How big is the transfer fee for a superstar manager?

Premier League weekend roundup. Andoni Iraola stonks are through the roof.

Author

Ted Knutson
January 27, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

There are more than a few owners of football teams that read this newsletter, and probably just short of 1000 people who work in professional football are also subscribers. They use us as an extra information point on what’s happening in England and in the world of transfers, even if they never get in touch and ask us questions. 

Which is kinda weird, because our track record is fairly insane, and we did great work at StatsBomb where nothing EVER leaked (unlike so many other places), and we’re only an email reply away…

But it’s a weird industry.

One of the things I flagged fairly early in the season was how much Chelsea GK Robert Sanchez was causing their build up play to suffer. When Premier League teams know your GK can’t kick, they will tee off on every GK to the point they become dangerous to go short, or a coinflip to go long. That is absolutely not the way to dominate a game, even when you have a talent advantage.

Way back in October, Chelsea were having to do crazy things against only decent teams just to get possession rolling, and this was after they had been blown up for goals when playing out of the back in earlier weeks. It means much higher requirements for CBs in possession, and some occasionally fraught play through the middle of the park getting out of pressing traps.

If I were Chelsea ownership at that time, I would have wanted to know the answers to two of our questions.

1) We have something like NINE paid GKs across the organisation — why are we sure Sanchez is our guy? And especially why is ENZO sure that Sanchez is our guy?

2) Are we sure Maresca is our guy? He might be, but the squad is both pretty good and really deep. On the other hand, the PL is so competitive, we can’t carry an average head coach any more and expect guaranteed Champions League finishes. Especially if he has a weird GK fetish.

Often people in football act like questions are forbidden. Like “how dare you question my/our judgment?” But the reality is questions are vital.

Football is really hard. Recruitment is hard, and human performance is volatile. Great tactics and analysis are also hard. Smart, external sets of eyeballs — especially with the wisdom earned from past mistakes — are so valuable. If you can’t provide robust answers to sensible questions, you are not doing your job correctly and there are potentially big problems that need to be addressed in the organisation.

Football is a sport that benefits from a diversity of smart opinions, but acts like gurus are the only ones who can provide answers. (He says, ironically having already touted some amorphous long-term track record above.)

Anyway, in this game Sanchez was even bad at non-kicking things, which made the fact he’s been somewhat of a liability obvious to even mainstream fans and commentators.

Chelsea are in sixth now. Just above Bournemouth, but tied on points and goal difference!

Are City “back”? Eh, we’ll see.

Poor Khusanov would have led the headlines had Chelsea converted more mistakes and put the game away (por que no left foot, Nico)? Marmoush was very dangerous and impressive in game 1, basically as expected. But unless City magic up some way to keep teams off their back line for the rest of the season, it’s hard to see them returning to normal “Pep” team performances without real midfield reinforcements (translation: not Douglas Luiz in yet another accounting transaction).

City’s transfer activity so far is an upgrade and a decent surgical bandage, but the rebuild isn’t remotely done yet.

Forest’s style is occasionally going to produce some bad losses. When you let teams take a decent volume of shots, even if they are bad, they will occasionally add up to a lot of goals.

Maybe don’t let Kluivert have wide open shots at the top of the D though.

A few weeks ago, Kim flagged up Dango Ouattara as an exciting, slightly under-the-radar performer for the Cherries. This week? A hattie. Is Dango now unchained? Do Bournemouth fans throw octopi on the pitch when players score hat tricks?

My concerns about Bournemouth’s injury list seem overblown now. They are like the one team in the league that has had a bunch of injuries, shrugged it off, and kept shredding opponents.

If you’re a big club in the summer, how much would you pay to get Iraola as your next head coach?

He allegedly only has one year left on his contract, but the downside is, he could turn into Doctor Octopus at any moment.

What Would You Pay for Iraola's Release?

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Ipswich’s first shot came in the 60th minute. It was 3-nil by then. I bet the Liverpool squad was pissed at the lack of a clean sheet.

We avoid ref stuff in this column because it’s mostly overblown fan nonsense.

But this was just impossibly stupid refereeing plus VARing, and caused the Arsenal “officials are out to get us” kettle to explode, and I kind of can’t blame them? Then the Lewis-Skelly should have been a yellow is followed up by the Joao Gomes second yellow but should have been a red, and you’re left with endless WTFs followed by question marks. (Yes, fine, not unlike second yellows for delaying the game that are actually the letter of the law, but were never enforced anywhere else across the league. SIGH).

If I’m running the Premier League, I probably wrote a Sunday morning memo entitled “Why the fuck can’t we ref Arsenal matches sensibly?”

Or if I’m Bezos, I grab the match highlights link in an email with a big single “?” in 30-point font and send it Howard’s way.

I thought Havertz had a pretty good day, really, minus the whole score-a-goal bit. And the Gunners contained Wolves even with 10-men… because they are probably used to that at this point.

So yeah, Arsenal managed to get a 0-1 win out of it regardless, and Arsenal fans get to play the “refs are out to get us” card for presumably the next decade. No one really believed you were right before, but with this latest idiocy, everyone’s kind of wondering if maybe you have a point?

You can’t let Arsenal fan delusions escape containment!

Dismal stuff.

A Bees away win? How embarrassing for Palace. Might as well lump yourselves in with Southampton now. Even more embarrassing because Mbeumo hit the post with a penalty and then got to retake it because Palace players encroached on the penalty area before he kicked it.

So dumb.

The Palace goal at the end was gorgeous, though, and got teenager Romain Esse on the scoresheet for his new club.

More “taking care of business” mode for Newcastle against the worst competition the league has to offer. This is a compliment! Who doesn’t want a stress-free weekend from their football team?

I mean… I guess it wasn’t completely stress free. They did go behind on a header from Bednarek in the 10th minute, before a penalty from Isak evened things up in the 26th, and a really nice throughball from Jacob Murphy into a perfect touch from Isak put Newcastle ahead in the 30th.

So 20 minutes of stress. That’s just enough to feel alive.

Really interesting stick or twist time for Daniel Levy. Obviously he seemingly hates spending money (remember, Spurs should have had Marmoush in the summer for a lot less than City paid!), and Ange’s team was really good before the injuries came for them. They even scored the first goal here.

But also… ya gotta get results at some point, or all the footballing philosophy in the world won’t matter. Maybe Ange and Russell Martin should start a support group.

The Vardy shithousing of Spurs fans was top notch. It’s a shame he’s tiny, this man was born for a career in professional wrestling.

A nice little goal from Jacob Ramsey off a one-two with Ollie Watkins put Villa in front and it looked to be another typical West Ham match.

However… Villa don’t usually play a style that keeps teams down, and especially not when they are clearly a bit leggy after a European midweek. The shots ended up 14-14 here and there was zero pressure on the Alvarez cross to Emerson that gave the Hammers the equalizer.

Villa are in eighth. Four points out of fourth. But a goal difference of -1, when every team ahead of them except Forest is +15 or better.

What does it mean? We’ll find out!

I understand now. I am not allowed to win bets on Brighton matches, period. They are cursed and I should just leave them alone. Thank you for the warning, universe.

This was also a pretty terrible match, with almost nothing worthwhile outside of the penalty.

When you have a four-shot win off a deflected goal, and you are Manchester United, you go at the bottom.

—TK

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