Player Value versus "Worth"

[Friday's Child]

Taking a look at the Gareth Barry scenario, and seeing the speculation about Reading players leaving, whilst reading about the saga between Derby County and Swansea about a target for us - Ferrie Bodde - gets me thinking about how players can actually be bought and sold these days. Some figures have been thrown around on here for our players such as:

- Kitson £2m to Fulham/Wigan
- Shorey £3m to Pompey
- Doyle £7.5m to West Ham
- Hunt £5m to Sunderland
- Doyle + Hunt £10m to Sunderland
- Harper £2,3, or 4m to Boro

... and all makes me wonder. I still struggle with the concept of a striker being "bought" as a person who does not in any way represent a financial "asset" in accounting terms. So how do we value our players? By the amount of time left on their contract and how much they are paid? By the impact they have on team performance, morale, etc and the prize of £35m for being promoted to the Premiership as a result? By "potential", if fulfilled?!

Anyway... all this is topical, because I can envisage our summer being somewhat "taken over" by bids for our players at fees that we will be less than satisfied with. I reckon that our best policy for RFC is:

> Keep transfers out of the press, and return dirty tactics with "no deals" stances
> Be realistic - Hunt seems to be worth £5m... if we get a bid like that then go for it
> Keep fees undisclosed - to not let-on to clubs that we will want to purchase from that we have cash to spend
> Use the loan system (trust SSC!)
> Any decent freebies?

Any more ideas? How much are our players actually "worth"? Why do traditionally smaller clubs seem to attract lower fees for players? Can one player's fee be used as a yardstick for any others?

Ask Palace fans about Coppell's success with £1m+ transfers. Not too dissimilar to Halford / Fae / Seol. Stick to the cheap ones with potential like Doyle et al...

[Archie's penalty]

I think the key points relating to player value are; 1)how long the player has left on his contract, 2) how much he is getting paid at the club he is at and 3) the talent or perceived talent of said player. I am not sure which of these is the most important.

But I agree with you that player values are a bit of mystery to me. I mean I can understand the value of a mass bought item which is defined by the market (i.e bread) but with a market like football when all prices are so outlandish and you cannot guarantee that the product will achieve what you hope it will, value becomes a bit confusing.

I wonder what other purchases outside of the world of football you could compare to the purchase of a player? A company perhaps?

Sorry if my post is a bit muddled.

[Arch]

That's fairly close to the club's stated policies.

We don't have to sell anyone
We need to trim the squad before we can add more players
You can't stop players who want to follow good offers from the Premiership
Players who don't want to be here will be moved on if the club's valuation is met
No one will be sold on the cheap
The loan market is a more valuable tool in the Championship than the Premiership
The opportunity for academy players to step up is there

All perfectly sound good sense, and as yet no evidence that any of it is bullshitting by the club. That won't stop the usual suspects from coming onto this thread with their repetitious crowing.

[Archie's penalty]

That's fairly close to the club's stated policies.

We don't have to sell anyone
We need to trim the squad before we can add more players
You can't stop players who want to follow good offers from the Premiership
Players who don't want to be here will be moved on if the club's valuation is met
No one will be sold on the cheap
The loan market is a more valuable tool in the Championship than the Premiership
The opportunity for academy players to step up is there

All perfectly sound good sense, and as yet no evidence that any of it is bullshitting by the club. That won't stop the usual suspects from coming onto this thread with their repetitious crowing.

I think being on this board seriously clouds my view of the way Reading is run. From the outside it's seen as a very well run club
and has the respect of many. On here we are seen to be terribly run, gutless and foolish.

Hmm I think I go with the former.

[percy_freeman]

Sorry for being a bit ignorant on this subject, but, if Darren Bent is worth £12 million in Tottenhams eyes, shirley the ginger whinger must be worth at least £15 mil!

[Sarah Star]

Doesn't the price of a player also rest on how much the buying club want him? If he's the one that has the particular talents that fit into their team then they'll be more willing to stump up the readies.

[West Stand Man]

Sorry for being a bit ignorant on this subject, but, if Darren Bent is worth £12 million in Tottenhams eyes, shirley the ginger whinger must be worth at least £15 mil!

Do we have a ginger whinger called shirley?

[JimmytheJim]

Sorry for being a bit ignorant on this subject, but, if Darren Bent is worth £12 million in Tottenhams eyes, shirley the ginger whinger must be worth at least £15 mil!

Do we have a ginger whinger called shirley?

I do.

[Rawlie19]

I honestly wouldn't mind if we sold every single name on that list.

I appreciate everyones contribution, and value them as players, but if you don't have the motivation to perform then you are nothing to the team.
Hunt and Harper are really the only ones on there who put any effort in.
However, Hunt is perhaps more suited to a relegation battle than he is to a promotion push, and Harper and Matejovsky can't really play together unless it were 4-3-3 with two attacking midfielders and a dm in the middle, and I doubt we will be playing that formation anytime soon.

If we sold all of the men listed in the initial post on this thread, we would recoup £15-20 million pounds.
If then Pearce, Karacan, Robson-Kanu and Henry were ready to step up, we would not have to spend all that money.
We could perhaps sign a left-back, a midfielder and a striker and leave it at that, and still have a competitive team.

Even if we sold everyone on the initial post + sonko&lita we could still field:
Hahnemann
Murty - Bikey - Pearce - Mr X
Henry - Mr X - Matejovsky - Convey
Long - Mr X

In fact it sounds like quite a competitive team, promotion candidates perhaps? And we would be 15 million in profit, at least - could help fund the stadium expansion?

If we sold all that list for £15-20 million and didn't buy anyone of note you would be among the first on here with your club out ready to do some Coppell bashing. Trust in SSC people say, but when he doesn't do what you want everybody is on his back. That's not trust.

[Forbury Lion]

With Shorey, Would the team be better off selling him for £3m now and spending £3m on a replacement now or keeping him this season and having to replace him with £3m less in the kitty.

I'm for selling him now, break a replacement in at Championship level first.

[chandog]

With Shorey, Would the team be better off selling him for £3m now and spending £3m on a replacement now or keeping him this season and having to replace him with £3m less in the kitty.

I'm for selling him now, break a replacement in at Championship level first.

Agreed
We should cash in on him now
He clearly wants to leave and we need 100% commitment from our players
If he stays i am unsure how well he will perform as his heart is not in it. This may well bring his value down and we may suffer for not selling him now
Once he has gone we can hopefully find a decent replacement

[Archie's penalty]

With Shorey, Would the team be better off selling him for £3m now and spending £3m on a replacement now or keeping him this season and having to replace him with £3m less in the kitty.

I'm for selling him now, break a replacement in at Championship level first.

Me too.

[VOR]

With Shorey, Would the team be better off selling him for £3m now and spending £3m on a replacement now or keeping him this season and having to replace him with £3m less in the kitty.

I'm for selling him now, break a replacement in at Championship level first.

Me too.

And me.

BTW, I think we'll also get bids for Matejovsky. Easy to forget it now after his injury and Czechs being dumped out of Euro 2008 but he had looked a class act up to then and players like him who can find the killer pass are always in demand.

[Archie's penalty]

Sonko was also missing from the list above - 1-2 million.

[rhroyal]

I don't quite understand value either. Even with the respective contract periods remaining I can't see how Hunt could ever be worth £2mill more than Shorey when Shorey can defend, cross, pass and shoot whilst Hunt can run. Liverpool confuse matters too, valuing Crouch at £15mill and bidding something like £12mill for Barry. The bottom line is our players are worth as much as anybody is willing to pay for them, and if we can follow all the tough stance and keep all bids quiet we should hold out for a decent amount. Of course we should prepare for Roy Keane to tell the world that he has made a bid for Hunt and the player will no doubt react to that, but generally if we keep bids quiet we can do well.

In an ideal world the only players I'd see leave would be Shorey as he doesn't care any more, Harper as we need a more defensive player alongside Matejovsky (Bodde sounds perfect) and Hunt as Convey is better (If his knee sorts itself out) and if we got £5mill for him we'd be laughing all the way to the bank. Should West Brom come in with £2mill for Sonko I'd be happy with that too, although I'd like to see us sort our differences out with him, I think Superman can return.

I think however Kitson, Doyle and Lita could all leave too which will seriously damage us for next season, it doesn't get any better than those 3 in the Championship and I'll even stick my neck out and say that if we keep them we'll go straight back up. They offer you about 20 goals each down here, which is a lot of goals. I'm desperately hoping we can keep hold of at least 2 of these 3 as they will be very hard to replace.

[Archie's penalty]

I don't quite understand value either. Even with the respective contract periods remaining I can't see how Hunt could ever be worth £2mill more than Shorey when Shorey can defend, cross, pass and shoot whilst Hunt can run. Liverpool confuse matters too, valuing Crouch at £15mill and bidding something like £12mill for Barry. The bottom line is our players are worth as much as anybody is willing to pay for them, and if we can follow all the tough stance and keep all bids quiet we should hold out for a decent amount. Of course we should prepare for Roy Keane to tell the world that he has made a bid for Hunt and the player will no doubt react to that, but generally if we keep bids quiet we can do well.

In an ideal world the only players I'd see leave would be Shorey as he doesn't care any more, Harper as we need a more defensive player alongside Matejovsky (Bodde sounds perfect) and Hunt as Convey is better (If his knee sorts itself out) and if we got £5mill for him we'd be laughing all the way to the bank. Should West Brom come in with £2mill for Sonko I'd be happy with that too, although I'd like to see us sort our differences out with him, I think Superman can return.

I think however Kitson, Doyle and Lita could all leave too which will seriously damage us for next season, it doesn't get any better than those 3 in the Championship and I'll even stick my neck out and say that if we keep them we'll go straight back up. They offer you about 20 goals each down here, which is a lot of goals. I'm desperately hoping we can keep hold of at least 2 of these 3 as they will be very hard to replace.

Very good post - I agree almost entirely with what you are saying. Only have several slight disagreements. 1) am not completely sure Convey is better than Hunt but it's close and 2) I think that it is clear that length of contract has a lot to do with value - that's the only reason I can think for why Shorey could be worth two million less than Hunt...

[Roger the Rabbit]

I think that it is clear that length of contract has a lot to do with value - that's the only reason I can think for why Shorey could be worth two million less than Hunt...

Surely it's no more than peripheral ?

Teams either want a player now or they don't. If they want him now then how long he has on his contract is irrelevant. If they don;t really want a player but are just making a speculative enquiry then perhaps they might decide to wait a year and see if they can get him for nothing, however for Shorey to wait another year before getting a move could be a real killer for his career. Length of contract is a bit of a lever in the negotiations but a fairly weak one.

[Ian Royal]

To be honest I'm of the opinion we should get rid of Shorey no matter what. He's extremely talented, but the time has come to move on. I only see him as being a disruptive influence from now on. Maybe I'm being harsh, but I'd hope for £4-5m but take £2m or maybe even £1.5m if nothing else was forthcoming.

Doyle, Kitson and Harper would be players I'd want to keep, so make clubs pay through the nose to get.

Lita, Sonko & Hunt I'd just want something reasonable to boost the kitty. Happy to keep if no decent offers made.

In my opinion we definitely need a left back, a right winger and a central midfielder. The only player above I don't think we'd really need to replace should they go is Sonko. Otherwise we'd need to bring in extra on top of those 3 positions for every one of those players who goes.

With the exception of Shorey who in my opinion may as well be gone already

[Archie's penalty]

To be honest I'm of the opinion we should get rid of Shorey no matter what. He's extremely talented, but the time has come to move on. I only see him as being a disruptive influence from now on. Maybe I'm being harsh, but I'd hope for £4-5m but take £2m or maybe even £1.5m if nothing else was forthcoming.

Doyle, Kitson and Harper would be players I'd want to keep, so make clubs pay through the nose to get.

Lita, Sonko & Hunt I'd just want something reasonable to boost the kitty. Happy to keep if no decent offers made.

In my opinion we definitely need a left back, a right winger and a central midfielder. The only player above I don't think we'd really need to replace should they go is Sonko. Otherwise we'd need to bring in extra on top of those 3 positions for every one of those players who goes.

With the exception of Shorey who in my opinion may as well be gone already

I agree with you about Shorey.

I have changed my mind about Lita. I think he will be crucial this year and I hope he doesn't go. His attitude at the end of the season was better than most in the squad.

I would accept 3.5 - 4 million for Harper but I don't understand those who insist we get rid. I think he could be very important for us next year as well.

[brendywendy]

theyre the ones who think sidwell carried harps through their whole career
harper contributing nothing to the midfield pairing whatsoever, apparently