By Brian Bariyo Tumuramye
The summer transfer window threw up a few surprises and plenty of money was splashed, but which clubs were the smartest and who got the best deals?
Remember Money ball – the film in which Brad Pitt recruits baseball players for the Oakland A’s based on data analytics?
Well, London-based investment company Carteret Analytics think they have found a formula for footballers, and even use their system to advise three Premier League clubs on potential new signings.
According to findings from this summer’s moves, Arsenal might have overpaid for Nicolas Pepe, Everton should have got more for Idrissa Gueye and a newly promoted team got the bargain of the window carteret Analytics use their system to advise seven clubs in England’s top two tiers as well as 12 leading clubs from Europe and the rest of the world.
The data centres on the ‘intrinsic value’ of a player – a calculated fee based on performances for the selling club and the projected impact on the buying club, as well as taking into consideration their prime age (usually 26-30).
This is essentially the monetary value of the player’s contribution to winning football matches and how influential he is to creating and preventing goal-scoring opportunities by assessing the intrinsic value, clubs can determine how much money they want to receive for a player and likewise, how much they are willing to spend on any new players.
Arsenal took centre stage on transfer deadline day – selling forward Alex Iwobi to Everton and bringing in Chelsea centre-back David Luiz and Celtic full-back Kieran Tierney. But how did they end up in the ‘bad business’ category?
Iwobi’s intrinsic value while at Arsenal went up to £46.26m but he was sold for just £27.36m, suggesting the sale was undervalued by almost £19m.
Arsenal signed Ivory Coast winger Nicolas Pepe from Lille for a club record fee of £72m – a whopping and they were sold short on teenage defender William Saliba from Saint-Etienne and let go of former captain Laurent Koscielny to Bordeaux for more than £20m under his projected fee.
But Arsenal did bring in cover for Koscielny at good value. Chelsea’s Luiz was rated at £34.8m but Unai Emery’s team brought him in for just £7.8m – not bad for a Premier League and Champions League winner with years of experience in the English top flight.
