Why Chelsea's January spending spree is an affront to value-seeking punters

As punters, we're engaged in a relentless pursuit of value. From time to time, we stray – we are but flesh, and those enhanced accas and boosted bet builders can be so alluring.

But, chastened after those dalliances, we renew our vows of fidelity to good-value bets, determined to keep our discipline and beat the SP. We know what's good for us, even if we don't always practise what we preach, which is one reason why I found the January transfer window so aggravating.

Without wishing to name names – obviously, it's Chelsea – the recruitment strategy of some football clubs is nothing short of an affront to notions of value-seeking and sound business sense.

As a bettor, if you've missed the fancy prices about a selection, you're better off swerving it rather than belatedly hopping aboard the bandwagon. 

Chelsea, however, seem quite content to gobble up the 7-4 about a selection that opened up at 12-1, signing Marc Cucurella for £60m from Brighton last summer before gazumping Arsenal for Mykhalo Mudryk and splashing out more than £100m for Enzo Fernandez from Benfica last month.

To stretch the betting analogy, buying players from Brighton and Benfica is like punting against the very sharpest operators in the bookmaking industry.

Benfica made a profit of well over €300m on the sales of Fernandez to Chelsea, Darwin Nunez to Liverpool and homegrown stars Joao Felix and Ruben Dias to Atletico Madrid and Manchester City.  

And Brighton's sales of Cucurella, Ben White, Yves Bissouma and Leandro Trossard in the past two years meant they could afford to reject a reported January bid of £70m from Arsenal for Moises Caicedo.

With Caicedo, World Cup winner Alexis Mac Allister and ace Japanese winger Kaoru Mitoma on their books, the Seagulls will not be short of offers when the summer transfer window opens.

And such is the eagerness of top clubs to pay over the odds for bright young talents – yes, I'm referring to Chelsea again – that Brighton could probably spark a bidding war for Lewis Dunk simply by editing his Wikipedia page to claim he's Costa Rica's record goalscorer at Under-21 level.

Buying low and selling high is not as simple as Brighton and Benfica make it look but Chelsea's transfer-market maxim seems to be: 'Buy high, hope for the best, sack the manager, loan the player to a European club until everyone forgets about him, then go again'.

The Blues must have some inkling about Brighton's talent-spotting secrets – after all, they did snap up their manager Graham Potter earlier this season – so is their scattergun spending approach down to laziness, panic or the desire to provide the fanbase with the dopamine hit of a big-money signing?

When a player signs for £7m (Mac Allister) or £4.5m (Caicedo) or £2.5m (Mitoma), it brings out a pessimistic, self-loathing streak in most Premier League supporters. What's wrong with him, they ask. If he's any good, why is he joining us instead of Man City?

That cynicism serves us well in other areas of life. When a bookmaker's odds look too good to be true, you've almost certainly missed something. When you're standing in the supermarket poultry aisle, thinking: 'Surely, that's too cheap for a pack of eight chicken thighs?' then it's probably time to take the Linda McCartney route.

But I reckon football fans should be more optimistic, treating every low-key signing as a potential bargain until we're proved wrong. 

Dial down the hype, rein in the ludicrous spending sprees … hang on, I've just heard my club's been linked with a €45m deal for Benfica's chief scout. This could be massive!

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