Did a bit of analysis over the weekend re summer signings over the recent years - here's the facts:

Summer 92
Beresford, Venison, Lee and Bracewell. Two older heads on the cheap and two relatively unproven players. Still in what was the 2nd division so expectations low. With retrospect all gave excellent value.

Summer 93
After promotion, competition would be a step up. Do we sign big stars over summer period? No. An ageing Beardsley for GBP1.5M, Papavasiliou, MAthie, Allen.

Summer 94
Excellent first season in premiership and European football to look forward to. So we buy Hottiger, Guppy, Drysdale, Albert, Kitson, the later two being in the mid GBP2M region.

Summer 95
Purse strings are loosened over the summer and we splurge out on Ferdinand, for me our first top level signing (others have become top level players whilst playing for us, but Ferdinand was hot goods). We also paid a relatively large amount for Barton, and picked up a risky foreigner on the cheap (Ginola GBP2.5M) and a young but promising Hislop.

Summer 96
Well...we could only afford the one signing that summer...but he cost more than all 4 of last year's signings put together. An example of spending big to try and bridge the final gap between runners up and champions

Summer 97
New manager, and boy were we busy. We'd established ourselves as a top Premiership side, and were slowly learning the European side. So we buy a massive 9 players over the summer, but only splashing out on Pistone and Tomasson. I won't comment yet.

Summer 98
Again we went for quantity not quality with another 8 signings, although Hamann cost us GBP4.5M. The real hope, though, was Guivarch. A little known Peruvian was retrospectively our best aquisition.

Summer 99
Another new manager, and defence was the area the money was spent on, with Marcelino, Goma, Dumas, all joining. Dyer was plucked from lower division Ipswich for GBP6M amid lots of other interest.

Summer 00
Another new manager - Carl Cort and the South Americans (Bassedas and Cordone) were our new hopes, but there was more effort on disposing of expensive failure (Pistone, Maric, Marcelino {surely shome mishtake?}), the permanently injured (Ferguson, Howey).

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Answers

Here's the initial comments:

A lot of our 'bigger' signings were not summer signings at all. Cole, Sellars, Fox, Peacock, Gillespie, Asprilla, Batty, Domi, Ferguson, Maric et al were all signed during the season.
There is no obvious correlation between amount of money spent and the future performance of our signings. The only correlation is between their previous performances and the transfer fee.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Summer 01
Robbie Elliott on a free and circa £6M on Craig Bellamy. Is that it or is there more to come??

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Top of the head stuff Pete, but many of those mid-season buys were to strengthen an already potent force. Sadly, we are no longer such and need a kick up the Arsenal to get the season off to a good one.

Mind you, with such an "easy" start to the season, I wonder if manU and Arsenal's summer acquisitions would make any difference to our early season points tally??

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

I know the weather wasn't great this weekend Peter but didn't you have anything better to do with your time! Interesting stuff, if perhaps a bit depressing. Year on year, quality control seems to be on a consistantly downward curve.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Thanks Pete - an interesting post. One conclusion (aside from the obvious "you need to get out more") is that 1992 was a bumper year and has never been bettered, although 1995 ran it close (Barton not exactly being a fly in the ointment, but perhaps over expensive ointment. Love him to bits but has never justified that price tag.) 96 shows the high risk strategy of the mega transfer. Great buy at the time - bad luck (injury) has prevented us getting full value. Oddly enough 98 was really good as TSM's swansong. Guivarc'h can be discounted as we sold him within weeks for the same money, Hamman made a substantial profit after playing very well for us, and Nobby is still a class act. 99 - Marcellino and Dyer - there's a phrase, is there not, about the rough and the smooth?

Jury still out on 00 (indeed hardly begun to consider it's verdict). I'm really hoping that Bassedas and Cort deliver this season.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

1998 also brought us Stephen Glass on the plus side, but was admirably counterbalanced by the blinding talent and sublime skill of Serrant, Georgiades, Brady and.............................Perez.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

I have to wonder, especially in the light of the reported Wadsworth- Dyer bust up, whether the best move this Summer might have been a departure,/i> that of YBR's right hand man, even if it has caused the United supremo considerable chagrin. (Ooops - 10p more for the "Inter Alia" box).

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Thanks for that different slant Jonno. ;-)

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Agree totally that the jury's still out over last years signings. Also I hope that history will repeat itself and that the real stars for NUFC over the next 3-4 years will come from within. We haven't just come runners up. We've been in reverse order 11th, 11th, 13th 13th, all in my opinion due to managers and players constantly changing, always after the quick fix.

Perhaps controversially I sympathise with the common Mackem whinge about us. Who the f@ck do wee think we are? We're living on past glories and have an unhealthy opinion of our status as a football team. We can only get this club back on the rails by realising this and to stop expecting the cream of professional footballers to be beating a path to our door. Bellamy may or may not prove to be an excellent signing. Money paid is an unfortunate distraction.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Softie, Glass was a March signing. The spring is when we should really be looking to strengthen again, after an intial good start and good vibes coming from the camp. That way we'll attract players that want to join for the right reasons. At the moment we're in danger of attracting players for the wrong reasons (mercenaries), or those that need a fresh opportunity to get their careers back on track (Bellamy).

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

PS thanks for everyone's interest in my social life, and I hope that my small contribution to statistics will raise my profile amongst you all and put me in line for the golden anorak awards.;-).
Actually it was all done in office hours and even entailed me going to offices the other side of town with no web site restriction software. Dedication to duty of Marcelinian proportions..

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

So you've sprained your typing finger? Jammy devil - that's 12 weeks off work!

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Glass is listed as having joined us on July 1 1998. Must have been when the cash went through.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Hahaha. Luckily I'm a professional and can use two fingers to type. Impressed eh..That's the sort of quality you don't pick up cheaply..;-) <

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Glass is listed as having joined us on July 1 1998.

Excellent! A Clash of the Anoraks - I'm going to enjoy this. :-)

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Uneven contest with Softie - I'll back down ashamedly, admit my source as nufc.com, and withdraw my challenge for the golden anorak. Does that mean I can now go outside and mingle with the real world? Oh well back to work I suppose.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

My money“s on Pete - sorry Softie. Glass signed one of those “pre- contract agreements“ with Dalglish, before finally putting pen to paper in the close season.

Oooh, any chance I can have that one over there with a furry hood ?!

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001