Written by kirsikka
The seemingly more pragmatic approach to transfers this window (so far, we still have time to go crazy) that sees us second-bottom in the Premier League spending totals at the moment made me wonder about our historical spending under AFC Bournemouth owner Maxim Demin.
Going all the way back to the time when we suddenly decided to lash out £850k on Matt Tubbs (a player we’d previously released twice) here is our reported transfer spend and income by season.
Lots of caveats here. The data is taken from transfermarkt and that doesn’t appear to always be the most reliable. It also doesn’t account for wages or signing-on fees, so things like the free transfer of Jermain Defoe aren’t reflected there.
As a broad brush strokes guide though, I think it’s interesting.
The tv money in the Premier League has actually stagnated a little in recent years, no longer seeing huge increases each time a new deal comes into effect. Yet the spending on transfers has started to spiral again. This window is already the largest spend for a summer window in history (£1.5bn and counting) and there are still a few days to go and plenty of big deals rumoured to be in the pipeline. For example, as soon as Leicester sell Forfana to Chelsea for £80m they’ll turn around and reinvest most of it.
The record for a whole season was from 2017/18 where £1.86bn was spent. It feels like a matter of when this season will that be broken, not if.
Yes, we know at the top the UEFA Champions League money and external wealth are funding teams beyond all possibility to compete with but even the next tier of clubs are throwing money around thanks to their owners.
We all want the club to bring in quality. However, given the above, would it even be wise for Max to lend the club, say, £50 million, to spend on players? We’re at the stage where we couldn’t be confident that would even make us all that competitive. It’s an insane amount but would only put as at about midtable for Premier League spending this window.
Over five seasons of our previous Premier League stint, we net invested £175m on transfer fees. That helped keep us up, and build a new generation of players to replace the old guard. The relegation was unfortunate as it felt like we were in that transition process. All the same, we have to accept that we went down and that momentum was lost. Now here we are again having to try and build a Premier League squad.
From all the rumblings, it sounds like there will be more players incoming to Dean Court by the time the window ‘slams shut®’ on Sky Sports News. I’m really torn. I want us to do well but the players that can make that difference often cost the big bucks. I don’t want us to get relegated with a millstone around our neck like last time.
The board have come in for some stick on here. Sometimes fairly, sometimes not. I really hope they get it right this coming week as the reverberations will impact this club for seasons to come.
Meanwhile, once again hat tip to Max for underwriting it all. 30th January 2012 was when Matt Tubbs arrived so that’s just over 10 years of madness his money has helped to give us.
Your say…
redharry said…
So if we ignore wages we have spent a net total of £24M for 3 promotions, 1 relegation, 6 seasons (including this one) in the Premier League, 4 in the Championship and 1 in League One. Seen many of the best teams in the world and beaten all of them apart from Manchester City. Had the delights of winning at Southampton and Brighton & Hove Albion, regular wins at Chelsea (never thought I would say that!), managed to sack a number of top managers because they lost to little old Bournemouth and generally wound up the big boy establishment.
Now that looks like a good investment to me. Cheers Max and all at the club for the best 10 years of my 56 years as a supporter. Now for Europe……………… – Join the conversation, click here.
