What the hell is Napoli's problem

Welcome back to our transfer grades for teams on the European continent, and today we’ve got one I know a lot of people have been waiting for: Napoli.

We’ve spent a lot of time on this newsletter discussing our dislike for the transfer policies of Chelsea and Barcelona, but they’ve been outdone this window. For god knows what reason, daddy De Laurentiis has given Antonio Conte everything he wanted, and it’s going to cripple him financially for years to come.

Bayern Munich, Roma, and Stuttgart are the other teams that feature, and we’re not terribly high on any of them to be honest. Sorry, it’s a bit of a Negative Nancy Newsletter today.

Before we get going, we’ll hit you with The Commercial: If you enjoy these, we’d really appreciate if you’d forward to a friend. If you’re reading the web version or this email was forwarded to you, here’s where you can subscribe. If you generally prefer hearing words to reading them, check out our podcast.

OK, onto the grades.

Napoli — Genuinely appalling

Total incomings — €155.5m

• Alessandro Buongiorno — €35m + €5m add-ons

• Scott McTominay — €30.5m

• Romelu Lukaku — €30m

• David Neres — €28m + €2m add-ons

• Billy Gilmour — €14m + €5m add-ons

• Rafa Marin — €11m (kind of)

• Leonardo Spinazzola — Free

We’ll start with the “acceptable.” Alessandro Buongiorno at €35m+ is pricey, but he’s a lefty and has been good defensively at Torino for a while. I’m not sure I’d trust him to open play, but what Conte wants, Conte gets.

David Neres went to Benfica to rescue his career and he was pretty good last season. Maybe not €28m good, because he’s 27 now and only scored five goals last season. He’s a good creator, but you’re not going to mistake him for world class these days. They gave him a 4+1 deal, so it could have been worse.

Billy Gilmour was a surprise. He’s a luxury player who keeps things ticking over in midfield… and that’s about it. A good passer — very little defensive output. It’s not a huge fee, but one where you really need to articulate the “why.”

Then you hit the bad stuff. Lukaku, who I have genuinely liked for a long time, is washed. His last top season was 20-21. Last year, he was league average in Serie A for xG and open play xG assisted. €30m is still a big fee for Italy, and the whole contract could be ugly.

And last we have the coup de grace — Scott McTominay. It was a running joke for us throughout the summer that whomever paid a decent fee for McTom would represent the Big Sucker in the football room.

Fulham studiously dodged that bullet, but Manchester United appear to have gotten €30m for his weird set of skills when they probably would have needed to loan him out just to get the salary off the books. The midfielder turns 28 in December and wound up with a 4-year deal.

Yes, McTominay scored some goals from midfield. But he was also a regular part of a side that conceded the second most shots per game in Europe last year. Even for Conte, making the McTominay-Billy Gilmour midfield a reality seems far-fetched.

I said at the start of the transfer grades, but it must be repeated here: This was a catastrofuck. —TK

Ted: F | Ravi: D | Kim: D-

Total outgoings — €7m

• Leo Skiri Østigård — €7m

• Diego Demme — Free

• Piotr Zieliński — Free

• 7 senior players loaned (including Victor Osimhen)

The Osimhen Saga was probably the most insane, dumbest thing that happened this summer, and that’s with a full side-eye at what happened over at Chelsea.

• Everyone knew they needed to move Osimhen. The player seemed fine with that as well.

• Everyone knew there was zero chance in the world they were selling him for €120m. The correct price was somewhere in the 60-80 range, and even that would feel quite risky given Osimhen’s trending. I would not make that deal. But SOMEONE might make that deal, and the CF market is always frothy, so that’s probably the right range.

And yet… this somehow all came down to the deadline, with Napoli caving on price over and over again and still not finding a willing buyer in time. So Osimhen is now on loan for… “a while” at Galatasaray, as Napoli potentially lit 25-50% of his remaining transfer fee on fire. So just the €15-20M. No big deal.

They loaned two players to England (Lindstrøm, Cajuste) to put them in the shop window for future sales. That’s not the worst strategy in the world, unlike the Osimhen sale. —TK

Ted: F | Ravi: F | Kim: F-

Combine the incomings and outgoings, and this is the most enjoyably stupid transfer window a bigger team has had in a while. Pure “no, no, don’t do that!” stuff.

Given our background, wisdom, and success in this area, this is absolutely the type of thing teams should (and can) pay us a monthly retainer fee to service.

What is the right market price for this player?
Why?
Are there other comparable players in the market that we could/should buy instead?
Are we completing fucking up if we sign this player/coach/whatever?

Outside expert advice in football is hugely underrated. And doesn’t even cost that much! —TK

Overall grade: F

Bayern Munich — Not great, Bob

Total incomings — €157.5m

• Michael Olise — €55m + €5m add-ons

• João Palhinha — €50m + €5m add-ons

• Hiroki Itō — €23m + €5m add-ons

• Bryan Zaragoza (loaned out) — €13m

• Armindo Sieb — €1.5m

• Eric Dier — Free

Bayern finished third in the Bundesliga last season. They had the best expected goal difference in the league, but the reason for the slip in the table was the away performances against the top half. They had a LOT of goalfest losses away from the Allianz.

They also had one of the weirdo head coach sagas of the summer. They sort-of-but-not-really fired Thomas Tuchel. And then completely struggled to find an acceptable replacement willing to take the job. The biggest club in Germany, but almost everyone qualified said no. This is because Bayern are an old boys club + soap opera behind the scenes, and anyone who knows about it wanted nothing to do with it, even in exchange for tens of millions a year in compensation.

So they landed on Vincent Kompany. The greenest of green young head coaches, but one who has won many titles elsewhere as a player and who coaches a style Bayern were hoping to return to.

And THAT sets the stage for the summer transfer window.

Michael Olise was a release clause activation, so they paid market price for an exciting young attacker. Bayern are a super team, and they can get away with those buys.

Joao Palhinha on the other hand… €50m+ for a 29-year-old defensive midfielder from FULHAM of all places, is almost always going to be bad business.

Fills a need? ✅ 
Paid a silly price? Also ✅ 

Hiroki Ito came over from Stuttgart. A 1.88m tall, left-footed centreback from Japan is way out there on the population distribution. He’s not great in the air, but Bayern really needed him for the passing on that side of the formation.

Bryan Zaragoza makes zero sense to me, but they loaned him right back out, so who knows. Armindo Sieb, on the other hand, looks like a very savvy pickup. They can sell him at any point for a great return right now, and even better if he continues to progress.

Oh right, Eric Dier is here too. I wonder if he’s been good so far?

Weird, but uh… respect. —TK

Ted: C | Ravi: C | Kim: C

Total outgoings — €87m

• Matthijs de Ligt — €45m + €5m add-ons

• Noussair Mazraoui — €15m + €5m add-ons

• Malik Tillman — €12m

• Academy sales — Approx. €5m

If recent performances are anything to judge by, de Ligt is in a bad place from a footballing perspective. As such, getting the fee they did from Manchester United is a gift and great success. Maybe he can recover, but that’s not a price you want to pay when gambling on maybes.

Purely from a performance perspective, Mazraoui possibly sold too cheap. It feels like they could have made at least a small profit on what they bought him for from Ajax (€20m).

Malik Tillman’s performances on loan at PSV last season probably also merited a higher fee, but maybe that was negotiated ahead of time and PSV lucked out. —TK

Ted: B | Ravi: B | Kim: B+

A slightly weird window for a slightly weird club. The league really needed them not to win last season - the question is now how long they’ll stay out of the top slots. My guess is not very. —TK

Overall grade: B-

AS Roma — Kinda weird, kinda fun

Total incomings — €104.5m

• Artem Dovbyk — €30.5m + €8m add-ons

• Matías Soulé — €26m + €4m add-ons

• Enzo Le Fée — €23m

• Angeliño — €5m

• Samuel Dahl — €4m

• Saud Abdulhamid — €2.5m

• Buba Sangaré — €1.5m

• Mat Ryan — Free

• Mats Hummels — Free

• Mario Hermoso — Free

• Manu Koné — Loan, €18m buy obligation

• Alexis Saelemaekers — Loan

Dovbyk probably doesn’t do much for the team besides get into the box and get shots and assists from within 12 yards, but this is a reasonable price for a guy who does that very well.

Ted and I have both previously stated in these pages that we are mildly Matías Soulé-skeptical, even if he’s clearly a huge talent. On first glance, this shot map does not inspire confidence. This is an unreal number of absolute prayers from outside the box and blocked shots.

But this was kind of Frosinone’s whole thing last year. They averaged 0.92 xG per 90 and a very poor 0.08 xG per shot. Soulé had 61 open play key passes last season, but only 1 assist and 3.9 xA from them.

This team just loved taking rips. So if a Roma scout was banging the table and saying “we can fix him,” OK. I can see it. I wouldn’t spend €30m on a fixer-upper, but I can still see the potential here.

Le Fée and Koné should give this team additional ball progression from the No. 8 role, which they haven’t gotten at all in their first 3 games. Expect one of them to start the first game after the international break.

The free and loan guys are all above average depth, so nice value pickups there. —KM

Ravi: B | Kim: B-

Total outgoings — €26m

• Houssem Aouar — €12m

• João Costa — €9m

• Andrea Belotti — €4m + €1m add-ons

• Chris Smalling — Free

• Rui Patricio — Free

• Leonardo Spinazzola — Free

• Rick Karsdorp — Free

• 5 senior players loaned (including Tammy Abraham)

I know they didn’t get good fees here, but past mistakes should not be judged as current mistakes. Teams are often reluctant to move on from underperforming players because they screwed up and paid too much for them in the past. Roma did well to cut their losses on some guys, and get bad contracts off the books with others. —KM

Ravi: C- | Kim: B+

I’m concerned that Roma just keep going in circles. They slightly overpay for decent players who they end up selling at a loss. Once they finally get those players off the books… they just do it over again. This team looks a little better than last year’s, but not a lot better, and they spent a lot of money to get here. —KM

Overall grade: B-

Stuttgart — Surprising overhaul

Total incomings — €80m

• Deniz Undav — €30m

• Ermedin Demirović — €21m + €5m add-ons

• Ameen Al-Dakhil — €7m + €2m add-ons

• Jamie Leweling — €5m

• Jeff Chabot — €4m

• Anthony Rouault — €3m

• Leonidas Stergiou — €2m

• Ramon Hendriks — €1m

• Yannik Keitel — Free

• Justin Diehl — Free

• Nick Woltemade — Free

• El Bilal Touré — Loan, €16m buy option

• Frans Krätzig — Loan, €5m buy option

• Alexander Nübel — Loan

Hey, did you guys know that Stuttgart were really good last year? They finished above Bayern Munich. They’re in the Champions League. And yet, they’ve apparently felt the need to completely overhaul their depth.

Undav was a loan move made permanent, and Demirović is a direct replacement for a departed star, but most of these guys aren’t going straight into the starting XI. As you’ll see below, a bunch of the value signings are just replacing the bottom end of the squad who were loaned out or cut.

The strikers, though… pretty expensive. Undav’s signing following last year’s loan feels like desperation for some continuity after losing his strike partner to Dortmund. Demirović is also a mild overpay for familiarity — he also regularly played in a two-striker system in Germany last season, and should fit with Undav as a partner.

Al-Dakhil was… not very good for Burnley last season? I love the Jeff Chabot signing though, absolute monster in the air. —KM

Ravi: B | Kim: B-

Total outgoings — €69m

• Hiroki Itō — €23m + €5m add-ons

• Waldemar Anton — €22.5m

• Serhou Guirassy — €17.5m

• Gil Dias — €1m

• Genki Haraguchi — Free

• Robert Massimo — Free

• 6 senior players loaned (including Silas)

All 3 of the big sales are prime age guys whose values were not going up from here. Stuttgart obviously would have preferred to not lose any stars going into a Champions League campaign, but they’re a club that has to sell high when they can, and they’ve done well here. —KM

Ravi: B+ | Kim: A

The sales opened up some excellent opportunities for Stuttgart… and they just spent all the money on two strikers with minimal upside. Disappointing. But the sales are so good that I can’t give them a bad overall grade. —KM

Overall grade: B+

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.”