Yes our spend is nowhere near third best, as you said West ham after buying paqueta went past our outlay, can't believe people actually think we are third best.
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Management ENIC
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Great post.
And great point in your first paragraph. Why are we signing “young talents” like Spence, Udogie, Sarr, Gil etc and then hiring managers like Conte. Signing players for a future that never arrives. What manager are we signing them for? When are they ever going to play?
The whole thing is just a complete and utter shambles. There’s no structure, no ethos, no plan. Just winging it, trying to plod along as cheap and as cheerfully as possible.
Then they are totally incompetent to run the football side. They have no direction, ethos or talent in making football decision's.
They are not good enough for Spurs
Chelsea will finish above us this season or will win a trophy. I'll take that bet with any person in this thread for practically any kind of deal. A lot of these signings will come good. Boehly has come in, made a lot of transfers at once and switched managers. It's a lot. Mistakes have been made but they've brought in quality and continue to do so, and Potter is a very good coach who will come good.
If we had new owners who were making mistakes but showing genuine ambition to bring in quality players I wouldn't be fuming at all. BTW despite all those results, despite that bad start, they're a massive 3 points behind us if they win their game in hand. Despite SACKING a manager mid-season & experiencing a takeover, whilst we had a full pre-season & stable transfer window under a manager we appointed last season.
People are including Romero (and maybe others?) in our spending I think. Despite also including his spending when we originally brought him in .. so the only way we've spent the third most is if we admit we had another period of pathetic spending a few years ago.
You can't have it both ways..
Stevee, what you’re saying is correct, but it’s sort of a distinction without a difference.
You are quite right that profit is ploughed back into the club. So, if we make £150 million this year, that will represent the transfer budget or wage increase etc. ENIC are always very sure to point this out.
But for ENIC, their actual profit is the incredible dividends they will reap when the club is sold. The actual investment they have made in the club has been ruthlessly commercial, over a period of 10/15 years, with a view to creating the perfect asset to sell. It’s also a very large debt. Perfectly acceptable way to go about things and sensibly formulated, but still a debt.
I appreciate there has been some suggestion that Levy believed footballing finances were never going to carry on in the way they are now, hoping that there would be a crash and that our stadium would represent an impossible to match cash cow. Well, if that was his hope, he was wrong.
I want them to sell up (fully aware that there’s nowt we can do) because their entire operation has been about creating that asset. Daniel will pocket 25% of 80% of the overall sale. Hundreds of millions. I expect he will be a billionaire when all is said and done. So it’s a little obtuse to reiterate this idea that they are grafting away and forgoing profit, as if there isn’t a windfall worthy of Croesus round the corner.
Again, not trying to be antagonistic. The points you make are perfectly rational.
I just think we need new direction.
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that's the point though isn't it there's still currently behind us and we've been awful.
as for the trophy or finish above us, remains to be seen in a few months time. I understand the point you're trying to make I'm just not going to go praising Chelsea's and Bohley's successes just yet.
:contefacepalm2:
I believe he's second highest ?
Either way, being paid a salary is not skimming off the top.... even if it is exorbitant.
A salary is fair enough but bonuses??
For what?
The difference for me is the intent they are showing. They've made some early mistakes but they clearly have a plan, investing really heavily in quality youngsters and appointing a longer term manager. It may or may not work straight away but if they keep buying players like Fofana, Nkunku etc it will eventually. In contrast we dont have a long term plan or indeed any sort of philosophy, no sense of identity at all. Since Poch hit unexpected heights for us in 2016/2017 we've just been lost with no idea what to do.
Just come home and seen a large number of pages on this thread,Why? Surely not because of yesterdays match? A lot of it is about history that has been debated to death.
ENIC make no football decisions and are not a major influence on our success or failure. They were criticised for not investing and putin £150m in the summer of which £50m remains unused and still available.
Levy is however a major influence and historically has made many mistakes. Fans-wanted him to stop nitpicking and meddling in transfers. He has taken a back seat and does not personally get inv.olved in negotiations. We saw early incomings in the summer and purchases before sales meaning we had to send players on loan as they had no place in our squad. Hardly a move Levy would like but it happened.
we have spent bigger now we have a greater income and whilst I am not sure who the 2 teams that have outspent us over the last couple of years, I do not think it can be Woolwich.
Posters criticise Nuno’s appointment as I did but then should praise Conte’s appointment although other posters want him gone.
We clearly have problems on the field but i cannot see how a change of owners is the solution.
The team yesterday was clearly not good enough but we have Lloris, Romero, Bentencur & Richie to all come back in. The transfer window is yet to open but the last 2 windows were good.
I do not follow Woolwich closely and am shocked at their improvement from last season. I do NOT credit their owners with that and cannot understand why when we were clearly better than them at the end of last season and strengthened in the summer why we trail them by so many points. I do not believe the answer is in ownership.
ENIC make no football decisions and are not a major influence on our success or failure. They were criticised for not investing and putin £150m in the summer of which £50m remains unused and still available.
Levy is however a major influence and historically has made many mistakes. Fans-wanted him to stop nitpicking and meddling in transfers. He has taken a back seat and does not personally get inv.olved in negotiations. We saw early incomings in the summer and purchases before sales meaning we had to send players on loan as they had no place in our squad. Hardly a move Levy would like but it happened.
we have spent bigger now we have a greater income and whilst I am not sure who the 2 teams that have outspent us over the last couple of years, I do not think it can be Woolwich.
Posters criticise Nuno’s appointment as I did but then should praise Conte’s appointment although other posters want him gone.
We clearly have problems on the field but i cannot see how a change of owners is the solution.
The team yesterday was clearly not good enough but we have Lloris, Romero, Bentencur & Richie to all come back in. The transfer window is yet to open but the last 2 windows were good.
I do not follow Woolwich closely and am shocked at their improvement from last season. I do NOT credit their owners with that and cannot understand why when we were clearly better than them at the end of last season and strengthened in the summer why we trail them by so many points. I do not believe the answer is in ownership.
I said he shouldn't have gotten one
Behind the 'we want to win as much as every fan', is the reality that Levy/ENIC have calculated that top 4 is the sweet spot financially? That the extra outlay needed to actually win isn't worth the financial risk/reward. So when we get top 4, they don't push on.
Boehly, for one, clearly sees it differently, and he's making ENIC look bad as a result. Like Levy, he's ultimately there to make a profit, and so is much more comparable to Levy than Abramovich ever was. And yet he's showing a willingness to invest a lot more money in players/wages, presumably because he thinks it will lead to the success he needs to maximise the value of his asset. Similar story at Woolwich with Kroenke loosening the purse strings.
It really feels like ENIC are running out of road. Either they'll change their model and have a real crack at getting to the next level or they'll 'half heart' it, Conte and Kane will leave, the mood will sour on them and they'll sell.
Boehly, for one, clearly sees it differently, and he's making ENIC look bad as a result. Like Levy, he's ultimately there to make a profit, and so is much more comparable to Levy than Abramovich ever was. And yet he's showing a willingness to invest a lot more money in players/wages, presumably because he thinks it will lead to the success he needs to maximise the value of his asset. Similar story at Woolwich with Kroenke loosening the purse strings.
It really feels like ENIC are running out of road. Either they'll change their model and have a real crack at getting to the next level or they'll 'half heart' it, Conte and Kane will leave, the mood will sour on them and they'll sell.
It’s some of the shit that we waste money on that is disappointing. Whether it’s duds like Lo Celso or the fat Frenchman or players that the manager doesn’t want and won’t use like Spence (& N’Koudou etc before him). Our scouting has been largely abysmal (Kulu & Bentancur are great signings to be fair) and whilst we can’t afford to compete financially with clubs like United or city, we could certainly be far more careful with the money we have.
And that starts and ends with the people who employ the scouts/analysts.
We hang on to shit and/or declining players for too long and seem to have an aversion to cutting our losses or even being outright ruthless in getting rid of anyone other than managers.
We have to get it right. For an age, it was all about getting the infrastructure in to compete. That’s not an excuse any more so penny pinching and brinksmanship are no longer options. Nor is half arsing with cheap and promising alternatives.
In the last 5 years Spurs are bottom 3 for net spend.
150m is two players if you are signing players to win.
Woolwich have absolutely outspent ENIC over the last 2-3 seasons.
They appointed Conte and gave the impression they were about winning and doing things differently. Will they deliver on that promise? Looks like a lot of fans don’t have much faith that they will.
I have never argued that they will not make a HUGE profit on selling, of course they will.
You have to analyse why that is.
It's not just because the money in the PL has increased massively during their tenure.
It's because they've transformed us from a mid table team into a team that is regularly challenging for top 4.
Their business plan wasn't based on hoping for the football market to crash. That would have been very naive of them.
Their plan was, and always have been, to try and make the club self sustainable and not reliant on sugar daddies to prop up the club and, possibly, run the club in debt .
The ONLY way they could do this, and at least try to compete, was to increase revenue.
The only regular way of doing this was to increase capacity.
Enic have been very clear on this from the beginning and they have delivered on that.
Even with the increased capacity we do not have the spending power of the oil clubs (obviously), but also we do not have the revenue that Utd and Liverpool have, and we have only got on a par with Woolwich in the last year or two.
You'll get no argument from me on how shite our scouting and recruitment has been in recent years.
Who that is down to is debatable though.
It's too easy to say "it's all on Levy"
He's not stupid, he knows his limitations.
We had a ,sort of, DoF previously and are transfers were, on the whole, pretty good. When he left Poch didn't want one and wanted more say in who we signed.
Levy backed Poch in that decision. The duds you mentioned were Poch's picks.
Imagine the outrage on here if Levy had said "No Poch, you're not signing them".
Similarly every transfer is rubber stamped by the manager of the time. There's explicit evidence of this.
Obviously every manager would want to sign Messi, Mbappe, De Britney etc etc, but that isn't realistic.
We've now gone back to the DoF model, thank fuck, and our transfers seem to be improving with somebody competent identifying players.
People can't have it both ways.
They can't say that Levy gets too involved in transfers but then also complain when he backs the managers picks.
Similarly they can't complain when he employs specialists to do the job and then they buy crap.
Although some on here obviously will.
It's a no win situation for him.
Which is why every chairman employs a scouting team.
Because they don't have the knowledge to do it themselves.
Go and check the figures and you'll see.
Bottom 3 net spend in the last 5 seasons.