Lots to cover today with the market bouncing strongly this week after the good announcement and two huge Champions League days as well.
We have more to come tonight too with the Europa.
In the last post I trailed the joint blog I write with Football Index Guide and that ended up being a day late, it can be found here.
Lots of reasons to be optimistic about FI and all of the contributors including myself were in positive mood. We tend to be quite a sceptical bunch and we never know what each other are writing before it is published, so FI must be doing something right to keep us happy.
It also has some great stats from @BuzzingPaul where he looks back at a hot streak from Deli Alli in the 16/17 season. He scored 2 goals for 3 games running and he works out what he would have scored on FI in his blistering breakthrough season.
Why should we care what happened years ago? I think it is really interesting because Alli at that age and in that form in this current market would almost certainly be hitting the £5 range. Years on, he is £1.64 in reality.
Food for thought when thinking about the current trends because I think that many traders do not fully respect the risk that promising young talent can fail to deliver just as much as an older player can decline.
It’s fun on the way up but if you hang into that player too long at too high a price it can land you in serious trouble if and when the fashions change.
Risers
Timo Werner
Some surprisingly strong reports that Werner is set to join Liverpool in the coming days.
This would be a surprise to me as most of the mood music has been about him joining Bayern.
This story seems to originate from Ian Mcgarry, a journalist with a, shall we say, “colourful” reputation for outlandish transfer claims. In fact, he makes #58 on a list of the 100 Worst People on Twitter.
Maybe he is right or wrong the point I’m highlighting is that it’s really important now more than ever to check the source behind these claims.
The majority of newspapers or news sites will not let a weak source put them off making a good click bait story.
Rather, I think about the contract dates, the tactical fit, the financial practicalities and then the number and quality of sources rather than just one headline.
Personally, the day I make a trade on the basis of someone like Mcgarry or a rag like Don Balon is the day I cash out my portfolio and head to the nearest casino to put it all on black (i.e never).
If this move did happen then it would do Werner a lot of favours. Anxiety about where he would actually fit in the starting 11 aside, a big goalscorer with a low baseline will benefit more than anyone from an EPL move that gives them media potential.
The more consistent Bayern link feels more credible to me, though.
Matthijs de Ligt
This may just be one of the craziest trades I have ever seen on FI.
Some of the logic contortions I see people going through on Twitter to try to keep this pumping is pretty comical.
I could not have put it much better than Twitter user David Maher and hopefully he does not mind me quoting him here:
De Ligt is £2.49, Pique is £0.44, Lenglet is £0.40 and Umtiti is £0.71 but de Ligt is £2.49 because he might end up at Barca 🤔🤔🤔#FOOTBALLINDEX
— David Maher (@tradez23) April 17, 2019
Usually with the pump stories, there is often the “but what if he becomes England’s next big thing”. However outlandish, there is still a chance that *could* be true in a few cases.
Let’s go through the pump list.
England? Nope.
EPL move? Nope.
Messy transfer? Nope.
Any better performance wise than a raft of strong centre backs priced at about 90p? Nope.
Moving to a club where Centre Backs do particularly well? Nope.
Any particular reason to hold him this Summer? Nope.
Holders have the two CL games possibly 3 to come but even if he were to win the dividends in all 3 (He didn’t win even scoring the game winning goal vs Juventus by the way) it will probably not make up for the drop that inevitably happens here when people get bored.
At this point in the trade, there is just not much to be gained and a lot to lose.
Fallers
Aymeric Laporte
A poor game for Laporte with costly errors has seen him as the fall guy on the market.
Aside from that, he has had a good season although it has been my view for a while that the defenders category is now far too much of a lottery for most high baseline players and it is just too hard to win reliably even for the best of them.
What is particularly interesting is how sticky the Man City player prices were after that shock defeat. Most shock knockouts result in punishing sales.
Was it because those who hang on the game looking to buy goalscorers had piled in already after Sterling’s 3rd goal which was then disallowed (ouch, by the way).
They may have been reluctant to come straight back out again with the spreads.
Or are City assets relatively lightly held anyway due to the difficulties they often have with rotation?
They also have the title run in to come.
Still, it is a bit surprising when a shock CL knockout does not cause a market upset.
Hot Gossip
Luka Jovic
A new contract sees a sizeable drop for Jovic. Eintracht had the right to make the deal permanent for what now seems to be a laughable €7 million.
Given he is now expected to fetch €70 million you can see why Eintracht might want to do that.
It’s not going to stop big clubs from circling though even at that price in my opinion.
The real question is whether he wants to leave or fancies another season at Eintracht. Whether they qualify for the Champions League or not may be a big factor in that decision and the race between them and Gladbach is tight.