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Luke Shaw Departure ! Why It Is Good For Saints !
Friday, 27th Jun 2014 10:18

There are some who will herald the departure of Luke Shaw as the start of a fire sale at Saints and claim it indicates the club has no ambition, I would say that it is part of a process that is in the blueprint of progressive football clubs.

Some supporters cannot get out of their head the notion that a succesful football club is one that hangs on to all its good players and spends big on new ones, of course that is a blueprint that works for teams like Manchester United, Chelsea and latterly Manchester City, but for most other teams its a way of running a football club that is unsustainable financially and in the case of some notable Leeds United and Portsmouth has lead to a financial meltdown that may take them decades to recover from.

The modern football club is now run far differently that it was a decade ago, dinosaurs like Harry Redknapp etc who believe that sports science is bunkum and that tactics can be plotted using the slat and pepper pots in a West ham cafe are now rare and more progressive thinking is to the fore.

That thinking states that every football club should know the true value of every player to the team and that when that player greatly exceeds that value in terms of what other teams are prepared to pay for him, then he should be sold, hopefully when the selling club has a replacement already in situ or at least lined up.

As has been suggested in various interviews on the official club website, Saints employ many people who pore over the performance data not only of our own players but of our transfer targets to ensure that we keep our performances at the optimum level.

Therefore Saints will know for each and every player what their worth is to the team, for a striker that means in simple terms goals scored and assists etc, but it will also cover passes and tackles made, that data will tell you season by season whether a player is improving or getting worse, whether his effort levels are increasing or decreasing. It will tell you whether that players goals effect matches and how many points will be won or dropped etc

It will give indications as to whether its time to move that player on and bring in his replacement.

That time has come for Luke Shaw, in simple terms we have a player who we can get £30 million plus for who is doing the a £10 million job, that being the case then perhaps its time to cash in, get a £10 million replacement and invest in other areas.

Some will say that if we hold on to him for a season or two his value will increase, it probably will slightly, but the stark reality is that it will only increase drastically by his improvement and he will only get that improvement by playing in a better team with better players and competing for trophies that will harden him and give him that edge.

Our staticians will have looked at Shaw's data, they will have looked at the variables, of course its not an exact science but they will have calculated how the team would have benefited if he had made 10% more tackles/passes/assists etc in terms of points, as well as calculating what the results would have been if he had been 10% worse.

It would probably have told us that if he had been 10% better then the point or two extra it might have won us would have had no difference on our league position, we were 8 points off of United we needed a big swing in order to catch them, it also would have told us that if we had had a full back performing to 90% of Shaw's level say, then it might have cost us two points and again that would have had no impact on our league position.

Again I reiterate football is not an exact science and as I have no access to the exact figures I can only give an overview of how it works and not what the results for Saints would have been.

I would hazard a guess though that our staticians would calculate that we we had a player who we could get £30 million for, doing the job that a player worth £10 million could do almost as well.

So in the simplest of terms it would make sense to cash in and get that £30 million and buy the £10 million pound fullback, Ok we would be two points a season down, but if we then invested that money elsewhere and improved other positions then the real result might be a points gain overall.

This is not of course my own theory, its a theory that is being used increasingly across Europe with some success and that is why we have seen some so called lesser clubs greatly exceed expectations and even win titles.Olympic Lyonnais are perhaps the best example of this, before the turn of the millenium they had never won a title, since then they have won 7 and are now well established in the French League and able to compete with the top clubs, the difference is they have been run as a business rather than had money thrown at them.

Full details of how the modern fooball club thinks can be found in the book "Soccernomics" anyone who has read this has their thinking on how a football club should be run completely changed and suddenly realises why the old way of thinking is out dated.

The Soccernomics way of thinking might rely heavily on statistics, but those statistics when aligned with good management will achieve results, data can help if used in the right way.

Of course most clubs dont apply Soccernomics to its full, but most are now starting to start along its path, one such club is Liverpool and the fact they are is no shock, John Henry the owner of Liverpool also owns the Boston Red Sox a team that hadn't won the World Series in years, Soccernomics has its roots in the theories of Billy Beane the general manager of the Oakland A's he implemented it with success and the Red Sox followed, it was only natural that Liverpool would as well, it has taken time but for the first time in a decade or more Liverpool have been genuine title challengers, one of Henry's first acts was to sell Torres for £45 million and buy Suarez at £17 million and Carroll at £35 million, given that Liverpool have recieved £15 million back on Carroll it has been a good bit of business.

Soccernomics has certain rules when it comes to transfers, here are some of them.

1. A new money wastes money on transfers dont let him

Use the wisdom of crowds.

In fairness Saints implemented this under Nicola Cortese, what the above means is that several heads are better than one, have a transfer committee and a clear way for the club rather than letting each new manager bring in who he wants, every 15 months you just repeat the process.

2. Several areas are overvalued
A. Stars of recent World Cups and European Championships
B. Certain nationalities
C. Older players
D. Centre forwards

3. Sell any player when another club offers a lot more than he is worth

4. Replace your best players before you sell them

These are just a few and Im sure many will think they are no brainers, they are ! but if you think about it, how many clubs actually follow these rules.

So selling Luke Shaw to Manchester United is actually not backward thinking by Saints, its actually the right thing to do as a club, it is the way stronger squads are built and from stronger squads come better results, yes in an ideal World we would have kept Shaw and still spent the money on improving the squad, but few clubs have that financial clout without seriously putting their financial stability in jeapordy, as i say Soccernomics puts into perspective what the buying and selling of a player can actually mean, if we think about it we were actually 23 points short of Champions League qualification last season, hanging on to Shaw would not bridge that gap next season, however selling him and investing wisely might bring us closer to Everton who finished 16 points ahead of us, what cost us last season was the overall strength in depth of the squad.

Of course our success next season depends on having the right manager in place and buying the right players, that is something that for all the data and statistics in the World you cant change, ultimately football is a hit and miss sport and it has to be realised and this is bourne out by looking at virtually any Premier league table over the past 6-7 years, that the team that finishes 8th one season can just as easily struggle against relegation the next, that is perhaps because that team relied on one or two players rather than being strong overall.

But I do feel that we do have a good manager in place and given that before we invest any of our income from the Premier league that Koeman has transfer income in the bank already this summer assuming Shaw does go of £40 - £50 million, I would say that far from being dark days for Saints, all of the teams who finished below us last season would be very envious not only of the transfer funds we have available but of the owners and management we are now putting in place.

Bringing Luke Shaw through the ranks was the first steps of Soccernomics, the second step is selling him for more than he is worth to us as a club, now we just have to implement the third step and that is using the money wisely.

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montecristo added 19:54 - Jun 27
Im amazed by the gullability of so many Saints fans they say love is blind but this is ridiculous , engage your brains and look at the business implications of what is being done these are not sporting decisions at all. Something I know rather a lot about Im afraid.
What makes you think that top players will now be prepared to come to us, when all we do is sell??
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montecristo added 20:26 - Jun 27
There are thousands of very upset Saints fans at the moment so Nick s views are in the extreme minority. The fact is we have been sewriously let down by the club s owner who s only thought is the money she is going to get out of selling all our top players. Not one will be left by the end of the transfer window, and we will have to do with cheap imports who may struggle to adapt. Its going to be a hard and probably sad season for us next year.
My only hope is that Miss Liebherr will have gone also by then. Heres hoping..
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densham41 added 21:10 - Jun 27
Monticristo please cheer up mate. I'm deciding whether to go for the train line at Eastleigh station or an overdose. As my monty python would say always look on the bright side of life.
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SaintDownUnder added 22:38 - Jun 27
Maybe we should cut out the middleman and sell directly to Real Madrid?

My concern with selling Luke shaw is that at 18 we don't know what he's capable of yet. All his data suggests he's better than Bale, and as good as bale was for saints hands up who thinks we got the best out of Bale either on the pitch or financially?

The other factor with the moneyball equation is wages. The issue with holding onto 'assets' is their desire to stay given the jump in wages they can achieve with other clubs, this I believe is the reason the board have decided to cash in on Shaw now and sadly unless we engineer a situation where we're prepared/able to offer higher wages then we're always going to have a 'talent ceiling' which will make breaking into the euro or even champions league club increasingly difficult as each season passes.

I understand the money ball logic but in the case of shaw at 18 I believe we've sold two to three seasons too early.
1

SanMarco added 22:51 - Jun 27
montecristo - cant really blame Markus for dying. Is there any evidence for these asset-stripping and lying allegations? These players would have gone even if NC had stayed - oh yes they would.

Without the Liebherrs this club might now be having 4th division local derbies with Poopey. If they were to sell and it was a leveraged buy-out/reverse takeover we would then find out what asset-stripping really meant. LS and AL couldn't wait to go and that is that - we need to get over it and move on. As far as I am concerned the club has done little wrong so far. That will change drastically if they spend the money badly...
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pintsizedsaint added 23:30 - Jun 27
Montechristo, if you want to talk nonsense, go write it on the Daily Echo's website.
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Nicolacomeback added 00:06 - Jun 28
Soccernomics. Right! Sounds very American. Anyway we fans will remember this term.
God forbid but If Koeman saints association turns sour then we will be left with a bunch of Dutch league players. the club clueless. Then maybe we'll talk soccernomics?
Don't forget Osvaldo. That's was Poch's legacy who pushed for him. We are still stuck with him.
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aceofthebase added 08:38 - Jun 28
luke Shaw never scored a goal, stats that prove he was a rubbish player. Ricky Lambert never saved a penalty, stats that prove he was a rubbish player.
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Kennington added 09:00 - Jun 28
This is one of the strangest articles I think I've ever read. It just screams out the you think that Saints are at best mediocre. The reality is that very soon you will be correct, but it didn't have to be this way.

Saints did well last season, but at around Christmas time, when Osvaldo was off the scene, the board should have acted by 1. bringing in or loaning a replacement and 2. calling in to the board room JRod, AL, Shaw and Morgan (possibly Lovren) and telling them that they have all over performed this year and they would be rewarded with better deals. Although they wouldn't be getting 100k at Saints it would have been irritating for AL and Morgan who have been around for a while that Osvaldo was earning more. If Shaw and AL were offered say £70k deals at Christmas I think they may well have stayed. With the TV money, I can't see why we couldn't have done this. The only reason why we didn't is Saints seem to have a very rich owner that wants to run this as a business. If this is correct then we might as well have a Rupert type character. The next month will be crucial as if we get in simply journeyman dross then maybe many fans will turn against her - or maybe Saints fans are just happy to make up the numbers and have no ambition.
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BarnetSaint added 09:35 - Jun 28
I wish I shared some of the positive spin on here.
The domino effect is truly alarming.deep down we accepted 3 would be off. ( the 3 L's)
Yes we have more great talent ready to break through but is Anyone confident of retaining them.
I don't believe our esteemed board are capable of using the word
NO
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BarnetSaint added 09:38 - Jun 28
I wish I shared some of the positive spin on here.
The domino effect is truly alarming.deep down we accepted 3 would be off. ( the 3 L's)
And yes we have more great talent ready to break through but is Anyone confident of retaining them if they do look decent cos I sure as hell don't.
And I don't believe our esteemed board are capable of using the word
NO
0

BarnetSaint added 09:39 - Jun 28
I wish I shared some of the positive spin on here.
The domino effect is truly alarming.deep down we accepted 3 would be off. ( the 3 L's)
And yes we have more great talent ready to break through but is Anyone confident of retaining them if they do look decent cos I sure as hell don't.
And I don't believe our esteemed board are capable of using the word
NO
0

BarnetSaint added 09:41 - Jun 28
I wish I shared some of the positive spin on here.
The domino effect is truly alarming.deep down we accepted 3 would be off. ( the 3 L's)
And yes we have more great talent ready to break through but is Anyone confident of retaining them if they do look decent cos I sure as hell don't.
And I don't believe our esteemed board are capable of using the word
NO
0


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