A bit more of a closer-to-home player comparison

Just gauging opinion, not necessarily expressing my own. So if the Cauley vs. Marley Watkins fee comparison was complete pie-in-the-sky and should not be used in any meaningful context ........ how about:
Cauley vs Karlan Grant. Is that worthy of further scrutiny?
Both English
Both play in the Championship
Both approaching last year of current deal.
Cauley 25, Karlan 23
Karlan has 4 Premier goals to his name - Cauley has one
Karlan scored 19 goals in the 2nd tier last time around, Cauley got 14
Career apps / goals. Cauley = 197 / 57. Karlan = 173 / 53
Both played for England age groups - Cauley scoring 7, Karlan scoring zero.

Weighing up all the above, Karlan possibly slightly more marketable with a better age / sell-on potential. But the stats are far closer than a Watkins / Woodrow sample and in my view worthy of comparison.

And the potential stat to be added to the above come the end of the week:
Woodrow to Cardiff - £3m
Grant to West Brom - £15m

Discuss.

 

Pretty sure that if you exclude penalties that those numbers would be more or less equal too, mate. Grant had 6 or 7, if memory serves and Cauley just 2.

Interesting comparison that shines a clear light on the failings and inadequacies in our transfer dealings, I'm sorry to say.

 

I ask myself who is making a killing out of our spreadsheet strategy and it just looks like 'lose-lose,' rather than 'win-win.' The weak link is the low price at which we sell on good players with one year left on their contracts here. You would have thought that that would be where the board would be looking to MAKE money out of the strategy - in the sale of players - but there is no evidence of that happening. We never seem to hold out for the highest price, but capitulate on very low ones, given that we are a Championship club and most of our players have now had one sound season at Championship level under their belts and yet we seem to be willing to sell Woodrow for a similar price to what we got for Moore from Wigan a year ago. Moore had minimal Championship experience, which can hardly be said of Woodrow. If the board wanted to play hard-ball and not just money-ball, you would have thought that they would be upping the ante a bit. Perhaps they have realised this and are holding our for £5 million for Woodrow, which i would have thought would be a better deal. We will wait to see what happens and, of course, it will be 'undisclosed,' but the Bluebirds' website will probably provide the information in any case.

 

People ignore how much being an ex Prem team values players, Huddersfield bought him whilst in prem firstly, secondly he played in the prem Cauley barely did and was much younger.
Cauley has found his level imo, but Grant is highly rated.
Thirdly if you were a prem team scouting during restart would you sign Cauley? Barely looked interested, never looked like scoring. Honestly can't work out why people are even comparing the two.

 

As I said originally - it may not be a fair comparison but they are a damned sight closer to compare than Woodrow v Watkins, and that saga ran for weeks.

 

If a Pemiership club wants a player just add a.minimum of 10 million. No Premier League club wants Woodrow. A championship club wanting Grant would not be bidding so much.

 

Player wise and stats possibly a decent comparison, however you can’t compare a Premier club buying to a Championship club as PL clubs always increases the price.
Watkins is a good example, there is no way anyone in the Championship would have paid £23 million for him.

 

Yeah that's true.

 

If its so close, and Cauley appears to be the bargain, then why arent West Brom coming for him?

 

The few times i saw Grant were at Charlton against us, and to my recollection he was a pure goalscorer that benefitted from a good amount of penalties and direct balls over the top, less involved in general play. (i've just looked and he scored 6 penalties last season)

Woodrow got just 2 penalties last season within his 15 goals, many of which while deployed out of position in a style that doesn't suit him.

Put him in a team that suits his strengths and actively attacks the box and he'll get more goals from general play and more penalties too. He's a 20 goal a season striker and scores all types of goals in the process with an unbelievable shot on him. Yes he doesn't knock defenders over with brute strength and yes, he doesn't run from the halfway lane jinking past every opposition player twice before tucking the ball away, but he's a very good striker and one of the best we've had. The last 20 goal a season striker we had was Winnall and he benefitted from Conors left foot.

We've had few true goalscorers in the time i've watched Barnsley, but Woodrow in my view is one of the best if you utilise him properly.

That we don't is criminal enough, but if we compound that by selling him for a mere fraction of the value we should be getting, well, thats even worse.

 

I'm comforted by the fact that if WBA do gazump Cardiff they will do so by offering around £10m, by virtue of them being able to do so.

 

Why aren't Cardiff going for Grant?

 

KM

 

It's a good comparison, and as you say better than Watkins v Woodrow. It's also a case of WBA are a PL club and Cardiff are a Championship club. Hence WBA are willing to spend more money because they have more money