This is not an apology piece for the disappointing lack of courage, activity or balls demonstrated by Tottenham yesterday (or in the preceding 30 days) I am as frustrated, perplexed & baffled by the repeated lack of desire to speculate, to add that one extra player, the special ingredient that hopefully makes achieving our aim […]
Transfer Window Lickers
This is not an apology piece for the disappointing lack of courage, activity or balls demonstrated by Tottenham yesterday (or in the preceding 30 days) I am as frustrated, perplexed & baffled by the repeated lack of desire to speculate, to add that one extra player, the special ingredient that hopefully makes achieving our aim of CL qualification more likely
But what do I really know about the restrictions, limitations or business pressures & opportunities at the Club? Just as much as the next bloke actually – “Sweet Fanny Adams” as my mother would have said.
We shouldn’t forget the utter steal of Holtby however. Serious commentators suggesting we’ve a gem on our hands – another example of buying smart, not necessarily expensively.
What really aggravates, depresses & disappoints me every window, with increasing weight, is the lamentable & revolting attitude of (quite a lot of) fans. People like Us. You & me. What have we become?
[linequote]When did we turn into wide eyed, dribbling maniacs frantically craving the false financial fix of a signing?[/linequote]
I’m not talking about the six fingered freaks at Stoke that maniacally appear in January & August – like auditionees for a remake of Deliverance. I’m referring to the unhinged baying mob looking for someone to blame when we don’t spend like a Sheikh or when all the false, misleading & made up “ITK” is confirmed as what it really is –keyboard diarrhoea teased out by attention seeking know- nothings with a bad case of the trots.
Last night I started to wonder what has led to this, who stoked this particular fire & who fuels this lunacy? When did we turn into wide eyed, dribbling maniacs frantically craving the false financial fix of a signing & how did it happen. It didn’t used to be this way.
And then at 11pm last night, as I watched the deflating, exhausted, smug self satisfied grinning irritant that is Jim White, it struck me. Sky are effectively & a very effective, drug dealer (stay with me…)
By creating an event around a non-event they have peddled the line that buying players (any players, at any cost) is worthy, of merit & a necessity. Sky have surreptitiously distributed transfer crack pipes to their viewers. The ludicrous build up & execution of yesterday’s Final Day was the dealer’s finest hour. Despite the self proclaimed highlight (on a 15 minute loop for close to 12 hrs) being a 37 yr old, unemployed player’s move to a club in France, they still sucked us in, tickled us along with repeated false hope. The art of the tease was beautifully demonstrated in the disgraceful manipulation of the viewer, (specifically us Spurs fans) with the on/off/on/off noise around Damiao.
Let’s not forget that Sky Sports News is a portal, a shop window & a hoover for the gullible to SkyBet (a market Sky create, massage & destroy at whim) I’m pretty sure that if their activity is not illegal, it’s certainly abusive & distasteful.
The Skycrack that is force fed to us leads to some of the most incredible reactions you’ll ever see from “fans” Denied their fix of dancing the Samba (at an eye watering & unhinged cost of £35m) the shakes set in, the heart starts racing & victims are sought. Red mist descends on normal, rational, intelligent people who become repugnant, hysterical, nasty, spiteful, hateful morons.
What else explains tweeting a Spurs player who is close to sealing a move with abuse? What normal person thinks that’s acceptable or sensible behaviour? What is the point & more importantly what is the reward? Why vent your fury on a player? I don’t & never will get it. They are all better at football than you are at anything you do. You are a disgrace to the club & yourself & this kind of thing, along with bellowing that our Chairman is a “Cunt” & “our season is over “ is a loathsome by product & feature of modern football.
But I have found an antidote to Skycrack which might help if taken in time & used a couple of times a year. It’s called a team sheet , best from about 1992 to 2002. The most powerful are the ones with Andy Booth or Gary Doherty as emergency striker.
[author name=”Paul Johnson” avatar=”https://twimg0-a.akamaihd.net/profile_images/2987274905/a5b80befebf42beae62675647a7d7922.jpeg” twitter=”SniersMoregut” website=”[/linequote]
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9 Comments
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01/02/2013 @ 7:04 pm
Well said mate. A month of arguments and idiots seemingly thinking we have a god given right to Joe Lewis’s money who have obviously forgotten Gregorsz Raziak and the afforementioned Andy Booth. I was a slave to it all myself, no SSN, just the refresh button on Newsnow every 10 minutes. Thank fuck its all over.
01/02/2013 @ 7:13 pm
Well said Neil. I was hoping that we sign nobody just to mess with the junkies. Now I hope we get 4th. It is like a drug to these people. Junkies feel like they cannot surivive without their fix. Just like how people feel like we cannot get 4th without signing a striker…despite currently being 4th with more than half the season gone, and our rivals not strengthening much either. We made a 4m loss, and therefore spent more than every penny we have to strengthen the squad. Still they want more. Yes, more of that cash should have been allocated to the front line, but hey ho.
01/02/2013 @ 7:16 pm
you kind of lose the moral high ground when you refer to them as window lickers. not a very nice term ( a well known insult to the mentally disabled) coys
01/02/2013 @ 9:00 pm
Intentionally distasteful. Using the language of the targets of the piece. I did question it myself for some time
01/02/2013 @ 7:41 pm
I do like a lot about Levy’s financial savy, and I’ll admit that I ranted on about Levy when I saw no striker picked up during the window, but in my defense, there are two very real and urgent reasons to justify my rant:
First, we desparately need at least 1 more top tier striler. Earlier this season, Mancini made my point about why we do need at least 1 more top tier striker –
In response to the question of why MCity wasn’t scoring like last year, Mancini said that a top tier team has to have at least 4 strikers – because some are usually injured and some are usually going through a dry spell. He said that for some reason – he has 4 strikers going through dry spells.
Well, as of today, we have 1 top tier striker who is going through a dry spell because he is playing injured.
Secondly – and more importantly, Levy’s track record during the transfer periods reveal that he has an issue that I believe will ultimately hurt Tottenham in a long lasting way, and I fear for the people who deserve to have the club to immediately address this ‘issue’ – the Spurs fans!
The issue that I believe he has screams that he is a ‘deal junkie.’ Since the late ’80s I have been involved in commercial real estate finance, and I have met many people like Levy in my career. In reality, most of the top ‘dogs’ in development, brokerage, and finance fall into that catagory.
The danger with a deal junkie is that they get so fixated on finding the best deal that they don’t stand back and see if they are doing the best thing for their company / clients / investors. To prove my point you just have to look at what has happened in the world of real estate and banking.
While I know that Levy is sincerely trying to do what’s best for the Spurs, but every other junkie believes the same thing. That is, until they reach the end of the line.
Please think about the following and take a second to notice the things that have jumped out at me in the past three seasons.
Levy loves to push deals to the last second – like getting as high as you can before you run out. That is until he runs out of time and fans!
He doesn’t develope REAL personal relationships with the other side of the table – other clubs, Shaktar comes to mind, tell of how hard it is to do business with Levy. Balanced deal ‘makers’ aren’t talked about in the same way.
He is a control freak and won’t delegate to his managers – Sir Alex, Wenger, Moyes, and Pardew – all very active at closing on good deals. I mentioned these managers becasue those clubs make the managers their front men, and they all buy within the parameters giving to them by the owners – but Levy controls player purchases exclusively. Just look at Harry’s and AVB’s comments in previous windows for proof of that. – See what kind of response you get when you ask a druggie if you can manage his stash.
Levy goes back on his word with people who HAVE to rely on him – Look at how the Modric situation played out – a very meek player finally did something considered outlandish to get Levy to close the deal before the last minute.
Finally, as I mentioned in my ‘rant’ last on Bleacher last night. As in the comic strip ‘Peanuts’, Levy is Lucy and the Spurs fans along with the manager and players – are Charlie Brown.
Levy tells everyone that he is making us a top 3 team, but at the last minute each transfer cycle, he has pissed off the seller and lost the deal. All with the effect of continually alienating the people who ultimately sign his check – The Spurs fans!
What do you think?
01/02/2013 @ 8:32 pm
Ironic that you mention Rasiak and Booth since they were both Levy signings
They are also symptomatic of the problem, which is that Levy likes to buy several average players rather than one top player. He tries to quell discontent by repeatedly going after a player he knows he won’t get (eg Leandro for the last 3/4 windows).
But by all means call fans window lickers for not being happy with, for example, money being wasted on strikers like Crouch, Pav, Dempsey and Saha when it could have been spent on a top class player.
The current approach will continue to see us miss out on the Leandros as well as the Bas, Remys and Michus.
01/02/2013 @ 9:11 pm
I haven’t mentioned Rasiak anywhere. Booth was loaned in Jan 01, ENIC’s takeover completed 27th Feb 01. And as I state right at the start I’m as disappointed as everyone with the lack of courage & balls to go the extra mile. However, a current squad boasting Lloris, Vertonghen, Kaboul, Dembele, Lennon, Bale, Holtby, Sandro is immeasurably superior to most squads I’ve witnessed since the late 70s. Maybe the 87 squad was equal…maybe
01/02/2013 @ 9:06 pm
No it’s a bullshit piece.
01/02/2013 @ 9:29 pm
I have to say I was underwhelmed completely by Spurs’ inactivity throughout the whole ‘window’ not just on deadline day. It is an absolute fact we need a ‘top’ striker ..someone who contributes the best of both Defore and Ade (when he’s around). Ade is also not the player he was with us last year (maybe nothing to prove anymore as he was loaned to us back then). Defoe has always been inconsistent and streaky …and this will not improve no matter how much faith AVB shows in him.
The other insurmountable fact is that we desperately need a replacement for Modric. He allowed Parker to fit in beautifully in front of the back four, while now poor Scotty is starting to look burnt out (running up and down the pitch constantly and getting hit with the sort of tackles that he was dishing out last year) after just a few games. A fine player who’s already having to work too hard at 32 for his or the team’s good. Sandro getting injured has been a terrible blow, admittedly, and maybe (maybe) Holtby can cover adequately all around the midfield areas, but Dembele has gone off the boil too ..which leaves us with ‘what exactly’ as far as creativity is concerned? Our midfield (that thing of beauty and simplicity that made us the most attractive team in the PL up to late February last season) is starting to unravel totally. That is why Bale and Lennon keep swapping about, moving inside and so on ..because they’re simply not getting the service. Dempsey is a good honest pro and a decent link but he’s no Teddy Sheringham and certainly no ace striker. Defence wise we’re fine, but they will struggle now too because the the lack of playmaking isn’t allowing us to press forward without leaving gaps. Two years ago, poor finishing from Defoe, Crouch and Pav stopped us getting in the top four again, despite our brilliant midfield and wing play. Now we’re losing even that, and we STILL don’t possess a top striker! Very worrying that through inaction this month I feel we won’t get top four now. And what another major setback that will prove! Spoiling the ship for a h’aporth of tar (or £20m), and yet another waste of a top squad of players who just needed a couple of players to make them all tick together!