Summer strategies

What clubs do in the Summer is look at their options and presumably, unless they're very haphazardly run, they come up with a battleplan for what they are going to try and do in the transfer market. Obviously this is true, but what I find odd is that watchers of football seem either disinterested or completely ignorant about this process.

Presumably my club West Ham have a strategy for the Summer. It won't be written about in any of the papers, or on websites or blogs, for some reason. I think the media has an obsession with gossip, and stuff that may be happening, but not the reasons why the gossip exists and the stuff that happens comes to be. I suppose many writers think their readership wouldn't be interested to look so far under the hood, or perhaps the writers are just largely oblivious to what they could be writing about.

Perhaps this is sometimes because it's bad news. I'm not sure Spurs fans want to read that actually their club's strategy would rightly consider the blatant truth that they won't be cracking the top four next season, and that actually shrewd management of their squad would consider a medium to long-term view. Fans just want big signings, even if the clubs go bankrupt in the process. I think football, and football covrage and football writers and pundits, have created this destructive desire in many ways.

Actually I think there are betting opportunities in considering the possible outlooks for clubs. My own club West Ham, are moving into a new stadium next Summer, and you can be absolutely sure that not a penny will be saved this Summer to try and guarantee that move is made in the Premiership - my expectation is for short-term gains in the squad, maybe significant ones. I think a bet on a top ten finish for West Ham next season would likely be a value proposition.

Whereas teams who have spent the season at the struggling end of the division simply can't bet the whole farm on survival next year - the sort of pragmatic signings that West Brom have made in recent years will continue to be made, because anything else risks an apocalypse should they be relegated with a wage-heavy under-performing squad. It's not that West Brom are necessarily unambitious - they are actually well-run and keen to do the right thing, by and large.

At the top of the Prem, it seems to me the motivations are very clear. Chelsea are in charge, and have little real motivation to shake up their squad very much. Man City have had a dreadful season by their budgetary standards, and face a mass shake-up. Man Utd have a taste of possibility and should be big spenders. Arsenal face another season where the pragmatic choice is to make small strides - in many ways Arsenal's curse is not Wenger's failures, but his successes at providing good value teams who look very near to real success (thus never necessitating radical action in the transfer market).

All of this is assuming pragmatism rules, of course. It often doesn't, and there have been some bewildering decisions made in the past. I would argue that my club West Ham's splurge last Summer was somewhat out of character for a team in danger of relegation - it was a panic rather than a pragmatic sign of progress, and shows that the club is under the influence of the whims of its passionate but eccentric owners. All part of the fun I suppose.

Where decisions get interesting is at clubs where the strategy is not obvious or a necessity. Do Southampton roll the dice and buy big to make further progress? I think they might do that, but I don't think they should as the upside just isn't that great. Should clubs like Swansea and Stoke, making steady progress, abandon their reserve and go for it - logic suggests not. But sometimes confounding the received wisdom of what a club should do could be a correct strategy.

The other fascinating one is Liverpool, who clearly to my mind suffer from a bit of hubris. As soon as Suarez left that club there should have been a realisation that expectations must be lowered, and perhaps there was internally. But they actually face a similar issue this Summer - tbey could spend massively on world-class players and still not crack the top 4 next Summer, and risk imploding the club on the back of all the good work Rodgers did getting them to outperform a year ago.

The basic question, how does this club improve its lot, is no closer to an ideal answer. Especially with FFP. But what should be obvious is that the same answer does not apply to the same clubs equally, and just spending money on players can at times signal the beginning of the end.