Coping with Inflated Transfer Prices: Everton and the Ross McCormack Model
This morning, Michael Jackson’s formerly favourite West London club Fulham announced the signing of forward Ross McCormack for £11million from Leeds United. After an incredible eleven appearances and two goals for the Scottish national team, recently relegated Fulham decided that Leeds owner Massimo Cellino’s, the same man who sacked a player for having the misfortune of being born on the 17th of a month, valuation of the striker was fair. In defence of Fulham, McCormack’s record in the Championship is quite impressive, having scored 78 goals in 122 appearances and if there is one thing Fulham need now, it’s goals in the Championship. However, £11million is still a lot of money to pay for a player of McCormack’s calibre.
Worth £11m?
This transfer, although startling enough on its own, is indicative of an inflating market which Everton continually struggles to survive in. For example, Southampton recently received a combined £52million for Adam Lallana and Luke Shaw from Liverpool and Manchester United, respectively. Everton, on the other hand, have a limited budget they can spend this summer and need to significantly strengthen whole facets of the squad with that limited budget.
Financially, Everton are performing well, having recently resigned with Chang in the clubs most lucrative sponsorship deal ever and having witnessed a dramatic increase in revenue from televised matches, with the Telegraph reporting Everton earned over £85million from the 2013/2014 season from this source alone. Furthermore, Everton are in the strongest position to keep hold of their key players, arguably since before the club sold Gary Lineker to Barcelona in the aftermath of the Heysel Stadium disaster which saw English clubs banned from European football. However, the club is still unable to match the figures which rival clubs spend on transfers regardless of Everton consistently achieving top seven Premier League finishes.
Ultimately, I do not attribute the blame of the clubs problems to Bill Kenwright, or any of the Everton board for that matter. It is not their fault that clubs such as Fulham will pay exorbitant fees for players whilst we attempt to operate in a financially sound model. That is to say, as financially sound a model as a Premier League club can actually be ran in. Throughout Kenwright’s tenancy, he has found ways to keep Everton competitive without significant investment keeping the club afloat. David Moyes cleverly reinvested on new players after selling our key assets, for example Tim Cahill and Marcus Bent easing the sale of Wayne Rooney, and more recently, Bryan Oviedo and Kevin Mirallas arriving with money generated from the sale of Jack Rodwell. Roberto Martínez, on the other hand, outraged almost every living organism by taking advantage of the loan system to sign Gareth Barry, Romelu Lukaku, Gerard Deulofeu and Lacina Traore. The club will need Martínez to continue to exploit this system this summer to strengthen the depth of the squad.
Selling Rodwell funded more transfers
The question re-invoked by Fulham’s signing of McCormack is one which has been troubling Evertonians since last September; is Romelu Lukaku worth over £20million. This article is not interested in examining every facet of the Belgian’s game; instead it is taking note of Fulham’s transfer activity. Aware that McCormack is almost certain to guarantee a return on goals in the Championship, Fulham overpaid in the hope that he can help them swiftly achieve promotion. Aware that Lukaku almost certainly guarantees goals in the Premier League, I believe that Everton need to reluctantly embrace the rapid inflation of prices for strikers who can score goals and permanently sign Romelu Lukaku in order to achieve their goals of the next few seasons.