Cristiano Ronaldo has just launched his own YouTube channel and has over 15m subscribers already.
He’s still one of the biggest names in football, Ronaldo. He can still draw a crowd. It’s just that not much of that is about the actual football anymore. This is what playing in Saudi Arabia does for you.
Who does Ronaldo play for? Hands up. Did they win the Saudi Pro League last year? Try again. When did he score his last club goal? Have a guess.
At the weekend, he was visible on social media but that was because he was thundering yet another vainglorious free-kick miles high and wide of the goal. He is, strangely, becoming very famous for that these days. So it was all a bit of a joke. And it often is over there because the truth is that nobody really cares.
And this is the environment Ivan Toney, one of English football’s most able centre forwards, may be about to walk in to at a time when nobody else appears to want to sign him. The world of Saudi football where – despite talk of its growth and its future and its potential – the size of the wages are still the most interesting thing.
Cristiano Ronaldo launched his own YouTube channel and already has 15 million subscribers
Ronaldo still draws a crowd but it is no longer about the football while he is in Saudi Arabia
Ivan Toney has been linked with a move to Saudi Arabia amid a lack of Premier League interest
Toney, the Brentford striker, has an offer from the Saudi club Al-Ahli that is thought to be in the region of £15m to £17m a year. For context, that’s about a third of the total Brentford wage bill. It’s a lot of money for a player who has not earned a vast amount – by modern Premier League standards – on a football journey that started at Northampton and took him to Peterborough and then to west London via loans at places like Barnsley, Shrewsbury, Scunthorpe and Wigan.
Equally, it seems odd that an outlier league such as Saudi’s should transpire to be the final destination after all of those years of hard work and gradual progress.
Brentford insist they have not had a single palatable offer from the Premier League for an England international with just a year left on his contract and who only a season ago seemed more likely to end up at Arsenal or Manchester United than anywhere else.
‘He’s good enough for a top English club without question,’ said a recruitment specialist who has tracked him since his time at Peterborough.
‘He doesn’t have express pace. But has everything else he needs. Technically good, holds the ball up, hangs in the air, can finish. He would improve a club like United for sure. He would score goals at Arsenal, too. It’s strange.’
One English club from the upper echelons are known to have had a close look at Toney and concluded they weren’t sure his personality was a fit. That flies in the face of what they say about him at Brentford. And indeed what the England backroom staff made of him during this summer’s Euros.
‘He is a good lad,’ said a well-placed Brentford source.
‘He can be a bit loud and brash but nobody minds. It’s not excessive. You won’t find anyone with a bad word to say for him here.’
Toney made have fallen victim to the way recruitment in changing in the Premier League
The forward has been a success story but being 29 appears to be an issue for English clubs
Toney served a long suspension from football last season after breaking the FA’s betting guidelines. Nobody expects that to happen again. Equally his tally of just four goals following his return to action last January is not viewed within the game as being indicative of waning powers.
Indeed the common view among agents and sporting directors in England is that Toney is a high-profile victim of the way recruitment is changing in the Premier League.
Put simply, in an age of financial rules and constraints, clubs are increasingly nervous of spending big money on a centre forward unlikely to carry any kind of sell-on value in four years’ time. Toney is 29 in March and this, as much as anything, feels like his biggest problem.
Everybody wants the prospect of a financial return down the line these days and the statistics of a summer of Premier League trading backs this up.
The average age of players bought by top flight clubs since last May is around 24-years-old. Only one centre forward over the age of 27 has been bought by anyone, 31-year-old Niclas Fullkrug arriving at West Ham from Borussia Dortmund.
United, for example, have bought strikers in successive summers. Rasmus Hojland was 20 when he arrived last year. Joshua Zirkzee, a scorer on his debut last Friday against Fulham, is 23. Toney is arguably a better immediate fit than either but the top flight is no longer just about the here and now in the way it once was.
Back in the summer of 2012, United paid almost £25m to Arsenal for 29-year-old Robin van Persie and sold him in 2015 for £3.5m. It was a significant loss but the rider there was he won them the title almost on his own in his first season. With that in mind, it was viewed as great business. Twelve years on, with even the biggest clubs scrambling to get the right side of the Premier League’s PSR rules every season, such deals are viewed in a new and completely non-sporting context.
Niclas Fullkrug is the only forward over the age of 27 bought by a Premier League side this summer
Man United signed Joshua Zirkzee this summer in the latest move for a developing forward
Man United made a loss on signing Robin van Persie but he almost won the title on his own
Toney and Brentford may get another offer yet. The player has not yet given up on a big English club so we will see. There is more than a week to go in the current window. Brentford want to sell him as the alternative is to lose him for nothing a year’s time. Toney wants to leave. In such circumstances, deals more often than not get done.
And if it is to be Saudi, it would be unkind not to wish him well. After doing the hard yards to get to the top, Toney would not be human if he did not look longingly at a Saudi windfall.
But this is a player discovered, shaped, moulded and developed by the English game. If he leaves us just because the Premier League feels it can’t afford him than that points to a very significant problem indeed.
Glazer appearance shows issue with Ratcliffe cash plea
The sudden appearance of Avram Glazer at Old Trafford for last Friday’s Fulham game was a timely reminder of who actually owns the majority share of Manchester United.
As such it was representative of another reason why Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s interest in acquiring tax payers’ money for his planned stadium rebuild but should be viewed with at least one eyebrow raised.
Avram Glazer made a rare appearance at Old Trafford for Man United’s win over Fulham
Bad habits return after added time change
At the start of last season Premier League officials were asked to add on time to discourage time-wasting, play-acting and many of the other great sins of our game.
It annoyed people but it worked. Ball-in-play times immediately shot up and that was the whole idea.
But now the authorities have rowed back on it all. Referees have been told to cut down on added minutes and so we are back in our bad habits again.
Man City and Chelsea’s match was the only game that saw the ball in play for more than an hour last weekend
Last weekend just a single Premier League game – Manchester City’s win at Chelsea – saw the ball in play for more than an hour. This time last year, there were four and another that fell short by just 15 seconds.
According to OPTA, the average Premier League game lasted 56 and half minutes last weekend so once again, at a time when we are supposed to be providing greater value for money, football is moving irrevocably in the wrong direction.