David Ornstein Breaks Down Biggest PL Transfers: Enzo Fernandez, Morgan Rogers, Bradley Barcola

0:00Colin Murray: Well, it's been a week since the transfer window closed, billions spent, hundreds of players moved and enough time for us to figure out just how our football clubs and how your football club did. So we're giving our verdict with the help of the transfer oracle himself, David Ornstein. Yes, and this podcast is about the business behind the sport. So we're going to follow the money. Can you actually spend a whole load of money on your team and end up worse off? and actually is it even about what you spend or more about where you spend it? I'm Natalie Perks, he's Colin Murray and this is High Performance Business in partnership with IFS.

0:36I know you want to do this and this is the bit that you love the most. All of the stats, let's do all the stats and then let's have some fun.

0:43Colin Murray: Okay, you're calling me a geek is what you're basically saying. So it's the second summer in a row where the transfer record was broken in the Premier League. Around three and a half billion spent, nine percent up on last year. it's, you know, 290 million. What's 290 million between friends? It means Premier League spending has now exceeded 2 billion in each of the last five windows, which gives you a big idea of where this is all going. And we're sitting at around three times how much was spent just 10 years ago. So even accounting for inflation, that's mental. It's that phrase, what is it? Don't hate the player, hate the game.

1:20So that's where I'm going with it. Should we start with our awards? like start positive.

1:25Colin Murray: Yep. So many signings to pick from. Who was the best signing in the transfer window for you and why? Elliot Anderson for me. I think City did the best business with him because it was done so early, wrapped up so early and then he went and had that solid, quite brilliant, I would say, World Cup for England. Homegrown player premium for sure. But his stats last season were crazy and I think they've got a really solid, great midfielder. When you were at school and you had a class on Monday and then you had a class on Friday, right? And at the end of the class, say history, the teacher went, here's your homework.

2:01Did you do it Monday night or did you do it on Thursday at night or did you do it on the bus on Friday on the way to school?

2:07Colin Murray: You've known me a little while now. What do you think? Monday night. 100%. Right. And that's the safe option. Friday night if I got it on Friday. But you might, this is a good analogy, you might get away with it doing it on the bus. Yeah. Right? You might get lucky and you might get away with it because ultimately you're talented and skilful and clever. But the only way to really do it is on the Monday night. I feel like we're getting somewhere. And that is exactly what it did with Anderson. And it feeds into my choice because straight away, it's Gimmarish. And again, Don Early, 75 million. Boggin.

2:39Already looks to improve Arsenal. I never give him a season. I already know he's improved him. But more importantly, and it ties into Anderson, it ties into Gimmarish, I love a player who's already shown they can do it in the league in which they're moving to. So he hasn't changed. He's just went from Newcastle to Arsenal. So you don't have to worry about that X factor of whether we're brilliant in La Liga, but can they match the Premier League style and pace? You already know he can do it. So I think you're spending a lot of money, but you're spending it on a proven product. Do you know what I mean?

3:16Difference between buying a car from the actual like the Volvo dealer and not off your mate Mickey who tells you it runs fine and you don't have to worry about it, right? You take rid of that X factor. So I think we could probably name seven or eight or nine big signings that just moved from one Premier League club to the other. And I absolutely love that. I think that is probably the best sign that you're going to get your value for money because they've already proven it.

3:43Colin Murray: Speaking of value for money then, who was your bargain out of the window? We seem to still be a little snobby when it comes to taking players from the championship and from League One, which just blows my mind. Because the bottom half of the Premier League is essentially the upper tier of the championship. How many clubs yo-yo in between? I don't think there's a black and white line between the top of the championship and the bottom of the Premier League. It's a grey fade. So actually, the best players in the championship for me are always Premier League ready, yet they're usually available for a song.

4:19And we're probably going to have Everton as the answer to some of our less positive awards here.

4:24Colin Murray: Yeah. But I'm going to give them Hayden Hackney. Hayden Hackney is, first of all, he is young. He's 24. Great name, by the way. Great name, right? He'd be a private investigator if he wasn't a footballer. 100%. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, he's got a Mac. He's got a notepad. Yeah. He's got a funny hat. Yeah. So he's 24. He's a quintessential, proper central midfielder. He wasn't only Middlesbrough's best player last season in the championship. And look at the season that they had. He was the best player in the championship. And you don't have to take my word for it because he officially won the championship's best player in the championship.

5:00When you hear this, I love this. In the context of what we've just been talking about, prices for players, they've got him for$16.5 million. rising to 24 based on performances like come on in that modern area he just has to turn up to get the extra couple of million and he's going to David Moyes one of the few managers who is not snobby about taking prayers in the championship and has a proven track record of choosing the right players to play in the Premier League I'm not saying he's going to be great straight away for them but I think he will look back in three, four years now maybe when he makes his next move or he follows Everton to the next level.

5:41And we're going to go, how did they get him for that price? In the modern context, if you say over 2 billion spent, to only spend 16.5 million on the best player in the second tier who will be already Premier League made is so much credit to Everton and so much shade on the other clubs for not looking more at the championship.

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7:46Colin Murray: Well, mine is very obvious because I feel like everyone has said this, but my dad's a Chelsea season ticket holder. He's incredibly happy with their windows, just giving it an 8 out of 10. So for a seasoned Chelsea fan, that is high praise, eight out of ten. Like, that's good. Emi Martin is, you know, just like you were saying, proven Premier League quality. I know he's 33, but that's not as much of an issue for a goalkeeper, obviously. A World Cup winner, he's definitely already improved them in the very short time he's been there. That is a bargain. What was it, 7.5? Yeah. 7.5 for a goalkeeper of his quality.

8:25So you're not going to sign my change.org petition to ban all Argentinians from English football then? No, because I'm not petty like that.

8:32Colin Murray: All right. I'm still not over the World Cup. I'm still not over the World Cup. It might take me a while. The Egypt game in particular. But anyway, yeah, I'm with you. Do you remember a moment when everyone decided a couple of years ago that Emi was the best keeper in the world? Well, in 2022. And it just stopped. Everyone went, okay, you are. Nobody questioned it. And I think he's sort of carried that tag through. Yeah, but he's a huge character as well. I think when you talk about the amount of money people have paid for certain players, the character of a player, especially a goalkeeper, it's a unique position.

9:06Colin Murray: We know they're slightly different in terms of their psychology to other players. I think he's got everything. I mean, he's annoying. You wouldn't want to face him. If you were an opponent, you'd hate him. But if he's on your team, you're going to love him. I love those players that fall into that category of immediately you don't like them. But if you were offered them for your team, you'd be like, I will drive him to the ground. Luis Suarez. It's amazing how many of those players are Uruguayan and Argentinian, isn't it? Right. Well, there's an interesting business thread here in that we've just got excited about loads of players for so many different fees.

9:41And I just want you to lock that in your head because I think we'll get to that in a second. But you mentioned character. So I want to do strangest transfers so far. The one that made you go, what?

9:51Colin Murray: Well, initially I thought it was a bit odd that Henderson joined Chelsea. We finally agree on something. But, but. It's taken five episodes. But there's method in the madness. Because now that you've seen a sort of rejig midfield with Enzo going up to City, that huge amount of money, you can see where he will get game time. And it will be in the League Cup. It will be in the FA Cup and it'll probably be off the bench in the league. And it's such a good sign. By strangest, I don't mean it's a bad signing. I want to make that clear. If you'd have sat Danny Welbeck down four years ago and said you'd be one of Chelsea's first signings of the transfer window in four summers from now, he would have had you carded away.

10:34When Henderson left Liverpool to go to Saudi Arabia, if you'd have said to him, you'll go Brentford, Chelsea, he would have thought you were mad. These are great signings because they're not there to play every game. and they're there to add experience. They're there to change the dressing room. They're there to provide genuine leadership, which I managed to see a little bit from the inside during the Klopp era, doing some work with the club, how important Jordan Henderson was to Liverpool. This is the guy who lifted the Champions League trophy, who lifted the Premier League trophy. He wasn't just important.

11:09He was the captain. He's won it all. And with a younger squad, I'm not going to say it's like being in charge of, you know, a university classroom, but it's not far off that. And as we know from being older now, you think you're an adult at 21, you're a kid. You think you're an adult at 25, you're a kid. So to have that in there, they can just put an arm around a player, pull him aside. I mean, Welbeck's already scored for them, right? In the League Cup. That tells you all about maybe the role he's going to play. Off the pitch, they are so clever, those signings. Because that's why I'm sending the most strange signings.

11:44Because originally, when I saw Henderson to Chelsea I went, oh my mate's using that AI to make headlines up again do you know what I mean? and then it was like oh, well hold on a second let me have a think and then I thought, why not? you don't have to buy experience to play three times a week because the work is done on the training ground if he can get 5 % more of those players if he can put his arm around two star lanes and turn them into true stars He'll have repaid that money 10 times over with his transfer fees.

12:16Colin Murray: And don't forget, Chelsea came out of the window in profit. I know. 67.3 million or something like that in profit. 50 odd players, right? Yeah, but they've had a blinder though, really. I think you've got to give it to Chelsea. They've had a really good window. The club that panicked because we've talked about doing your homework on a Monday. Who was stuck on the bus on the Friday trying to learn their Latin verbs? We've got David Ornstein coming on. And I think one of the big questions we need to ask him that all fans want to know is, why do clubs leave it so late in the window to do some business?

12:53Colin Murray: Because if you look at Everton and what happened on that final day. Oh, for a grain again. And again, Everton fans are quite right to be sort of feeling that need to revolt over this because they've lost their best player in Injai. They've lost Beto. They went into deadline day with the whole Flo Balogun situation, the weird medical, him then deciding to walk away. They did a late move for Xerxes at United and United said, no, thank you. And they're now left with one recognised striker. And for a club that's got David Moyes at its helm, you know, sensible, brilliant, old school, gets it. Something there has gone really wrong with the ownership because something has not worked there.

13:37We can maybe ask David about that later,

13:40Colin Murray: but that was not good. I think that's fair. That's an understatement. That was the panic of transfer deadline day. I think most people would have Everton on their bingo card for that. I feel in safe territory as a Liverpool fan because I picked the bargain of the season, of the entire transfer window, being an Everton player. So I'm not sticking the boot in for no reason. Which brings us on to the club that needed more. Now, my answer to this is every club. Yeah. Because I have never met a fan at the end of a transfer window, whether they support Morecambe or Manchester City, he just went, yeah, perfect.

14:15Nobody's ever said that. You're not a football fan. If you're saying that, you're not a football fan. Then you said to me last night when I said this to you on the phone, you said, my dad.

14:25Colin Murray: He's happy, bless his soul. Which I then said, I guarantee your dad is not fully happy with Chelsea's transfer window. So you have messaged him half an hour ago. He has replied, I don't know the reply. What did your dad say? He gave it an eight out of ten. That's not entirely happy. But that is for a Chelsea fan. Oh my, it's delirious for a Chelsea fan. Yeah, he is happy. But you just said, here's a club that we've talked about so much in terms of long-term contracts, the amount of players in the squad deferred wages. They've had obviously tumultuous times moving from Abramovich to new ownership.

15:01Yet, they just turned this huge profit in the transfer window and your dad is still only eight out of ten, right? Yeah. You know, ask Cara, ask me, ask the next fan. We all have a place that we feel like we haven't done the right business. And I think that's actually what a good transfer window is. When we get to Christmas, when we get to the end of the season, if I see a team, whether they've been minus 15 million in spending or plus 200 million, if their team are balanced and they're winning and they're exceeding expectation, that's a good transfer window.

15:31Colin Murray: From all what we've said then, who do you think in three years' time we will look back and go, that's the one? What an absolutely brilliant signing. Every player Liverpool has signed. No. I'd probably do the same as who I think was the best signing now. When do you actually know a player is worth what you paid for them? There's a question for you. Well, I don't suppose you do until at least six months. At least, right? The day they leave the club. The day they leave. The day they leave the club. That's really the only fair way. I mean, I suppose if you've got a five-year contract after five years, then you can judge them.

16:08Colin Murray: but that's not how fandom works, Colin. What if he's sacked at Liverpool, stays fit, does what we know he can do for the next four seasons? He'll be in the 100 club. Let's say he heads off to wherever he heads off to. He'll walk out the door legend. No one will remember the first season at all. I mean, ask a good example, I suppose, Mo Salah. I mean, ask a Chelsea fan what type of signing he was. He said, one of our most disappointed, especially because of what he did at Liverpool. and actually it doesn't even matter how they walk away Roy Keane left in a rage crying in his car famously in his autobiography less of a genius no one of United's greatest ever signings how you leave a club is all that matters everything else is just tabloid fodder between now and then you know many players have looked like a misfit for a year and then they've gone on to be a club legend and they've had a great first season and you're going you might be the new Maradona turns out they're in the new Madonna yeah you know So, like, you just never know what you're going to get.

17:09Colin Murray: So, I'm going to stick with what I said, which is, you know, Elliot Anderson, I think, was the signing of the transfer window. And I think in three years' time, I think, Will, I believe he'll be like, right, so Arsenal, he just looks like a natural fit, like he's always been there. So, who then do you think was the biggest gamble in this window? Oh, I mean, the list is longer than it is of big signings. And if you're Brighton, if you're Sunderland, if you're Brentford, who do it so well, right? I just want to go with Brentford to the casino because of how many good gambles they've made. It's actually about scouting and it's actually about finding those players.

17:45And the big clubs aren't the best at that. As in, they're at the top of the Premier League. Yeah, you look at, I made a list of Brighton and then it stopped because I was getting cramp in my wrist. Sweden, Greece, Portugal, Italy, Germany. They're taking players from all over the map this year and every single one of them's a gamble. Can they do it in the Premier League? Will they settle with their family in the area? The answer is yes, they will because Brighton's awesome. But you're maybe going from Benfica to Sunderland. You're going from the fjords of Iceland to the streets of Middlesbrough.

18:24So I love all these gambles and I think I'm lost in admiration for the business that the clubs do. that as you so beautifully explained in our episode about the new rules in terms of financial fair play and SSR, it makes it more stable. It makes it more transparent, but it doesn't offer a route for the clubs below the very elite to catch up. Yeah, absolutely. So they're still doing the same business. They're still waiting in the bread aisle at ASDA at quarter to five to see what's left. And they do such a good job. And you say, who has the best transfer window? Who won the transfer window? It's more likely to be a club that spent 30 million more than they made or 15 million less than they brought in just because they found that one star.

19:11You'd never bag against Brentford being that team. Last year, everyone tipped them relegation. I tipped them to finish top half because I was like, time and time again, they prove us wrong. The biggest gambles is the most exciting thing about the Premier League because you know a team are going to come from nowhere and they're going to upset the Albuquerque and they're going to finish eighth. So they're going to finish ninth and they'll be the team we enjoy much watching more than a lot of the top six.

19:33Colin Murray: Like Sunderland last season. Absolute world of a season. And they'll eventually find a level. Of course, they will over the length of the season. But they're the gambles. And they so often pay off. But they have to be gambles. Are you excited as a Liverpool fan to watch Barcola? Yes. 123 million. Is that a gamble in the sense that he's never played this kind of football before? A wonderful person was telling me about how many times she's seen him live. Yeah. Who was that wonderful person? It was you. You said you could chill. Oh, yeah, he's incredible. And you see it in a lot of live football, right?

20:05And this was the one. I know exactly what you mean. You go and see players who are really good, but one in every 100, you go, oh, that's a bit sexy. Was he in that bracket? Yeah. Oh, well, though. Yeah. But it comes back to balance. If Liverpool only have to play in the opposition half, no one's worried about Liverpool. It comes back to what I'm saying. We migrate to, are we all right at left-back and right-back? or we are at number six because I don't want Saba's lie to drop back in there.

20:34Colin Murray: Yeah, yeah. I don't want him to have to play that role. So again, we go back to then even your father. And even my father said about Morgan Rodgers, that's a big expensive signing. And he said, time will tell. I'll tell you at Christmas. Yes. So he's giving him three months. Yeah. And that's quite long for a Chelsea fan. And your dad will be the same one that goes, can't believe they sacked that manager after six months. Yeah. I'd say I'm seven out of ten in Liverpool's transfer window. Yeah. Seven out, was just one less than your dad as a Chelsea. What about you and United? Is that a number? No.

21:05Colin Murray: Are you out of 10? It's like a 5-6, I'm afraid. Yeah. All right, so in summation, what we've said is it's not on the player, the fee, it's on the club itself. It's where you spend it, not what you spend it on. And with every conversation we had, we migrated to maybe the missing part of the jigsaw. We also learned that no fan is happy, even your father. and we're going to welcome the brilliant David Ormstein. Yeah, the absolute oracle of football transfers himself. But first of all, let's hear a little bit from our sponsors.

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23:19Welcome back to High Performance Business with Natalie Perks and Colin Murray. This is our transfer deadline special, a week on, the dust settling. And as usual, Natalie doing great to help us make sense of it all while I rant. And our special guest today, I believe, is a good friend of yours. So I'll let you introduce him.

23:36Colin Murray: He is. He is the athletics football correspondent, David Ornstein. But I'd argue that title doesn't really do him justice because we all know him in this country as the go-to for football transfer news, the oracle himself. David, thank you so much for joining us today. I know how busy this week has been. Talk us through this most recent transfer deadline day for you. How much sleep did you actually get? Sleep is for when we retire, not much at all. Sleep is for the week. Yeah, it really is in my world. And I think this was probably an all-time low because it was the busiest window I can remember.

24:15Not to mention that some of it was spent during the World Cup. I was in America. And so I was trying to straddle two time zones, US East Coast time and the UK. So there were a few 3am local, 8am UK wake ups to deal with stories. Sleep deprivation is par for the course with me at this sort of time of the year, but you can make up for it between the windows. I've hosted a few transfer deadline day radio shows for the BBC. And believe me, the worst ones are not when it's busy. You dream, you go to bed at night the night before dreaming of Peter Odom Wingy in a car park. I've hosted ones where nothing happened right you're filling for four hours about absolutely nothing and I'm really interested in this David just the other week Natalie did a great job of explaining the new financial fair play rules in the Premier League and SSR which I think we fairly much agreed there's more transparency there's more security but it doesn't bridge any gaps between the riches and the rest can you use that to make sense of the money that's being spent in the transfer window?

25:22Because the obvious thing to do, David, is to go, well, milk only cost 19p in 1987 and get really upset about it. But can you marry both of those sports business stories together? Yeah, I can. You know, we've become used to this. First, it was FFP. More recently, PSR. I mean, it's been the scourge of many football fans and clubs' lives in recent times. I just think of Everton, Nottingham Forest in particular, who both got punished for it. Newcastle, Aston Villa frustrated by it. As Nat would have explained in one of your recent episodes, basically you were allowed in the Premier League to lose£105 million as a maximum across a three-year period.

26:04So it was all about controlling your losses. Fast forward to now, and we're under something called squad cost ratio, SCR, and it's all about controlling what you spend, not controlling what you lose. We've got an influx of extremely wealthy, in particular American owners, while still having the likes of Abu Dhabi at Manchester City, who are ready and want to spend and trade. They're prepared to sell in a way that they weren't before and that allows you to buy more. The trading model is like we've never seen before. Premier League clubs trading amongst themselves. What does that mean? higher fees in both directions so it gives gives clubs a bit more money i mean four of the 11 most

26:48Colin Murray: expensive transfers in the premier league of all time happened this summer so at what point do we stop looking at 100 million as being like and do we sort of go that's the price of doing business now well i remember being at school now and and someone when we got to sixth form i think like drove in with with a gold renault clio and i couldn't believe it because we were all lucky to get a ford fiesta at best and it was clapped out and this gold renault clio was like how on earth have you got to that stage and then before you know it like everyone's got the gold renault clio or different colors and brands are available um and so that's just society like we're it's the evolution of the transfer market and valuations are going to continue you imagine to rise which is quite eye-watering there was an amazing January transfer window in 2011 when Fernando Torres moved from Chelsea to sorry from Liverpool to Chelsea you'll both remember clubs you've both been across for 50 million pounds and Andy Carroll came down from Newcastle to Liverpool on the same day for like 35 million pounds and you're like what has happened to money and there was the summer when young Mbappe, I think, went from Monaco to PSG for in excess of 100 million.

28:06Then you're like, the market's gone. They will never recover from this. Football's about to explode. And then before you know it, Declan Rice is going for 100 plus 5 million pounds. Which looks a bargain, by the way. Amazing value for money. On the flip side, you get Anthony going from Ajax to Man United for a package worth 100 million euros. And you're like, you've lost the plot football and now this was the summer nat where it became commonplace no shadow of a doubt so elliot anderson is a fantastic player but that did set the tone and whether you say it warped the market i don't want to be disrespectful to him because i think he could be seen to be worth it and more in time but you know you had somebody like crystal palace who were waiting to see what anderson was going to go for before setting their own price for someone like adam wharton yeah and if a club came for Wharton, it would need to be higher than whatever Elliot Anderson was going to go for.

28:58No one, well, Manchester City inquired, but it was decided at Palace that they're going to keep him this year and possibly he'll go next summer. But then you start to think, well, that would have had to be more than£116 million. Morgan Rodgers was wanted by Arsenal. They wanted to pay like£80 million. That's what they felt his valuation was. Aston Villa decided it will have to start with a one. Chelsea came up trumped with£117 million. so on and so forth so Sandro Tonali goes for 100 million pounds I'm not sure that many people blinked when when that fee was um being mooted and then and then materialized and by the time it got to Bradley Barclay a package worth to PSG 145 million euros max he's with total respect I love that signing I think he's a really good player PSG see him as a backup they weren't starting him in their team if Arsenal were going to buy Julian Alvarez or Barcelona for that matter or anybody else it would have had to be 150 million euros that was the fee set by Atletico Madrid and and at the beginning when I heard that I was like what on earth and by the end of the market I think Arsenal would have been happy to pay it if he was willing to go there because it doesn't seem an astronomical fee and then we finish with Enzo Fernandes matching the Premier league transfer record and and and he's now you know record breaker or equaler twice in his move to chelsea and man city and it's almost like um just become what football is now and and just like you thought you would never see the hundred million pound mile where does it end there's no point us predicting it and some people you speak to think there shouldn't be transfer fees for this very reason but in a sense the game has gone valuations have gone but it's you know it is it is the industry there's two things about that first of all we're almost getting to the tipping point where um wharton will cost more than if you bought the company that makes wharton's bread just let that sink in and and secondly this is not a new book we're writing on the finances of football i think that's really important and even though it's a can of worms that we would need to make a 10-hour podcast together to cover it all.

31:11Just looking at it just from a very aesthetic point of view, a cover-all answer, if you like. This all connects together, whether it be ownership structure, how clubs are financing themselves, the people who are coming into club ownership, what happened with FIFA over the World Cup in terms of the ill-fated plan to sell-off part of it, to how players are being evaluated and how they're being paid for. There's a little bit of me is absolutely willing to jump on board with this is a little bit crazy, but less willing to jump on board with I'm outraged at this. I never saw this coming because it's just part of a rolling ball, right?

31:49Yeah, it's terrifying on the one hand and quite predictable on the other because we've seen this trend for some time. And, you know, when nation states are coming to buy clubs with unlimited resources, you can't really react with shock. shock you could react with horror when they start being willing to spend astronomical amounts of money wasn't their talk when the Saudi pro league went on their splurge initially that they were ready to maybe they did make an offer for um was it for Kylian Mbappe I think it was quite widely reported there was also talk of Vinicius jr being subject to an offer from Saudi Arabia people were talking in excess I think of 200 million so the the wealth is there you know Newcastle on paper have the richest owners in world football.

32:35They're just not allowed to spend what you imagine they would like to, or some people say they would like to. We don't know because we don't hear from them. When I say like terrifying on the one hand, it's because how sustainable is this? But football, like most businesses, ultimately they do need to live within their means. And if we're relying on the television money to prop up football, commercial sponsors and whatnot, there can come a day, you described it as a tipping point it could the bubble could burst it did in France when the television contracts fell through it did in the championship some years ago with the ITV digital crisis now we use this phrase in society safe as houses and and we're starting to look at football clubs as being premier league clubs as being one of the safe investments particularly for American investors right now who don't just see this as being a reliable investment but but also that there's so much more scope for growth.

33:30They're not coming just for a laugh, but they see the potential to expand on the match day experience, on television rights. And it'll be really interesting to see where rights go from here. Does it go in-house in a way that Spain sell off individually? Did the Premier League eventually sue off the broadcasters, the likes of the partners that they're with now? You will know them for yourselves. Just because the Premier League is looking safe as houses now, It might not be the case forever because it's largely affected by the European landscape. You know, how will Spain shape up? Italy, Germany and so on.

34:06You can't just be this Super League in your own right. Control and the finance of these clubs is so huge. We don't know what's happening in the Manchester City 1-1-5 case. League could soon have an American majority to the extent that they could vote tactically together in a way that can change all of what we've been talking about. so my goodness I mean your podcast is launched at the right time because never have there been more questions and maybe fewer answers well just to finish I mean I've been told this and then I find a second source so I think it's true I would probably publish this I believe this is how old I am I DJ'd for you when you were at university at your freshers ball is that right?

34:51yeah I can tell you it was a ball as well it was the summer of 2006 2006 our leavers party uh at bournemouth university where a certain miss perks also went around the same era i believe on the same course as me and yeah i i don't remember a great deal about it other than you were djing and i'm not sure you'll remember a great deal about it given the state you're in with all due respect um last seen crowd surfing so i you know the dj was missing in action because we were waiting for the tunes and he was just like bouncing up and down on a sea of hands shirt the type of which he's wearing today wide open flowing um and we had we had one hell of a night but it i think it became one hell of a morning because last seen taking a mass photo after an overnight game of football on bournemouth beach so um probably the less said about what happened that night.

35:50Do you know what? Weirdly, I remember. Oh, my God. It was Phantom Planet, Roik's up, and then I DJ'd after them. It's a massive circus tent. Bournemouth have one of the biggest student balls, about 5 ,000 people. So I was very nervous. Yeah. And my rider back then, no word of a lie, I'll tell you exactly what my rider was when it was really one when it was DJing, a piece of Liverpool memorabilia, not priced more than$9.99, just to see who would do it, and a bottle of Sambuca. So, but even then, I remember what a beautiful night that was. And I've never, ever been about the industry I work in. I've always been about the people I broadcast to.

36:29That's the only thing that matters. And it was a beautiful night that night. And the beach was brilliant. We had a big game of football as the sun was coming up. I miss Bournemouth. Yeah, it was wonderful. It was wonderful. But it's funny, isn't it? These little connections, you know.

36:43Colin Murray: Bam J forever, Orno. Absolutely amazing. Bam J forever. Also, so the Freshers' ball was done by Chesney Hawks, the one and only. The Levers' ball was done by you. They say never meet your heroes. I met Chesney Hawks at the Qatar World Cup 2022 while watching Robbie Williams. And he's a nice man. And so are you. So I think never meet your heroes is an over... It's a wrong analogy. It's time to meet your heroes. We've reunited. Yes. See, look at that. Isn't that brilliant? Beautiful. 2006. So it's 20 years ago. So that's 20 years anniversary. Yeah, yeah. Not from you. Not from you. Off you go. See you next transfer window.

37:26No need for that.

37:27Colin Murray: Thank you. David, thank you so much. Thank you. Legend. Lots of love. Loved it. He was lovely. He is lovely. Yeah, he kind of fell in love with the Ornstein. Orno. I'm Orno for him. Let me tell you. Probably should leave it at that. This part now, we're just going to do something called off the bench. We just want to hear your funny stories, your niche bit of trivia, things that didn't make the headlines this week. But slightly differently, we want to just do a transfer special. One of the best stories of all time. No matter what happens in the transfer window, we will never have a story again like Roy Essendow, who was signed from CFAX.

38:03For younger people watching, you used to hit a button on your television and you got CFAX or Teletext and you used to put in like football was 301.

38:10Colin Murray: It was also how we booked our holidays. Yes. And then you'd have to wait and it would flick through the scores. Wickham Wanderers had had this amazing run in the FA Cup and they were playing Leicester City in the quarterfinals and every striker they had was injured. And the problem is, if you've played in the FA Cup, you're not allowed to play for another team in that run. So they needed to find a striker who wasn't signed to another club and who wasn't cup tied. So somebody, for some bizarre reason, advertised it in CFAX. Now, I've been lucky enough to get the inside story of Roy Essendow, who, even though it was CFAX, they called him the Teletext Talisman, right?

38:48Roy Essendow's agent lived above him. Two flats, right? So how they actually knew the ad was on is, I can't remember which way round it was, whether he tapped up or his agent tapped down. But knock, check your CFAX, right? And there it came up, right? He ends up going to play for Wickham in the quarterfinal of the FA Cup, comes off the bench, scores the winner, one of the greatest stories in the history of the FA Cup, right? and one of the most bizarre signings. But I know Laurie because Laurie managed Northern Ireland, right? And there's a great connection here because David Ormstein's local club is Wiccan Wonders.

39:22So he knows all about Roy Essendon. I told Laurie this story in the back of a taxi once. And he told me, he went, do you know when a politician goes, I do not recall that. You know, it happened then. So it's been denied by Laurie Sanchez and I didn't buy a word of it. Apparently, you know, when you put your arm around a substitute, when he was bringing on Roy Essendon and you would say like, I want you to run the inside channel. I want you to run late. Apparently the conversation was, what's your name? And he went, Roy Boss. And the folklore says that Laurie went, all right, Ray, on you go and do your best.

39:55So if I will lament anything about modern day football is we will never have a story like Roy Essendon again.

40:02Colin Murray: And just to finish, I just want to do a tiny little wee pub quiz because I know you love a quiz. You said wee. You're trying to curry favour with me. You used a Northern Irishism. I'm in. You're in. And you love a pub quiz, just like I do. So, transfer deadline day, very quickly. Other than Enzo Fernandes, who are the other two players to have broken the British transfer record twice in their careers, in the Premier League era? In their careers? In the Premier League era, there are two other players who've done what Enzo Fernandes has done. They've got to have moved a lot of clubs then. Torres?

40:35Nope. Who's moved? Kevin De Bruyne? I'll give you a clue. Both are English. Of course, because you pay the premium for them, like a Gareth Barry. No. Like Sean Wright Phillips. Like Raheem Sterling.

40:50Colin Murray: No. Like Gary Lineker. No, but you're getting closer. Chris Sutton, Alan Shearer. Yes. Yes. Alan Shearer. The key is if you name enough players, you'll finally get an answer right. Alan Shearer is one of them. Yes. Second one. Another striker? No. Defender. A defender. You see how you manipulate the question master to get yourself the answer? Rio Ferdinand. Yes. Nailed it. What was the previous British transfer record before Enzo Fernandes to City? Oh, trick question, right? Yeah. Because was it like, was it just Verts? No. Was it, oh, before Anderson? No, before Enzo to City. Anderson? No. No.

41:32It was British transfer record.

41:36Colin Murray: Was Enzo to Chelsea? Oh, no. Right, there you go. Yeah. Bang, bang. Bang, bang. Love it. Which player became the first£100 million transfer in Premier League history? No idea. Was that first? No. Jack Grealish? Was he really? It was Jack Grealish. Brilliant. I'm terrible at this. In 2026, what percentage, and Orno's just talked about it, what percentage of Premier League transfers were between two Premier League clubs? Oh, it just rose. So it was 30 % last season. This is how we can get some credibility back here with this nonsensical quiz. I find that a really interesting part of the business of the transfer window.

42:15And we had so much to talk about. It is just an absolute rabbit hole, right? And you saw that with David. You could talk about it for 10 hours. But we never talk about how much money leaves the country in the transfer window. 30 % of the last transfer window was between British clubs. This transfer window rose to 35%. But I think when you take into account loan moves and some other things, it rises to over 40.

42:41Colin Murray: It was 38 % was the actual number I was looking for, Colin. So I'm not going to give you that. What she did there is she didn't second source it like David Ormstein, the hunk that is, told her to. So on that bombshell, thank you very, very much for watching, listening to, getting involved with this episode of High Performance Business. You can check us out on the Instagram. Natalie's checking that every single day. I'm still struggling with Tamagotchi and we'll be back in seven days with another episode. Thank you for being part of it. We'll be right back.