Buy Low, Sell High

You’ve probably heard the term “Buy Low, Sell High” if you’ve ever invested money into financial markets or tried making side hustle money. I do have to say that it is a lot easier said than done and you can’t just buy anything and everything and expect it to be higher one day. There is risk when it comes to these different investments.

For example, if you had bought the risky and infamous Hawk Tuah cryptocurrency coin, you would most likely have “Bought High, Sold Low” and lost all of your money, as well as the respect of everyone you know. If you’ve never heard of Hawk Tuah, then I congratulate you because I wish I hadn’t.

Anyway, this is a newsletter about football. So why are we talking about the concept of buying low and selling high?

We can take this concept and apply it to anything, so we are going to be looking at 4 players/teams who I believe have low values right now, whether that is monetary or sentimental.

You should expect to get good value out of either purchasing the player or just investing your support in the player or team to make a comeback.

1. Basically anyone on Manchester City

Manchester City are probably in the weirdest form I’ve seen of a team of their caliber. They seem to be performing at the quality of a mid-table team rather than one that has won the premier league six of the last seven years.

(BTW this is from my recently launched analytics site pivotftbl.com! Check it out and let me know what you think 🙂 )

Ever since losing Rodri to a season-ending injury, there were doubts whether they could replace him and I don’t want to blame their entire season on him going out but that’s what it looks like. Kovacic hasn’t really stepped up and they don’t really have any player that can play that role.

The main issue I’m seeing is they just can’t finish or score. They’ve been shaky in defense over the past couple of years, but they have been able to produce a lot of goals and attack as a solid countermeasure, and this year it just isn’t happening.

Erling Haaland is their leading scorer at 19 goals but is underperforming his 21.6 expected goals. The next top scorer is Gvardiol with only 4 goals! He’s a defender and it’s only 4 halfway through the season. Yikes.

There’s been no help in the attack at all. Foden has been in and out of injury and hasn’t produced as he did last year. Jack Grealish I don’t think could score if he was the only player on the pitch. Savio and Doku don’t seem to be the guys that are going to score a ton of goals, and other midfielders are trying to fill in for Rodri’s absence and it just isn’t happening for them right now.

I’m not 100% sure how the rest of the season plays out since they have had some injury problems, but I would expect them to still qualify for the Champions League and reassess and reload in the offseason.

RISK LEVEL: LOW

2. Frenkie de Jong

In 2018, I was probably one of the many who thought Frenkie de Jong would go on to become one of the great midfielders of this generation. He was the star of the Ajax team that made it to the semi-finals of the Champions League in 2018 and was rewarded with a big-money move to Barcelona right after.

But things have not gone very well for him during his time at Barcelona and in an interview recently he said things haven’t gone as expected.

The current issue with de Jong is he is the highest earner on a team that needs to get rid of high earners. They have been trying to push him out for about two years now and he isn’t budging and is trying to ride out his contract, which you can’t really blame him if the reported 400k+ euros a week is his salary, I probably would do the same thing.

He has only played in eight matches this La Liga season, starting just one of them and only accumulating 235 minutes at the time of writing. He’s been dealing with an ankle injury for about a year now and has seen himself fall down the pecking order to players like Dani Olmo, Gavi, and Marc Casadó. Hansi Flick doesn’t seem too keen on playing him either as he doesn’t seem to fit into Flick’s style of direct play.

Frenkie stocks right now are super low. A high-risk, high-reward type of play. There are a lot of questions to be asked such as:

• Can he stay fit?

• Will someone pay his wages?

• Does he even want to move?? Barcelona is probably my favorite city I’ve ever been to so I wouldn’t want to move either.

If a team has the financial capacity to do so and needs a midfielder, it might be worth the risk.

RISK LEVEL: HIGH

3. Marcus Rashford

Let’s call a spade a spade and acknowledge that Rashford over the past two years hasn’t been as good as he was in 2022-23. He’s been dropped out of matchday squads entirely under Amorim and doesn’t look like his future is in Manchester. It’s been a toxic environment recently and I am betting on him to be successful if he is able to get a move elsewhere.

We know what Rashford is capable of because in 2022-23 he scored 30 goals and got 9 assists. He was getting Balon d’Or shouts that year as well. And even this season where his involvement has been sporadic he still has 7 goals and 3 assists.

The risk here is more of a psychological one. A team should take a risk on him (especially one needing a left winger) as he has the talent to produce end product. The risk is if he will be able to overcome some of the psychological aspects he’s been going through at United right now.

He’s not going to be super expensive as Manchester United would rather sell him and get something than let him go for free. He’s also already 27 with a contract until 2028 so you’re hoping he comes in and starts producing immediately.

RISK LEVEL: MEDIUM

4. Rodrygo

Right now Rodrygo must feel like he got the bad end of the deal when Mbappe came in. He’s usually been the third wheel in the attack this season, but he’s still produced some quality matches. (Although coming back to add on, Vinicius’ red card will be interesting if he is truly out for the 4 matches being reported. It should give Rodrygo a chance to prove what he can do. It will be at least 2 matches so Rodrygo will have a chance.)

Yes, his goal numbers are down this year as to be expected with his importance being shifted a little bit, but what I like about Rodrygo is he is willing to be a more creative outlet and does not need to be scoring goals to be considered productive. Even though over the past 2 seasons he’s accumulated 18 goals and 17 goals for Real Madrid.

When compared to other forwards over the past 365 days in his per 90 metrics:

• 96th percentile for shot-creating actions (4.20)

• 95th percentile in progressive passes (3.97)

• 98th in progressive carries (4.75)

He’s a creative winger and a player willing to not have to be in the spotlight to help the team in a team filled with stars, so I’m buying my stocks on him right now. The truth is Real Madrid are probably going to sell someone up top. It’s not going to be Mbappe, I doubt it’s going to be Vinicius, so I think Rodrygo will end up making a move to a different team where he will continue to shine.

He won’t be cheap, but it would be a lot better deal than we’ve seen some players go for recently.

RISK LEVEL: LOW