In the era of £9m per goal, a genuine bargain is getting harder to come by
VALUE for money, it is what every Premier League club is striving for in the increasingly spiralling transfer market. With prices for players ballooning at an astonishing rate, finding that bargain who can repay the outlay on the pitch is becoming more difficult.
It is what Manchester City will be hoping for after breaking their transfer record to sign Riyad Mahrez from Leicester City for £60 million, but even if he inspires them to Champions League success, his value for money rating will never eclipse the return City had after signing him for just £400,000.
The Championship title, Premier League survival and then an astonishing title victory and Champions League campaign – Mahrez played a key role in all of them, making him arguably the best piece of transfer business the club has ever done.
When City broke the non-league record by paying Fleetwood Town £1 million for Jamie Vardy there were more than a few eyebrows raised, and initially it looked a gamble that wouldn’t pay off, but then Vardy emerged into City’s talisman, scoring the goals that fired them to glory.
N’Golo Kante, Danny Drinkwater, Wes Morgan, Kasper Schmiechel – in fact the entire title-winning squad were signed for a pittance and repaid meagre City’s investment tenfold.
Now the game has changed and City are finding those bargains harder to find.
Three times City broke their transfer record in the summer of 2016, paying nearly £60 million for three players; Papy Mendy, Ahmed Musa and then Islam Slimani. None of them were still at the club in the second half of last season, although all three remain City players.
City paid £25 million for striker Kelechi Iheanacho from Manchester City, but that is an investment for the future.
A Moneyball study by bookmaker bwin has broken down the incredible £1.47 billion paid by Premier League clubs last season to analyse the best and the worst deals, and Iheanacho’s statistics are not great.
In fact, the 21-year-old was rated second in the most costly striker signings in terms of Premier League goal return, with his three goals costing City £9,350,000 a piece, according to the report.
Only Tottenham Hotspur’s Fernando Llorente was rated worse with £17,490,000 for his one and only Premier League goal in 16 appearances.
Of course, statistics alone don’t tell the whole story. Iheanacho had a slow start due to injury and has