Buy Low, Sell High

As the season gets closer, certain decisions must be made about who to keep and who to sell. Players are like stocks with the goal being to buy low and sell high. However if you pay for something at one price and it starts going down, at what point do you cut your losses? On the other hand, at what point do you take profits from a player who is at or near his peak value even though he is still clearly an asset?

The best example of selling high in a Cagliari context was David Suazo. But now we seem to be faced with selling too low on a player because he opened his mouth and made Cagliari seem like a stepping stone in his upward moving career.

That player is Federico Marchetti. Its rare that a players value would drop so significantly after a World Cup where he really didnt make any mistakes but instead got caught up in an overall negative experience but that is the case with Federico which I thought would be a blessing and allow us to keep him for another year before selling him for a nice profit. Things just are not that easy in Sardinia however.

To summarize, Marchetti has hinted or directly made it known that he was hoping for a transfer this summer to a club like Sampdoria so he could move forward in his career and play Champions League Football. Not a smart move when your owner takes personal offense if you do something like that and will ship you out even if it makes the teams overall performance suffer. See Massimiliano Allegri if you do not know what I am talking about.

Cellino needs to be careful here. While Marchetti certainly can be sold for a handsome profit, if he is sold in the next couple of weeks, it will not be for what he could have brought last winter and will likely bring a year or two from now. Having one of the top young goalkeepers in the league is a great benefit for a team like Cagliari and he does not need to be sold right now, even if like most players, they aim to move on to a bigger or better established club at some point. You cannot fault anyone for wanting to better themselves and Cellino should know as a business man that we are not Milan or Madrid and we have to get players under the radar and sell them for a profit just to stay competitive. The players that do well in Cagliari naturally want to move up so we cannot get angry at them for that and Marchetti has not said anything offensive about Cagliari.

While I was very complimentary of Cellino’s handling of Allegri, I will not be happy if Marchetti is sold now because he popped off at the mouth. Its one thing is he is being sold at his peak or perceived peak value, but that would not be the case if he is sold now.

The difference between Marchetti and Allegri is that Marchetti is not talking during the season and his play has not been effected. Allegris mind was in Milan at a time where the club had a chance to finish in a strong position and his approach cost Cagliari plenty. Ship him out even if he is the top young coach around.

In addition to the context and timing of Marchetti’s statements, why would you sell him for what will be a lot lower then you can get for him later? While nothing is certain, Marchetti’s value is more likely to increase then from where it is today. Forget the fact that his loss hurts the club even if you think Agazzi is a good keeper.

In addition to Marchetti, heavy conversation is going on with Andrea Lazzarri and Alessandro Matri. Lazzarri is wanted deeply by Milan and Matri is still wanted in Napoli.

I would classify Lazzarri as a player you do not sell because he could end up quite a bit better then where he is even if there is some risk his value has peaked. The risk level says keep him for a year and then sell him if the market warrants.

As for Matri, he is a serious sell high candidate but Napoli is balking at Cellino’s price. What the price is I do not know, but if he is sold for market value, Cellino would be selling high and you cant blame him even if Matri has scored some timely goals for the team the past couple of years.

Our biggest buy low candidate is still Robert Acquafresca. When you have a player who is young, has performed for us in the past, has made it clear he would like to return, and is unsettled in Genoa after turning down a loan move to Lazio, combined with his slow development the past year, is there a better player to buy at a low price? Again he wont be cheap, but he is Cellinos kind of player in both potential and attitude so do not rule out him returning to Sardinia. His purchase price while not cheap would be similar to us selling Marchetti. The upside will be high and and the risk minimal for the team that ends up purchasing these guys.

If Cellino can take a step back, not take every comment as a personal afront, and work on getting Acquafresca, keeping Marchetti and Lazzarri, we will be a better team.

Pay attention because these moves will happen quick and losing Marchetti now for a low price would be tragic simply because of some words that were not that bad.

This is the price for following a team with such a volatile owner.

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