When your face, or style ...doesn't fit the formation...

[david in sweden]

there is a very long list of big money transfers that go sour, yet it seems there are more and more and in recent years ...the list has become seemingly endless...

 

Wilfried Bony transfers to Man. City for a "petty" £28 million, and despite his relative success at Swansea...one wonders if he will become the match-winner they are really looking for.

 

Soldado and Paulinho are a disaster for Spuds (though I don't mind that). Andy Carroll was a hero at Newcastle, but a catastrophe for Liverpool, who cashed in on Torres - at Chelsea's expense.

 

Man.U. laid out a £150 million in the summer, yet LVG can't find a place for £50m. Falcao (allegedly a world class player)

 

Saints had their share of "misfits". The £125K we got (for Chivers in 1967 - a British record at the time), only landed us with Frank Saul who was a less than satisfactory replacement.

 

Gordon Strachan valued his yoghurt above the services of Agustin Delgado, despite the fact that " Tinman" cost over £3 million in 2002, because he didn't fit " the Strachan formation ".

The same happened to James Beattie, when after his move to Everton, his bank balance may have gone up, but his career went down the tubes.

 

Few people expected Rickie Lambert to have the nightmare start to his (belated) Liverpool career after his Premiership performances with Saints, but look at what's happened:uhoh:.

......and allowing Mauricio Pochettino to buy a player like Dani Osvaldo is hopefully, a mistake that we won't make again.

 

So what goes wrong with all these big money moves.

 

Surely, you don't need to be a Prem.Manager to understand that a player in a team, playing a specific role, in a specific formation succeeds .....precisely because of that.

Yet these " so-called professional managers " continually lay out huge sums (that many clubs can scarcely afford) on players who they then try to "graft into a team" which plays another formation - often leaving him without the very kind of service that made him successful in the first place.

 

Brendan Rodgers just hasn't realised that Rickie Lambert was a success for 5 seasons at SFC precisely because of his partnership with Adam Lallana (and both were amongst Saints' leading scorers during that period), yet he plays only one of them at a time, and often subs. one for the other, whilst seldom picking them to start together.

Surely, we all realised that when one or the other (of those two) wasn't playing, we just weren't the same successful team, (yet Brendan has missed that totally).

 

Every time a "big money " record-breaking transfer occurs, I ask myself ....is this ever going to work?. It does of course - occasionally, but the drop-out rate is enormous compared to the huge sums laid out on the fees.....AND the additional cost of salaries.....for their 4/5 year contracts that clubs often commit themselves to.

 

How to avoid the problem?...interesting question but just take a look at the record of Saints' all-time top scorers; post WW2 at least;

Mick Channon, Matt Le Tissier, Terry Paine, Derek Reeves and Eric Day and George O'Brien. With the exception of O'Brien (who cost a nominal fee) - No small surprise that the most of them were " home-grown " and cost only a signing-on fee. Today that fee may be a lot bigger , but the secret of their success was that they knew the club, grew with the club and succeeded from their earliest days....and importantly for us - stayed with the club.

 

We can only hope that our Academy can produce a few quality strikers in the future, and save us those enormous fees that clubs seem to recklessly rush into, and will eternally regret.

 

Whilst big money signings may be run-of-the mill for the select few, the rest of the clubs will live, or die and most likely..... be relegated ....because of the decisions they make.

Edited 14 January, 2015 by david in sweden

[Turkish]

Some good points very well made Dave.

[Smirking_Saint]

Good post David.

 

How do you avoid it ? By having a set out club way of playing, targets identified and sanctioned within a committee and managers that dont hold all the power in the buying a formation department.

[shurlock]

Good effort Davo, though serious studies on the subject disagree almost entirely with your post. Leaving aside the fact that its written by a yank and a dorris, Anita Elberse has found that paying top dollar for players a la "Galácticos" strategy works (see her book Blockbusters).

[david in sweden]

Good effort Davo, though serious studies on the subject disagree almost entirely with your post. Leaving aside the fact that its written by a yank and a dorris, Anita Elberse has found that paying top dollar for players a la "Galácticos" strategy works (see her book Blockbusters).

 

must admit to not having seen that book, but unless it's about European soccer, (?) I've no doubt that the idea is sound - if it refers to a "yank sport" like American Football.

In most cases, they are transferring one " American " across the country....... to play in another part of the country. Many of the "flops " that turn up in the Prem. are imported from other countries where ..(and here the other factor)....the culture of the game is different. One of the reasons for the ...(shall I say failure....or disappointment?) over the Ramirez / Osvaldo deals is surely that they are not familair with the " more vigourous side" of the Prem.....and in turn are used to the concept of " diving " - instead of riding a tough tackle.

 

Coming from an overseas club where they are a prima donna, they may find it difficult to adapt to the team player concept. Of course that may sound like a generalisation, but it's often very true.

With the number of foreign-born Prem. managers we have now, there is scarcely a handful of " British managers " - and in turn " foreign managers often import % more foreign players ".

 

I won't complain too much, because Ronald Koeman seems to have made a success of it, but many, many others have failed miserably. Their fault-or ours?

[a1ex2001]

must admit to not having seen that book, but unless it's about European soccer, (?) I've no doubt that the idea is sound - if it refers to a "yank sport" like American Football.

In most cases, they are transferring one " American " across the country....... to play in another part of the country. Many of the "flops " that turn up in the Prem. are imported from other countries where ..(and here the other factor)....the culture of the game is different. One of the reasons for the ...(shall I say failure....or disappointment?) over the Ramirez / Osvaldo deals is surely that they are not familair with the " more vigourous side" of the Prem.....and in turn are used to the concept of " diving " - instead of riding a tough tackle.

 

Coming from an overseas club where they are a prima donna, they may find it difficult to adapt to the team player concept. Of course that may sound like a generalisation, but it's often very true.

With the number of foreign-born Prem. managers we have now, there is scarcely a handful of " British managers " - and in turn " foreign managers often import % more foreign players ".

 

I won't complain too much, because Ronald Koeman seems to have made a success of it, but many, many others have failed miserably. Their fault-or ours?

 

Osvaldo's transfer failed because 'not familair with the " more vigourous side" of the Prem.....and in turn are used to the concept of " diving " - instead of riding a tough tackle' and not the fact that he punched the now team captain on the training ground? Osvaldo clearly had all the qualities to succeed in the prem but we took a gamble on his personality which didn't come off if he wasn't flawed upstairs he would be a player vastly out of our league.

 

In you opening post you also say Delgado didn't play because he didn't fit Strachans system when it's obvious the real reason he didn't play is because he was crocked his knew was shot which was the only reason he came so cheap and then ultimately he wasn't good enough for the standard we required.

 

You say home grown is the way forward and 'not many' big money moves come off while ignoring the fact that while it is the disasters that stick in your mind ther are easily as many big money deals that are massive successes, for me your just twisting evidence to fit your preconceived idea.

[david in sweden]

Osvaldo's transfer failed because 'not familair with the " more vigourous side" of the Prem.....and in turn are used to the concept of " diving " - instead of riding a tough tackle' and not the fact that he punched the now team captain on the training ground? Osvaldo clearly had all the qualities to succeed in the prem but we took a gamble on his personality which didn't come off if he wasn't flawed upstairs he would be a player vastly out of our league.

 

In you opening post you also say Delgado didn't play because he didn't fit Strachans system when it's obvious the real reason he didn't play is because he was crocked his knew was shot which was the only reason he came so cheap and then ultimately he wasn't good enough for the standard we required.

 

You say home grown is the way forward and 'not many' big money moves come off while ignoring the fact that while it is the disasters that stick in your mind ther are easily as many big money deals that are massive successes, for me your just twisting evidence to fit your preconceived idea.

 

thanks for your comments, however.....

 

Even before the "Fonte punch-up incident" there was considerbale doubt shed on his ability to adapt, and having watched him in almost every game, I think I wasn't the only one who thought that ..

Naturally, the one good thing we will all recall is his great individual goal v Man City, but aside from that .....what else was memorable about his time at SMS?

 

Delgado..." the yoghurt quote" was a joke, of course, and it was clear that we were sold an injured player, but even after his op. he was good enough to select and scored a few good goals in a few apps.

Early on in Strachan's time, he ws asked about Delgado and said ..if I quote correctly.." he wasn't my choice, it was a done deal when I arrived "....I would not decry Strachan time at SFC at all , but he was a manager with a fixed mind about how he wanted to play....and a quote fronm Anders Svensson (on Swedish TV ) confirmed that when he said that Strachan had told him (and Fernandes) that .

" they were both good players, but were too much alike and he couldn't play them both at the same time ."

Delgado who wasn't fit enough for Strachan's liking, still went to the World Cup 2002, played and scored for Columbia.

 

I'd like to think that "home -grown " would be the answer, and we are never better placed to develop new talent than now.

I agree that some foreign talent has worked well, but too many have flopped disasterously and those are the ones we tend to forget.

 

Thanks for your comments,anyway. We should maybe agree to differ.

[Patrick Bateman]

Some good points very well made Dave.

 

Hello Dave ... you're my wife now.

[a1ex2001]

thanks for your comments, however.....

 

Even before the "Fonte punch-up incident" there was considerbale doubt shed on his ability to adapt, and having watched him in almost every game, I think I wasn't the only one who thought that ..

Naturally, the one good thing we will all recall is his great individual goal v Man City, but aside from that .....what else was memorable about his time at SMS?

 

Delgado..." the yoghurt quote" was a joke, of course, and it was clear that we were sold an injured player, but even after his op. he was good enough to select and scored a few good goals in a few apps.

Early on in Strachan's time, he ws asked about Delgado and said ..if I quote correctly.." he wasn't my choice, it was a done deal when I arrived "....I would not decry Strachan time at SFC at all , but he was a manager with a fixed mind about how he wanted to play....and a quote fronm Anders Svensson (on Swedish TV ) confirmed that when he said that Strachan had told him (and Fernandes) that .

" they were both good players, but were too much alike and he couldn't play them both at the same time ."

Delgado who wasn't fit enough for Strachan's liking, still went to the World Cup 2002, played and scored for Columbia.

 

I'd like to think that "home -grown " would be the answer, and we are never better placed to develop new talent than now.

I agree that some foreign talent has worked well, but too many have flopped disasterously and those are the ones we tend to forget.

 

Thanks for your comments,anyway. We should maybe agree to differ.

 

Jury was very much still out on Osvaldo he'd only been here five minutes when he lamped Fonte, the main criticism I heard was he didn't try hard enough and that was because he clearly didn't want to be here! Not saying he would have worked out if he'd wanted to be here and had more time but holding him up as an example of a failed transfer based on culture/system is pretty poor.

 

Delgado played 11 times for us scoring once and that was really one for the dubious goals panel, he played for Ecuador (not Columbia) and had a really good scoring record for them, helped by them playing al their home games at crazy altitude. When he went to the world cup he was clearly playing injured did ok and scored but hardly set the place on fire, 90% of his club career was spent in Ecuador which is hardly he highest standard and the only other place he was successful was a 2 year spell in Mexico with Necaxa who are head and shoulders abov most of the clubs in the country so it's no wonder he banged in plenty. He was a crock when we signed him, never recovered to play at a decent level again and in reality simply wasn't good enough.

 

We don't forget the disasters we have a round up every 5 minutes of the greatest transfer blunders who can forget the media raming SAF's worst signings down our throat Djemba Djemba, Jordi Cruff etc etc the ones we forget are those that just come over do a decent if unspectacular job and then retire or move on.