ToffeeWeb - Season 2006-07

The Mail Bag

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

Who is Everton's most expensive player of all time taking inflation into account? One for Mr Statto...

I've no idea personally. Just started to think about it after remembering we paid £4.5m for Slaven Billic who's now competing against England as manager of Croatia.
Dan Parker, New York, US Posted 07/06/2007 at 17:34:33

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Dave Roberts
1 Posted 07/06/2007 at 20:37:35

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In 1967 a pint of Bitter cost 1/1d (about 5p, at least it did in the Derby Arms in Garston!) Today it would cost on average about £2.20. Let us say an increase of 44x. Using the same rate of inflation it would cost Everton, today, £5.25 million to buy Alan Ball.

A million less than James Beattie!

I'm going for a lie down! Please Dan, don't make me think about things like that anymore. My heart just can't take it. I'm not as young as I was in 1967.

Dan Parker
2 Posted 07/06/2007 at 23:13:34

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To follow from my earlier post and using an inflation calculator, Dixie Dean cost 3,000 GBP in 1925; that's a snip at 117,600 GBP in today's prices. Without getting anal about the conversion, thats bloody cheap!

Nick Barmby at 5.75m in 1996; that's 7.46m by last year's prices. So he probably comes just ahead of Bleattie as the flop of all time.

Peter Fearon
3 Posted 08/06/2007 at 23:13:58

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Surely just in terms of the number of points he has cost us by failing to score plus the significant six million we paid for him, the bags of cash we have paid him for absolutely ZERO return, plus the enormous medical bills he has run up, James Beattie has to be the most expensive Everton player of all time.

The Dome Mk IV
4 Posted 10/06/2007 at 13:23:05

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Peter Fearon has hit the nail on the head. It’s not just the transfer sum but wages, contributions to the team and fines that really give you a balanced picture. Off the top of my head, I’d say that Beattie has been very bad but Duncan Ferguson really took the biscuit (despite the fact that I actually enjoying watching him play). How often did he not play as a result of being suspended or injured? How many goals did he score? We shelled out substantial transfer sums for him and don’t even mention the wages!