Gordon, Nketiah, Felix deals all not dead

Today we have a guest post from Ravi Ramineni, who appears regularly on The Transfer Flow Podcast. Ravi is one of the pioneers in the field of football analytics. He spent a decade at the Seattle Sounders installing analytics infrastructure and culture at one of the most successful clubs in MLS.

Ravi is the ex-CEO and co-founder of SRC FTBL, a soccer analytics start-up helping football clubs with player recruitment and team analyses. Currently, he is incubating his next project in football. Before working for the Sounders, Ravi contributed to the Villarreal USA blog and podcast, and today’s post is about his favorite Spanish club.

There appears to be a fire-sale going on at Villarreal. Starting goalkeeper Filip Jorgensen moved to Chelsea for €25m. Starting center forward Alexander Sorloth, 2nd top-scorer in La Liga last season, was shipped to Atlético Madrid for €32m. Starting center-back Jorge Cuenca moved to Fulham to replace the veteran American center-back, Tim Ream.

A season ago, the Yellow Submarine sold Nicolas Jackson (Chelsea), Pau Torres (Aston Villa), Samuel Chukuwueze (AC Milan) and Boulaye Dia (Salernitana) for a combined €105m. They tried hard to move Arnaut Danjuma (Everton) but could only get a loan deal for him.

No club wants to sell off its best players, but this is reality for the middle class of top leagues.

Imagine what it’s like to run a club like this. You try to maximize your limited resources and try to close the gap with the top tier that seems to get wider every year. Occasionally, you dream big, and think about how you can win a trophy and throw a ticker tape parade like the rich clubs.

These clubs have to invest in their academy, find undervalued talent, then sell the academy graduates and reclamation projects for a profit. You do whatever you can to create a surplus in talent, as well as cash, to scratch the "one day, I want to take a real shot at winning the big trophy" itch.

The right moment to take the plunge is rarely clear. Too early, you’ll never compete. Too late, the moment is gone.. But when you’re a club like Villarreal, and you think you’ve hit your window, you need to extend beyond your means to make sure you can capitalize.

But that’s actually the easy part — the real problems come after the all-in push. If you break into the exclusive club briefly it’s tempting to attempt to stay there, but most don’t really have means (just do the math on how much Man City and PSG have spent over the years to establish themselves.) More likely than not, the only way to keep up with the financial powerhouses for a limited period is debt. The consequences of that can be dire: relegation, prolonged stints in the 2nd tier, and even complete collapse of the club. Schalke went from the Champions League knockout stages to relegated and nearly bankrupt in just 5 years.

It’s okay to go all in for a season or two, but these clubs need to balance the books soon after, even if it means some pain in the short term. That is the only way they can sustain and load up again to take another shot at glory in the future.

Villarreal are currently going through that phase of reset and rebuilding.

Back in 2020, they saw an opportunity to hire a coach with a proven history of winning silverware in Unai Emery, who was let go by Arsenal in the middle of 19-20 season. Big time coaches don't come in without assurances of resources to construct a strong squad. Villarreal spent beyond their means to pay a club record €25m to bring in Paco Alcacer from Borussia Dortmund. They also added veteran players like Dani Parejo (Valencia), Francis Coquelin (Valencia), and Etienne Capoue (Watford) for small transfer fees, but on huge wages. This was Villarreal saying, "let us chase our big dream.”

Thus began a 2-year adventure for the yellow submarine which saw them win the 2020-21 Europa League against Manchester United in 11-10 on penalties, and they got their big moment: The image of Geronimo Rulli saving David De Gea's penalty after 21 perfect penalties combined from both sides.

Villarreal doubled-down the season later, rejecting huge offers for Pau Torres and others to keep the squad intact for what they hoped for would be a lengthy campaign in the 2021-22 Champions League. They added attacker Arnaut Danjuma from Bournemouth for another record fee, made the loan for Juan Foyth permanent and brought Giovani Lo Celso on loan from Tottenham Hotspur for huge wages.

If you look at the transfer summaries for Villarreal on Transfermarkt for 2020-21 and 2021-22, they are a net negative of about €55m for both seasons combined. That may not sound like a real "splurge," but adding the high wages + an expensive coaching staff all adds up. This is a huge gamble for a club that rarely goes too far from keeping the books balanced.

The fairy tale 21-22 Champions League ride ended in the semifinals vs Liverpool. They were tied 2-2 on aggregate at half-time in the 2nd leg at Estadio de la Ceramica. That is probably as close to the Champions League trophy a mid-tier team is going to get in a long time.

All dreams run their course, and then you wake up. Villarreal knew that they would have to deal with a season or two of re-acclimatizing to reality. They were left with the task of balancing one of the largest deficits the club has ever faced. The process is proving to be more difficult and painful than what they expected.

Emery left for Aston Villa. Pau Torres followed him, for somewhat of a lesser fee than what they could've got the year before. But was the ride to the Champions League semifinal worth losing about €20m on the transfer of a homegrown player? Hard to say it was not.

While Villarreal rightfully set out to clean up their books, they did not get everything right. A couple of questionable coaching hires meant they were teetering in the bottom quarter of the La Liga table midway through last season. But they brought back Marcelino Garcia Toral to steady the submarine. Marcelino was the savior last time Villarreal got into trouble and got relegated in 2011-12. He turned things around, but couldn’t quite get them back into Europa League spots. This meant Villarreal had to downsize some more to square away the deficits and comply with the strict salary limit rules in Spain.

After the big sales of Sorloth and Jorgensen, they are back to their bread and butter of promoting from within and finding flawed or underpriced talent: Nicolas Pepe on a free, and 19-year-old CB Willy Kambwala from Man United (who coincidentally made way for another teenager at the Manchester club, who paid €62m to sign Leny Yoro).

With no European football this season, there is a good chance that rising stars like Alex Baena and Yeremy Pino could yet be snapped up by bigger teams before the end of this window. That will force the club to re-invest some of their transfer surplus into finding more inexpensive players who are well off the radar of top clubs.

It was fun to watch this club scale epic heights in 20-21 and 21-22, despite the financial toll it took. It took a few years to balance the books, but Villarreal look to be back on firm ground heading into the 24-25 season.

The moral of the story is simple. Know who you are and be comfortable in your own skin even if you look fabulous in expensive costumes occasionally. This is a great model to emulate for all mid-tier clubs. You want to be building for the future, but it is perfectly okay to dream and take your shot at glory occasionally to bring great joy to your fans, players and staff. Be prepared for some pain in the aftermath so you can build the club back up for your next shot at glory.

News and rumours

• There were a lot of “Team X is not giving up on Player Y” stories out there today. Liverpool is still trying for Anthony Gordon. Aston Villa is still interested in Joao Felix. Marseille still want to sign Eddie Nketiah. Sorry if you were hoping to hear about movement on any of those, but involved parties would at least like reporters to say the deals aren’t dead.

• The price quoted for Gordon has been £75m, which sounds like a lot for Liverpool to pay for a guy who’s had one great season. But if they’ve evaluated him as a player who’s improving and will soon be worth much more than that, well… I can see it.

• Tottenham and Bournemouth have moved closer to sealing a deal for Dominic Solanke, who should be the Cherries’ record sale at a price north of £50m. In a hyper-inflated striker market, this doesn’t look bad from Spurs, but we covered the riskiness of this move a couple newsletters ago.

• Bournemouth could reinvest some of that money into a right back. They’re negotiating with Barcelona to sign Julian Araujo, who did well on loan at Las Palmas last season. A rumoured €10m for the 22-year-old would be a nice value pickup, though he’d likely come with a hefty sell-on clause.

• Man United have been linked to former Atlético Madrid center back Mario Hermoso, who is available on a free. It’s certainly possible that United are looking at a new free transfer option following Leny Yoro’s injury, but it’s just as likely (or more) that his agent is yapping to get his name out there.

• Southampton look like they’d rather cash in on Armel Bella-Kotchap than give him another shot after he missed all of last season with an injury. Hoffenheim have reportedly offered around €15m. Got to say this is the first I’ve heard of a footballer having their career derailed by a chronic shoulder problem, I like Hoffenheim’s bet that he can get back on track.

• With the Championship kicking off this weekend, Ted introduced what’s coming from our future betting content and talked about the top teams’ odds to win promotion.

• I also recommend the Championship preview show from our friends at Not The Top 20.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, we’d appreciate it if you would forward it to a friend. If you’re that friend, welcome! You can subscribe to The Transfer Flow here. We also have a podcast where we go in depth on transfer news and rumours every week. We’re on YouTube here, and you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify by searching for “The Transfer Flow Podcast.”