Julian Dicks cost Liverpool more than Robbie Keane did
Julian Dicks: expensive in his day
Soccerlens is a big fan of statistics, as Scott the Red’s in-depth rundown of last season’s Premier League data showed. In fact, statistics show that 83 per cent of all Soccerlens writers are fans of statistics. So when we heard that statistical evidence had been uncovered which proved that Julian Dicks was more expensive than Robbie Keane, we had to investigate.
The argument has been put together by Paul Tomkins in his column on Liverpool’s official website and will form the basis of a new book he has written. Tomkins has pumped considerable time into researching Liverpool’s (and other clubs’) transfer history. Instead of simply looking at the bottom line, he has viewed each transfer within the economic climate of the time by comparing it to the then British record transfer fee. By that reckoning, a £110,000 deal in 1961 is equivalent to a £30.8m transfer in 2006.
Using that technique to measure a player’s true cost, Julian Dicks’ transfer including the value of Mike Marsh and David Borrows in exchange was 67 per cent of the highest British transfer of the day (Paul Gascoigne’s £5.5 million switch to Lazio, if you were wondering), whereas Keane’s move this summer represented just 66 per cent of the transfer record at the time of his move.
Tomkins also points out that while Fernando Torres might have seemed like an expensive purchase at £23 million last summer, but this was only 75 per cent of the record fee at the time. Reds fans - who no doubt think El Nino is priceless anyway - can compare the transfer to those of Dean Saunders and Stan Collymore, both of whom broke the transfer record at the time they moved to Anfield.
And given that his article was published on Liverpool’s website, Tomkins can’t resist turning this round to take a dig at Manchester United. He points out that Sir Alex Ferguson very nearly broke the transfer record for the sixth time in August, but his spending on Dimitar Berbatov was eclipsed by Robinho joining Manchester City.
He wrote: “The list of Ferguson’s five record-breaking signings – Roy Keane, Andy Cole, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Juan Sebastian Veron and Rio Ferdinand – does not include other very expensive deals, like those involving Mark Hughes, Gary Pallister, Dwight Yorke and Wayne Rooney, each of whom cost 85-95 per cent of the record fee of the day.
“Or, in other words, each of whom cost 10-20 per cent more than Fernando Torres when put into the context of the year the deal took place. And Ferguson’s five British transfer records puts him equal with Liverpool’s entire history!”
You could argue that you can prove or anything with statistics, or you could simply say that you didn’t need statistics to tell you that Julian Dicks was bad value for money!
You are fans of statistics. Good. Then you will know that using the statistical outlier is not a good method to evaluate anything and the record transfer fee is exactly that, the outlier. Probably it would be more appropriate to use the mean value of transfer fees paid for say the best eleven of all Prem clubs or something like that.
If you use something like the cost for a bottle of milk or a loaf of bread as reference level you might find out that most transfer fees nowadays are out of this world (using common sense will lead to the same result). Compared to average living cost, housing or something more feasible transfer fees for football players, like their wages, are rising unproportionally.
Why not check whether these costs (fees and wages) are curving an exponential function.
In microbiology exponential growth leads to the point where the majority of populations die. Regarding our football clubs this could mean that the whole bubble will sooner or later burst and only a few might ’survive’. Probably not the ones with massive debts.
Thanks for the science input, but since you note in the final paragraph of your comment that there is a “bubble” to burst, why take something outside the bubble into consideration (eg a bottle of milk)when you acknowledge that football fees are not proportional to everyday living.
I don’t think Paul Tomkins is a rocket scientist and this is probably a crude method if you examine it that closely, but it does put transfer fees into context for the time they took place.
Doesnt stop him from being a waste of money
Well, I’m no rocket scientist either, Rob. Usually I like what Paul Tomkins writes, but, as I said above, taking the record fee as reference data does not make any sense at all, at least to me it doesn’t. Just imagine Chelsea or Man City paying 60m or more for a player (and that is not unlikely, isn’t it). That would make Keane a bargain, at 20m. Please give me a break.
My example of the bottle of milk aimed to point out that every day data like that is usually used in economics to determine stuff like inflation rate and such (and I am no economist either).
Regarding the bubble to burst and exponential growth I used micro organisms as an example. Don’t even know if that is transferable to football clubs, but looking at the current global financial market situation I guess it is. Micro organisms have about as much to do with football clubs like bottles of milk (may I point out that I am neither a micro biologist nor a milk man).
Paul Tomkins articles are usually a very attractive read but he went throwing too many statistics around but I think we all know were he is coming from and he has a very valid point.
But what IS the point? Good points by Anteater and what he really emphasises is the words of the great Benjamin Disraeli: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
Taken as a whole the artcile really tells us nothing.
As for his jibe at Ferguson and Man U. Indeed, I am prpeared to accept the stats wholeheartly here, just to be magnanimous.
Conclusion: Fergie has spent big to get his man when he really wants someone. Result: 10 PL titles.
Maybe Mr Tompkins can remind me how many Liverpool have won?
Forget the statistics for a second. If you put those figures into facts,it means that liverpool’s spending on players over the last 20 years has been much less then Man U’s. Money can sometimes buy a club the title coupled with a decent manager.
Man United proved that the last 16 years. Liverpool won the Champions League with a next to nothing squad in 2005.
And if you look at the Liverpool squad, it doesn’t cost as much a Manchester United’s but it a quite effective.
Jay Lee:”And if you look at the Liverpool squad, it doesn’t cost as much a Manchester United’s but it a quite effective.”
What do you mean ‘quite effective’? You either win things or you don’t. Utd made their own success and as a result generated the money that enables them to outspend others. They’ve managed the club excellently and constantly reinvested in the team.
10 PL titles speaks for itself.
Do you really get satisfaction from the ‘we spend less but still have a very good team, even though it hasn’t won the league for 18 years’ rationale?
Yawn!
Arsenal fans seem to get a lot of satisfaction from it, although they have 3 league titles and a CL finals appearance to brag about.
On the other hand, Liverpool have a CL win, a finals appearance and a semifinals appearance to boast about, all in the last 4 years.
Personally, Ahmed, I only boast about trophies. Everything else is 2nd best and they’d spend hand over fist if they could get their hands on the money.
It’s a false pretence they put forward.
It just goes to show that you can’t please all the people all the time. Paul Tomkins’s article may have unintentionally highlighted what we have all known for some time now; a manager will either get criticized for spending too much (Man U, Chelsea) or not winning titles if he can properly manage his spending (Liverpool). The above comments underline that point.