 200m budget it is best to sign 1 or 2 wonderkid for good money, a cheapish veteran in terms of transfer fee and some cheap gambles, and you do that every year.
 
I think its become a far riskier strategy in recent seasons as I think the market is far too optimistic in how it prices potential so where you used to be able to snap up wonderkids for a value based on what they'd already achieved, and now they're based on fantastical projections of what the players will achieve in the future so that these players are now going for similar prices to what proven players are going for.
 
It is going to be interesting because everything seems to indicate that this is going to be the new trend and again there will be an inflation in the market that will force clubs to reinvent new models for their transfer policies.

Imagine Arsene Wenger doing the same thing he did for years at Arsenal but overpaying for players.
 
The big issue is that United currently aren't in a good place to develop youngsters outside of individuals in my opinion. When we were dominant we could put them in at our leisure. Rest them. Shield them. These days we are constantly on the edge and if a youngster displays anything, they are thrown in at the deep end.

Playing for a team like City you are in a dominant side where the manager can do what he likes with you. You have world class players around you and the pressure isn't there. Your mistakes probably won't come back to haunt you. The downside of being at City is obviously that its bloody hard to actual get play time. See Cole Palmer.

I think if we start to move in the right direction as a club again we should be much better placed to be developing these youngsters. You also need top players to guide them and I don't think we have enough of those currently. Imagine learning from the RM team of the past 3-4 years vs the United team.
 
Just don't sign any more 30 year olds like Casemeiro who was on a major decline the season we signed him, mid table stats in La Liga. The list goes on at United. Think 24/25 should be the max age for any signings.

INEOS looks like there going to be running the club well.
 
Investing lots of money in a young player is like buying a growth stock when its being hyped left and right , most will turn out to be shitcos and you will get bagged, but some will turn to gems, that will keep growing, and your initial investment will be rewarded x10.

My stock market gambling degenerates will understand:

Wayne Rooney = like buying Tesla pre 2020.
Jadon Sancho = Like buying ARKK at the peak of the 2021 bubble market.

Going back to football, in some cases the investment is safe regardless whether you overpaid or not.
Someone like Wayne Rooney was always going to be a guaranteed success, there was never any doubt because he was not your typical young player, he looked like a 30 year old boxer when he was 16 and played the game like that too.

Current Manchester United is a very unique environment, compared to other elite clubs like Barcelona, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich.
There is no pressure to compete for a title in the foreseeable future, which should make it an easier environment for a young player to thrive in.
 
There is obviously a risk with any signing and more so with teenagers with a season under there belt in comparison to an early 20s playerswith 3/4seasons maybe and more evidence to go on.

Personally I love it though. These signings a are not investments for the future like Amad or Hannibal who havent even played for the first team barely or possibly special players like Martial, Rpnaldo with just a few appearances.

These are more the recent Ancelloti Madrid signings like Camavinga, Tchouanemi, Endrick, Guler.....huge talents that have broken through and are already showing they dont just have huge potential....they are already ready for minutes and evento start despite there age.....much like Mainoo now if he was a transfer target.

That is what wehave signed in Yoro who ispartly a risk but also partly hell he is a teenager and already good enough so a good signing now...imagine what he could be, just like Bellingham to Madrid.

And this summer there arethe likes of Neves, Doue available, players alreadygood enough to start , already good enough to improve us and potentially good enoughtobe world class stars worth double the current expected fees (ok not Neves). The rewards are farhigher than the risks for me potentially and I would like to see more.

I remember with Camavinga before he moved people saying hes too young, isnt ready...thought its nonsense, he is already better than what we have.

Like any transfer but more so, it is obviously important to get the right ones as so many youngsters get massivley overhyped.

But for methe likes of Camavinga, Endrick, Guler, Bellingham, Mainoo, Neves, Doue, Yoro.....sod all these modern stats, the eyes should make it obvious these are special young players that ifthey are good enough they are old enough and they have ALREADY shown it imajor leagues
 
I think spending big on teenagers with first team experience is a better bet than teenagers with no first team experience. The cost will be much greater, but I think you'll hit more on those 1-2 signings over the equivalent 5 no experience teenagers. So it's not just a case of just buying talented teenagers for large sums. We need that extra qualifier/context when discussing preferring these sort of transfers.

Edit: Agree with Jesper.
 
mctrials23 said:
The big issue is that United currently aren't in a good place to develop youngsters outside of individuals in my opinion. I think if we start to move in the right direction as a club again we should be much better placed to be developing these youngsters.
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Agreed. Spending big is a nigh insignificant step, if you are signing literal teens or even players in their early 20s, the coach and club still needs to guide them on and off the field to reach their potential. BVB's record transfer is €35mio for teen Dembele and IMO he only ever looked occasionally potentially worldclass in that short time he played in Dortmund. Once he left us (by refusing to return for the season after liasing with Barca behind our backs, no less) and was expected to play like a >100mio Neymar replacement, he's only disappointed because 1) He needs to be micromanaged and his personal habits are unbeffiting of a 100m player. At 20 he was still a kid who chose video games over sleep and sacked the healthy chef Barca hired because he preferred fast food. 2) Injury proneness which may be down to his poor overall fitness.

For every Bellingham and Haaland, there's also kids like Emre Mor or Renato Sanches who don't work out. Dortmund definitely has a sweet spot in terms of transfer fees where a talent needs to have skyhigh potential yet cost cheap enough for the club to put in 150% effort to mould them into stars. Beyond a certain price point a transfer gets too risky if it's a write-off because most BL clubs have no billionaire owners. The effort needed to guide, mould, educate young players cannot be overstated; I do think in Dortmund it's somewhat easier for players to focus on football as it's not the most happening city.
 
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You just have to compare Yoro's deal to the deal United made for Casemiro.

In 5 years time Yoro will be 23 with his whole transfer package being about 10 million a year, if he turns out to be WC then it's a bargain! Even if he moves on you would realistically be able to recoup every penny you spent on him.

Whereas Casemiro is just a car crash of a deal.
 
JJ12 said:
They are the signings that I like the most to be honest. Would love it if Obi-Martin joins us.
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Ish said:
Definitely prefer this route and developing the potential into world class players. There’s something way more satisfying in that, than just going out and buying established players.
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Same here, completely

There is something about getting a “wonderkid”. I love seeing the journey and knowing they could become anything.

I was delighted with Ratcliffes comments about Mbappe because I would have found it more exciting signing him as that 18 year old electric kid coming through at Monaco than I would signing him now
 
People need to learn to love it. And now the new goal is to pre-buy them when they are even younger, with lots of add ons, so they are super cheap if they flop.

Golbridge had a video the other night where he was like “have we gone to far? It feels like nobody can do transfers. I was all for accountability and the PSR rules, but not if it reduced us to this”

Well, what else did people think was going to happen? Outside of possibly the case of a free transfer, the days of a player proving themselves with 1 or 2 teams then joining a high tier team are gone. The people that thought ANYONE short of Messi would fetch above 80m at 28 or older is laughable.

If you put your player on high wages you can’t really cover just to ensure you get that 100m mark in the next window …. Good luck with that.

It is fiscally near impossible. Eventually you are going to have to pay your better players or they WILL learn the game and wind their contracts down or force cheap exits with threats to do so. And PSR will reach a point where you won’t be able to have players on adult contracts of the amounts of even 4 years ago AND spend money on transfers.

Remember, the PSR ceiling is set to drop each year over the next 4 years… to frankly absurd levels.

Elite players in the PL make more than NFL players, but the PL makes a tiny fraction of the revenue the NFL does. When Clearlake came in and said the PL was under leveraging its value, he was t just being a greedy Anerican. This is going to be a real problem, especially if you want to be under some PSR control.

Without definitive franchising and all the other mechanisms that make profit levels skyrocket, having an elite football team is going to be like horse racing: you must be willing going in to literally throw massive amounts of money away to compete at the highest level.

In the desire to wish away 3 or 4 teams you don’t like excelling, the leagues are risking their very existence. The natural order of world football, where the United’s, Barcas, Madrids, Ciyys, etc etc don’t 500m a window will be gone… and people just seem to have forgotten when they decided this that economy of teams in the tiers below them relied on this spending to stay alive. Then those selling teams would spend the 60 or 70m on players from teams a tier below them, and so on.
 
Every transfer essentially has a sub 50% success rate per that great athletic article whereby even if a transfer is a 90% rating over every catagory it’s just maths.

The answer as with most things in life is something in the middle. I don’t think a strategy based on purely buying 18 year olds is inherently any less risky than buying 24 year olds entering prime years or 28 year olds at their peak, ultimately the value has these factors priced in anyway. You are more likely to get more duds buying youngsters but it comes out in the wash for every jewel you uncover.

I think it’s sensible to take a balanced approach, buy a top 18/19 year old with long term
Planning for cheap, look for you de Ligt style decent player where it just hasn’t quite worked out yet but all the tools are there, and if you get a chance to get a Robin van persie on a good deal, you strike.
 
LawCharltonBest said:
Same here, completely

There is something about getting a “wonderkid”. I love seeing the journey and knowing they could become anything.

I was delighted with Ratcliffes comments about Mbappe because I would have found it more exciting signing him as that 18 year old electric kid coming through at Monaco than I would signing him now
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Spot on
 
The enthusiasm of having a talented kid around is different from an egotistical last chance saloon looking for a final pay day experience player
 
As a principle within a strategy to sign players under 25 it makes sense.
As a team that isn’t competing for the biggest trophies and with reduced expectations it makes sense to build a team that can grow together over a number of years without needing to be replaced.
 
RuudTom83 said:
Whereas Casemiro is just a car crash of a deal.
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Depends how you look at it. He was our best player in his first season in which we won a cup and achieved CL football. That alone is worth a fair price.

The problem with Cas is that we followed up the next Summer bringing in a loanee to share the load along with McTom, an 18 yr old and a 20 yr old up front, and we spent the season with no back line.
If we continue on this path over the Summer I have a feeling Cas will be a very good option to have around.

There are positives and negatives with all deals, but most importantly you need to ensure all of them have the best environment to play their best football and be rested when needed. It’s no good brining in a 20 yr striker talent and expecting him to be the main man banging in all the goals all season with no understudy.
Likewise you don’t buy a 30 yr old midfielder and expect him to perform miracles in a side that plays suicide tactics.
 
As with most things, it’s about balance. Resources are finite, risk should be diversified, and success has to be planned for in the immediate as well as long term.

For premium teenage talents I am all for investing substantially. Even if they don’t do as well as anticipated, you always have decent resale value unless they completely flop.

For more speculative teenage talent, I think investment is wise, higher risk but higher reward, it just has to be capped in terms of singular fees and overall percentage of the transfer budget.

The next pool of players to invest in is what I would call second phase players. Players who have already broken through and established themselves as good players, but players who are primed to potentially go up another level or two and gives years of high level service. Players in that 21-24 age bracket.

The final pool of players are experienced veterans between 28-31 who can come in on a free transfer or very low fee, to provide needed experience, cover, or solve a short term need. These would be players on shorter term contracts, even if wages were higher. 28 yr old, 4 yr deal max, 29 yr old 3 ye deal max. 30 yr old 2 year deal max. Anyone older, 1+1 deals.

Players in the 25-28/29 age bracket, in their “prime” commanding huge fees and wages, are the players I would typically avoid, except for exceptional circumstances. If, for example, we have a title winning/competing team and the final piece is one player who at 25/26 is going to cost 100m, and we believe they will help us win the Pl and or CL, then okay. But we are at least 2-3 years away from that level of squad maturity and stability. That only comes into play once you have a stable, consistent squad and every summer you are looking at a 2-3 in, 2-3 out type situation. A position SAF had us in, almost in perpetuity. For the last several years we have been in huge squad overhaul mode every summer, so that’s just a pipe dream at this point, although INEOS appear to be laying the right foundation to get us there.

Even with those conditions in place, I am still very skeptical of the large signings on huge fees and wages in their prime. They very rarely prove to be value for money, or perform even close to expectations. I would say 99% of our transfer incomings should fall within the 4 categories in mentioned:

- Premium young talent.
- Speculative young talent.
- Pre-prime established players.
- Free transfer experienced players.
 
I'd rather us spend big on talented teenagers than spending big on players in their late 20s/early 30s who have spent their prime years at other clubs and see us as a retirement home where they can collect one final oversized paycheck.
 
I'm glad if we start the winning ways again in a consistent manner, so we can attract top top players entering prime like old days again. This is the way.
 
They're good signings but the cost is a concern.

Bellingham was 25 million and Haaland 20 for Dortmund.
 
Remember Martial? It only works if you have the ability to develop and improve players.
 
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