Reflecting on past transfer dealings! With GRAPHS

While watching the Watford vs Tottenham game on ESPN I read a interesting tweet by Neil Allen, reporter for The News;

It got me thinking about how much money has been spent over the seasons and how much has gone out of the club. This can be explained by totalling the known expenditure via Transfermarket.co.uk (these do exclude loan fees and undisclosed fees, as these are unknown). So without beating around the bush too much lets knuckle down to the expenditure.

ALL THE STATS ARE APPROXIMATES!

Here is a line graph tallying the expenditure since Harry Redknapp took charge of his first full season in 2002/03 title winning season right up to the current season.

As we can see there is a steady increase for 3 years and then a large spike. In the early days Redknapp signed a lot of free transfers, astute signings, such as Merson, Festa, Hislop, Sheringham etc.
Then as Gaydamak starting influencing the club with his part ownership the money started to be splashed, with a whopping £51m being spent in the 2007/08 season, the year we won the FA Cup. In that season was such large signings such as David Nugent (£8m), Jermain Defoe (£8.84) and Sulley Muntari (£8m). Large signings for a club with a stadia of 21,000! Alarm bells should've been ringing around this time, but the FA Cup glory and the prospect of playing in the then UEFA Cup was quelled by this.
The gradual change towards the end of the Premier League glory days is noticeable, in 2008/9 this high £23m transfer spend would've been smaller if Crouch hadn't cost a highly inflated £12m! The best season for signings is 2010/11 with Cotterill and Lampitt's good transfer savvy bringing in free's and loans that helped get the club through the season. Then this season it's spike through the investment of Convers Sports Initiative which helped strengthen the squad but without getting rid of the high-earning deadwood that it inherited causing problems after the companies collapse in November 2011.

I will come onto signings later in another blog, that might take some more time to research.

So now moving onto the sales over the past 10 years! This is a lot more different to the first graph, a lot of players were released on free's rather than sold, maybe due to the nature of their contracts back then.

As you can see the outgoing sales starts of very small, there are a lot of releases in the earlier part of the graph and starts spiking around the FA Cup winning season and after it. The 2008-2010 period saw a lot of the huge talent in the Pompey squad leave, Diarra leaving for Real Madrid for £19m, Glen Johnson to Liverpool for £18m, Defoe for £15m etc. These helped ease huge loans taking out against the club by Gaydamak in the run up to the FA Cup triumph, it also helped 'manage' debt after the Russian's sudden lack of financial input after the 2008 financial crisis. After relegation from the Premier League the club shaved it's high earners and talent to the highest bidders, some players did well after leaving, some not.

Now lets look at the two graphs together, they make for an interesting comparison;

That shows how the club gradually peaked in the 2007/8 season with the FA Cup winning side, one of the best Portsmouth sides to grace Fratton Park since the Double First Divison winners in 1948-50! But this quickly fell apart since 2008. From buying £51m worth of talent in 2007/08 we then almost sold the same amount of money in the next season! The huge amount of money going out is mind-boggling, it shows how much of a financial black hole the club was in, if £105m worth of player sales still create a £80m debt hanging over the club it does raise issues of where the money went, or how bad our debt levels were to begin with!

It does show the sad decline of the club over the past few years, seeing the names that we bought and the players we had playing for us over the years make me wish we could do it all over again sometimes. I will always take the FA Cup win over being relegated allways, the way it made the whole city proud of the club, it was pure estatic pride when Sol Campbell lifted the FA Cup to the sound of 'Play Up Pompey' ringing in the background, the sight and sound of that will stay with me forever!

When Sol went up to lift the FA Cup! We were there! We were there!

After compiling this followed a few tweets talking about the worst signings made by Harry Redknapp which a few were pinged about like Chalkias, Karadas, all worthy names, but not Redknapp signings. Then compiling this made me remember some, here's my contribution;

 

and the reply!

 

Felt quite satisfied by that bit of banter!
If anyone is wondering who I compiled into these graphs here is the list and their approximate transfer price;

Transfers In

2002-03

Richard Hughes- £70k

Matthew Taylor- £530k

Vincent Pericard- £530k

Deon Burton- £330k

Total £1.45m

2003-04

Eyal Berkovic- £660k

Ivica Mornar- £530k

Richard Duffy- £400k

Dejan Stefanovic £2.2m

Amdy Faye £1.95m

Sebastien Olszar- £176k

Petri Pasanen- £260k

Total £6.2m

2004-05

Valery Mezague £440k

Aliou Cisse- £396k

Ricardo Fuller- £2.2m

Lomana LuaLua- £1.98m

Total- £5.1m

2005-06

Brian Priske- £660k

Benjani- £5.3m

Emmanuel Olisadebe- £440k

Franck Songo'o- £330k

Andrew O'Brien £2.64m

Dean Kiely £220k

Jhon Viafara- £2.11m

Total £14.498m

2006-07

Andrew Cole- £660k

Lauren- £484k

Niko Kranjcar- £3.96m

David James- £1.5m

Djimi Traore- £1.2m

Total £8.08m

2007-08

Jermaine Defoe- £8.14m

David Nugent- £8m

Lassana Diarra- £6.2m

Glen Johnson- £4.8m

Papa Bouba Diop- £4.4m

Danijel Subotic- £350k

Adda Djeziri- £27k

Arnold Mvuemba- £1.7m

Sulley Muntari- £8.8m

John Utaka- £8.8m

Total £51m

2008-09

Younes Kaboul- £5.5m

Nadir Belhadj- £3.9m

Hayden Mullins- £2.1m

Peter Crouch- £12m

Total- £23.5m

2009/10
Kevin Prince Boateng- £3.9m

Mike Williamson £2.1m

Tommy Smith- £1.76m

Total- £7.76m

2010-11

All free transfers

2011-12

Luke Varney- £750k

Jason Pearce- £400k

Erik Huseklepp- £2.2m

Greg Halford- £880k

Total- £4.2m

Transfers Out

2002/3

Shaun Derry- £530k

2003/4

Boris Zivkovic £176k

2004/5

Kevin Harper £66k

Rowan Vine £330k

Nigel Quashie- £2.77m

Amdy Faye- £2.65m

Total sales- £5.82m

2005/06

Yakubu 8.58m

Ricardo Fuller 132k

Total sales- £8.71m

2006/7

John Viafara £220k

Brian Priske £880k

Total sales- £1.1m

2007/8

Gary O'Neil £6.60m

Benjani £4.57m

Matty Taylor- £4.2m

Lomano Lua Lua £3.6m

Collins Mbesuma £330k

Dejan Stefanovic £1.3m

Total sales- £20.6m

2008/09

Pedro Mendes- £3.3m

Lassana Diarra- £17.6m

Jermain Defoe- £14.43m

Sulley Muntari- £13.2m

Total sales- £48.53m

2009/10

Sylvain Distin- £5.72m

Younes Kaboul- £5.2m

Asmir Begovic- £3.3m

Niko Kranjcar £2.46m

Glen Johnson £18.04m

Mike Williamson £968k

Peter Crouch £9.24m

Martin Cranie £880k

Total sales- £45.81m

2010/11

Kevin Prince Boateng £5.02m

John Utaka £440k

Nadir Belhadj £3.7m

Marc Wilson £3.2m

Papa Bouba Diop £270k

Matt Ritchie £265k

Tommy Smith £1.65m

Total sales- £14.55m

2011/12

Nadir Ciftci £160k

Cue the Gloomy Sky Picture

Portsmouth are yet again in a financial disposition, so here is a guide to how the media like to portray these 'harrowing' times down at Fratton Park...(this is a tongue in cheek blog)

We start with an inevitable shot of a dark gloomy sky looming over a game at Fratton Park;

Dark clouds are gathering over Fratton Park, as they often do, as it's weather in Britain, and it's sunset.

 This over used shot to indicate a sense of dark clouds are gathering and bad news is coming for this club. The over darkening of the stands is another tongue in cheeky reference to how the fans are almost 'kept in the dark' over the clubs financial mismanagement.

Then we cut straight into a bi-polar sandwich of facts and history, starting with the fact we are the first Premier League club to enter administration in 2010 with debts of up to around £120m, a eye watering amount for a club with a small 21,000 stadia. Before getting on to a slice of positive action we need another gloomy photo;

Portsmouth up for sale, again, again, again, again

But for this huge amount of debt they have something to show for it, in 2008 Pompey won the FA Cup after pretty much buying a new squad mid-season (not that we fluked our way there, apart from that Man Utd game) and to the FA Cup Final in 2010. Quick time for a photo of the FA Cup triumph before the next stage;

Portsmouth celebrate their FA Cup triumph over Cardiff in 2008 with their newly formed squad

 But with big signings such as Peter Crouch for £12m and the departure of god-like figure Harry Redknapp to stuttering Tottenham Hotspur the future didn't look great, then Tony Adams took charge, and it got worse. Despite a dream 2-2 draw at home to giants AC Milan the club teetered on the brink and the big names were sold, for a hugely inflated price, i.e. Lassana Diarra leaving for £20m to Real Madrid, Jermaine 'I've got a cold' Defoe for £16m, overall by the end of the 2008/9 season Portsmouth had raked in a transfer income of £80m which vanished, but we'll gloss over this fact by adding another picture.

This was un-noticed by the supporters of the club, if I'm not mistaken are very passionate about the club, so they protested;

Grr I'm angry!

Life long supporters were interviewed as they conveniently gathered outside the ground, including casual latecomer and mega-nutter-pompey-fru-and-fru-geezer John 'middle name here' Westwood says it's all caused by the 'big men at the top', cue a nutty picture of him;

Fru and fru

The owners take no notice and continue being crooked etc. An example of this was the appointment of Daniel Azougy, a fraudulent accountant (even convicted) was allowed to come in, rape the books, sell Asmir Begovic to Stoke and collecting a £1m up-front payment for him (gullible fools), he left the club in quiet circumstances before Chanrai came in.

Far into the 2009/10 season brought four new owners and managers alike, all perfectly innocent people, but they have no money or managerial savy! Until the 4th owner comes in the shape of Balram Chanrai who realises it's gone tits up and puts the club in administration and places narcissistic Andrew Andronikou as administrator of the club, here's a picture;

'Yes I do have a modeling contract with Administrators GQ'

Relegation befouled Portsmouth and even more financial uncertainty faced Portsmouth! Who knew? The whole dreaded saga continued right up to October 2010. In that time about 30 players departed the club leaving only 5 players remaining at the club, strangely some of the over-paid players such as Ben Haim who earns a reputed £38k a week! Savy-geezer Steve Cotterill is appointed manager to rabble a team with no money together in time for the season, here he is;

 

 

"Remember lads, no attacking movements and long balls to Kitson! Sorted"

On the 24th October the club came out of administration after agreeing with creditors on how it was going to pay them back, taking 20p in the £1 on the debt, making it around £20m(ish). So no more sad pictures of Pompey. Bad news for pathos photographers;

A photograph no longer seen in papers and websites alike, a sad day

But after a mediocre first season in the nPower Championship the second would have a promise of playing bitter rivals Southampton and the investment of the new owners CSI. This paved the way of Chanrai to exit the club once for all, we'd hope;

"I'm leaving now, I hope you enjoy your fairly priced season tickets this year"

With heavy investment in the squad taking it up to a whopping 17 players! Keeping high earners like Ben Haim and racking up a transfer investment of around £5m the talk of play-offs and promotion loomed!
BUT then it came crashing down in November when Vladimir Antonov was arrest for assest stripping Snoras Bank in Lithuania! I mean a crooked owner at Pompey?! NEVAR!
The 'operating company' CSI went straight into administration within days, paving the way for something amazing, not narcissist Andrew Andronikou! But GLOOMY SKIES!

 

 

Gloomy and mysterious, ooooo

No but seriously Andronikou was appointed administrator of the CSI group and tasked with finding another owner! Here he is again in case you've lived in cave;

"Do you like my impression of Gareth Bale? I can do other impressions too! Available for hire also!"

David Lampitt expressed disappointment with the CSI group for what had happened and tried to reassure fans, but the see-saw of intelligence tipped into the knee-jerk reaction stage.

"Mate, that money wasn't yours!? Fuck"

This leads to more precarious photographs of Pompey looking somewhat on the brink of a media journalists wet dream and when football fans either berate of use this as a crusade for football. Another gloomy photo, with relief but with fans;

"It's as if the club is a bunch of clowns to be honest mate..."

The fans are reassured once more that there is suitable interest in the club and hope to take it forward Lampitt says recently, despite news of a £1.7m tax bill which the HMRC will come armed and aiming for the jugular this time. Bleak for those 'long suffering' fans of Portsmouth.

But this must end of a positive, for all the debt the club has won the FA Cup in 2008, finalists in 2010 despite being relegated and had a good selection of world class talent through the years. Some supporters are talking of AFC Portsmouth (which sounds like a pub team) the future could be bright(ish).....

Lampitt has said that we won't be selling any players in the mean time, it's not in the clubs best wishes to deplete their squad to a bear minimum, as I mean sensible ones wouldn't. But sensible clubs don't give the club to people who claim to have money but don't, wasting resources instead.
Here's Joel Ward celebrating after equalising against Southampton in December 2011

"'ave that scum"

I conclude by saying Pompey buggered up with money, again, then buggered it up again after more Russians had dodgy money and got out quick without a problem. Thus leaving us in the capable hands of the devil himself to find us a new owner, and not Chanrai;

"So you've got my good side yeah?"

Thank you for reading, I hope this was fun, as I intended it to be a little light-hearted in all the heavy discussions and news coming out of the club of late.