I don't think this is what's being suggested. Selling elite players at their peak to buy 2 or 3 more potential elite players (which Bruno was when we signed him) is what is being suggested.
It won't work for us on its own. I've said previously in another thread that we need to have a mix of top-tier talent and players developing into those top-tier players. We've got the pull that almost no other 'developing' club (of which everyone under the Sky 6 is) of relatively recent European pedigree - we're seen as a place to go for players like Tonali, Isak, Bruno and Trippier. Those players don't so easily sign for Brighton, Brentford, etc.
We don't have the finances of a Real Madrid-esque galaticos approach where every year we sign a top tier player like Bruno, Isak, Tonali, whilst also replacing squad players, without selling players to do that.
To get the money to do that, 15-20 years ago you could just get the owner to do it - Chelsea, City, PSG, Madrid etc. Now this isn't viable. To build a squad, not just a first XI, that can compete at the top, you have to spend to get there. Anomalies aside (Leicester), that's the only way it's been done since the inception of the Premier League. The teams with the most money rise to the top and win. From Blackburn to Man Utd, to Arsenal to Chelsea and City. I re-iterate, to spend that money now, you need to have that money. How do you generate that money under PSR?
1. Make money on the transfer market - buy low and sell high
2. Increase your revenues - matchday, commercial etc.
3. Build out your youth and academy systems - you make money by spending less on the coaching and player recruitment and turning a profit by other selling to other teams (City, Chelsea), or by bringing them into your squad as first team players so you don't need to spend money on that position externally
Points 2 and 3 are a slow burner and take a long time to generate the funds to do anything worthwhile. Point 1, to oversimplify for the sake of brevity, selling a player that you paid £40m for for £100m lets you buy 2 other players that might also be worth £100m in a year or two, and £20m spare for a squad player. Only one of those 3 players needs to come good to get your money back, but if more than one comes good, your squad is now worth more, and you should be higher up the table and more competitive with more players of a higher quality.
Then, one of those players that came good also goes for a lot more than what you purchased them for - it repeats. It's a cycle of investment and maximisation of self-generating funds. Not only can you afford to keep buying these players, you are able to afford players that will more certainly hit the ground running as you will have more money to spend. Players will see that joining us isn't a life sentence - players with aspirations of playing for Madrid etc., will know that if the right offer comes along, we'll say thank you for your service and move on.
Why isn't every developing club doing this? Because they don't have the pull of Newcastle United. We're seen well abroad, despite what we may think of ourselves.
Because they already bought their success when the rules allowed them to. They now have the revenue and income streams of at least two to three times what we have. They can buy top players all the time with what effectively is passive income. We are not a top club financially, we have to play catch up. And it's almost impossible to win that game with every rule stacked against anyone daring to try and close that gap. We have to generate money from nothing with only absolutely elite scouting, dispassionate player retention and a focus so intent on the long term that it almost harms your short term.
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Is there an exception to all the above? A way to break the system and create a consistently competitive team that generates its own additional funding without having to buy to sell all the time? Yes, of course, it's a gamble.
Take this season for example, we have a core of truly elite players, that is probably, on paper, one of the strongests first 11s we've had in the PL era. We're underperforming in the league, but we're in the semi final of the league cup. The gamble that you take is you buy that right winger on the first of January for 60m. Maybe it gets us the League Cup, that gets us into Europe, and we're generating more revenue as a result. But that's our summer funds wiped out, so that right winger better be one of the most transformative players we've signed in a long while to cover the rest of our deficiencies in our squad, because we need to maintain that success the following season, to re-qualify for Europe to retain that revenue and increase sponsorship and commercial/branding revenue. If we don't re-qualify, we're back to where we were before, except the players are a bit older, not playing in Europe (you can't take player ambition for granted) and players X Y and Z are too poor to be backup squad players now and we have no funds to replace them.
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I'm not writing this post to be popular or to get you to change your mind, you may disagree with the long-term approach and want us to pay and play for the moment, and I get that, there's a romanticism in just wanting your team to win, to turn up on matchday and switch off inbetween. But I think it's a bit disingenuous to say you don't understand people saying that we should sell high and buy low for the long term competitiveness of the club.
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