Another big name joins the Saudi league… https://twitter.com/EnglishAbroad1/status/1700185040523558982 Will have to adhere to the laws they have..
Nothing makes the heart race (in a bad way) than seeing an Andre Gray thread resurrected. I actually think his fee was par for the course in terms of his career stats in both the championship and Premier League (and yes, I know he scored three goals against a crap team in the Premier League, but that’s football, that’s how all strikers pad their stats out and if we take away goals against crap teams Kane and Rooney wouldn’t have careers). I think if he was our starting striker and took penalties £18m was about right for what we got and what we would’ve got. £18m is absolutely sod all in terms of oven ready premier league strikers, but that was the issue, that was never ever our model, that was Everton’s model, paying peak value for proven players who can only really decline and don’t have anything extra to come. The issue is Gino clearly googled “Premier league strikers who will get you 10+ goals a season” and then we did no scouting on him at all, so didn’t realise he was actually a horrendous footballer, and would be a complete waste of money if you didn’t then play him every single game so he could somehow get the 10-15 goals you paid the £18m for.
I never really watched him at Burnley, I suppose I knew he was a pacy striker, but I suspect the eye test, or even a cursory look at the stats, would have suggested that he was merely on a hot streak then, £18m is mad for a player who can barely kick a ball
I think all the hate and dislike for him is a little bit over the top, it wasn't his fault we overpaid for him or that he played for L-ton, he actually set-up out third goal in the semi final by some very clever play, (delaying his pass to Geri until he was in the correct position to receive) without that astute bit of play we may not have got to our second cup final, which was worth some decent money to us, even if the thrashing wasn't! The P.L. takes no prisoners and he isn't the only player that it has made look ordinary!
TBF he had scored goals at every level and every team across his career when we signed him. I guess it was easy to see his goals per game/minutes stats and watch his goals scored on video and assess that he was a great striker. The main issue as A19tgg points out is that we bought at his peak and so whatever we paid was likely to be a write off. Had he been 3-4 years younger we probably could have got a good fee when selling him on, again based on his goals stats and a nice video of his goals for us.
As a player, sure, he wasn't THAT bad (when you disregard the obvious drawback of him hardly being able to kick the ball), but £18m was always a lot for a player like him, and it's hard to ignore his past or his lockdown breaches
Well, he was always a very limited striker, no matter his minutes per goal ratio, even if he had been 3-4 years younger when we signed him I think we'd have been relying on a dumb club like Everton taking him off our hands
If you’re buying a player from a lower mid/relegation rival aged 27 for £18m, that they’re more than happy to sell to a direct rival, then I don’t think the ultimate outcome was much of a surprise, he was never going to be that great, but he still did/would’ve done precisely what he did for Burnley, for us, if he was our main starting striker and penalty taker, which would be to somehow scramble 10-15 goals per season as PL striker, which is what we paid for and what we got. That’s really all £18m will get for you if you insist on buying a player like that at the peak, or just beyond the peak of their career with a bit of a PL track record behind them. Remember Leicester wanted to buy Troy for £20m, and look what that would’ve got them.
Ultimately, that season for Burnley in the Prem was a hot streak, his second season for us was similar (not as successful in the league, albeit with no Sunderland to stat pad against, but he was a big part of our cup run), but he wasn't able to sustain it over multiple seasons. If you want value, you're not going to get it from the Prem (unless it's a player like Capoue who had lost his way a bit), it's best looking abroad or in the EFL
I think Capoue is great example of why people may see Andre as a big waste of money, as he’s probably the best example of one of our classic Pozzo models of signing a previously class player at a lower price, who has perhaps lost their way, had a few injuries or perhaps has an attitude problem, their overall ceiling is way above the fee would’ve paid for them, even if we don’t see that level of performance all the time. Anyone benchmarking a fee of £18m against that sort of signing and expecting the player in question to have a similar ceiling relative to that fee was always going to see Gray as terrible value, but (IMO) that isn’t to say we didn’t get value for what we got, we decided to go out and buy an oven ready player and with that came no upside potential whatsoever.
