Avoiding expensive transfer market mistakes

I’m a Sunderland fan, and there’s been much complaining on the Blackcats fans’ list I read about the sale of the striker Kenwyne Jones to Stoke for £8m without an apparent replacement on the horizon. I like Jones, and one of my fond memories is of him scoring the goal against Fulham which ensured that Sunderland stayed up a couple of seasons ago. He also has a flamboyant goal celebration. But I recently read Why England Lose, which devotes a chapter to why football clubs waste money in the transfer market, and one of the rules of how to avoid doing this is “Sell any player when another club offers more than he is worth”. Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski, the book’s authors, suggest that Lyon’s rise in France is almost completely down to managing the transfer market well.

And since there is still about 36 hours to go before the summer transfer window closes, by way of a public service here’s their 12 rules in full:

1. A new manager wastes money on transfers. Don’t let him.
2. Use the wisdom of crowds (get groups to assess transfers)
3. Stars of recent World Cups or European Championships are over-valued. Ignore them.
4. Certain nationalities are over-rated.
5. Older players are over-valued.
6. Centre-forwards are over-valued; goalkeepers are under-valued [except by Sunderland]
7. ‘Gentlemen prefer blondes’; identify and avoid ‘sight-based prejudices’.
8. The best time to buy a player is when he is in his early twenties.
9. Sell any player when another club offers more than he is worth.
10. Replace your best players even before you sell them.
11. Buy players with personal problems, then help them deal with their problems [Brian Clough did this brilliantly].
12. Help your players re-locate.

The picture is from the Modern Anthology blog, and is used with thanks.

Spotting the ball

What’s the difference between English football, and the end of Danny Boyle’s film Trainspotting? Not a lot it seems. Big spoiler alert, but if you’ve seen Trainspotting you’ll remember that at the end the mostly druggie pals find themselves with a bag with £16,000 in it and try to work out how to steal it from each other.

Here’s Wikipedia’s account:

As Begbie and Sick Boy leave to order another round of drinks, Renton suggests to Spud that they both steal the money. After a moment of hesitation, Sick Boy returns and notes that the two friends have not already run off with the money. Sick Boy then asks why they haven’t, indicating that he would have. … Begbie savagely attacks another customer over a spilled beer. As his friends try to stop this senseless attack, Begbie slices Spud’s hand open with a knife. This incident convinces Renton to go through with the plan of stealing the whole £16,000 from his friends.

And here’s Owen Gibson, in The Guardian, explaining why the Football Association and the Premiership haven’t been able to agree on a winter break for football, despite a general consensus that it is a good idea:

The FA would seek assurances that clubs would not arrange potentially lucrative overseas tours during the break and that players would be available for an England squad get-together. … Premier League clubs, meanwhile, would want binding assurances that the FA would not seek to fill the gap with a lucrative Wembley friendly.

In Trainspotting, of course, Renton, who’s cleaned his act up, gets most of the money, and gives some of it to Spud. Begbie gets arrested. It’s as happy an ending as could be contrived for such a bunch of characters. In the footballing sequel, none of the characters are as likeable.

The poster, designed by Paddy Dunne, is for Devious Theatre’s 2008 stage production of Trainspotting.