I remember people on here saying he was overpriced when he moved to Bournemouth. It still frustrates me that we never seem to invest in young players with real potential to make us a lot of money.
In general this is the path we should be treading but the Ake deal and the one that bought Jordan Ibe to Bournemouth were bad deals. Even though on the face of it they made money on Ake. Both deals had buy back clauses in them which is not uncommon when a big club sells a promising youngsters to clubs further down the pyramid. This in effect caps the money that the club can make from any future sale but obviously leaves the buying club with the risk of the not insignificant fee.
Hence Ibe cost £16m and the fee was a complete write off and Ake cost £22m but could never be sold for more than £40m profit capped at £18m if he bombed which was not impossible loss was £22m.
Compare the deal that Leicester struck for Harry Maguire that same summer £12m but they owned 100% of the upside.
The fee wasn't so much of a problem we were in negotiations with 'Boro for Ben Gibson during that window and had we been able to sign him for £20m we would have and Michael Keane went from Burnley to Everton for £25m but the structure of the deal made it horrible.
If you want the real winners Southampton made a £5m signing of a Centre Half from Lech Poznan by the name of Jan Bednarek although they did manage to blow £14m on Wes Hoedt last seen on loan at Royal Antwerp so you win some and you lose some.
The future values of players are always unpredictable but signing younger players from further down the pyramid probably gives you the best chance of sucess. Buying from further up the pyramid even where those players are of the right age less so.
