So, just after I’ve said that we shouldn’t be loaning players to clubs more than one league below our current position, Aaron Tshibola has been shipped out to MK Dons on a season long loan.
Which I found fascinating, as what a fall from grace this is proving to be.
So much so, that I’ve tried having a quick look around to see what I could find out about the player; specifically who his agent(s) is/are.
It’s not a lot to be honest, but what I did see on Tranfermarkt was interesting.
They had his market value when we bought him at £170,000.
So what made us pay £5.02 million for him?
Well, if I was a total cynic, I would be suspecting that someone’s palm has been greased somewhere along the line, as the discrepancy is just ridiculous.
Of course, naughty things don’t happen in football, so you just have to assume that Di Matteo was a shocking judge of a player.
If it was him who actually signed the player, of course.
Either way, while I haven’t seen enough of Tshibola to make a real judgement about him, Bruce and the coaches obviously have.
Couple that with the fact that Forest hardly used him and it means that a fair few who know better than me, definitely don’t rate him and aren’t even willing to give him a chance.
Either his attitude is abysmal (doubtful, as I’m fairly sure he comes from a religious family and he thanks god etc) or he’s just plain rubbish.
It’s just another shocking piece of business, isn’t it?
In other news, we’re struggling to sell Ross McCormack, although four clubs are apparently willing to take him on loan.
I’ll bet they are and what a surprise.
Stick to your guns Villa; someone will get desperate enough to buy him.
Another shocking waste of money, as you can bet your boots we won’t see him at the Villa again.
And to think the club are probably paying 10k of his (guessing) 15k a week wages.
No wonder Tony had the hump.
The one good thing to come out of this (and the McCormack saga) is that Dr. T has learnt lessons quickly – I hope.
Appointing RDM (by all accounts against the advice Little etc. gave him) was a massive mistake compounded by a number of terrible transfer deals – at least more bad than good. The club has lost even more money as a result and it compounds the problems of the last few years meaning we still can’t see the end of the financial drain on the club.
There must be an argument for Villa ‘grasping the nettle’ and getting rid once and for all of those like McCormack, writing off the losses, which is the approach most well funded businesses would take except the ridiculous FFP rules interfere. So as far as I understand FFP deals with an absolute in permissible losses irrespective of the level of shareholder funds available to fund those losses.
Company liquidity is as much about cash reserves and the ability to fund losses and debt as well as future investment as it is profit and loss itself. Badger, OLL, please correct me if I’m wrong.
I’d say you’re spot on Hitch.
Nath made the very good point that you won’t see the likes of Citeh or Manure getting done for FFP, even though we know it’s all bent.
Last I looked, Manure were £700 mill ish in debt and it’s increasing ffs!
But they can cover it (?) and they’re simply too big to fail, where if they did, the game itself would collapse, imo.
Economics of the madhouse, but that’s all too familiar lately, isn’t it?
Which makes you wonder who’s really running the game, but there you go.
The thing is, as you suggest, there are finite rules and we’ll break them, if we’re not careful.
But then, as you suggest, Xia’s no mug.
Indeed, he’s learned big lessons about how these rules work.
And as fast as we approach our limit, so i’ll bet he can come up with a new sponsor or some sort of deal that covers it up, even if it has to be China based.
Nowt wrong with China per se, but we all know it’s not very transparent when it comes to money.
It’s why I’ve consistently said that I believe we still have another trick or two up our sleeves when it comes to signings.
Xia is at least a couple of steps in front of the FA or Prem, when it comes to the “rules”, imo.
As for “grasping the nettle”, I wish we would. I’ve constantly called for it.
But I can only suspect that there’s a very good reason that we aren’t and I think it’s amortisation, which is massively mitigating things.
Although that wouldn’t explain the losses under Lerner, where I thought he’d booked losses in one go.
One thing, Hitch.
You’re making a big mistake in asscotiating football clubs with real businesses, imo.
This is planet football world, after all.
To sort of prove my point, Hitch, we’ve teamed up with Unibet.
Based in Malta, with seemingly Scandinavian origins?
As I’ve hinted, Xia will tie the authorities up in knots, if he wants, imo.
Just as the top clubs do.
it’s a joke really, that works if you’re winning, but ……
tishbola isn’t a terrible player he just not ready for villa. he came to villa unproven which was a gamble 5million one. this sort of thing is what drives me mad. i am not speaking after the event. i said when signing him he wasn’t ready . we have our own kids further down the road of being more 1st team ready.
hayes for instance i seen him only in the last few friendlies and i saw more in his game than tish could only dream off. too very different player hayes has vision and ability to make that vision a reality with crisp passing. he is the player we should be focusing on. stop wasting money on tish potential.when we have our own fair better diamonds that just need a polish
as for tish the move to league 1 will be a godsend, he will pick up his confidence,he still has potential, hes a more physical midfielder box to box. his vision is poor and passing ability is not up to scratch. but this could be lack confidence. i think he lacked belief and the villa villa move was completely too soon.
mcCormack i think we need to offload immediately, a panic buy which has backfired. we do have some exciting youth coming through at present, other 1st team players also better than him, something isn’t right with him you can see his body language is all wrong. he is a bad apple we can not afford to rot away in the squad,
Transfermarkt is an awesome site to use for stats, but their “transfer worth” is useless. They’d tell you Messi is worth like 80m.
This isn’t surprising. Never got why people tried telling me he was good. He was a bit part player at Reading. Never made more than 12 appearances, 6 were starts. We overspent on mediocrity like we always do, because we look too sign crappy Championship players (he’s arguably not even one yet). Think it’s a decent loan, he won’t start for us, nowhere near good enough. And he’s 22, so it’s a do or die situation for him with us.
Badger – I’ve done a little more research and found what may be the primary reason for loans under FFP and it’s to do with the valuation of intangible assets. The first point is that you can’t define a player as an asset of the club because the club can’t ‘own’ a player in the same way as they might own a car but the asset is actually the cost of the players registration in other words the transfer fee. Under FFP (and accounting rules) the asset has to be depreciated over its anticipated life in this case the length of the players contract.
Take McCormack on a five year contract – so the club depreciates the asset by £2.4m per year which is a ‘loss’ straight to the bottom line. After one year his value is now £9.6m with a further £2.4m to be written off this year. If we sell him for say £4m we create a loss of £5.6m so we increase our losses in this year and that makes our FFP position worse (allowable accumulated losses over a defined three year period). Tshibola – same example. If you work the numbers we turned a loss of around £1.5m on Veretout into a similar amount of profit (forget the cash we received although that helps with other aspect of a FFP which is manageable debt). Loans also help to get wages off the I&E account which allows us to pay other players.
Now I full accept that the foregoing is a very simplistic understanding on my part but what it does suggest is that utilisation of the loan system is not, in many cases, a footballing decision.
On the above basis we should look to sell players like Richards and Hutton who are in the books at zero value and also players like Gardner for the same reason (home grown talent cannot be valued as an intangible asset). It also, it seems to me, explains why Gardner was given a new contract (financial reasons) and why generally longer contracts are given to players with higher transfer fees.
Apologies for the long post.
i enjoyed reading this and found it enlightening, i know nothing about this ffp B/S so reading your post has given me crashcourse into this system. i cant believe you received no likes. tough crowd. your post would have taken me at least 2days and hundred typing errors to complete
Nathan Baker to Bristol City subject to passing a medical – whilst I would like to see Richards out the door, thus move probably makes sense for all concerned.
Will he pass a medical though?
I like baker but too injury prone for us. Problem is other than Chester we’ve no reliable CH. Terry wing last half a season, Samba hasn’t played enough competitive football and still not sure about him, Elphnick is crap, Richards is crap.
bruce and calderwood will be able to fill in
It’s official then Baker signed a four year contract, I’d love to know how much we got for him. Too injury prone in the end imo
Still can’t believe we sold him Giddy. We will be lucky to get a full season out of Terry and Samba combined and if Bruce plays 3 at the back we will be in trouble if we have injuries
He wanted to play regularly obviously brucey couldn’t guarantee that
£4 mill I believe Giddy.
The Twitterazi are up in arms.
I’ve been on Facebook all the villa groups I think the samaritans lines will be busy today judging by some of the the fans reaction to Baker leaving. Championship player at best
4 mil sounds about right
Signing overaged and overpaid players is a specialism of Steve Bruce. There is not one ounce of actually planning for the future. Why sell Baker when we’ve got Richards and Elphick still here who are far inferior to him. It beggars belief. This season is going to be a trainwreck and we’ll be spending January and next summer trying to undo the damage done by Bruce right now.
Just giving you guys the heads up….Tamworth v Villa tonite is ‘rumoured’ to be live on you tube! Not sure which channel though. Its mainly under 23s taking part with a few ‘fringe players’ getting a run out!
UTV#PartOfThePride
nice one i just got me some beer as well now thats a bonus if that games live cheers lang
what time lang ? 7 ,30 or 45
baker has gone 🙁 iam sad, but i think its the correct decision. he would have struggled this season to get a game. maybe it was baker who was pushing to leave. or is it bruce wanted to sell others, but cause they are on great wages here they would budge.
but this is almost 10 million the academy has earn the club in two seasons. selling clark and baker. this proves the academy works. we have to stop buying crap players for loads of millions and hire better coaches throughout the club. from the op to lowest lvl
wishing baker all the best 🙂 good luck
Does Baker’s sale allow progression from our U23 team?
I wish Nathan Baker all the best. He always gave his best and in an era where too many where / are not fit to wear out shirt, he stood out as caring about our club. And now he is gone!
Terry and Chester will be the heart if the back line, with Samba as acceptable cover.
Based on the good Dr’s announcement the other day, does this mean any if our home grown players will get the odd game?
i cant find this game 🙁 boo i got my hopes high now guess i veg infront of the telly with my beers
Problem with Baker leaving is solely on depth. 4m is a great fee for him, but Richards is so bad. Unless this means Elphick stays, which while he’s not as good as baker, we need cover. 3 center backs, 2 being in their mid 30’s and 1 getting injured a fair bit last season and 1 being not match fit, is awful depth. Unless we look to bring through our youth center backs. Hope Bruce isn’t as clueless as I think he is for doing this.
there are loads of villa fans upset by baker sale. its good business if you ask me. while theirs no doubt city have a great defender. that will put his body on the line for their cause. he is a terrific defender in the air. old fashioned defender that will clean out anything that passes him. he also has slight defects, like lack of pace. which limits the way you can defend as a team. hard to press up as a defense when you have a player lacking pace.his reading of the game isn’t the best, but that might improve.
i will miss him, much rather got rid of other defenders with less ability or desire to represent villa. but this is real life you can only sell to clubs that want your shit. unfortunately nobody wants richards. thats a mistake villa have to learn from. he had done nothing before we signing him for years. why other him such a massive fee and length, i bet he wouldnt have got this anywhere else. eplhick has been linked with this and that. but iam betting he is also comfy here. at another club on less wages and real work to be done is not so appealing. also maybe he is only worth 1m to 2m
Gardener will also be sold and as per my earlier post I still maintain these deals are driven by FFP considerations as much as footballing ones.
The one I can’t understand is Richards – even if we have to pay a percentage of his wages it would pay to get him off the books.
I agree with earlier posts – let’s hope SB brings in some of the promising U23’s
Hi all, just popped in, off soon is today’s game on u/tube streaming, ? Sorry over Baker going but think we all knew big sales was on the cards, we have to remember they where the players that might have looked good in a team that wasn’t going for it. Bruce looking for them that knows they have to play hard this season or else. Baker was one that had that little extra. For me they can go but as all are saying how the hell is Richards getting away with it? Going to miss our first game but I will be on nail biting when the games on.bye lads.
Hi Bill – yep on you tube at 3pm.
Have a great holiday – safe journey mate
today’s game will be a big game. same time last year we got hammered by middlesbrough. scoreline wasn’t as embarrassing as it should have been, if bro had wanted to punish us they could have. signs in that game were clear to see. no defense, no tracking back by midfield. we got countered at will with no answers to this problem.
watford are a better side and will pose big examinations of where we are in present day. hopefully they will make it a good game worthy of the great manager Taylor 🙂 i would love both sides play this for taylor and not like a friendly.
Cheers Hitch, I’m sure Bruce is on the right track now, we must be because Oohah doesn’t moan so much of late. I’m looking forwards to this hols with all the problem we’ve had this year , speak soon .
villa slapped a 8million price on mcCormack and do not want to loan. selling baker probably means we are in a stronger position.less desperate. even if they have no chance of getting 8million,i understand thats the only way to do business. mcCormack is probably only worth 4~6 mill so by starting at 8 mill will allow sunderland to feel like they are getting a bargain. surely somebody will take a gamble on him at that price. roberto D M was supposed to be sorting out the squad not adding to the deadwood. his signings were all a success NOT. i think we all said wrong manager. we all sat back and watched his mistakes like we predicted beforehand. what damage could he do in a few months. well he has caused more damaged than we expected.
We ought to keep him as we’ve only one striker that can score so no other options if Kodja injured etc
Allow Hogan to play the lone striker role, play with wingers and an attacking mid who can put a ball through and you’ll see him score goals. But having only 2 strikers, especially when it’s likely we’ll play 2 up front, can be a problem, just like at the back.
See Dr T has commented on Baker -‘solid logic (behind the decision) but can’t comment publicly – trust us’ Make of that what you will.
On McCormack – I reckon the absolute lowest they would let him go for is £6m – back to my FFP hobby horse 🙂
I really don’t understand this FFP, city have spent over 200mil already & counting
They earn more than we do commercially. That’s why UTD do well because they earn 100s of millions globally and are miles ahead in terms of shirt sales, tv money and sponsorship deals. We will never reach that level
As Oohah said, on top of that though, they don’t really care much about the big clubs like City, United, Chelsea, etc. They’re not going out of business, they make far too much in Revenue, their owners can sustain the debt, if necessary they can find someone to pay it all off no doubt. FFP was put into place for smaller, more awful run sides. Leeds, Portsmouth, etc. Clubs who go into debt, can’t afford it, can’t pay it off, and die off. Fortunately for Leeds they look like they’re making a comeback, but those are the teams it’s for. City’s already been fined before, next time it’ll likely be a transfer ban, but with the new rules, top Premier League sides, or even any premier League side, won’t have to worry about it.