Clrnc so spent a lot of time looking at player sales data before. What you see is an interesting pattern pre and post Covid. Basically the middle to lower market has fallen out, and the high end market has expanded, ie, you don’t have a rich £20-30m pound market, and you are over-indexing on over £60m players relative to before.
What could be happening is this
- continental clubs are in economic dire straits. So they’ve largely stopped buying, which has killed the middle market
- the premier league clubs are in a race to secure potentially elite talent. In the absence of the middle market, you are seeing more “early” purchases of budding stars, eg Hojlund, Caicedo, Guardiol etc.
- and clubs are smarter, so you’re seeing less spent on older players (the stuff I used to stress pre Arteta).
What all this means is, we wouldn’t have a large market for guys like Partey, Elneny etc.
On our younger players, we either give them to continental clubs for nothing, or we sell them to a premier league club that sees value. For these players, I would look at a couple of things a) relevant comparables (eg Solanke, Watkins for Nketiah; and Ramsdale, Raya, Courtois for Ramsdale); and b) that we can’t sell all our English players due to homegrown rules. Even if you look at clubs like Liverpool which are famed good sellers, they are rarely selling large groups of players in a single summer.
So in net, due to a small mid market, and homegrown obligation, I don’t expect a big haul. I think we get good money for Nketiah and Ramsdale, maybe for a Zinchenko or Trossard if we move them. And then it is slim. (Sorry for wall of text)
