Could it be true?

[pete 2,499]

He's not the kind of 5M signing we're looking at. In 4 years he won't be worth much whereas we could have sold Faubert in 2 years for a bit of a profit.

 

I would agree with that Cal and also with Gribz that he is not the man we need. we need a good creative midfielder who can create chances and score. smith is a hard worker and a battler but he lacks in the creative field and as far as i remember he is not that prolific a scorer.

[calscot 0]

I'm hoping that SDM will start to remember that if you find really good young talent that cost a few million, it may sound like a lot of money but if you sell them on they are effectively cheap, free, or we get paid to have them...

 

I think Arteta burnt the chairman's fingers, but we paid too much to start with and then sold him too early for too little. How much is he worth now?

 

Boumsong was a great deal for us but could mean that EPL teams are more wary of spending millions on someone doing well in the SPL. In fact the only managers that do so seem to have had some time in Scotland - Souness, MON, Mowbray, Davies, and to some extent but not so recently Ferguson and Moyes.

[ascender 352]

The fact we're playing in the SPL means that even the best players will not be worth as much as they could be if they were plying their trade in England. There seems to be an upper ceiling of 4.5 - 5M or so for buying players from up here, apart from the very odd exception.

 

So its a difficult one. I guess its why the Scott Brown deal would have made sense at 2-3M, but not at 4M+. Even if the lad plays very well and moves on, I can't see a side paying more than 4-5M for him. The only way to make money up here would be to sell on youth that we've produced or bought cheaply, or of course, unearthing a genuine talent from Europe before anyone else cottons on.