The inflated british market

The point is Mellor if he won't sign a new contract then the club have to make a decision when said player moves into the final 18 months of his contract. If they hold onto him for another year then the player will not want to leave when they have 6 months left as they can get a lot more money as a free agent, so the club end up with nothing - Sol Campbell did this. Pienaar was worth atleast £10m to Everton but his contract was near the end so they had to sell for £2.5m, now they are trying to resign him.

Some British players prices are over inflated but so are some foreign players - Dzeko, Palacios, Berbatov, Kolarov, etc

Alba also was a youth product of Barca. Barca seem to get Spanish talent for a lot less, but they do pay over the top for others. They even bought a Ukrainian defender a few seasons back for around 24million euros and then sold him back after a season for 10million less.

Real seem to have luck getting German based players for a cut price too.

OP it's because spanish clubs are'nt daft enough to pay stupid prices for average english players, whereas english clubs will happily do so.

What Darren the king Fletcher said makes most sense to me. There are so few quality English players that clubs have to pay a lot to sign them, tie this in with the 8 homegrown players rule in a league that represents so many countries then the small supply of quality English is expensive.

As people have said, there are so many quality foreign players for less out there that when you have an Englishman that makes your first 11 you don't want to sell him for cheap because it means drafting in a reserve player to meet you 8HG players.

If the league makes it a requirement for clubs to register more HG players over the next few season say 12 instead of 8 then the talent pool for English players will increase - making more English players play for their clubs - bringing the price for English players down.

Personally I don't think clubs should spend a premium like they have on Henderson, Jones, Downing and Carroll. They should look to their own youth. Henderson particularly - a player I like - people have said why not play Shelvey over Henderson? Perhaps that should have been done.

I can't imagine Barca paying £16M on a midfielder of any nationality when they have an eager, enthusiastic 19 year old sitting in the reserves.

Maybe teams are resigned to losing their players once Barca come a knockin, Barca state their intent the players head is turned and Barca offer a price. If they other club try to increase the price too much Barca will wait and get the player for peanuts, who is really going to turn them down.

So clubs will accept a lower price now knowing that the player will go to Barca sooner or later.

Just a theory.

>>spanish clubs are'nt daft enough to pay stupid prices for average english players, whereas english clubs will happily do so.


English clubs have to sign English players, and quite a few of them for quota rules. Spanish clubs don't have to sign any. So they don't.

They don't have to be held to ransom by some dic k turpin style chairman though do they?

"I can't imagine Barca paying £16M on a midfielder of any nationality when they have an eager, enthusiastic 19 year old sitting in the reserves."

They signed Fabregas for 30mil when they had a very able Thiago waiting in the wings.

Barcelona paid £40m for Ibrahimovic + Eto went the other way to Inter + Hleb on loan. The deal is supposed to be worth £60m-£65m.

Barca have paid over the odds on a number of occasions. It's just that people see the deal like Alba one but ignore the other such deals that makes it seem like the English market is inflated.