How much is a player worth?

It’s a question each and every manager in football manager live will ask himself on a near daily basis. Should I bid £33,500 or £35,000 on that defender? He wants £1m for that left winger, but is he worth that? Someone’s just bid £100k for my goalkeeper, should I sell? It’s also been the subject of many a blog post, from Wild Geese’s last effort through to Jakswan’s most recent post. So I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring with a couple of posts with, for what it’s worth, my two cents.

Jakswan recently proposed a system whereby you paid a certain amount based on reputation and age, assuming no resale value. I don’t completely agree with the figures he uses, although I accept that it’s just a rough baseline, and I think it’s an interesting idea. However, I disagree whole-heartedly with any such system for one key reason

Every player is different and should be judged on his own merits.

There are so many things to consider when buying a player, but ultimately you’re trying to weigh up a players’ contribution to your side on the pitch against the financial cost for the club.

A playmaker who can pass is essential, but without pace the impact that the player can have is somewhat limited. Add pace (and the ability to go past people) and you can find your midfielder getting into better positions and creating more chances. But without a decent level of finishing, when in the position to shoot, they’ll often blow the chance. The PPMs (player preferred moves) that players have can have a huge impact too.

So given the choice of two players with similar AF but one with the ability to finish, another without, the first player is clearly worth more money as he’s likely to have a greater impact on your fortunes on the pitch.

This leads me onto another point – AF isn’t a good indicator of effectiveness on the pitch. AF is linked directly to the player’s current capability, with modifiers for potential and age. Effectiveness on the pitch is down to the distribution of current capability. This means your fullback with 10 pace and acceleration is never going to be a world beater, no matter how high his acquisition fee is and isn’t worth splurging the money over.

Finally, the calculations shown assume a player is going to stay at the club from the point he joins until he’s 32. The in-game ‘locks’ mean that this assumption is wide of the mark. Most players spend between 2 and 4 seasons at my club. That means all I care about is that the player isn’t too old to swap/sell at the end of his stay. I don’t really care if a player is 21 or 26 because at the end of the day I’ll have to use a lock to keep him and those are in short supply. Yes a player of equal ability at 21 compared to 26 is more valuable because he’ll be more attractive in 2-3 seasons time, but ultimately, not by the vast differences in price shown.