I disagree, usually price tag reflects how in demand a player is and how well he performs, it's not always the case (as there's always a small percentage who don't live up to expectations) but much of the time it is.
Dortmund just don't have the pull of Bayern, neither do they have the finances (they almost went bust a while back), historically Bayern are the biggest club in Germany and you can see from their spending power they're one of the biggest clubs in the world.
Price tags reflect nothing these days. Using your logic, Stewart downing is better then Cazorla because he cost 6 million more. It used to be the case that prices were reflective but now with most clubs just throwing money it doesn't. Van Persie went at 25, some shakthar bloke signed for city this summer at 34 million.
We only got Cazorla cheaper because Malaga were hard up, so we snapped him up cheap.
Generally price tag represents the quality of a player, it's not always the case as there's some undiscovered stars out there but on the whole you get what you pay for.
Again RVP only went for 25 million as he didnt have long left on his contract.
You have just given me two reasons as to why prices are misleading and can't be used to judge a player. There are so many factors. Judge the player on his ability, not his price tag.
This is the problem, so many clubs now spend stupid money on players that we now think we have to spend 30 million on a player to compete. Wenger could turn round and say we've signed joevtic for 18 million and people would write him and complain we haven't gone and spent 30 million. People complain wenger never spends big, it's not about spending big, it's about what you spend it on. If you want wenger to spend. And you see he signs someone for 12 million, you end up going, look at wenger he's only going for the cheap option again without looking at what he has bought.
Rubbish! Nobody on here complains about the price tag of our players. If Wenger was still snapping up unknown world class players for small fees, nobody here would complain. In fact, it shows how much his rep in the transfer market has taken a hit with us Gooners because his judgement has been so off. Gervinho, Chamakj, Park, Santos, Squallaci.....he's now signing a lot of cheap duds.
If we spent 18 million noone would turn around and say we should have spent 30 million, it all depends who you sign.
On the whole Wenger has been signing sh*t players cheaply and thus wasting the clubs resources, there's a few exceptions but not many and that's the problem more than anything.
With all the money he's wasted on sh*t we could have signed several top notch players who would have improved the team dramatically, it's catch 22, I want him to spend money but at the same time I don't trust him with it.
Because £30mill is a ridiculous over-valuation. If you look at the fees for deals being done they are all under the stupid £99mill quotes by the make it up as you go media. Suarez isn't worth anywhere near £40mill either. It's a negotiating position, the seller wants as much as he can get, the buyer wants to pay as little as possible. Somewhere a compromise is done. Ultimately it comes down to the player. Just as we couldn't hold RvP so Liverpool won't hold Suarez if he wants to go. Not that we'll get him because city or the chavs can always just keep bidding more. That's where the real problem is, not in the negotiations but the fact some clubs don't have to play the game or even be sane about these things.
Für eure Sicherheit
It's not just about that though is it, after all Cesc wanted to go to Barca it wasn't about money or who would pay the most. The player has a big say in where they go, if you appeal to a player he'll be interested in signing and ultimately turn down other clubs willing to pay more. The problem is we offer nothing to top players, not money, not trophies, not playing alongside big players, not ambition to be the best.