Owzat wrote:That's all well and good, but what has net spending ever actually meant? Yes we sold players, but they in turn had to be bought before they could be sold so the net profit or loss on those players could be reported, but the real figure that matters is what we spent on the current squad of players (or what the squad is worth) - and that figure is not far off £150m itself.
I mean think about it, we bought Skrtel for £6.5m and sold Bellamy for £7.5m. What does that mean? Nothing. Are the two transfers linked? In terms of the money from the sale going towards the purchase yet. We still had to spend the £6.5m to acquire Skrtel, it doesn't make Skrtel effectively net worth of -£1m. The £130m+ worth of players still had to be spent, even if we sold them we might get £150m, but we'd have to spend money to put a team out. The best figure is the worth of the squad because that shows a reasonable comparison of the relative strengths of each team. What money comes in or profit that we make has no bearing on results on the pitch, if you look at Wenger's net transfers you'll find him in credit by a lot. But the Arsenal squad still cost around £65m to build, you can't say they were given the players and £44m+
true enough Owzat... but if the board tells you, you have to sell in order to buy then that makes a difference isn't it? it makes it more of a risk... let's say we want to buy a winger next season... board says you have to sell kuyt for like 4 million or so to buy this 10 million rated winger... and so we sell kuyt... turns out the winger is like gonzalez. worst than kuyt on the wings! and we can never tell for sure whether a player can adapt to the premiership or not... and we just lost an ok striker-come-winger. so now who takes the blame for having a shitty squad? the manager...
on the other hand clubs like man u and chelsea, with money to burn buys freely... if the player cannot cope let him rot on the bench... only the best ones are played in the team... how many players does man u have on the bench now? hargreaves, nani, fletcher, park jisun, sometimes anderson, sometimes carrick...so many good but not brilliant players... and that is what money can get you... to select the very best out of the rest...