THE WOLF'S DEN - Tana dei Lupi II

[arthurfonzarelli]

[RomaShield27]

Ha, Colly finally flipped. Took longer than I expected from you, Colly, the way Maro has been gently poking his dick in your ear. Seems to me Maro is deliberately riling and winding you up. In doing so Maro comes across as "a complete and utter prick", as Colly put it, and as I've put in the past, myself, but I also think that is the way Maro likes it. This is a forum, after all, the very nature of which is to challenge and debate and to think for yourself. Maro does it on purpose – I don't know whether intentionally to rile the person up, or just to debate what that person actually said. I think its probably both, depending on which side of the bed he got out off. I have had rows with him, as have lots of others here, some of which he's driven off, unfortunately, but he'll soon move on and start on someone or something else. Kiwi's are a touchy bunch, really.

Anyway, the whole issue of selling Lamela is not how much money we'll make on him, even if that doesn't really make a lot of sense in selling him now for such a margin. By my calculations, we bought him for €17m and sold for €35m, so €18m profit (although the figures will no doubt change once the deal is done, like what happened with the Marquinhos deal – about €4m of which actually went to his old club), but why sell him now for a figure which isn't exactly an offer we couldn't refuse, unlike the Marquinihos sale? It just doesn't really make a lot of sense to sell him now, for lots of reasons.

Do we need the money? No, we've already more or less (up and down) this mercato. The player himself doesn't want to leave. Spurs aren't exactly more high-profile than us. We're only really beginning to see Lamela's full potential or what he is really capable of (despite still very inconsistent last season). And related to DCG's question – if he can go on and become a real world class star – I think he can, and hypothetically worth twice what he is now in a few years, but also, even if he doesn't, I hardly think he's going to get worse, and so next season or the one after that we could sell him for the same figure, or maybe even more. He's also still not exactly a household name, but this time next year, if we were to keep him, I think he almost assuredly would be. He's only just broke into the Argentinian set-up, and another season of goals for us and he could well become a regular for them and thus a lot more high-profile.

So why sell him now? Colly's point on the maths of selling Lamela/buying Ljajic is valid, I think. From the sale of Lamela, we've an approx. €18m profit, then minus the cost of Ljajic for about €12m, and what are we left with now? A few million. Yes, Ljajic's future mercato value has to be taken into account, but what, exactly, is the benefit of making these deals right now? Can't see it.

Of course, it all comes back to the bigger question on what the intentions of our owners are, exactly, and how on one day they spout nonsense like wanting to make us the biggest club in the world, and then the next say that everyone is for sale and we have to make profit and, essentially, become a selling club. No clarity. Buy young, sell big. CL? No chance.

[romawi]

[RomaShield27]

Yeah for sure, it is a very simplistic way of looking at it. Especially when you factor in how complicated the mercato works in Italy, when you consider deals like co-ownerships, options to buy, contro-opzione, riconoscimento, future fees, all sorts of stuff. And about half of the deals aren't made public, too, only lodged with the league. That mercato list i put together is very basic, I know, but the figures there are added up from official communicato stampa, and so have some basis and give some indiction, even if the reality may be way different.

Take a look at which was done by Thomas Høy (@iPrimaPunta), in a similar manner to mine (although in greater detail), but with slightly different results. This from it also helps:

This transaction-based view, however, only tells half the story. The net difference between profits on players sold (transfer fee minus book value) and amortization of new transfers amounts to roughly €23m. In other words: in spite of being break even, or even slightly negative in terms of pure transactions, Roma have made a profit of more than €20m this summer. The key to this has been Marquinhos and Osvaldo, who both were transferred far more expensively than their book value.

[AS Collie]

[DCGweez]

[AS Collie]

[DavidP]

you don't want nani but you want tevez?

[maro]

[maro]

[AS Collie]

[maro]

[AS Collie]

[DCGweez]

I'd rather have Tevez than Nani...

Particularly where proceeds of Lamela's sale would end up in our imaginary transaction given that Nani would be a downgrade to Lamela and Tevez would be an upgrade to CF, a more important position than LF.

Especially given this:

[RomaShield27]

I'd rather have the granny Tevez rode than Nani.

[AS Collie]

[RomaShield27]

[DCGweez]

[RomaShield27]

Well, clubs would generally put aside a wage budget for the season for that, no? You have your wage budget which you (try too) stick to it, and you factor all new players into it balanced against outgoing players etc.?

[DCGweez]

My point is it's real inflation of expenses and these days it's even more pressing as Salaries are paid now and often times the majority of player buys are amortized over multiple years.