Lesson 03 · 3 min · 5 things to do
Everyone is bidding for the same thing
Explain why a great player can be a bad signing.
A striker scored 25 goals last season. Every big club wants him. What are they actually bidding for?
- Yes.A club that already has a 20-goal striker is buying five goals, not twenty-five. The value of a signing is always a difference, and the price is set as if it were a total.
- Not quite.Those goals do not arrive on top of the squad — they replace somebody else's chances, minutes and shots.
- Not quite.Talent is what produces the difference. The difference is what the team gets.
A signing is worth what it adds over the alternative. That is a smaller number than the headline, and it is the only one that changes results.
The same 25-goal striker, joining different clubs. Slide to change who he replaces.
A 5-goal playerA 15-goal playerA 22-goal playerThe new signing25 goalsWho he replaces5 goalsA 5-goal playerTwenty goals added. Transformative, and this club is usually near the bottom.
The new signing25 goalsWho he replaces15 goalsA 15-goal playerTen added. Worth having, at a price set by the 25.
The new signing25 goalsWho he replaces22 goalsA 22-goal playerThree added, for the largest fee in the club's history.
The same player is worth four times as much to one club as another. Why is he priced the same?
- Yes.An auction is won by the highest bid, and rich clubs have small gaps and deep pockets. The result is that the biggest fees are often paid for the smallest improvements.
- Not quite.His ability is. What a team gains is his ability minus what it already had.
- Not quite.Agents work the auction. The auction produces the price.
Move the control to see what changes.
Which of these make a signing more valuable to a specific club?
The club's current player in that position is poor.
He fills a role nobody in the squad can play.
He is famous.
His strengths match how the team already plays.
He scored a lot for a different kind of team.
Yes.The two weak entries are the two that fill stadiums and sell shirts. They are real commercial value and not football value, and clubs routinely pay for them while describing it as the other thing.A club pays £60m for a striker who adds 4 goals a season over the player he replaces, across a 5-year contract. What is the cost per extra goal, in millions?
£mYes.£60m ÷ 20 goals. Whether that is good value depends entirely on what a goal is worth to that club — which for a side chasing a place worth £100m is a completely different calculation from a mid-table one.Why are undervalued players usually found in unfashionable leagues or awkward positions?
- Yes.Anywhere many clubs are watching, the price already contains what everyone can see. The edge is in the places the auction is thin — which is why recruitment departments are geography and data problems.
- Not quite.Some are. The reason they stay cheap is that nobody is bidding, not that they are secretly superb.
- Not quite.Many are extremely well run and still pay full price, because they are bidding in the most crowded market in the sport.
Lesson complete
A signing is worth what it adds over the player it replaces, not what it scores.
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