Why are people talking about Palace’s recruitment?
By the time September rolls around, there’s an early title up for grabs: the winner of
the transfer window. While other clubs may have signed higher profile players, there
is little doubt that Crystal Palace can be hugely pleased with their business. A series
of astute moves, augmenting the coaching hire of Patrick Vieira, have created a real buzz
around the club.
So, what have Palace done differently?
The conditions were right for Palace to make significant changes this summer. The financial
realities of the pandemic and Palace’s own situation meant a change in tack was required.
Palace have one of the lowest revenues in the league, as detailed by The Athletic’s
Matt Woosnam in a recent piece. They made a loss of £61.1m in the 13 months up to July
31st, 2020. Palace haven’t made significant money on a transfer since the sale of Aaron
Wan-Bissaka to Manchester United. In fact, over the last decade, including Wan-Bissaka,
they’ve sold just five players for fees of £10m or more, and that’s a troubling
statistic at a time when – for clubs outside the top-six – sustainability is key to progress.
Selhurst Park’s restrictions have also meant that Palace’s matchday revenue is also the
sixth lowest in the Premier League, and while commercial revenue has increased slightly,
they’re far from being in the league’s top earners in that field. In fact, in the
last financial results to be unaffected by the pandemic, they placed between Wolverhampton
Wanderers and Southampton.
In addition, Palace’s position in the league, or rather their aim of maintaining Premier
League status, came at a cost. Older, experienced players can bring stability on low transfer
fees, but they also carry hefty wage bills and little prospect of a return on investment.
Palace’s most recent accounts showed a wages-to-turnover ratio of 93%, up from an already troubling
77%.
Palace needed these older heads, some of whom were successfully brought in under Sam Allardyce
in the club’s last big spending spree in January 2017[design note: Luka Milivojevic,
Jeffrey Schlupp, Patrick van Aanholt]; but with a raft of contracts expiring this summer,
freeing up wage budget and affording the opportunity for a refresh, Palace have been able to change
tack.
And lastly, Roy Hodgson has departed. Hodgson deserves credit for bringing stability to
the side and building the foundations for Palace’s new direction, but while his preference
for experience and age, as well as conservative style, made sense, Vieira can bring a new
impetus. His focus on a more attacking 4-3-3, with a holding midfielder behind two advanced
8s, playing out from the back, and his experience of youth coaching, has come at just the right
time for Palace’s transition.
Much of this transition is based on smart recruitment. The use of data is now widespread
in top-flight football and it’s not necessarily difficult to identify good players, but getting
buy-in from the levels of the club that sign off on deals can be. But Dougie Freedman appears
to have the latitude to shape the club’s playing staff along younger, brighter lines
now. The acquisitions of Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise, two of the Championship’s
most exciting players over the last two seasons, herald this most obviously. But look too at
the signing last window of the hugely promising Nathan Ferguson, and this year, the highly
rated Chelsea youngsters Marc Guehi and on-loan Conor Gallagher, 24-year-old striker Jean-Philippe
Mateta and Danish international centre-back Joachim Andersen from Lyon.
In the outgoing column, eleven players have been released including big earners like Gary
Cahill, James McCarthy, Andros Townsend, and Mamadou Sakho. That freed up around £500,000
per week in wages and while a good portion of this will have been spent again with the
raft of new signings, there’s a clear value in buying players with their peak years ahead
of them, not behind.
This shift makes economic sense, as well as footballing sense. This is because Crystal
Palace are combining the transfer policy shift with a renewed emphasis on youth development.
They have one of the most productive catchment areas in youth football and a strongly developing
U18s cohort. Last season the club achieved Category 1 academy status and the club has
invested £20m in state-of-the-art facilities.
Tyrick Mitchell has already made the successful jump to the first team and looks hugely promising
as an attacking left back; wide attacker Jesurun Rak-Sakyi is likely to be the next player
off the production line, but he’s not alone, with central midfielder Jack Wells-Morrison
also catching the eye in pre-season.
It's a shift that’s not been lost on Palace fans, too. For a club that seems to take particular
pride in its youth products, especially club talisman Wilfried Zaha, the change in direction
has been welcomed and has engendered a real sense of optimism. Fans recognise that Hodgson’s
more prosaic approach built the platform, but Vieira is seen as the man to take Palace
forwards. He’s being given the tools to refashion the squad, younger, more dynamic,
more attacking.
In truth, Crystal Palace are just doing what any club in their position should. Pruning
the wage bill, shifting older players and replacing them with prospects, and emphasising
youth development. Twenty million pounds of investment in an academy can be recouped with
one sale, after all. But Palace have seized their opportunity, with the confluence of
contracts ending, the economic realities of the pandemic, and the opportunity to put the
owners’ money into the academy system.
Many clubs talk about being smart; Palace are actually doing it.