How much is a bar worth?

Everybody wants their team built around 16/4s - or 16/5s if they can, or even better elusive 16/6s. When you look at some of these players the prices can get astronomical and you have to ask the question - how much is 1 extra bar worth? How much extra should you be paying for 1 more bar of skill?

Who should you be buying?

There are options on the TM - you can buy oldies or you can buy youths. People seem obsessed with the youth route but if your goal is to get some kind of success that's not always the way.

Here's a question - if you buy a youth and you expect him to become a 29/14 or whatever why not just buy a 29/14 and have done with it - save all those years of painful risky development, have the player you want NOW? The simple answer is if he's available you should buy the oldie, or consider it.

In my opinion there is only 1 reason ever to buy a youth - you are trying to train up a player you won't be able to buy. Be it combination of SQs, skill level or whatever. If the final player is likely to be available it is usually easier, cheaper and will lead to more success to buy the finished article. Create a system of farming to generate cash then buy the oldies you need (double conveyor if you like).

So - you want to build a team peaking at 14/15 bars, don't even bother with the youths. You want a 32/18 FK with some other SQs - now you are talking, now you have a player you can't buy so need to train.

In terms of the above discussion I would say most players (including 32/18 FKers) can be bought in the xpert leagues often enough so unless you are aiming at 18+ bars for your whole team you really don't need to train anyone up. In private leagues this is very much not the case, decent players over 15 bars are rare and generally more expensive. Personal preference is to buy players in in the Xpert leagues and train them in PLs so the rest of this article will be focussed on PLs.

So how much does a bar cost?

Players typically peak at 32-34. Beyond 32 there is very little development to be had and beyond 34 they hold form badly and gain DV slowly so decline is likely. A player best years are probably 29-34 so we'll focus on this age.

In the PLs what are estimated values on typical player paths? The following table are prices for 32yo midfielders with 1 SQ in the private leagues:

13        3.9m
14        5.7m
15        6.9m  * 2SQs
16       11.4m
17

It's only really when you are talking about 16+ bars on a player that there is any jump in value and below that it's around 1.5m/bar. As stated previously


Now lets have al look at buy prices:

17yo mids, 1 SQ, TM2:

3     0.4m
4     2.8m
5     8.6m
6    15m * Estimate

17/3 - bargain. Actually 17/3s are often the real bargains of the game right now, and the EV for 17/3 with 2 SQs is 900k so if you want to go that way why not get 2 SQs on him.

174 to 17/5 - an extra 5.8m? That there is enough to buy a 32/14 straight off, and not a lot extra for a 15 skill. 17/6 - unless you can develop him to a 17+ skill player you aren't getting near to your money's worth there.

But how much is a bar worth?

I think a lot of your team's performance is based around the skill of the top player in each position, so sure 1-2 star players do make a difference but if it's a case of compromising other parts of the team to buy 1 or 2 spectacular players it's possibly not worth it, and if it's a case of compromising training it's definitely not worth it. Mostly though a bar isn't worth much unless it's a bar above everyone else on the pitch.

But I have the money, what else should I spend it on?

Sure you're rich, money is burning a hole in your pocket. I'll tell you now that never lasts but we're living the dream - why shouldn't you buy the best possible starting players?

Well lets say you buy that 17/3 guy with 2 SQs instead of the 17/4 with 1 SQ. You have 2m spare cash - which equates to 15 training sessions. How about you spend 2 extra training sessions a season til the guy is 25 - which player will be the best? Simple answer is aggressive training pays off and 2 extra sessions is likely to give at least 1 extra AF per season, 1 extra DV and possibly more than a bar over 7 seasons. You get a better player and he costs you less. The logic for 17/4 ahead of 17/5 is even greater unless you are playing in a stunningly competitive league and have immense amounts of cash.

Some examples:

Finally a little food for thought. My midfield from Black Vinyl. Some of the really big signings are gone now but you can see the chages in strategy here :

McCoy and Cooke were the tail end of my big signings, but some of the guys before had cost lots more. McCoy is just about ok at 17 skill but Cooke has been a massive disappointment going from a 20/9 to a mere 15 skill.

Cooke's bad development is why I recently bought Beech to bolster the mid and cost half the price of a player who has been a lodestone for many seasons.

Caterall was the start of a different strategy and has developed better than the 2 older guys. Goolsjenks was a dalliance with 17/3s. At 25 he is 0.1 bar better than McCoy at the same age, 0.7 bars better than Cooke - plus he's a backup FKer, and cost 500k. He also started as a 2.7 - really really low in his band so could have been better still.

2014-07-24	Patrick Beech	33	MF	Gary Greed		5 482 800
2014-05-25	Ossian Kungsman	17	MF	Helen Paradise		8 287 100
2013-12-30	Tim Gommans	17	MF	Bill Cates		1 887 400
2013-06-21	Helly Goolsjenks	17	MF	Al Corleone		512 700
2013-03-23	Kingsley Catterall	18	MF	Bill Cates		1 785 800
2013-01-15	Julian Cooke	20	MF	George Bollocks		11 508 300
2012-12-08	Nat McCoy	22	MF	Billy Wonka		12 525 800

Conclusions?

If you want to win your league and the standard isn't massive, if 14 skill players will win it for you then why not spend a few seasons farming cash and buy in the players you need to create a winning side.

If you need 16/17 skill or better players then sure buy the players who can get there but most of the time it's how you develop the player that matters more than what you start with and by the time a player hits his peak he's worth less than you paid anyway - you could have just bought the finished article.