On The Cheap: Daniel Levy Will Be Spitting Feathers

This transfer window really has been an odd one this year and Deadline Day is actually proving to be a bit of a laugh. But the only real joke here is the prices being thrown around. The players really aren’t worth it. So if you’ve sold your man for less than his value, you’d be kicking yourself. Right?

West Bromwich Albion have had a bloody good window, but they’ve started to take the mickey now. With Nacer Chadli wanting away from the Midlands club, the Baggies have slapped on the most ridiculous price tag possible. Imagine being told to pay £26million for a lad who’s nabbed five goals from 31 games and hasn’t played a single second of Premier League football all season.

It gets worse. Arsenal have jumped on the banter train, too.

Guess which Gunner – who also hasn’t played a single Premier League second all season – is apparently worth £28million. You’d think a price tag like that would be saved for the likes of Aaron Ramsey or Laurent Koscielny, surely.

But, no, it’s Calum Chambers.

Arsenal reportedly want £28million for Calum Chambers. Calum Chambers. Twenty eight million pounds. pic.twitter.com/rVf9NHsJHG

— Paddy Power (@paddypower) August 31, 2017

The lost cause of Calum Chambers is worth £28million, apparently. What a joke.

We now sadly live in a world where Nacer Chadli and Calum Chambers are worth a combined total of £54 million. That’s genuinely shocking.

What’s happened to the football market? We’re seeing figures today that defy belief, with Neymar’s £198million move setting the tone for the others to follow suit.

The market is growing beyond reason and to hear of a multi-million-pound move now means nothing to us. It’s like water off a football loving duck’s back. The days when a seven figure sum was rarely heard of are long gone and football is worsening because of it.

Cash can be thrown around in football like it’s no one’s business. For the fans, however, prices are going up bit by bit and the terraces are really not a place money can be thrown around.

Unless it’s 10p coins at Millwall, of course.

But that’s aside from the point. Imagine having a top footballer with genuine talent and being the world’s stingiest man during this crazy transfer market.

Daniel Levy trying to get a good deal on a new player like.. pic.twitter.com/1TwLKMDd0K

— Patrick (@patcoughlan_) August 29, 2017

How fuming would you be not to have wrung every penny from selling him?

Well, that’s surely how Daniel Levy must be feeling right about now. When he sold arguably the Premier League’s best full-back for the mere pocket change of £45million, he made a big mistake. Kyle Walker is class. He’s worth that sort of price-tag, so it’s not a woeful deal.

But when players are no longer sold for their worth – just numbers picked from a hat, instead – the likes of Kyle Walker should also be going for silly money.

If anything, it’s the top players who really ought to be going for the eye-watering fees, not the bang-average ones with a big-money price tag.

Poor, poor Daniel Levy. He’s such a shrewd bloke as well if only he’d waited to see that bit of Nacer Chadli news. We’d surely have seen Walker go for about £76 million, then.

Levy is now having nightmares of lost money. If only you’d held out, Danny boy.