So I was thinking we could use this thread as a forum to test our ideas. I've been reading Soccernomics by Simon Kuper (very interesting) and it gave me an idea. How difficult would it be to determine whether or not a player is earning his money. Wayne Winston did a fair salary calculation in his book Mathletics which determines how much you need to spend in salary for 1 win. He then uses that to determine (based on a player's production) how many wins they're contributing. He then multiplies the player's number of wins by the salary required for 1 win to determine a fair salary. In this way you can see who is over/underpaid for their production. Trouble is, doesn't seem to be a good place to get salary data in football. Any thoughts?
I read most of Mathletics. For soccer I think we would have to measure players' value in points, not wins. There would need to be different standards for different leagues and tournaments because two players with the same number of goals, assists, and games may or may not be near equal depending on the competition they face.