Delaney: Transfer values rise, fall at Euros
With the way modern clubs conduct their scouting these days, it is very difficult for any player to be an unknown breakout star at a tournament featuring the world’s top teams, such as Euro 2016. However, individual performances can still bring considerable change in a player’s value, as we’ve seen with these 10 players.
Value went up
Moussa Sissoko
Newcastle United must have been wondering where these performances have been for the last two years, but so many other European clubs must have been thinking there’s a proper player to utilise here. Sissoko seemed released in his role for France, and he returned to the devastatingly powerful play that marked his first season in the Premier League. He surely won’t stay in the Championship.
Joao Mario
This space could have been filled by the resurgent Nani, except for the fact that the forward’s performances at Euro 2016 have already secured him a move back to one of the top leagues with Valencia. It can’t be too long until the accomplished Joao Mario follows. The young star showed an astuteness and assured use of the ball way beyond his years in the Portuguese midfield, but is surely now priced way beyond his pretournament value. Sporting Lisbon can command a big fee.
Ivan Perisic
Even in Croatia’s flat and disappointing defeat to Portugal, Perisic came out looking good; he still tried to make something happen. He rose above the level of a forgettable game, and after a tournament where he excelled — especially in the 2-1 win over Spain — he is surely capable of rising to a level above Internazionale in Serie A. Perisic has the craft to be just as effective for an elite Champions League club.
Robbie Brady
Before Euro 2016 began, Brady had just been relegated from the Premier League with Norwich City, and probably faced up to a season in the Championship. After it, having scored such a stirring goal for Ireland against Italy and then the penalty kick that so rattled hosts France, he was being pursued by Leicester City and looks set to go there before the window ends. This European Championship also became the perfect showcase for his near-perfect dead-ball deliveries, a quality that analytics teams at Premier League clubs consider especially key. But Brady offers much more than good free kicks and corners.
Hal Robson-Kanu
His value is a bit of a distorted issue here given that Robson-Kanu was famously a free agent before Euro 2016, but his performances — and especially one famous goal — during it mean he can probably command a much better wage at a better level of football than at previous club Reading. He won’t have to return to the Championship, anyway, given that promoted Hull City want him, but they face competition from Chinese clubs Beijing Guoan and Jiangsu Sunning. They are set to offer him up to £100,000 a week. That is some rise in value.
Value went down
Arda Turan
He was one of the biggest disappointments of the tournament, except that this was a continuation of the form that has seen him cast aside at Barcelona and likely to leave. This sums it up: Having been expected to lead a young Turkey out of the group, Arda issued a public apology for his display in the 1-0 defeat to Croatia and then got booed in the 3-0 loss to Spain. The latter was undeserved, but it also seems true that Arda doesn’t deserve his place at one of the superclubs either.
Mario Gotze
It’s remarkable to think that a player who scored the winning goal in a World Cup final just two summers ago is now widely thought to be failing to fulfil his talent, but that does seem to be the real danger with Gotze. Germany had to abandon the false-9 formation because he was so ineffective in the role, forcing them to recall Mario Gomez and reducing Gotze to inconsequential cameos.
The Bayern Munich player came on in the semifinal defeat to France and did nothing. While he is wanted by Liverpool, Borussia Dortmund and Tottenham Hotspur, it sums up how his value has fallen that he is likely leaving Bayern — one of the world’s three superclubs — to drop down a level. Euro 2016 will have only hastened that.
Wayne Rooney
In perhaps the most damning assessment of Rooney’s tournament, Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho totally dismissed the idea of playing the 30-year-old as a central midfielder, and that basically dismisses all of Rooney’s work at Euro 2016. He had a poor four games that exposed the fact that he will never be a proper playmaker. The only pass he seemed capable of successfully playing was a slow sideways ball to one of the full-backs.
That is hugely relevant to his value because, as age catches up with him and his legs start to wane, Rooney will probably have to change positions from the roving forward he still is. Midfield does not look like a viable option, meaning he won’t be able to sell himself on his old versatility. If Mourinho does do a Frank Lampard with Rooney — although it must be stressed that the manager is not currently thinking that — and look to eventually sell him, it’s hard to think there would be many high-profile suitors, as he had in the summer of 2013.
Adil Rami
Endured the ignominy of getting usurped in the France starting XI halfway through the tournament by Barcelona-bound Samuel Umtiti, something that is rare for an international centre-half. It means any clubs that were looking at Rami’s shaky first few games for France are unlikely to make a move for him, and he is surely set to stay at Sevilla.
Andriy Yarmolenko
Long talked of as a player to watch and someone that the Champions League clubs in Europe’s top leagues would eventually look at to add some life to their attack, the disappointing Yarmolenko served only to kill any hype around him in his poor Euro. Some of that might obviously be a consequence of playing in a conservative and unimaginative Ukraine team, but he never offered any spark.
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