With all the signings coming in, anyone figured out the wages they are on. We managed to move some big wages ie Reina, Carroll, Downing out but if the players we signed are on wages similar to those moved out we are back to square one.
There's no way that the new arrivals were on anything near the same sort of wages as those that departed.
If you just look at the the basic information such as the clubs & leagues we signed the players from, where they were in their careers, their ages etc you can see that value for money in terms of wages was a key consideration in terms of our new arrivals.
Aspas - Celta are not a big club and his wages would have been extremely modest given that they had only just got back into La Liga after being out of it for 5 years. There's also the fact that they were his boyhood club. It's not as if he had moved between 3/4 clubs which would have bumped up his wages with every move.
Alberto - Bought him from Sevilla (was only on loan to Barcelona) Only aged 20. His wages would have been very reasonable.
Mignolet - Sunderland signed him from Sint-Truiden for £2m. He probably got a serious jump in salary when he moved to Sunderland and he got a nice increase when he moved to us but compared to what Pepe was on he would still represent a serious saving.
Toure - Free transfer - was on decent money at City no doubt but was reported in the Echo that he took a significant pay cut from that to join us. The fact that we didnt have to pay a transfer fee makes things easier on the wages front. When you are looking at a player and whether or not they represent value for money you have to look at the total cost to the club. When you remove the transfer fee part of the equation completely it makes getting value out a deal a whole lot easier [As long as you don't give them a long contract on stupid money] There's also the fact that he is only on a 2 year contract so we don't have to be concerned about how things go in 3 or 4 years time. When you compare his likely wages to what Carra was on, it looks potentially like a very decent deal.
Cissokho - I think he might be on relatively high wages (compared to some of the other new arrivals) given he went from Porto to Lyon and then on to Valencia and his age. However it is a loan deal and he will know that if he wants to stay here he will have to perform this season.
Ilori - he's only 20 and had only a year left on his Sporting contract. As such he was on the wages of a contract he would have signed at 18. As such his wages probably took a serious jump by signing with us but in relative terms I would imagine that they are still fairly reasonable.
Sakho - signed his last contract with PSG in March 2011 when he had only turned 21. The important thing about this is that he signed his last contract extension
before QSI took over As such while his wages would have been pretty decent, odds are that they weren't anywhere near the loadsamoney level that has happened since at PSG. He had been at PSG since he was 12/13 so he didn't have the moving club effect to push his wages up.
Moses - coming from Chelsea his wages are likely to be pretty high for a 22 year old. As against that he went there from Wigan so they aren't absolutely crazy. However worst case scenario we are only on the hook for one year's wages.
In terms of the 8 new arrivals, it is the 2 who have arrived on loan who look like they potentially represent the worst value for money in terms of wages [This has more to do with the clubs they came from - Chelsea and Valencia (2 clubs that have been poor in terms of prudent financial dealings)In Cissokho's case the terms of the loan deal and the potential purchase are strong'y in our favour by all accounts. However as they are only loan signings, we are only on the hook for a year's wage in each case so in the worst case scenario we can send both of them back to their parent clubs and let them deal with the rest of their contracts if things dont work out.
When you compare that to the fact that Carroll, Downing, Carra, Shelvey, Gulacsi, Spearing, Wilson and Pacheco left on a permanent basis plus the fact that Reina, Assaidi and Borini are likely to have all their wages covered on loan it's very hard not to see there have been savings on the wages front this transfer window.
