X11 season 45 - de rigueur Mortis

[Sits]

And we're off.

Players Sel_ayan has already bought:



And the squad, before anyone is sold:



The 31/16 midfielder is a bargain. One with no SQ is valued at 5.7m. Maybe an underval?

[Sits]

If this is a bit annoying, I can start a separate conspiracists’ thread?

[Wouter D]

I'm not bored at all. I could do with some entertainment now that the World Cup is over.

[Sits]

Ooh, sales!



No super values, however, another purchase:



A 20/7 striker with 1SQ, worth 2.12m

So no OTT sales yet, but savings of over 3m on the first two purchases. A conspiracist might suggest that buying cheap is easier to cover than selling high, as the cheap purchases will be sold on and disappear again in a month.

[Various Artist]

Haha, we must've been looking those up at the exact same moment Sits – you just beat me to the punch as I was about to report that the first 4 exits have gone through for a total of c. 21m econs raised.

That's an interesting theory about the cheap purchases, we must keep an eye on those.

[Various Artist]

By the way Sits, if you add an 'l' (lowercase L) to the end of your Imgur image links above, they will appear at Large Thumbnail size here instead of the rather overwhelming full size. (Similarly an 'm' on the end will make them smaller still, as a Medium Thumbnail.)

Like this:

i.imgur.com/M5Hcy2k.jpg


i.imgur.com/M5Hcy2kl.jpg


i.imgur.com/M5Hcy2km.jpg

[Sits]

Excellent tip thanks VA.

[SouthdownRebel]

If there is a scam going on here, perhaps the purchases are the key to it - in isolation, the sales don't appear particularly untoward, it's just the volume of them that arouses suspicion. However, if he's able to consistently buy players at a fraction of their market value, something's going on there.

[Sits]

Nugget of the day: Sel_ayan joined Xpert 11 exactly a week after avare was sacked from it.

[Various Artist]

Oh, did he? That's indeed a fascinating nugget, and a remarkable coincidence.

[SouthdownRebel]

Tobermory's Glen Farclas will do exactly that as he shows no signs of retiring this season, aged 39. Now only a backup, his appearances record of 354 is about to be matched this afternoon by midfielder Dal Whinnie, who is 34 and has an outside chance of reaching 400 games if he can play on for two more seasons after this one - if he plays all games this season and next in the Xpert Zone, he'll be on 397.

He's picked up a 21-day injury. Of course he has. So he'll miss the next five games, almost certainly take a big hit on DV and probably retire next season leaving him a few games short of the 400.

On top of that, his absence will significantly weaken our midfield and means our 100% record will almost certainly disappear in double-quick time. Perfect.

[Sits]

Rotten luck SDR.

[Various Artist]

Urgh, indeed – that is hard going SdR.

He was probably sniped from the stands by Hamish Rockall, keen to preserve his Hebridean All-Comers' record for most appearances. Hamish retired from Tiree with 358.

[Various Artist]

United Underground's new kits have arrived, only slightly belatedly after two games of Season 17. It's fair to say that VA Sports were inspired by one of their managing director's favourite kits from the recent World Cup:

[SouthdownRebel]

Oh, those are nice VA, good work

[delicatemoth]

How is this cheap player scam supposed to work? Multiple accounts?

My Xpert Ladies League division is brutally competitive, though as it appears to be sexist-free perhaps I shouldn't complain. Ullapool NS are bottom with 2 points despite my programming a 200k win bonus for every match. Maybe I should double it, don't think there's too much danger of having to pay out.

[Sits]

How is this cheap player scam supposed to work? Multiple accounts?

I think so. Certainly when Sel_ayan... sorry, when avare did it he was trading with a network of teams. Etienne snared him in the Pro Leagues where trading is more transparent. We then tied those IDs back to the private leagues.

I think this time the Pro team is more subtle, or it was last time I looked.

[Sits]

Nice kits VA. I see the "third" features Metropolitan Maroon.

[Sits]

Fenerbahçe have made a new purchase:

Jailuddim Ilham, 30/15 MF with Long Ball/Cool
Market Value: 5.53m
Bought for: 4.81m

Combine that with the first two:

Rönin 20/7 FWD with Long Ball
Market Value: 2.12m
Bought for: 0.21m

Gömez 31/16 MF with Koeman
Market Value (est.): 6.0m
Bought for: 4.78m

So effectively a combined discount of 3.85m.

Three doesn't prove a pattern, we need more. But we also have to watch for Gömez reaching a month "old" as he will be sold to reap tge profit and cover the tracks, sure as eggs is eggs. So the window is until about August 20th.

I don't know how others feel but I don't think we should fanny around. If he does many more at a discount before that date I'd be happy to submit something to Wayne.

Of course a radical strategy would be to confront the manager...

[Various Artist]

Heh, you unfortunately didn't get a rise out of him with your subtly pointed comment on the J4GL's Direct Transfers forum thread Sits. It's a very intriguing question as to whether he'd ignore a direct challenge and/or just brazen it out as long as the authorities continue to believe there's nothing untoward.

Certainly let's track what happens over the next month, watch what happens to Rönin and Gömez etc. and see what sort of 'dossier' we're starting to compile. What we can't prove without the help of the crew (i.e. Wayne) is whether he's simply very good at spotting underevaluated players, hence the bargain buys – or whether these transfer fees are routinely being accepted early, say, which would suggest there's a surprisingly helpful 'seller' or three.

[Various Artist]

Nice kits VA. I see the "third" features Metropolitan Maroon.

Indeed, I felt it was a good opportunity to bring back the Metropolitan Line colour – it was on Underground's first four change strips, but to my surprise it's not been used since as far back as Season 7.

The most recent three have all been white with blue trim, but with a checked shirt red-and-white and white-and-blue would end up too similar in overall look, so I decided to use Croatia's dark World Cup kit as inspiration too for both the black-and-blue and blue-and-purple/maroon. The latter is only the "third kit" inasmuch as it was a toss-up which of the pair would take first go as change strip. The black-and-blue won (the first time UU have used any colour bar red, white, blue and Metropolitan purple), but I'll rotate the third one in after a season or two.

[Kevin S]

It's got a hint of the blaugrana about it too. Very nice. In fact you can almost imagine Nike messing about with Inter's and Barcelona's kits and ending up with the two change shirts there.

[SouthdownRebel]

I don't know how others feel but I don't think we should fanny around. If he does many more at a discount before that date I'd be happy to submit something to Wayne.

There has to be enough to suggest something untoward is going on. As VA said, there could be legitimate explanations to how he's able to consistently buy players below asking price.

It might be more useful to look at the savings as percentages - a saving of 0.7m on 5.5m is about 13% compared to about 90% for the second example on your list. That's a huge difference - to me, 13% seems reasonable in isolation.

Then when he sells them on again we could look at profit in the same way. It just helps to normalise the numbers across a wide range of transfer values.

[Etienne]

I'm not sure he's cheating, from looking at his official team (he may of course be with his private teams where it's more difficult to track). All the bargains I checked up on seemed to be underevals. I think he may just spend his entire time scouting for bargains.

[SouthdownRebel]

That could well be it - it's not as if he has to worry too much about compatibility if all he's trying to do is farm transfers. He can also ensure he makes a profit by only ever bidding under value and then setting an asking price that guarantees a profit when he sells.

Clearing out the squad when he first takes over gives him the funds to start the rolling process, from then on he recoups any losses from the initial fire-sale and is then continually making a profit.