Is anyone buying Antoine Semenyo at a £65m price tag?

It’s only November, but we’re already seeing some January transfer stories start to leak out. I guess we’re rapidly approaching the season where we re-introduce rumour roundups to the newsletter. This week’s big one comes courtesy of David Ornstein, which is refreshing, since most of the gossip you see this time of year is utter slop from people who are actively making shit up.

The Ornacle is reporting that Bournemouth attacker Antoine Semenyo has a release clause that’s active for a brief portion of this January’s transfer window, and it’s £65m.

Semenyo previously fetched some interest from Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United, who were told to bid at least £70m or do one. United opted for Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo, while Tottenham went for Mohammed Kudus and Xavi Simons.

While Semenyo has been a very good performer for Bournemouth over the last couple of seasons, he’s grown his reputation and become an FPL must-have this season with 6 goals in his first 11 appearances. But a peek under the hood shows and engine that’s running hot and… sorry this was a bad metaphor choice. I don’t know anything about cars, I ride a bike. The last time I owned a car was when I was 20 years old and I smashed my mirror on a pole backing out of a parking garage. I also lost my license and registration because I got speeding and parking tickets and was too poor to pay either of them. 20-year-old Kim was really stupid. Anyway, Semenyo’s stats aren’t very good.

The shot chart is looking pretty ugly. That one super narrow angle goal had goalkeeping that was as poor as you’d expect, if you haven’t seen it. This is a lot of low quality shots, and only 3 really good ones. No really, properly huge, 0.4+ xG chances to be found here either.

If this is not your first time reading The Transfer Flow, you already know that I am going to say someone should not pay £65m for Semenyo. I think he’s better than his current 0.2 xG and 0.05 xGA per 90, but the 0.38 xG + xGA per 90 he put up last season is also not worth £65m, especially for someone who’s 26, very reliant on their pace, and might start declining around the final year of a 5-year contract.

The more interesting question, and one I don’t have a good answer to, is who would even consider it. Tottenham and Man United have likely moved on after buying different wide attackers this summer, and both teams are much more severely in need of a new star midfielder than another Semenyo-like substance. Liverpool, Manchester City, and Chelsea currently have more of these types of players than they can get on the pitch. Arsenal would as well if their injury issues cleared up. Newcastle… maybe? If they could find a buyer for Harvey Barnes?

Previously, I wrote that Semenyo was likely to cool off from his superb start to the year, but Bournemouth would still be pretty good. Batting .500 on that one; the Cherries currently have a negative goal differential and look like a bottom-half team. But they’re also well clear of a relegation battle, and would stay up comfortably even if they sold a couple of star players.

Teams in this situation should generally consider selling assets at the top of their value in January. Bournemouth know this, which is how David Ornstein came to know that he has a £65m release clause in the first couple weeks of the window. In most cases, teams would like to keep this information on the DL — see, Nottingham Forest and Morgan Gibbs-White. But Bournemouth wanted this reported because they wanted to manufacture a market that doesn’t currently exist.

Perhaps a Man United or Tottenham won’t deal with the hassle of negotiating for a player that they think will be hard to get, but if you can just plonk down £65m and get your man? Different story. In Semenyo’s specific case, I think the suitable teams’ depth at winger relative to other positions will mean his market never materializes, and he finishes the season at Bournemouth. But they’d sure love to get £65m for Semenyo, and I’ll applaud their tactics if they manage to make a sale.

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