Why do we

[hopelesslyoptimistic]

Seem to get into a position where lots of people leave on free transfers, crazy low values or we cancel contracts?

In recent years we have been caught out with

Koch free
Llorente c3m
Rodrigo c 3m
Firpo free
Drameh free
Shackleton free
Ayling free
Poveda free
Cooper free
Gyabi free


Bambi cancelled contract most likely paying him around ?4m

Meslier is likely to leave on a free as in last year of his contract

Think Wober is getting close to his last year too and Jack Harrison I think expires in 2028.

If we can?t shift players off the books for a fee it?s going to hurt the PSR calculations a lot.

Hmmmmmn

[ozleeds]

If you don't already know, it's because we pay a lot for useless players whom no one else wants unless it's for free, and another club like us takes them, but not as foolish as us, and gets them for free.

[Monaco_Totty]

Reality is, blame the Bosman 1995 ruling, H.

With so many individual entrenpreneurs investing in professional sports teams nowadays through brokerage accounts being the most accessible ways into gaining exposure to the sports industry via a number of publicly traded companies that own or manage sporting teams, which basically means any investor can become a team owner by purchasing shares, then you cannot blame players using such leverage for their benefit, let alone clubs too.

Players in their mid-twenties now are confident enough to back themselves as free agents as they are no longer yearning for the security of longer-term deals as they are prepared to run down a deal & go it alone, no matter to the risks rightly or wrongly.

Free transfers often benefit all parties to be fair, as players gain freedom to negotiate better contracts & signing bonuses, while buying clubs avoid transfer fees when acquiring new talent.
My brother ran his contract down, refused better terms offered by his club, listened to other offers & then accepted one offering the challenges he required including a Masters degree study thrown in to complement his packaged deal.

Brutal truth is we are living in the player empowerment era which clubs know !
It will be the same in the NFL & more so in the NBA as players now are increasingly aware that the games 'image-product' does not survive without their input & as such believe they should hold the true power in terms of where they want to play ultimately.

Most PL players who run their contracts down are doing so because they or their Agent stands to gain financially, end of.
You dont need to be a mathematician to figure out that if a club is gonna pay 20m for you then your gonna sit out your contract & move on a free & gonna get a big chunk of that valuation

For this reason the 'free-agency' is always one of the most anticipated times of the year for high-profile Agents to hit upon their 'free' marketable sports assets of differing skill-sets.

Gotta remember that a free transfer occurs when a players contract 'naturally expires' allowing them to move to another club without a transfer fee & contrasts to 'being released' which involves terminating a players contract prematurely, often by mutual agreement or at the clubs discretion. So you gotta look at club owners who get into such ridiculous scenarios on drawn up legal paper, for sure.

Plus there is now also that increasing added 'risk of losing out' on a player in the event that another club decides to pursue said player before the expiry of their contracted deal, but done only when a buying club is certain that said player 'only wants to join them' as is often the real case nowadays as players always have early 'ears' to lucrative moves, end of, as careers are short no matter what we would all like to believe from our beloved badge kissers with an eye on negotiating through todays PSR spreadsheet 'hits' when entering into their financial opportunities reality zones.

So, a yes is the conclusion that we are defo living in a player empowerment era, for sure. But its the same in the NFL & more notably the NBA as players have become increasingly aware that the product does not survive without their input & as such they hold the true power in terms of where they want to play, imo.

The sports industry offers huge financial reward potential growth opportunities by providing access to high-performing teams & leagues that only huge investors have access, so its only fair its performers get a cut, surely, Clubs must adapt to new financial regulations playing their part by becoming more financially savvy too which the impact upon them is now beginning to show.

The down side 'tho is that poor loyal team spectator who now is instantly replaceable too by the 'tourist day-tripper' brigade who are willing to pay the offered price no matter what to grab a fix of the marketed 'Greatest show on Earth'. 😳

So where will it all end ?
AI dominated club speak media spin doctors & ultimate distancing of the traditional football fan, for starters.

[WTF11]

Reality is, blame the Bosman 1995 ruling, H.

With so many individual entrenpreneurs investing in professional sports teams nowadays through brokerage accounts being the most accessible ways into gaining exposure to the sports industry via a number of publicly traded companies that own or manage sporting teams, which basically means any investor can become a team owner by purchasing shares, then you cannot blame players using such leverage for their benefit, let alone clubs too.

Players in their mid-twenties now are confident enough to back themselves as free agents as they are no longer yearning for the security of longer-term deals as they are prepared to run down a deal & go it alone, no matter to the risks rightly or wrongly.

Free transfers often benefit all parties to be fair, as players gain freedom to negotiate better contracts & signing bonuses, while buying clubs avoid transfer fees when acquiring new talent.
My brother ran his contract down, refused better terms offered by his club, listened to other offers & then accepted one offering the challenges he required including a Masters degree study thrown in to complement his packaged deal.

Brutal truth is we are living in the player empowerment era which clubs know !
It will be the same in the NFL & more so in the NBA as players now are increasingly aware that the games 'image-product' does not survive without their input & as such believe they should hold the true power in terms of where they want to play ultimately.

Most PL players who run their contracts down are doing so because they or their Agent stands to gain financially, end of.
You dont need to be a mathematician to figure out that if a club is gonna pay 20m for you then your gonna sit out your contract & move on a free & gonna get a big chunk of that valuation

For this reason the 'free-agency' is always one of the most anticipated times of the year for high-profile Agents to hit upon their 'free' marketable sports assets of differing skill-sets.

Gotta remember that a free transfer occurs when a players contract 'naturally expires' allowing them to move to another club without a transfer fee & contrasts to 'being released' which involves terminating a players contract prematurely, often by mutual agreement or at the clubs discretion. So you gotta look at club owners who get into such ridiculous scenarios on drawn up legal paper, for sure.

Plus there is now also that increasing added 'risk of losing out' on a player in the event that another club decides to pursue said player before the expiry of their contracted deal, but done only when a buying club is certain that said player 'only wants to join them' as is often the real case nowadays as players always have early 'ears' to lucrative moves, end of, as careers are short no matter what we would all like to believe from our beloved badge kissers with an eye on negotiating through todays PSR spreadsheet 'hits' when entering into their financial opportunities reality zones.

So, a yes is the conclusion that we are defo living in a player empowerment era, for sure. But its the same in the NFL & more notably the NBA as players have become increasingly aware that the product does not survive without their input & as such they hold the true power in terms of where they want to play, imo.

The sports industry offers huge financial reward potential growth opportunities by providing access to high-performing teams & leagues that only huge investors have access, so its only fair its performers get a cut, surely, Clubs must adapt to new financial regulations playing their part by becoming more financially savvy too which the impact upon them is now beginning to show.

The down side 'tho is that poor loyal team spectator who now is instantly replaceable too by the 'tourist day-tripper' brigade who are willing to pay the offered price no matter what to grab a fix of the marketed 'Greatest show on Earth'. 😳

So where will it all end ?
AI dominated club speak media spin doctors & ultimate distancing of the traditional football fan, for starters.

The question wasn't regarding the system, all clubs here and abroad operate under more or less the same structure and regulations. The question refers to LUFC specifically and why over many years and many owners both financially strained and more affluent, is our transfer activity so consistently pi55-poor?

[hopelesslyoptimistic]

Yup - out of that group of players we should have recovered at least 40m in fees.

The clubs that are sustainable in the PL tend to be very good at the money in bit 😎.

With Bambi the rumour is we paid out his contact somewhere between 3-4m making that one even worse.

[Monaco_Totty]

The question wasn't regarding the system, all clubs here and abroad operate under more or less the same structure and regulations. The question refers to LUFC specifically and why over many years and many owners both financially strained and more affluent, is our transfer activity so consistently pi55-poor?

With respect, I disagree with opening post synopsis as such financial losses effected most clubs & still do, imo, if not your view then fine by me.

I am also in favour of tougher game regulations whilst H is not & I am happy to stand by my point that players & clubs have differing agendas & always did particularly after the Bosman ruling, ok.

Glad to see your appearances are getting more regular on here too. 👍

[hopelesslyoptimistic]

I don?t recall having stated I am not in favour or in favour of ?tougher game regulations? - I have stated I am in favour over the years of better regulation. Please don?t sweepingly try to pigeon hole my views.

What we have is a morass of largely club devised regulations which are as much about protecting the interests of the larger established clubs as they are about FFP or PSR.

The current rules make it almost impossible for promoted teams to stay in the PL. if an owner is willing to put their own money and guarantee any debts of a club I don?t see why that should not be allowed and there is a wider corporate governance regime that kicks in.

We are in a very different position to the Ridsdale era where we seemingly did some idiotic financial planning based on unrealistic projections and some of the regulations to stop some of the crazy things from that era are sensible.

The current t PSR rules mean that clubs that are well funded by owners or have surplus cash may not be able to use it if it doesn?t fall within t)3 allowable income streams.

You then get the perverse scenario such as with Ramsay having to be sold by Villa this year and prior to that Anderson by Newcastle (who are back by more money than the rest of the league combined).

Look at the rules of the game and how they have been tweaked over the last 4 years.

What is a foul
What is a penalty
What is offside


Are all currently or have been very unclear during that period.

Clear simple well thought out rules that are fair should be the goal.

Do you really trust a government regulator - look at energy prices, rail, MPs own behaviour ??.

Orta and Radz thought they were too clever by half and the current owner displayed a lot of hubris with little to justify it.

Koch is a Rolls Royce of a player - see him
Live in pre season - but we messed that up. ditto Llorente- very good player just didn?t suit or system - ditto Rodrigo.

We had offers at points for Shacks and Joffy yet no hard cash has ever materialised.

Bamford we offered wages way beyond his talent which meant he had no incentive to leave.

You are not comparing apples with apples - most clubs run at a loss for various reasons but largely due to over paying players.

Repeatedly allowing players to leave for nothing is financial madness. Look at Brentford, Palace, Brighton or Bournemouth who do it well.


Even City and Chelsea are good at churning players for a fee. City blagged us out of 5m for Gyabi who we then let go on a free.

Don?t mind discussing and debating but don?t try to twist what I am or paint my views in a certain way.

As you would comment - Just Sayin

[hopelesslyoptimistic]

The wider point being we need to be ruthless at maximising income if we are to have any realistic chance of building a squad within PSR limits.

Koch, Lorrente and Rodrigo should have easily brought in 30m and that is being massively conservative. Bambi we could have sold 3 seasons back for about 10m but we held on (there were apparently people enquiring).

Shacks we had an offer for 2m. Schmidt we messed around and waited this summer when he was never going to be in the squad or be played and could have brought in 3m.

Firpo could easily have brought in 5m or we could have extended his contract but we again dithered to the point he and his advisors thought cya.

Not saying players and agents are angels but we need to be tougher and more disciplined so that we can hold onto to players like Archie or Summerville who have the talent to play at the top level.

Our transfers out policy has been a mess for at least 15 years and doesn?t look any better now.

We turned down decent offers for Piroe this summer - we all know he isn?t good enough at this level - and that money could have been reinvested in an upgrade.

If you were to be super harsh - Dan James who I really like a lot - is no where near as effective at PL level as speed alone isn?t enough - someone like Brentford would have sold him and bought Doak with the money who has a higher value ceiling.

We just seem to be very naive and always caught out. Look at the value Charlie Cresswell is at 17m is his asking price and we let him go for relative peanuts.

Of the incomings this summer the only ones that make sense from a PSR perspective where their value will go up (outside of the risky freebies) are Stach and Ofakor (maybe Perri too unless we over paid there) The others are all mainly at their peak in terms of age and so will only wane in value.

The whole transfer policy seems incoherent with what has previously been said publicly and seems to change with the breeze.

I agree with Marathe - he does transfers in his sleep - please wake up and smell the coffee.

[whitestomper45]

The list you put up, don?t think you?ll get a whole lot for them none are ripping up trees. And whatever you get for them would be dwarved by the fee Liverpool
Lost out on Trent, or the other mega frees ie Mbappe ?and so on..Obviously someone makes a call on keeping them on with added costs or letting go and freeing up a squad place and keeping harmony

[hopelesslyoptimistic]

Yep the fee for Trent would have been huge but Liverpool have also get fees every year for churning academy players that won?t quite make with 5)3?.

Pretty sure Harry Wilson was one of theirs and this year Diaz, Nunez, Quansah, Doak and Kelleher all sails and sure they even got 10m for Trent for an early release. That was over 200m in fees received.

[WTF11]

With respect, I disagree with opening post synopsis as such financial losses effected most clubs & still do, imo, if not your view then fine by me.

I am also in favour of tougher game regulations whilst H is not & I am happy to stand by my point that players & clubs have differing agendas & always did particularly after the Bosman ruling, ok.

Glad to see your appearances are getting more regular on here too. ��

Not sure I understand. You disagree with the assertion that our performance in the transfer market over the last decade or so has been sub-optimal when compared to the likes of our most immediate opposition (such as Florists, Wolves, Everton, Fulham, Palace etc (the "also-rans" of the Premiership), or that we don't figure in the list of clubs you have reproduced?

I'd suggest (and stand by) the former as being true, and I suspect many share that view, whilst it isn't possible to dismiss the latter as you have illustrated the factual basis for yours, but it's comparing apples and pears. One season isn't a suitable basis for forming an opinion of player recruitment, which by it's very nature, even given the "peculiar" nature of professional football, and most certainly when the subject of Academy/junior team player development is added to the equation.

LUFC used to develop, and recruit for more than a single season, and I fear that if the myopia surrounding FFP/PSR continues, that long term view will continue to wither on the vine and with it the prospects for PL survival, never mind success.

Not sure my appearances will be any more frequent, probably less so as the season "progresses" as I am certainly not optimistic and my sentiments should my fears be realised may not be welcome.

[ozleeds]

In Farkes Presser, he said that the reason Bijol isn't playing is because he was brought in to be a squad player, same as others? I mean, WTF, we're in the Premier League and instead of strengthening the team we just filled them with squad players. Just says it all. I don't know about you guys and girls, but I have switched off and accept the inevitable.

[hopelesslyoptimistic]

Hey Oz

First 75 mins at Fulham we were at least as good as them so there is hope.

I heard one pundit suggest we signed Bijol as it was possible we would let Struijk go. Struijk had been excellent so it scuppered that.

What does seem clear is we shouldn?t have let some of the players loaned out go until we were sure we had replacements for them.

The players they have brought in look good we just still have gaps imho.

Think Gudmonson could be the best left back we have had since Dorigo having seen him in the flesh a few times this season.

They haven?t done badly but the feeling is it could have been better and don?t say things publicly if you can?t then deliver on them.

I am sure we will be hard to play against and competitive but whether that is enough time will tell. If DCL can get properly match fit, hit some form and stay fit then their big gamble on him may pay off - if he gets injured I fear for us.

[whitestomper45]

In Farkes Presser, he said that the reason Bijol isn't playing is because he was brought in to be a squad player, same as others? I mean, WTF, we're in the Premier League and instead of strengthening the team we just filled them with squad players. Just says it all. I don't know about you guys and girls, but I have switched off and accept the inevitable.

Squad motivation/harmony not your thing Oz??.
What do you think he would say? ?I?ve bought him in because who we have are ****e?? It?s up to any new signing to come and prove himself, we don?t need players who think their automatic first 11?.

[ozleeds]

Squad motivation/harmony not your thing Oz??.
What do you think he would say? ?I?ve bought him in because who we have are ****e?? It?s up to any new signing to come and prove himself, we don?t need players who think their automatic first 11?.

Well, since you brought up what he would say, well, he said Tanaka has been poor before his injury, more or less won't play, and it's already out that his is gone also. So much for his harmony. Not to mention he said Aaronson is a certain starter and he rates him lol. Make no mistake he is taking us down.