Give it up.

We have some poor players for the money and great players for the money.

Besides, JR was brought in by FdB.

Yes but his 4 year extension on better terms was given a couple of seasons ago by SP, nothing to do with deBoer. As he still had 18 months left on his contract at the time this was madness.

I do think we generally pay quite good wages for some average players but we don't know what % of wages is fixed vs based on appearances etc.

Luka is clearly overpaid and injury prone players such as Tomkins and to a lesser extent Macca are on decent wages whilst contributing very little.

Some of these issues are legacy ones as for years the club was prepared to sign established prem players with little/no re-sale value - Kouyate, Tomkins, Cahill.

The deals with the biggest transfers and wages have usually been poor value - Sakho, Tekkers, Meyers and even Cabaye (before you jump on this - he was on over £80k a week and cost £13m and left on a free after 3 years - total cost c£25m).

Edited by palace99 (21 Sep 2022 11.04am)

Cabaye was worth every penny. I'd pay double that to have him in this team.

The others you mention, yep too much money for output, but you need a squad, and they are on the wages that you'd expect being a 1st team prem player. You cant just drop their wages when they lose form, or we buy better players

Absolutely, you need a squad with 4/5 top players so that if we get a ridiculously high bid, we can take it and replace without the overall squad suffering

“That’s a joke son, I say, that’s a joke.” “Nice boy, but he’s sharp as a throw pillow.” “He’s so dumb he thinks a Mexican border pays rent” “ “Son… I say, son, some people are so narrow minded they can look through a keyhole with both eyes.”__ Forhorn Leghorn

There are risks in all transfer dealings. Personally I don't think Cahill was a bad acquisition. We paid nothing for him, he wasn't a risk, we had two solid years and some outstanding performances amongst them. I don't see how that is less sustainable than the current approach.
It is all very well getting young players for 10, 15, 20 million. However, remains easy to get it wrong, time will be spent developing that player and there is nothing to say that any or even all of our talented squad will leave at the end of their contracts on a free. Wilf is about to do just that. Alternatively we pay extortionate wages to keep our young talent at the club. Whether we like it or not, we are not a big draw for players. We don't win anything, our ground is s*** and we are not glamorous.

I noticed from the Chelsea and Newcastle sales that, whilst the clubs ran at a loss, a large profit was made when the clubs were sold. I presume enough to cover any losses in the meantime.

Red and Blue Army!