Planet Swans ArchivesBut yesterday’s statement promising “significant losses” when the accounts are released tells you more than just what has happened in the last three months and that is that we are now paying the price for some pretty poor transfer dealings over the past two years.
When you look at the players that we have bought in – particularly in the three transfer windows under Garry Monk – then you realise that we have not really had much value for money out of any of them. You could argue that Ayew was the best value of them all but even he came at a significant cost to the club and whilst a profit was turned off that particular deal it will not be as significant as we possibly could have coped.
You only have to look at the likes of Tabanou, Eder, Gomis and Paloschi to start with to realise that the value was not there and then you add in other moves that seem to have not benefited us where even the purchase of Federico Fernandez seems to have not necessarily been value for money.
Our much praised scouting system that gave us some great buys in the past few years has failed us big time and there has to be a series of people who hold their hands up and admit that it has not been good enough.
What this all tells you of course is that a club of our stature and size cannot afford to make too many mistakes in the transfer market and when you make a series of those mistakes together then the fall out can last for a period longer than just the length of the contracts that have been given out.
Without defending what we have done you wonder how much that has been spent in this summer transfer window – a total of รยฃ1.1bn – will be classed as regretted spend in four months time let alone in twelve months. Even our relatively minimal spend could be regretted and there are those already telling you that the money on Llorente is money badly spent.
We have also given out new contracts this summer to existing members of the squad which is a surprise given that money is tight and may have been better used in fees/signing on fees but it is probably testament to just how much players control the spend these days and when there is extra income they all want their share – agents and all.
What we do know though is that we need to undertake a review of our transfer dealings and policy and look at better ways of doing that. Whether that is better scouting, better negotiation or just a better sell of Swansea City I do not know but I do know that something needs to change on this front or we will continue to pay the price for poor dealings and eventually there will not be an income there to balance out the mistakes.
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