Guidolin’s Record at Udinese – Top 5 Serie A & 119m Profit

Swansea City’s current head coach Francesco Guidolin enjoyed an excellent spell at Italian side Udinese during 2010-2014, achieving 3 Top 5 finishes, playing in the Champions League and Europa League, whilst the club made over 119m profit from transfers alone.

Despite seeing the club sell their best assets in every year that he was there, seeing the likes of Sanchez and Cuadrado leave for combined fees of almost 50m euros, Guidolin was continually able to rebuild the squad with significantly less money than the club received for their star players.

You can see the breakdown per season below:

UDINESE:

2009/10:

Finish 15th in Serie A.

May 2010: Francesco Guidolin arrives as new manager.

2010/11 Transfers:

Money Received: ?30.29m
Money Spent: ?13.55m
Highest fee received for a player: ?7m – Aleksandar Lukovic (Defender)
Highest fee paid for a player: ?3m – Matej Vydra (Striker)

PROFIT: ?16.74m

Finish 4th in Serie A.


2011/12 Transfers:

Money Received: ?70.63m
Money Spent: ?21.11m
Highest fee received for a player: ?26m – Alexis Sanchez (Winger)
Highest fee paid for a player: ?5m – Gabriel Torje (Winger)

PROFIT: ?49.52m

Finish 3rd in Serie A.


2012/13 Transfers:

Money Received: ?57.95m
Money Spent: ?28.15m
Highest fee received for a player: ?18m – Kwadwo Asamoah (Left Midfield)
Highest fee paid for a player: ?8m – Davide Faraoni (Full back)

PROFIT: ?29.80m

Finish 5th in Serie A.


2013/14 Transfers:

Money Received: ?47.70m
Money Spent: ?23.81m
Highest fee received for a player: ?20m – Juan Cuadrado (Winger)
Highest fee paid for a player: ?8m – Nico Lopez (Striker)

PROFIT: ?23.89m

Finish 13th in Serie A.


Figures sourced from www.transfermarkt.com/

Udinese made a 119million euro profit from transfers alone during Guidolin’s 4-year spell at the Italian club – showing the coach’s ability to get the best out of players and to make use of a limited transfer budget – something he’d have to work with at Swansea if he did get the job.

It’s become obvious this season that the squad is in desperate need of a rebuild. A number of players will need to be bought at relatively low transfer fees. Most of Guidolin’s signing at Udinese were nothing much more than 3-5m euros each. The highest ever spent in one season was less than 30m euros – the year Guidolin splashed out 8m on right back Faraoni. That was the same time that Udinese sold the likes of Asamoah, Isla and Handanovic for a combined total of almost 44m euros.

Looking at Guidolin’s track record above, and his ability to get the best using limited resources, you wonder if he could do the same for us next season.

Brendan Rodgers has been highly linked with a return, but does he have the experience, know-how, contacts and ability to make a number of signings at relatively low prices and form a top-10 Premier League side next season? His re-build job at Liverpool following the sale of Luis Suarez was hardly inspiring.