Marquee signings

Marquee signings

Does Benteke leaving mean the end of Parish's Marquee signing era? Back in 2015 Palace signed Cabaye, next year brought in Benteke, then the season after it was Sakho. Could argue that this era was finished when Roy was in charge. We have changed the transfer strategy after getting a bloated wage bill and high amortisation. Since the club has slimmed down. Even though Palace’s current strategy of buying younger players with high resale value potential. I kinda miss the old days. 

I am not going to included Wilf Zaha and Steve Mandanda as marquee signings. Zaha resigned as 22. He was still a player that was developing. Definitely a major signing buy not marquee. Steve, I am very close to adding as he was a very high profile player for football hipsters, FIFA, and Football manager players. The lack of transfer fee makes it harder to include him and Marseille isn’t the same level as PSG or Liverpool.

Cabaye

I remember the day that he signed and I was constantly refreshing Twitter. The excitement was huge. This was for me the first marquee signing of Parish Premier League era. In his first interview, he mentioned that he thought we could break into the top 8. We had before that signed lots of good players but not someone with such a profile and was still in his prime. In the world cup a couple of seasons before signing for Palace he started four of France's five matches. 

He was a great for the club. A quality midfeilder that helped bring other players into the game. I remember that cool finish for his goal against Norwich at the start of his first season. 

He moved for a club record fee of around £10 million. Capology estimates before bonus Cabaye were on 85.5k a week (£4.4 m a year). That season Palace’s wage bill was £71m including bonuses. His basic wage was massive chunk of the wage bill at that point. So excluding bonuses Cabaye three seasons at Palace cost £23.3m. (£7.8 m a year). That was very expensive at the time as the massive TV deal was on the horizon. The domestic deal with Sky and BT was increased by 70%. The next year Palace staff cost went up to £111m from £80m. Suddenly there was some more football wage inflation that made the Cabaye deal look value for money. So for the first year he was premium player on premium money; the next two years he was premium player on good money. 

Benteke

My first memory of Benteke was him signing for Villa and him thinking Villa was in London. In a interview, he said that he loved Arsenal and wasn’t worried about making enemies at Villa by saying so. He was a great player for Villa. That first season he was 4th top goal scorer in the Premier League. Score 19 goals in a team that finished 15th. Next two seasons he got 10 and 13 goals. That earned him a big move to Liverpool. Only scored nine goals for Liverpool but his goal per 90 minutes was 0.53. That was his best goal per 90 since his first year at Villa. Worth adding Klopp was hired in October of that season. Christian wasn’t his style of pressing forward so Liverpool were will to sell him. 

Palace was riding on a high. Doing so well in the FA cup the season before. Bringing in a star striker was massive. That first season was amazing. He was everything we wanted. 15 league goals in 35 games. That was joint 3rd for Premier League goals for Palace player in a season. But only got into double figures one more time in the next five seasons. 

The transfer fee was a club record of £32.5m. Capology has his wages at 110k a week for the whole time he was at the club. Not sure that’s correct. I would expect his wage to change after different contracts but I could be wrong. Roughly he cost £11.7m per season excluding bonuses. If Christian didn’t renew his contract this would be a lot higher. The transfer fee over six seasons was £5.4m. If you compare that to the current striker. Edouard works out to be £9.5m per season. That with a four-year contract. Which makes a big difference when splitting the fee. 

If money wasn't a factor I would rate him as a great player for Palace. But factoring in the money spent it’s not so obvious. If he scored ten or more a season then I would say it would be a good value for money. Palace had some differcult seasons as the club had overspent. 

Sakho

I used to keep an eye on the French league. It was a fun league that was mad. Since 1893 only three teams have won the league ten times. It’s rare for teams to dominate before PSG new money ruin it. Olympic Lyon did dominate from 02 to 08 but never won the league outside that stretch. The French Cup is the most unusual domestic cup competition. Last year 3,378 teams entered with two 4th tier teams getting to the Quarterfinal and one (FC Versailles 78) getting to the semi. That is pretty standard for the tournament. Bit side tracked there but just showing that I really like French domestic football. Sakho was a player that I was following when first started at PSG. He was the youngest ever captain in league uno when took the arm band for a game against Valenciennes at 17. He became the full time captain at 21. He was a legend at his local club. He left the club after falling out with Carlo Ancelotti. This is not a player that I was expecting to turn up in the home dressing room at Selhurst Park. 

For short spells at Palace he was great. The issue was that he didn’t play enough. In four full seasons he only played more than half the league seasons once. In that season he still missed 11 league games. The transfer fee from Liverpool was £26 million and wages on capolgy was £100k a week. So each season without bonuses cost £11.7 million per season.In that last season it was £3 million per 90 minutes. This is the massive risk of marquee signings. That you pay premium price for a player that cannot stay on the field for full season.

He has now gone to Montpellier and fair play to him; seems to be playing regually again. Last season is played more minutes than any season since he was twenty at PSG. 

Marquee Signings Future

Buying these players with high ceiling and high floor would be great. But the risk is that you misjudge that and even though you think they have a high floor they don’t. As they are people. Sometimes you sign a marquee player and it doesn’t work. This happens at all levels and clubs. This even happens at office jobs. Point is that the high fee and wages means if it messes up it will cause problems. It’s no wonder that Palace’s spending in the transfer market massively slowed after these signings. Just those three players we costing 31.2m a season plus bonuses. That was 20% of amortisation (transfer cost spread over contract) and wages for 17-18 season. That season Palace used thirty players. So that’s 20% of the cost on 10% of the players. 

I will miss the excitement of the transfer saga. Recent transfer deals haven’t grabbed me in the same way. Most of the recent transfers have been players I have had to research a bit before getting excited. (might just be me getting old). I do miss going for a player that you know loads and are excited to see play immediately. It’s different now. Still exciting to see little bits of magic from Malcolm in the U23. Wondering if he will bring that to the senior team. It’s much more of a slow burn and it can also become a disappointment. We all love to over hype our favourite Palace players.

Will we see more marquee signings? Possibly. Vieira keeps on mentioning that he wants some more experienced heads to balance the squad. Next year with large number of experienced players on the last year of their deals. If Zaha leaves then there be a temptation to buy a big-name replacement for the best player we have had in recent times. Also in American team building. They bring the ring in lots of young players and then add quality once the young players a jelled as a team. They refer to this as the “win now stage”. They will sacrifice future draft picks for good players in the short term. It’s kinda what happened when we signed all these marquee players. We may enter that phase again or maybe they feel like that doesn’t work for Palace to take that risk.