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The Egyptian King

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Fabio said:
I'm just explaining the viewpoint. At 32, how long is 16% coversion going to be enough? We're relying on a very low output, purely because our chances creation is so high. Our chance creation dips, so does mos output.

It's predominantly because mo is taking the lions share of chances, he's so high up.

We need to be focusing long term on spreading the wealth, or ideally, buying a 9 with a 20%+ conversion rate
Click to expand...


And I get all that and don’t disagree with loads of it.

Absolutely, we’re losing Salah on a free, whether it’s this summer or 1, 2, 3 years time - it’s as inevitable as Thanos.

I think there’s an argument for ripping off the band aid and doing it, even tough he’s clearly capable of delivering tangible results for the team.

I say tangible, because sometimes we are getting too caught up in unnecessary stats, let’s call some of them “paper stats” - the important ones are not necessarily “conversion rates”, it’s basically “how many times the ball end up in the back of the net”.

As an illustration, in my line of work (retail buying) there’s a cyclical argument about margin v sales that goes on - half the year the senior managers are drumming into us the importance of achieving “good margin” on the products we’re selling.

Then someone pipes up with “what’s the margin on fuck all sales” and off we go actually putting additional dollars through the till.

For me Salah’s the same - I do t really care about his conversion rate - the end result is he’s a “chance magnet” that will deliver “actual goals and actual assists” as opposed to projected bullshit that fucks us when the reality is different than the paper forecast.

That’s why Haaland, for all his obvious faults, is still worth his weight in gold.

The TLDR is - it doesn’t matter how many you miss… all that matters is how many you actually put away - and Salah is king at finding space to get goalscoring opportunities and he’s that type of player that doesn’t give a fuck if he misses - he just gets up and goes looking for the next chance.

Darwin’s not like that. That’s not a criticism - few players are, that’s what makes them special and worth keeping.
 
Gonna invoke the almighty @Beamrider here.

Dunno if this is correct.

Did some, very basic sums, without knowing the agent, bonus structure. Etc, but….

Let’s not limit it to Salah and add in the other 2 high salary players with contracts ending.

So… £300k a week equates to roughly £15m a year on the books.

That’s roughly the same as a £50m signing (spread over 5 years) on £130k a week.

One’s a 3 years commitment and the others a 5 years commitment (well until the contract re-negotiation), but the net results to the books is much the same.

I’d imagine the “value” of the younger player is higher (that’s pure Xpert XI - if you know… you know).

I know it’s not quite as simple as that, with agent fees, blah, blah, blah… but it feels like where we are - do we pay these high salaries to retain top, but aging players with no sell on value (they’re all leaving on frees at some point - kid yourself not)…

Or do we shop in that £50m transfer fee range for a younger player on lower salary?
 
StevieM said:
Gonna invoke the almighty @Beamrider here.

Dunno if this is correct.

Did some, very basic sums, without knowing the agent, bonus structure. Etc, but….

Let’s not limit it to Salah and add in the other 2 high salary players with contracts ending.

So… £300k a week equates to roughly £15m a year on the books.

That’s roughly the same as a £50m signing (spread over 5 years) on £130k a week.

One’s a 3 years commitment and the others a 5 years commitment (well until the contract re-negotiation), but the net results to the books is much the same.

I’d imagine the “value” of the younger player is higher (that’s pure Xpert XI - if you know… you know).

I know it’s not quite as simple as that, with agent fees, blah, blah, blah… but it feels like where we are - do we pay these high salaries to retain top, but aging players with no sell on value (they’re all leaving on frees at some point - kid yourself not)…

Or do we shop in that £50m transfer fee range for a younger player on lower salary?
Click to expand...
Reposting something I did a few months back in the thread about the three players. This compared re-signing Mo to signing Kudus. Underlying assumptions were:

"how would the club evaluate renewing Salah for 25million per season for 3 years vs buying Kudus for 75m fees & 8m in wages for a 5 year contract".

OK, I'll take it from here. Lots of numbers, sorry. And every time I try to post a pic it fails so I'm not just dropping my table in here.

Using these numbers, we need to add in some additional costs:
1. Transfer levy - this will be 4% of the fee for Kudus, nothing for Mo.
2. Social security (NIC) - 15% levy on all the wages.
3. Agent fee. I'm assuming 12% of the wages - not sure what current levels are but it was around 10% when I left and will only have gone up
4. Loyalty bonus - to cover the tax on the player's share of the agent fee.
I assume performance bonuses are either included or the same for each player.

So these costs add (in total):
1. Nothing for Mo, £3m for Kudus deal.
2. £11.25m for Mo, £6m for Kudus.
3. £9m for Mo, £4.8m for Kudus.
4. £4.6m for Mo, £2.4m for Kudus.

So firstly, lets look at cash flow profile (in total):

Total cash is £99.8m for Mo, £131.2m for Kudus.

Split as follows:

Mo:

Year 1 £31.7m
Year 2 £33.3m
Year 3 £34.8m

Kudus:

Year 1 £38.8m (includes transfer fee and agent)
Year 2 £36.6m
Year 3 £36.6m
Year 4 £10.0m (no transfer fee / agent)
Year 5 £9.2m

So the difference in cost (Kudus costs more in each year by):

Year 1 £7.1m
Year 2 £3.3m
Year 3 £1.8m
Year 5 £10.0m
Year 6 £9.2m

Total £31.4m

Accounts impact:

Mo
Same as the cash flow - this is just a function of it being a three-year deal.

Kudus:
Year 1 £25.8m
Year 2 £26.6m
Year 3 £26.6m
Year 4 £26.6m
Year 5 £25.7m

Additional accounts impact from Kudus:
Year 1 £-6.0m (saving)
Year 2 £-6.7m
Year 3 £-8.2m
Year 4 £26.6m (expense)
Year 5 £25.8m

You then have the intangible stuff to consider:
- On-field performance of the players
- Commercial revenue generation (Mo will have more commercial value)
- Re-sale value / whether Kudus gets a new deal after 3 years etc.
- Need to replace Mo after 3 years v still having Kudus
- How the extra cash drain affects squad planning in the current period (NB the NIC changes from 1 April will add £4-5m to our existing wage bill too, so affects our spending power going forward)
- PSR should not be an issue and the football costs ratio will be better for Kudus over next three years, then worse for last 2 (but in the Mo scenario we'd need to bring in a replacement player which would offset this)
 
I've got a spreadsheet set up to go for this so if anyone wants to play the comparison game then send me your scenarios and I can work them through. Don't be too wacky mind.
 
Beamrider said:
I've got a spreadsheet set up to go for this so if anyone wants to play the comparison game then send me your scenarios and I can work them through. Don't be too wacky mind.
Click to expand...
You need to solutionise it and market it to Sporting clubs. Let me know if you ever want to create a POC, would be fun.
 
rubans said:
You need to solutionise it and market it to Sporting clubs. Let me know if you ever want to create a POC, would be fun.
Click to expand...
It's a very simple thing. We had something much more complex that I built for the club, but it's really not beyond anyone with an understanding of the transfer system, accounting, tax and basic Excel skills to do it.
 
More seriously, I'm just someone who used to work in finance at the club. There are probably half a dozen people there right now who could deal with this sort of stuff on the player side. We wouldn't see it as rocket science, but if you're not familiar with the peculiarities of football then it might look that way.
But my role did allow me to get into the nitty gritty in quite a lot of areas, and when there was something that went a bit beyond pure finance and into operations / commercial / regulatory / legal, then it often fell in my lap. But other people could have done those things, I was just a helpful go-to person.
EDIT - and if you listen to the Price of Football podcast, I am also the "secret fines manager" they've been referring to the last few weeks.
 
Yeh true, but every finance nerd I ever knew was either (a) a virgin, (b) not particularly articulate or (c) incapable of hanging tough on a footy website. You have (b) and (c) at least - so in my books that places you quite high up there in the LFC finance hierarchy.
 
Beamrider said:
It's a very simple thing. We had something much more complex that I built for the club, but it's really not beyond anyone with an understanding of the transfer system, accounting, tax and basic Excel skills to do it.
Click to expand...
Do they all have such models specific to use cases or do you think it can be generic ? I assume UTD don't have one 🙂
 
rubans said:
Do they all have such models specific to use cases or do you think it can be generic ? I assume UTD don't have one 🙂
Click to expand...
I would be shocked if all clubs in the pro leagues at least don't have these kinds of models. Even if you think PSR and similar rules are farcical and artificial, they impose a financial discipline on clubs that requires them to forecast regularly and in detail. The same will be true of bank facilities. That's just good governance.
I'm not sure whether other club's models will necessarily be as sophisticated and some of them may do stuff "long-hand", but they will all run these numbers. Quite frankly, you can build in all of the permutations relatively easily, even if you don't use them all.
So I built a model where we could input the player's wage demands (net or gross, image rights element), parameters for transfer fee and agent's fee, projected bonuses / pay increases and it would spit everything out for us to incorporate in our forecasts. It's possible clubs lower down the pyramid may use something less sophisticated (they may have a ratio to apply to basic pay to approximate the costs, for example) but they'll be doing something.
That said, I did mention in another thread recently that when we were up before the beak with UEFA for a FFP failing shortly after FSG took over, they were really impressed with our process, implied they hadn't seen anything like it before, and we were quite surprised as we thought everyone did it (I wasn't present but that was what I was told). It was a significant factor in them deciding not to sanction us because they could see we weren't being blasé about it.
I'm guessing United's models spit out the results in £'000s but they think it £s.
 
Dirty Sanchez said:
Yeh true, but every finance nerd I ever knew was either (a) a virgin, (b) not particularly articulate or (c) incapable of hanging tough on a footy website. You have (b) and (c) at least - so in my books that places you quite high up there in the LFC finance hierarchy.
Click to expand...
At least? Beamy will be surprised to hear that a) is still a possibility !
 
Beamrider said:
It's a very simple thing. We had something much more complex that I built for the club, but it's really not beyond anyone with an understanding of the transfer system, accounting, tax and basic Excel skills to do it.
Click to expand...

So you are the reason, we don’t buy anyone. When Hughes enters all the data, your spreadsheet recommends do not buy.
 
Beamrider said:
More seriously, I'm just someone who used to work in finance at the club. There are probably half a dozen people there right now who could deal with this sort of stuff on the player side. We wouldn't see it as rocket science, but if you're not familiar with the peculiarities of football then it might look that way.
But my role did allow me to get into the nitty gritty in quite a lot of areas, and when there was something that went a bit beyond pure finance and into operations / commercial / regulatory / legal, then it often fell in my lap. But other people could have done those things, I was just a helpful go-to person.
EDIT - and if you listen to the Price of Football podcast, I am also the "secret fines manager" they've been referring to the last few weeks.
Click to expand...

Tell us more about our data team pls. How do they work and how much influence do they have on things ? Really curious.
 
kingjulian said:
We can say this now that he is close to many records. But what about 3 seasons or 4 seasons ago when he was no where near any records. Even then he made himself available for most games. I'm all for a little bit of cynicism....but this is too much. It seems like you are viewing through a very coloured glass on this one.

The man keeps it professional and finds a way to keep his fitness levels to go through significant portions of the season and does this season after season, we still find a way to question his motivation for doing this?

If fitness is the concern then the coach needs to take the call on when to rotate the player. It's not the players fault for being fit and available.
Click to expand...
I think you're misunderstanding what my opinion/defintion of stat padding is. I didn't really say it well the first time. I don't see him stat padding as a derogatory thing. Just a consequence of the fact we are through and he doesn't NEED to play.

By stat padding, I mean Salah looks at every game in the PL and CL as an opportunity to score and break records. There's no game in those competitions he wants to rest in. Every game is an opportunity to score a hattrick for him. PSV will look VERY appealing to him, as they're one of weaker sides we've faced. He'll want to play in that game and score so he can be top goalscorer in the CL, and thus improve his chances of winning the ballon d'or at the end of the season. He's been like this for the last 3 or 4 seasons.

We as fans could easily look at the PSV game as a game we rest all our top players in. But Salah ain't built that way, he is going to be looking at PSV like a Fox looks at a Hen. It's a game he can score a hattrick in. I say stat padding game because in the grand scheme of things, we're already through and he doesn't NEED to play the whole 90mins (but he will want to; nothing wrong with a player having such an appetite; but you need a strong manager to protect him from himself and insist on rests; so give him 60mins against PSV and tell him he's got that time to score his hattrick).

He's no different to Cristiano Ronaldo in that sense. Both have an insatiable appetite to scoring (and assisting in Salah's case) and will refuse any notion of "needing rest" in the big competitions. There's no such thing as rest in those competitions. When we play a weaker side, it's a stat padding opportunity for Mo. If we win the league with 5 games to spare, he'll still want to play every minute of the remaining games, as it's more opportunity to scoring and being top goalscorer in the league.

It's what makes Salah, Salah.

Heck, I want Mo to statpad in these competitions and win the Ballon D'or, just so long as it doesn't come at the cost of us winning trophies and he's making the right decision when to shoot and when to pass. Against Lille, I think he got the balance wrong a bit and missed opportunities to play in Darwin (who requires confidence to improve our chances of winning stuff).
 
ibromurph said:
I think you're misunderstanding what my opinion/defintion of stat padding is. I don't see it as derogatory thing. Just a consequence of the fact we are through and he doesn't NEED to play.

By stat padding, I mean Salah looks at every game as an opportunity to score and break records. PSV will look VERY appealing to him, as they're one of weaker sides we've faced. He'll want to play in that game and score so he can be top goalscorer in the CL, and thus improve his chances of winning the ballon d'or at the end of the season. He's been like this for the last 3 or 4 seasons.

We could easily look at the PSV game as a game we rest all our top players in. But Salah is going to be looking at it as a game he can score a hattrick in (a stat padding game; because in the grand scheme of things, we'll already through and he doesn't NEED to play 90mins).

He's no different to Cristiano Ronaldo in that sense. He has an insatiable appetite to scoring and assisting, and will refuse any notion of "rest" in the big competitions.

It's what makes Salah, Salah.
Click to expand...
I love Salah and respect his desire to break every record he can, but he plays for Liverpool, and we should not be there to be Roanldo-ed and to be a vehicle for one man's ambitions in the game. We should be taking him off for his benefit to the reds as and when we want. I don't think that's happening now nor did it under Klopp.
 
doctor_mac said:
I love Salah and respect his desire to break every record he can, but he plays for Liverpool, and we should not be there to be Roanldo-ed and to be a vehicle for one man's ambitions in the game. We should be taking him off for his benefit to the reds as and when we want. I don't think that's happening now nor did it under Klopp.
Click to expand...
That's my concern too.

We have to get the balance right between keeping him happy and ensuring the team win.

For example, against Lille, he could have easily played 67mins and we'd have likely won still. And he gets a rest and is more likely to be fresher to score a hattrick against Ipswich.
 
My_Blood_Bleeds_Red said:
Tell us more about our data team pls. How do they work and how much influence do they have on things ? Really curious.
Click to expand...
I'm afraid I can't mate. There is a real separation at the club between the football and admin sides. There are only a few people with a foot in both camps and I wasn't one of them. We couldn't just rock up at Melwood if we felt like it, it was invitation only. I only went out there a few times in the whole time I was there.
We did have a couple of windows where there was greater co-operation between the admin and football sides, but we never really interacted with the data guys on the transfer aspects, other than Michael Edwards, although at that point he was DoF so wasn't really hands on with the data side of things, he was just looking to us to cost out the deals so he knew where he was against budget, and sometimes to smooth out some of the finer points of a contract.
The only real interaction finance had with the stats guys was around performance of the existing squad - they would give us forecasts as to when players would trigger bonuses and an predicted finishing position in the competitions so we could take a view on what revenues to forecast on the media side / sponsor bonus fees etc. Even then, they'd just send us emails with the relevant details.
 
doctor_mac said:
I love Salah and respect his desire to break every record he can, but he plays for Liverpool, and we should not be there to be Roanldo-ed and to be a vehicle for one man's ambitions in the game. We should be taking him off for his benefit to the reds as and when we want. I don't think that's happening now nor did it under Klopp.
Click to expand...
Yeah, agree with this. It used to be the same at Barca with Messi, then they'd get to the sharp end of the season and would need a moment of brilliance but he couldn't do it because he was goosed. And I'm pretty sure Mo gets through more work per game than Messi did.
 
I love Mo, but tiredness, and him trying to win the Ballon D'or over winning a game, can lead to poor decision making in big games/pivotal moments. Lest we forget:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVjDk9fscZk&t=399s

Options-for-Moh.jpg

Screenshot-2025-01-24-at-20-49-35.png
 
ibromurph said:
I love Mo, but tiredness, and him trying to win the Ballon D'or over winning a game, can lead to poor decision making in big games/pivotal moments. Lest we forget:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVjDk9fscZk&t=399s

Options-for-Moh.jpg

Screenshot-2025-01-24-at-20-49-35.png
Click to expand...
Not disagreeing with your post but that example is a subjective one. He brings it down brilliantly and not sure he can quiet see Mane, it’s hard one as it happens so quick and he is going wide with a defender close. To me it’s not clear cut, pass was better option but it happened so quick.
 
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