So how much have we made on transfers during Ashley's reign?
The other day I wrote an article about our spending and how it stacked up against other clubs during the most recent transfer window.
In fairness I was asked by a few people to do it as they genuinely wanted to know how we compared to the other teams over the course of the summer. I was only to happy to help.
Subsequently I received criticism, from one person I hasten to add, who moaned that the figures for summer spending didn't tell us more than what the summer spending was. So essentially my article doing exactly what it said it was doing caused someone a problem.
No matter. I can adjust and adapt and I'm quite happy to write another article looking at our transfer spend in a bit more detail to appease this one person. It's also fairly relevant topic at the moment given that there are all sorts of figures being thrown about, many of them different, detailing just how much has been spent on transfers since Mike Ashley took the reigns back in 2007. Joey Barton seems to think that it's somewhere in the region of a £59 million profit from player sales for example.
So to establish anything we first need to look at who we've brought in during the Ashley years. For the purposes of this article I'm going to leave out free transfers as it's hard to pinpoint exactly how much the 'hidden' costs, such as agent fees and signing on fees, actually are. Instead we'll just look at transfer fees.
2007/2008
Abdoulaye Faye - £2,000,000
Ben Tozer - £250,000
Habib Baye - £2,000,000
Jose Enrique - £6,500,000
Alan Smith - £6,000,000
Joey Barton - £5,800,000
Total = £22,550,000
2008/2009
Jonas Gutierrez - £7,000,000
Fabricio Coloccini - £10,300,000
Danny Guthrie - £2,500,000
Xisco - £5,700,000
Kevin Nolan - £4,000,000
Total = £29,500,000
2009/2010
Danny Simpson - £750,000
Mike Williamson - £1,500,000
Wayne Routledge - £1,500,000
Leon Best - £2,000,000
Total = £5,750,000
2010/2011
James Perch - £1,000,000
Cheik Tiote - £3,500,000
Hatem Ben Arfa - £5,750,000
Total = £10,250,000
2011/2012 (Summer window only)
Yohan Cabaye - £4,500,000
Gabriel Obertan - £3,250,000
Davide Santon - £5,000,000
Rob Elliot - £100,000
Total = £12,850,000
So that takes our spending under Ashley to £80.9m. You can see that our spend in the Championship season was significantly less than at any other time which is perhaps understandable given the players that we had on our books and the costs associated with them coming from a revenue that had taken a battering thanks to the withdrawal of lucrative Premier League TV money.
It doesn't tell the full story though. I mean to get a picture of where we are truly at we need to look at how much we've brought in through player sales under Mike Ashley. Is it really £59 million like Joey Barton proclaims? Is it more? Is it less? Well let's take a look. Once again I'm only counting fees received.
2007/2008
David Rozenhal - £2,900,000
Albert Luque - £2,00,000
Kieron Dyer - (I don't know how but) £6,000,000
Total = £10,900,000
2008/2009
Emre - £4,000,000
Abdoulaye Faye - £2,250,000
James Milner - £12,000,000
Shay Given - £7,000,000
Charles N'Zogbia - £6,000,000
Total = £31,250,000
2009/2010
Sebastien Bassong - £10,000,000
Damien Duff - £4,000,000
Obafemi Martins - £9,000,000
Habib Beye - £2,500,000
Total = £25,500,000
2010/2011
Andy Carroll - £35,000,000
Total = £35,000,000
2011/2012
Kevin Nolan - £3,500,000
Jose Enrique - £6,000,000
Wayne Routlegde - £2,200,000
Total = £11,700,000
So when everything is added up it gives us a total of £114,350,000 brought in from transfer fees since Mike Ashley took control of the club. Crunching the numbers further I make that a net profit of £33,450,000. It's a lot, but it isn't £59,000,000 in fairness.
I see a worrying trend here however. If you look at how much surplus there is it bears a striking resemblance to the amount we brought in from the sale of Andy Carroll. Now I still firmly believe that Carroll is worth nowhere near £35 million and believe it was one of those fees that was a "one off". They don't come along like that often.
However take that one off fee out of the equation and what are you left with? A net spend of roughly zero. This is what is now my major concern.
It's pretty clear, to me anyway, that what goes out will be recouped from player sales. There is evidence to suggest that this is the case. Cold hard evidence. There is no extra outlay and it's been a long while since that has been the case.
Now there are of course exceptional circumstances with regards to our outgoing transfers. A lot of players wanted to leave in our relegation season and at the start of our Championship campaign. The reasons for them wanting to leave are probably best left for another article although it's also worth pointing out that some of them just wanted to go due to the relegation. The other exceptional circumstance is of course Andy Carroll.
Aside from that though the form book looks worrying. I understand the need for financial prudence, but to not outlay a penny is over the top in my opinion. What do we do in January? Do we end up having to sell someone again so we can get three or four cheaper players in with the aim of doing the same thing again in the summer? How do we build a team if that is the case?
To a certain extent the money doesn't bother me. It never has in fairness. It could 30 bob or 30 million and I wouldn't give a toss as long as the team was improved as a result. That is my biggest question right now and it's one I'd like to hear an answer to.
Is there any ambition at all or is it just another "pile em high and sell 'em" venture?
I'm not denying that we've signed some good players. In fact I believe that we've signed some very good players on paper. What happens if they start showing quality and attracting interest from other clubs though?
We arrive back at square one is my guess. Rinse and repeat.
