Premier League Squads: We will finish 9th

But how do you get us from our rightful place of 15th all the way up to 9th? Or is that the Everton fan in you fighting the system?

I didn't write any of that. An editor must have done so.

It's important because that is not really the point of the article.

The point of the article is that I expect us (because of the fortunes of others as well as our own situation) to materially overperform the valuation of our squad - which is still very low if you compare it to other Premier League clubs.

The team can score, the team can keep it tight. It can fight it out, it can be a difficult team at a fierce home ground, and is now picking up away wins at a good regularity we haven't seen in decades. Wolves, Newcastle, Palace, Forest, Fulham, Brighton, off the top of my head in a small number of games.

The home form will improve, but winning away is hard at at any level. We are a tough unit, and have an experienced manager that knows the game. A fair number of the defeats have come from narrow defeats where theres been a single player error or poor officials. Slim margins, and with game changers, that could change further for the better.

These are all positive things, and in my opinion are more valuable than some hipsters choice at left back or right back. They might be less pleasing on the eye, but a defensive right back or left back like Mykolenko or Obrien would probably take a team like Brentford, Brighton, more forward, as they wouldn't concede at the rate they do. The back 4 can see a game out.

I am expecting a good tilt on the cups. The strong line up the other week has already shown the hand that Everton are serious for the cups. 10th on the league is par. Below that, it will be a disappointment. 8th a strong build in the first full year of the Friedkins.

You mention cups. I hope we take them seriously too. We can beat anyone in a one-off cup tie and should approach it that way.

There's no glory in finishing 8th to 10th – which will be about our limit this season (7th at a real push). But there is glory in a cup win – and it would really launch us into something special at the new stadium.

The European commitments of the likes of Forest and Palace might have a negative effect on their league form. In that regard, our home game against Palace on 5 October, 3 days after their Europa Conference League tie with Dynamo Kyiv in Poland, will give us an indication of how well they can cope.

That went quiet, presumably because we weren’t that interested in them or vice versa. Should that attitude change after the transfer window has shut is there a way of exploiting it?

I read that Sevilla terminated Kelechi Iheanacho’s contract by mutual consent to make it easier for him to find another club and then he signed for Celtic. Could Roma do that for one of their players if he assesses his current competition and decides he’s got a better chance of being a starter for us than at Roma? Or are there rules in place that prevent such a thing from happening?

You have banged your drum relentlessly that our place is determined by squad valuation, and that it's virtually impossible to break out from the straight-jacket that imposes.

You structured the article accordingly. Are you now saying it's not as important as you have told us previously? That somehow we are going to jump up six places — for no apparent reason?

The independent valuations form an interesting point of reference. You'll note I've mentioned aggregate net spend too once or twice. And spending levels year on year too. That's a good indicator of upward trajectory or downward trajectory. This summer, there have been some abrupt changes on that score.

Yes, as Ian says, there's a lot to unpack with this sort of thing. But I'm not writing a thesis here (you'll be pleased to know). I'm just using the valuations as a guide – and saying how and why I think we'll over-perform that valuation.

Some of that is because we've started to correct a crap squad by spending again – coincidentally at a time when other peers are having to switch off spending and dismantle good sides. Some of that is because I think Moyes will over-perform. But I think he's also limited by serious flaws in the playing squad still (something else I like to labour Michael – the lack of pace and width which imposes tactical constraints).

As I understand it, a player must be a free agent prior to the transfer deadline to be able to sign for a new club during the closed season for transfers.

If a player is released after the deadline, he must wait until the next window to join another club.

"But how do you get us from our rightful place of 15th all the way up to 9th? Or is that the Everton fan in you fighting the system?"

Even after 3 games, Villa have already dropped 6 points from last season (hopefully 9 after the next round of fixtures), Brighton 5, Wolves 4 and Brentford 3. On the other side, Bournemouth are up 5 and Merseyside clubs up 4.

At the moment, 7th is 61 points. We are at 52 and in the middle pack of 61-52. I expect Spurs to bridge the gap (they were 28 points down last season) and Amorin or his replacement should sort out Man Utd (-18) so 3 from 5 at the bottom, 4 from 4 at the top, 3 to get the remaining Euro spots and the rest of us to scramble over the places in the middle.

By a quirk of Spurs winning the Europa League and getting into the Champions League, we ended up with 8 European places. Can it happen again?

I get what you say about trajectory, there is a mindset with that, upwards being positive.

Looking at your 8th to 12th grouping, I can see Everton there this season, because we have the potential for that now.

My concern would be the back 4, and that may be our Achilles… let's see.

In terms of the article, I think it misses the overall form the club had from last season, and a structure that worked. Yes, the pre-season was difficult. But the form in the league seems to have carried over. And that's a huge part of football. Probably equal to perceived valuations.

Leicester, when winning the league, had stumbled on a formation and style that got the best from its players. And Everton have a little bit of that under Moyes despite the cat calls from the mob that will never have him. Winning and losing is a habit. A mental mindset that has a huge bearing on sport.

I think the comments on full-backs being weak will have little overall impact on where we finish this season. There's enough quality and footballing nous to deliver 9th with limited full-backs. They wouldn't score or assist that much, but the goals conceded will be typically one or lower with a settled back 5.

Our ability to score goals now gives us a good chance of 1 to 3 points in each game. The side that finished 4th wasn't amazing, nor was the Liverpool side that won the European Cup the same season. But they battled it over the line.

If I rewind to Lampard, I couldn't see a goal scored. And we were wide open, where you could see us conceding a couple of goals a game. That's changed.

The article covers where we will finish, with valuations being the piece that dictates much of that. Form, settled system, game-by-game tactics, injuries, and luck will have an equal bearing.

9th for me is par. A Top 8 finish and a cup would e a job well done. A sub-12th finish would see questions asked if Moyes is moving the club forward from the core.

However, I was under the impression that the biggest correlation between expenditure and league position is the expenditure on wages. An analysis of that would be interesting by way of comparison.

Last season, I think we started with 4 defeats conceding 13 goals, an average of 3.25 goals per game. We responded well and some how ended up with 44 goals conceded, an average of 1.16 per game.

4th best defence. We've got the same defence plus the addition of Anzou. Whether some players like Jake O'Brien are the best choice for right back is questionable but we did ok with what we have.

The fly in the ointment this season is that we appear to be stronger going forward so our focus may have altered meaning our midfield and defence will have to be more aware if our attacks break down.

That, and the fact that I believe our new pitch is longer than GP meaning there are more gaps to fill and defend. Also, whilst GP was tight and could have affect the opposition, our new ground looks great to play in and that also means for opponents.

For me, I'd take a Top 10 finish with an optimistic cheeky 6th/7th place.

Slow maybe - but that is either over 10 yards (and that was me) or over 50. But you only need the latter if you are attacking or defending on the break.

Narrow - yes. Against Brighton Grealish often went 5 yards infield. Same for Ndaiye. It was noticeable the 50 yard cross-field passes from Michael Keane because Ndaiye was so hugging the right touchline (and Grealish the left) that the full backs were leaving 30+ yard gaps and could not cover to intercept. Of course if they man to man marked, then the centre was unprotected for KDH and others to come through. I think we were narrow but this season should see a change - and we have Dibling to add.

As you say the lack of reinforcements at the back, especially at RB, and in CDM are pretty staggering. Instead we now have to play our best player from last season out of position. It was a strange window.

For me 12th still looks par. Think the spread in the league might be shorter this season with all the promoted teams looking capable of upsetting the odds. The squad looks slim still and an injury or two could derail us especially as we only really have 3 centre backs with O’Brien first choice at RB.

There’s potential in this team and crucially much more creativity now (especially if Dibling develops quickly) but top ten would feel like a good achievement to me after the perennial relegation struggles.

Both you chaps are correct!

And it was a fantastic day at The Hill

It’s early days to judge this team and how successful or not the window was and I’m trying not to get too carried away by this early optimism!

I wouldn't be surprised if we got a bit of a surprise relegation.

If so, our squad valuation is a bit of a red-herring.

As someone else mentioned, player wages are probably a more accurate reflection, although I'd deduct 10 points from the estimated total of any team Potter manages and add 10 to the Shite's, on the basis that they always get the rub of the green.

A missed penalty is when the penalty taker misses the goal (one of my pet hates is when commentators in particular refer to missed penalties when the keeper has actually made a save).

Anyway, I think we can just tighten up defensively, then we are going to have a good season (we had a shaky start defensively last season as well, but sorted it out and we have more attacking options this time around).

Sum £383m

So their treatment room is currently worth more than £14m more than our entire squad

€28m?! That’s about £24m. He’s worth much more, surely?!

Good piece, thanks, Robert, I've enjoyed reading the debate. I agree with much of your analysis, I'd be quite happy with 8th right now but you never know how the season will pan out. We'll need to punch up above our current financial weight to do it, but the signs are (hopefully) positive.

Our defence was great last season and we've replaced Young with Aznou in the back line, we are still short at right-back and may need luck with injuries etc but could be okay.

So it shows that anything can happen, and will hopefully happen to our former neighbours this time round.

My pet hate is the apparent belief that hitting the woodwork somehow has more worth than any other miss.

But just as any near misses are noteworthy in any sort of risk assessment, the number of clear opportunities the opposition has to score, whether taken or not, has to be addressed and the coaching staff and players will scrutinise each one and work on how to try to eliminate them going forwards.

Firstly, there is the ‘magic sauce' of how the squad interacts with each other and the impact of the manager (which we saw last season at Everton).

Secondly, and more fundamentally, the value of a player depends on their age as well as their ability, because the valuation has to include how long the player is likely to remain at peak or decent form.

So Grealish and Gana would not be worth as much as say Dibling or Röhl but are currently much better players. It maybe that this age depreciation effect evens out across all the squads in the league, but it maybe that it does not.

As Peter Mitchell (15) pointed out, a better correlation (according to Deloittes) was between league position and wages; rather than squad value. Wages is a truer reflection of the market value of a player in the current season.

It's like this:

The Big 8

This correlates to the Transfermarkt top 8 squad values except for Villa. Villa are in trouble because they are saddled with big wages despite their squad deteriorating.

1. City £189m

2. Arsenal £168.8m

3. RS £ 155.3m

4. Chelsea £ 147.1m

5. Man Utd £ 145.3m

6. Spurs £ 127.1m

7. Villa £ 106.6m

8. Newcastle £ 101.7m

The mid table

This broadly correlates to the Transfermarkt squad values mid table clubs.

This again shows Forest going for it. They really are. Whether it is sustainable or not I don't know. But they seem intent on spending their way into the Champions League.

We are not so far behind in 11th place. However, we're further from Newcastle in 8th place (£31.4m) than we are from Burnley in 20th place (£28.5m). It shows just how far ahead those big 8 spenders are on all fronts (and why Villa are in a real pickle).

9. Forest £ 87.6m

10. West Ham £ 72.9m

11. Everton £ 70.3m

12. Fulham £ 69.8m

13. Leeds £ 64.9m

14. Palace £ 64.1m

15. Bournemouth £ 59.4m

16. Brighton £ 58.9m

17. Sunderland £ 54.1m

The Bottom 3

It's no surprise that these are 3 of the main relegation favourites. Burnley stand out as the lowest wages and a really poor squad. Wolves are in big trouble. Brentford too possibly. Although they have a good overall squad - who replaces the goals of Wissa, Mbuemo and Toney of recent years. A lot is expected of Igor and Ouattara. If they fail, Brentford could easily go down.

18. Brentford £ 47.9m

19. Wolves £ 43m

20. Burnley £ 41.8m

Basically, 9th would represent over-performing squad quality and wages by a decent measure. But it also represents a glass ceiling of sorts. If you go beyond 9th, you are having to outperform clubs with materially bigger, better and higher paid squads. The challenge is steeper with each place you go beyond 9th.

Eric # 32, you are quite right - Spurs and Man Utd were hilariously terrible last season. Spurs won't repeat that. Man Utd, Newcastle and Villa could all have difficult seasons though - but are all probably still odds on to finish top half.

Really, outside of the big 8 wage spenders it's us and Forest who look well placed. Forest just have a better squad though - and a pretty sensible (Moyes-esque) manager.

We need another window of spending - and spending at competitive £150m ish levels - to get back into genuine top 7 contention.