by Alan Partridge »
29 Jun 2009 13:12
Sun Tzu Alan Partridge £2.5million in modern day football is sadly nothing, and part of the reason Reading were relegated in the firstplace, thinking the likes of £1-2million is a big amount of money, when really it's not.
Say it's about the going rate for an English 22 year old with a proven scoring record.
Had Cox stayed, been given a chance who knows what would have happened. He MAY not have done so well, I don't think he'd have got 30 but it's fairly likely he'd have got a fair few last season. Who knows what we MAY have sold him on for? Almost certainly more than £1.4million.
Personal opinion is it was a shocker for Reading, Cox has done extremely well for himself since and Reading get £1million to go into the club and never be seen again. Terrific.
There won't be many (any ?)Div 1 players move for that sort of money this season. Which maybe suggests it is a decent amount.
Had Cox stayed I'm not sure why he would have been given a 'chance' ahead of players with better goal scoring records over longer time periods and at a higher level. Our problems were never that our forwards weren;t good enough but that they weren;t given the service. What about Cox woul dhave made him more likley to get goals than Doyle or Hunt (or even Long). he may have done it - and perhaps just being a different player might have made the difference. He managed to get his goals for a poor team at Swindon so maybe he wouldn;t have needed theservice. Of course he was playing against significantly lower standard defenders....
So I'd say we've probably achieved about a par score on this. We could have gambled on him doing well for us, but if we'd kept him and he'd scored 2 or 3 goals then his value would have plummeted. I'm not sure you could argue he'd have hit 15 or more for definite and unless he'd really set the world alight his value would not have been in the £2.5 million range (unless you reckon Hunt is worth that in which case you can add him to the list of great buys we'vce made recently !)
Had Cox stayed and scored hatfuls then that would have been ideal. The fact that he went and has netted us a decent fee is the next best option isn;t it ? We put a nice big add on clause in the deal and have cashed in. Is that the third million pound Academy product (over a period of a few years !!)
If thelikes of the top scorers, Fryatt, Cox, Hooper, Mackail sMith, Mclean (who Wolves bid £3million last year) were to be bought they would all be well over £2million. Cox is the only one from a team who didn't get promoted. Making him a far easier target.
The quality of some of Cox' goals suggests he's a player that creates for himself or can create a bit of magic out of nothing, very similar to Jamie Cureton. With the quality of his long rang finishing and also the way he curls the ball into the far corners. Similarirty on that part is uncanny.
If the money was actually reinvested on the team for better or equal standard players than the ones sold then fair do's. We'd do very well in the current market to buy someone better than Cox is currently for that amount of money.
