Squad Age Profile Graphics

[ClaretLoup]

Age profile graphics of various EPL squads, including the Mighty Clarets.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48473708" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[LeadBelly]

I just spotted this. The charts are an interesting way of looking at things - though could do with more words of explanation on each club in the article.

[LeadBelly]

Got to laugh at the top-rated comment on the article:

"Oh wow, so Phil Jones isn't even at his peak yet?!
It's gonna be an exciting few years watching this guy develop, could become world class!"

[MarkGreen]

The irony that Crouch is above the line!

[Jel]

Where's Pope?

[aggi]

When I first looked at it I assumed that the * = player has left the club was referring to Crouch given the position.

[LeadBelly]

Just left of Vydra ( given he's 27 and played minimal minutes last season).
I'm not sure the age definition of prospect/'peak/past it should apply to keepers though. Ive seen a lot of opinion that keepers peak 31-35.

[Goobs]

Where's Pope?

Didn't play the the premier league.

[Long Time Lurker]

I get worried when I see things like this. More so when I see rumours that we might be considering selling Vydra who turned 27 last month to buy Jay who will turn 30 this month. We might not have an ageist recruitment policy, but every other club does. In the transfer market of today it makes perfect financial sense.

That is why very few clubs other than us are actually interested in Jay and why WBA want him and his big wage off their books before he leaves on a free transfer. That way they can re-invest what they might get for him and his wages as part of their squad re-vamp - which is centred on younger players with developmental value.

Every other club has learned from what happened to previous Premier League teams like QPR, Stoke and West Brom who filled their squads with older players to try and maintain their EPL status. The older players faded and they dropped.

After they dropped the vultures descended to pick apart their squads, plucking their best young players off their bones.

The clubs were left with their aging rosters on high wages, even with relegation wage reductions, because no EPL teams wanted those players and few Championship teams could afford to buy them or pay their expected wages. In a couple of cases players from their twilight contingent left for ridiculously low bargain prices or they saw out their contracts and left for nothing.

The net result was a huge financial black hole. All of the money that they had invested in those players, along with their wages, went up in a cloud of smoke. They received little from incoming transfer payments and what they did receive had to pay for the continued funding of the expensive players nobody wanted to buy. The remaining money and any parachute payments had to be used to re-build their squads to best effect, taking into account the outstanding sums owed from the buying of those experienced "keep us up" players.

What happened?

All of the hard work building up those clubs was obliterated and they found themselves dropping through the leagues like a stone and back in financial hardship.

Leaving out keepers, who generally have longer careers, I would say that we currently have quite a few players who are in or looking at their last big contract.

Crouch (38), Bardsley (33), Lennon (32), Defour (31), Lowton (29), Cork (29), Mee (29), Barnes (29), Westwood (29) with Long (28) and JBG (28) following close behind.

That is 10 or 11 players we will need to replace in the next 3 to 5 years. Given a very generous take on things it could play out like this.

10 new players needed at £10m a player (which is a low amount) = £100m

Over 5 years that is £20m per year.

Last year, taking out income from previous player sales, we made about £10m from the EPL gravy train. Our income from previous player sales will dry up, while the money owed for recent incomings will be higher. We also spent money on the stadium corner; if we have any sense we should be putting away an equal amount for the stadium improvements that will have to be made in the coming years. Taking all of this into account I would say that we can expect an ongoing income of £10m if we stay in the Premier League.

That would result in a deficit of £50m over 5 years or £10m per year. At the moment we have a healthy dry powder store and we might ( best case scenario ) pull in £20m for the players in our twilight contingent. This would place us at close to a breakeven point. However, if we add to our twilight contingent we will move away from that point. £10m spent on a player and the future cost of a £10m replacement will put us £20m in the red.

Now obviously, we could sell the few younger players we have, but that would weaken the team or we would have to pay a similar amount to replace them which would be of no financial benefit.

We might also have another Dwight breaking through from our recently devastated development squads. However, despite releasing a large number of players .......

Under 23's

Aiden Stone, Adam Bruce, Conor Mitchell, James Clarke, Ed Cook, Mark Howarth, Marley Blair, Tinashe Chakwana and Ntumba Massanka

Possibly Agyei

Under 18's

Richard Taylor, Dan Moss, Oscar Woods, Ethan Kershaw, Terry Mupariwa, Dylon Meredith, Kian Yari and Michael Fowler

..... we have brought in one new player.

This was done in the accordance with focussing our efforts on developing Premier League calibre players. The upshot is that if we are looking to our development squads to plug the hole that could arise from a twilight heavy team then we are going to have to pull our finger out to make it happen.

At the moment we seem to be aiming for top tier youth talent at top tier prices ( that already have an unsubstantiated success premium built in ). Naturally, we are missing out on those targets and wasting our time.

When a club brings in a player of a reasonable age for a decent price they have a very good chance of getting back all their money even if things don't work out. Providing that we aren't talking about premium price, going to be the next world beater, talent.

However, when a club brings in an older player if things don't work out they can expect a big loss or a player on their books who is running down their contract on high wages. If things do work out then the players value will fall over the duration of their contract.

Younger player, lower wages, time to develop = interest from other clubs

Older player, higher wages, more likely to decline = no interest from other clubs

West Ham's early transfer business in this window backs that up. They managed to sell two players who haven't worked out for them. Edimilson Fernandes went for £9m and even if we take his wages into account that still represents a small profit for a failure. In stark contrast they lost close to £2.5m on Perez over the course of one season and shipped out Carroll and Nasri for nothing.

I can appreciate the value experience can add to a team, but we are currently chock full of PL nous and there comes a point when you are dealing with diminishing returns. Even if we take into account the argument that experience can be beneficial to a club in terms of passing it on to develop younger players ot does no good if you have nobod to pass that experience on to. At the moment Dwight is a student with going on 24 teachers.

Clubs are showing less and less interest in older players, unless they are top quality players who can improve a team dramatically. That makes it very difficult to move them on without sustaining a loss and while they can help maintain a clubs league status the revenue from that doesn't justify having an excess of them.

We simply can't afford to add any more twilight players and we definitely can't afford to sell any peak players to bring in more twilight players. For smaller clubs to succeed in the current financial environment of football they need to have a healthy age range spread in their teams and we don't currently have that.