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Hopefully we are in pole position for Neves when he moves. Obviously he has no choice where he goes as it's Mendes who decides
Total bullshit merchant, wanna be itk.
Used to post on SC all the time - got banned for being a wum.
While it's apparently true that Mendes will be at the club tonight, it's probably more to do with Gedson than anyone else.
Whatever it is though, adiepf will have no more inside knowledge than the rest of us.
Interesting, but this guy's mangling of names is really distracting. I know he's trying to do say them right, but it's awkward at times, especially because he doesn't have a PT accent.
His parents are Portugese but he is born and raised in Vancouver (thus his connection to Benfica). And I guess that explains the accent.
Good call on just about everything. I think we are going to work extremely hard to win the FA cup this season, and probably not put a lot of effort toward the top 4. Maybe not even caring if we make Europa either. Then next season we will make a run at the PL title and the FA cup with no European cups to worry about.This is my opinion about it if you are interested:
Unfortunately I don't have to say this often, but: watch out it's pretty long
(These aren't facts, just my opinion. Everyone is perfectly entitled to their views)
The world of transfers
First of all, I see the scene of acquiring/selling players as a very complex and rapidly changing environment:
Valuations almost seem arbitrary, agent sometimes have a different agenda, unpredictable factors mean no new player is a guaranteed succes and factors that are taken into account for scouting might be hugely debated among staff.
Evolution versus revolution
This is the part where I fully agree with you. I also believe sometimes a squad needs a revolution instead of just an evolution, as things might turn stale and dull after a while. An evolution could be seen as rather low risk and high chance of succeeding. A revolution on the other hand, is hard to pull off, and to no surprise is damn expensive. Lots of "splash the cash" attempts haven't gone as one might've hoped (West Ham, Everton, Man United).
The bigger picture of our club
This might be an unpopular opinion, but please let me explain: we over performed under Poch and we weren't able to adapt our spending structure to it. Levy dreamt of going into the new stadium with a squad that was not silly to aim for top 4, instead we became already regular CL participants with genuine hope of winning the big trophies. I think Levy had foreseen a budget each season to accommodate the squad at remaining Europa League quality. However now 2 problems arose: the stadium costs went out of control and the squad needed more money to remain at a CL contender level. In my opinion Levy initially hoped that we would remain CL level without investment given our track record in 16/17, in which we had a young squad that ticked very well.
Last season as a warning sign
Then last season some conclusions were drawn by fans, journalists etc.: (1) The squad isn't getting any better (League form at the end was terrible, unfortunate injuries exposed our squad depth). (2) MP is a manager that can reach a CL final (which was with a bit of luck, however almost no CL finalist never had luck to get there in the first place). (3) MP can walk if he isn't backed (and openly flirted with the idea multiple times). (4) The seeds for dissatisfaction in the squad were maybe planted (Eriksen couldn't attract his dream move, Toby couldn't attract his dream move) and the CL final loss will only have worsened it.
Attempt at a revolution does happen eventually
So this summer MP was backed by Levy and some challenges occurred1) rumors suggest Poch was pretty stubborn about the players he wanted (think of passing on Tielemans allegedly). (2) Levy drives a hard bargain, which endangers the timing and sometimes outcome of the transfer. (3) Some unforeseen factors come into play (Dybala and the image rights debacle). (4) limited squad places and HG rules. (5) perhaps often overseen, it was extremely difficult to offload our unwanted players, which is something you can't blame Levy for entirely. Even with these challenges we did do a lot of good transfers in Ndombele, Sess, GLC and Clarke.
My take on Levy's transfer style in this is the following: I fully agree with his stance on bargaining since valuations are arbitrary anyway. However I also believe that sometimes his stubbornness has cost us. In summary I do believe that his transfer negotiating approach has had a net positive impact, even though it's flawed too. In my opinion Levy works best with a manager that has 5 targets per desired position and then Levy can work his negotiating magic. If Poch was stubborn about his targets (and let's face it, his succes rate with 'his' players isn't even that great), I can understand why the window turned out to be a bit underwhelming. The two of them should've adapted more towards each other, so both were at fault.
In short, here are the reasons why we didn't have a revolution yet, according to me:
- The timing to take the final step and become a silverware winning squad came to quickly (because of stadium costs, not having the revenue yet to sustain (very different to afford!!) these heavy expenditures)
- It's not in Levy's comfort zone to splash the cash, but sorry for saying this but at that moment Poch might not be the manager to splash the cash for (Might have lost the dressing room, is flirting with RM, stubborn on targets...). You could argue that after all Poch had done for the club, he would deserve the chance to have his 'revolution within reason' (he didn't deserve a blank cheque book and full control, because that would've been irresponsible and bad governance). Which he did deserve, and also to the best attempt of Levy got. Of course Levy could've done better within the reasonable range, I'll admit that.
- Obviously we will need someone to take over those responsibilities from Levy, ideally Campos. Levy is a great Chairman and CEO, but we need a strong connaisseur of football philosophy that transcends incoming and outgoing coaches like Poch, Mourinho.
TL;DR Levy's at fault, Poch's at fault, the timing is at fault, but I don't hate anyone for it. Nobody is perfect, and since a full revolution could have a huge impact on the sustainability of the club, I prefer no revolution over a failed revolution and wait until we have better staff to do it.
FA Cup win guarantees Europa League no?
I didn't know that
I don’t see him wanting to come to Spurs to get the odd game. He will get a West Ham type club where he can be the number one striker.
Yeah, so we could set a league aim of top 4 and go all in on the cup and probably pull off Europa League through one of those ways.
How do I know you will pay me?
I know some of you have got a hard on for Jose to fuck up, but it won’t happen
That doesn't answer my question.
Clearly it does, because my answer is that I won’t have to pay you because we will finish between 4th and 6th..as in 4th, 5th or 6th
No it doesn't.
If you can't even answer this question, then I can't rely on you to pay up.
I’ve answered it
No you didn't.
It's a portmanteau of a Bob Dylan song and a bang average DM we used to have. So average he'd even struggle for games now. Only site ate the name or I messed up the input.
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