Here we go again

The first newsletter of the 2022-23 season, plus my thoughts on good and bad selling teams

The 2022-23 season is upon us. Before the season starts I think that this Premier League season has the potential for quite a few exciting races, and we will have the Wild Card of the winter World Cup that could make things even more interesting.

In the internal words of Josh Kroenke, I would say be excited.

Are there good selling teams?

This is something that has come up that I wanted to comment on, there is a claim that some teams are good at selling and some are bad at selling.

I will go ahead and give my thought that I don't think that teams are that different in their ability to sell with the major differences explained by a team's ability to hold to a wage structure, and generally ensuring that they are not going out and buying players that turn out to be bad.

In my theory of transfer prices, the main driver of the fee it is driven by the surplus value of what a player is worth to the selling team compared to their remaining contract and what the buying team believes they will be able to deliver over their new contract. This isn't perfect because buying teams are not rational and players are not perfect substitutes for each other, especially when you get into the truly elite players.

I think generally however this is a good way to think about things.

When teams struggle to sell players it is usually players on contracts that pay them like starting caliber players but for whatever reason are no longer starting. These are players that are generally negative assets for a team, they are being paid more than what you would expect to be able get back in value on the pitch from them.

From there it is really easy to see why a club would be willing to sell, any sort of relief is probably better than the status quo. For the buying ,team however it is again the balance to try to not get into that same situation where they have a negative asset. The total cost (wages plus transfer fee) of the player should be equal to or below the expected value that you expect from the player over the life of the next contract. The transfer fee that gets paid here depends on how distressed the situation is for the player's future performance in addition to how much a player might be willing to sacrifice future earnings.

So my theory isn't that some teams have a special sauce in selling but rather teams that "sell well" do the following:

1. They are the teams that make fewer mistakes in buying. When you have fewer distressed assets on your team it is much easier to move players.

2. They are willing to sell players that they would also see a place in their team (that is usually when other teams would also like to have them at a premium and is especially important for selling down the pecking order). The best Arsenal sales of recent times are Alex Iwobi, Joe Willock, and Emi Martinez, all of these players were debated if they should be kept because they still had the potential to be a part of the first team, but that is also what made them valuable to other teams.

3. Make fewer mistakes when managing their contracts, so that a player's wage matches their spot in the team.

Even doing all this isn't perfect because a transfer is more than a two-party deal because the player also needs to agree but this is my general way of how I see the transfer market working.

Premier League Week 1

The first week of the season doesn't have any "tasty" matchups on paper but I think it still looks exciting and I don't doubt that we will overreact to a new set of data.

Arsenal going to Crystal Palace will obviously be one of the matches I am most excited about. I wrote up the preview already here and I think that this is a great starting measuring stick for Arsenal.

Crystal Palace are a good team, rated 11th in my team ratings and it will be in a tough environment. The pre-season for Arsenal looks good but it will be important to see how the team plays under the high intensity of the regular season.

Saturday Matches:

I imagine that I am skipping Fulham vs Liverpool, this matchup isn't worth waking up at 4:30 for, especially if I spend Friday night looking at the really cool classic cars that are coming into Reno this weekend.

The 7am kickoffs have some interesting and closer matches. I think I am most interested in Leeds vs Wolves because I think this will be interesting to see how these teams stack up.

Everton looked bad in the preseason and haven't done too much in the transfer market to correct their issues. Oh and Dominic Calvert Lewin is now out out for 4-6 weeks with an injury. Chelsea might be a bit of a mess with their transfer strategy but they should be in good shape to beat Everton.

Sunday Matches:

The early Sunday matches are pretty interesting to me. I have no idea what to expect from Leicester City, they looked like a team that needed a refresh but have not brought in a new player yet. They are still a solid team but one that looks to have potentially dropped from challenging for top 6. Going against Brentford who were strong for a promoted team but have mostly stood pat on major first-team additions despite losing Christen Eriksen. I am intrigued by this matchup.

The other match will obviously be "bigger" because it is Manchester United with a new manager. I think this could be tricky because you know Brighton are just a solidly good team with a good coach.

This on paper is the second biggest mismatch on simulated odds. This is also a matchup for Manchester City which they have not gotten huge results against. It will also be our chance to see a couple of new strikers going against each other. I think it will be worth watching at least the first half to see how things shake out.

🤠 Yee Haw