Just how much of a transfer fee could and should Ross McCormack command in today’s grossly over-inflated transfer market?

By: Martyn | September 5th, 2008

Cardiff City’s Ross McCormack gave another wonderful showing that epitomised his burgeoning talent and potential for the Scottish U21 side last night. Since the move down south, McCormack’s career has continued to go from strength-to-strength and most Bluebirds fans already love the former Motherwell man like a son. No other current Bluebirds player gets us on-and-off our seats more times than McCormack and the City-supporting contingent oft comes to resemble the strangely freakish card-wavers at US political party national conventions during the match. Before I continue, let me clarify two issues that may already have arisen: (1). The text hitherto and that which is about to follow in no way advocates the sale of our most marketable yet most promising player. (2). Although I am inevitably and innately bias towards players in the famed and fabled blue shirt, you have my assurances that McCormack really is the real-deal. This boy is a future EPL regular without doubt and my South Walian blinkers don’t even come into this equation. The question I ultimately seek to answer is this - Just how much could and should a non-struggling and promotion-aspiring Championship club receive in the event of a sale of its most important attacking personnel?

In recent years, strikers have left their Championship dwelling skinny-candle clubs for the bright-chandelier lights of the Premier League bully-boys. Crystal Palace received £8.6m from the less tasty but equally sweet brother of fudge for the pleasure of watching Andy Johnson’s overpriced and tacky sports car pulling out of their training complex for the last time back in 2006. Just one year later, Charlton Athletic - a team not too far away locale-wise from Palace, although hardly the clichéd and exaggerated “stone’s throw” I hasten to add - received a whopping, jaw-verticalizing-and-dropping £16.5m for exchanging hugs and teary “keep in touch Daz, yeah?” sentiments and exchanges with the Spurs-bound ex-Tractor Boy. Even Preston North End, a football club not too dissimilar in relation to ourselves in terms of structure, fanbase, financial limitations, a non-promise keeping chairman, and expectations were able to give Alexandre Gaydamak a £6m bill and receipt for the acquisition of Dave Nugent exclusively for Pompey bench-warming duty. Preston and Charlton weren’t the only sides stripped of their GK-tormentors in the summer of 2007 - our very own Michael Chopra cost Sunderland the equivalent of playing 5 successful games on TV’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Although not technically an attacker, Joe Ledley generated interest to the accumulation and extent of a £6m bid from Stoke City just a few days ago. Clearly, money now talks in England’s second tier more than ever and with the impending power and financial erection of Manchester City, expect the likes of Billy ‘Less targets hit than the marketing-men for the PAL Sega Saturn‘ Sharp to fetch £30m transfer fees soon enough.

It’s interesting and perhaps somewhat telling however that only one big-money move saw a Championship striker ride a (probably pimped out) Stannah stairlift upwards this summer - Dave Kitson. In the case of the carrot-coiffured FA Cup hater, this was nothing but an immediate return back upstairs. In what is arguably the business-end of the field, is this the sign that Championship strikers are only to be trusted if they’ve proven themselves in the Premier League previously? Like Dave Kitson, the strikers most linked with EPL moves were players who had only just walked off the gangplank of the HMS Money Table: Kevin Doyle and James McFadden. The cases of the aforementioned Dave Nugent and Michael Chopra post-Premier League moves seems to sadly suggest that no under-pressure coach is willing to risk buying and then bedding-in a yet-to-prove-himself player anymore (a facet of the British game that probably goes a long way to explaining the repeated failures of our national teams). Overly-cited Roy of The Rovers “Dream moves” are becoming the equivalent of waking up with food poisoning after gorging on the “Oh. My. God. These are quite possibly the nicest sausage rolls I have EVER tasted” at that celebratory wedding reception the night before.

Nevertheless, depending on how much credence and belief you put into red-top paper pap, the rumour mill generated plenty of gossip linking Championship players with deliciously-dollar-dealing transfers: Ipswich Town’s perennially supposed step-climbing Danny Haynes and last season’s divisional top-scorer Sylvain Ebanks-Blake were both tipped to climb up the ladder during the course of the at times mind-excruciating, absurd and exhausting summer transfer window, so perhaps all is not lost for those untested at the top. Correspondingly, Kyle Lafferty made the move from Burnley to Rangers. Whether or not you consider this to encapsulate the jacket of trust placed upon the shoulders of Championship player depends on how much strength you gift the Scottish League. Alas, that I could only find a mere two examples of strikers being preyed upon by the Premier League predators is very significant and raises a question that I’ll attempt to answer halfway through the 08/09 season: Has the Premier League gotten stronger at the same pace and to the same extent as the Championship has gotten weaker?

So what of McCormack? In January 2008 EPL also-rans Wigan and Middlesbrough both sought his services and we fought off a last minute bid from Birmingham City to ensure that he became our new no. 44 (ironically this number’s previous incumbent was Chris Gunter - a young defender who left us for Tottenham Hotspur)! Clearly therefore, people in the know have heard highly enough of the boy to launch raids. After a season of hitting double-figures in a tragedy-rocked yet 3rd place achieving Motherwell side, Ross has hit the ground running after his minuscule £140k tribunal-decided transfer to the Welsh capital. Anyone who has seen McCormack play will tell you that he has all characteristics and qualities needed to not only survive but thrive in England’s highest tier: Pace in abundance, urgency throughout, tactical awareness, defence from the front, tirelessness, an eye for goal, stamina, FK and perfect PK taking abilities, positional sense and a powerful and accurate strike. Although he’s untested in the EPL - like Dave Nugent and Michael Chopra before him, the latter if you discount the handful of substitute appearances made in a Magpies shirt - and the likes of Andy ‘Co-Head Boy with Steven Gerrard at the Tom Daley School of Diving’ Johnson, Dave Kitson and Darren Bent had and have proved they can score goals at that level, the ever-shifting and extortionately-inflating market means that should McCormack carry on in the same vein as which he has started his football career - and should the vultures then inevitably hover over the prey come rainy summer 2009 - incredulous figures will be mooted and bandied about owing to what scouts and manager see with their eyes. In spite of the real bitch that losing keys players really can be, sometimes you have to accept that players will see clubs like ours as stepping stones in their careers. Perhaps after departing from Heathrow, the young Scot has decided to stop off in Singapore on his way to Australia. It is a sad but true state of affairs in today’s British football climate and one us City fans have all too morbidly and resignedly become used to.

Therefore and ultimately, in answer to the question I raised at the bottom of the opening paragraph: A club like Cardiff City could and should receive at least £7m for dispensing of the services of a top marksman. Whether McCormack carries on with his current form remains to be seen and is obviously essential, but a truly outstanding player will always relocate the path should he momentarily veer into the shrubbery. When all is said and done and the vultures have had their fill, a financially-healthy transfer funding after a season of scoring our way to the Premier League is the only way that such a transaction could end up as win-win for us. If McCormack can fire us to Championship glory and sound investment is made thereafter, an immediate transfer may not have to be so forthcoming. Yet whatever happens, the Premier League will be getting a knock on the door from Mr McCormack at some point in the not-too-distant future.

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A mere 1426 tickets for the Carling Cup tie away at our welcoming neighbours?! Pah. Still, if such draconian measures prevent trouble then it probably is for the best.