Expert predicts 3 options for Ipswich transfer approach

The Premier League transfer market begins on Friday, and there is little doubt that Ipswich Town will be very busy.

The Blues will need to add depth and quality to their team if they are to maintain their top-flight status following automatic promotion from the Championship. A lot has changed since they last competed at this level, and it won’t be long before they break their transfer record of £4.5 million paid for Sampdoria goalkeeper Matteo Sereni in 2001.

It remains to be seen how they will tackle the following weeks and months, but football financial expert Kieran Maguire believes they would try to ‘purchase smarter rather than big’.

“That [decision] will come down from on high,” he explained to the East Anglian Daily Times and Ipswich Star. “The owners are still new to the position, but I believe Mark Ashton provides the club with a trustworthy pair of hands. That is not a criticism; in fact, it is the exact opposite.

“We’ve seen some clubs be promoted, get giddy, spend a lot of money, not spend that money wisely and either be relegated or rack up huge losses and have lots of players for whom things haven’t worked out in that first season.

“We know we’ve got the big six, which is kind of turning into the big seven with Newcastle around and [Aston] Villa, the big eight.” For the other teams, there is a rough wage level, and you’ll usually see clubs that have recently been promoted or have been promoted for the first time in many years at the bottom end of the wage scale.

“Look at Brentford when they were promoted three years ago; they were only paying £30,000 per week for their first season in the Premier League.” For their second season, it increased to £45,000. We just finished their third season, and I believe the final figure will be more over £50,000.

“They were a pretty lean club in terms of investment, and I assume Ipswich Town would want to mimic that philosophy. They have consistency at the top of the club in terms of the CEO [Ashton] and, of course, Kieran McKenna, and they will attempt to acquire smart rather than big.

“From a fan’s perspective, the club will be associated with the player, who you’ve probably never heard of. He’ll arrive from overseas, and you’ll watch their YouTube highlights reel to make an opinion.

“Don’t be overly greedy, is usually my advice. If you take a look at those clubs that have been promoted to the Premier League and stayed there – in the past few years we’ve had [Crystal] Palace, Brighton, Forest, Brentford – those clubs have signed some of the greatest players from the Championship at times, who they believe can make the move up.

“They’ve presumably targeted some of the less well-known markets in Europe, South America, and so on. They’ve used that to help the team become a more perennial or consistent member of the Premier League.

“It’ll be challenging. The possibilities of doing Sheffield United, who were promoted and finished ninth, or Leeds United, who were promoted and finished ninth, are the exception rather than the norm. Seventeenth next season, and anything beyond that, in my opinion, would be a fantastic accomplishment.

“There will be times where you go six or seven matches without a win and things get a bit twitchy, but you’ve got to keep the faith in the manager, the players and the people in charge.”

Following promotion, different teams approach the transfer market differently, but is there a right way to do business?

Ultimately, you cannot account for everything. You could produce the best work you can given the circumstances and still fall short. In principle, the best method is somewhere between extreme spending and excessive conservatism, but Maguire contends that it is not always the ideal recipe for a successful season.

“You’ve got three choices,” he explained. “You can do what we sometimes refer to as an ‘air shot’, which is to spend hardly any money on the transfer market, hope that the bond in the dressing room plus the skill levels of the coach or manager are sufficient to get you through that first season.

“You can then perhaps build from there, knowing that if things don’t work out, you’ll be relegated and receive two seasons’ worth of parachute payments. You are also going to have a very profitable year in the Premier League.

“Then you can go again, and I believe we saw this with Burnley the first time they were promoted to the Premier League.” Norwich did this once when they were promoted, and then tried a different model the second time. Ultimately, both of these failed.

“You can try an air shot, spend minimal money, cross your fingers, be relegated, and use the money to resource.

“You can take the opposite approach: get promoted, take out your checkbook, and push the boundaries of what you believe you can achieve in terms of Financial Fair Play [FFP].

“Forest did that, and they did not perform their sums very well. We saw Fulham try it a few years ago, and it failed terribly. We saw Villa do it when they were promoted; they succeeded. It’s received mixed reactions.

“Then there’s the sort of hybrid model, which is the ‘buy smart rather than buy big’ approach. Brighton and Brentford are well-known as the poster boys for this. Theirs is very much an analytic and algorithmic approach to recruiting players.

“The clubs’ idea is that football decision-makers determine the style of play. They then look for a coach who can implement that style of play – it’s more of a coach than a manager – and then try to recruit players who may not be great players in their own right but are very good at that specific type of football, and see if that works.

“To do that, you must have a thorough understanding of the numbers. It is well acknowledged that Tony Bloom at Brighton and Matthew Benham at Brentford have tight ties to the betting sector as a whole. They’re constantly striving to improve their secret sauce in terms of what will provide a marginal gain and what will give them an advantage over other teams in terms of recruitment.

“That works sometimes, but not always. It’s worked for both of those clubs so far, but you’re just one season away from getting your calculator slightly off, which will cause difficulties.”